Simple Living – Page 6 – One Homely House

Posted on September 17, 2019October 28, 2019 by kimberly — Leave a comment

8 Tips to Simplify Your Road Trip with a Toddler

road trip with toddler, road trip hacks — Do you want to get away, but think road trips with young kids are unattainable? Here’s a list of ideas to simplify and streamline your next trip.

I love the adventure of setting off on a road trip. It’s an exhilarating feeling to drive out of town with a full tank of gas and no obligation to be back for the next few days. Sure, a road trip with a toddler and infant isn’t as epic as a backpacking trip or some other high-intensity activity, but sometimes it’s okay to enjoy tame adventures–like when you have a month-old baby and a postpartum mama who’s not supposed to be hiking much yet. I’m glad for any activity we can do as a family right now, especially when it involves seeing lots of lovely fall colors.

I know some people shy away from taking their kids on long car rides on the assumption that it would be more stressful than relaxing, but road trips are totally possible even if you have toddlers or young kids. With a little foresight and a lot of patience, they can be enjoyable for everyone.

We’ve spent the past two weekends out of town. LONG weekends: we were only home 2 days in between trips. If we can take road trips with a very active 2 year-old and a 1 month-old baby, pretty much anyone can!

1. Start with a list: specifically, a “Road Trip with a Toddler” list!

This is something I wish I’d done earlier. Like I said, our family has spent the past two weekends away from home, with only two days in the middle to catch up on laundry, cooking, sleep…

Both trips were last-minute opportunities, so planning ahead wasn’t really an option. That’s why we ended up stopping for diapers and TP on our way out of town. But hey, at least we didn’t run out a hundred miles from the grocery store! (Yes, we were that far from civilization.)

Still, I’d rather have it with me before we leave the driveway. That’s why I made a list of basic car trip/camping supplies BEFORE the next unexpected trip comes up. As I mentioned earlier, make sure the list includes everything you will need for a road trip with a toddler, or whatever age your kids are. Little ones seem to require extra things that are easy to forget!

The tricky part about making a master list is that road trips can require different supplies depending on whether you will be camping, staying someplace with complete amenities, or something in between the two. I would err on the side of making the list too detailed, just so important things like TP don’t get forgotten when we do need them! That being said, my master list for road trips is pretty much a camping list. It includes bedding and cooking equipment in addition to more basic things like diapers and a change of clothes.

2. Keep meals simple and quick to prepare

While we’re on the subject of packing, let’s talk about meals. The great thing about road trips is that you can pack as much food as will fit in your cooler. No worrying about weight, or minimizing perishable items so they won’t spoil.

Obviously, the number and type of meals you will need depend on the destination and whether or not you’re camping. If you only need to pack lunches, find foods that can be prepared ahead of time and eaten cold (like sandwiches), or eaten straight from a container. This eliminates cooking and cleanup, which can take more time than you think. These kinds of foods should also be less messy–which is a huge bonus on a road trip with a toddler, believe me!.

Suppertime

For suppers, the best meals for us tend to be something prepared in advance that can easily be reheated in a pot or skillet over a camp stove. Soups, one-pot meals, and casseroles are good options. Don’t underestimate the power of leftovers! When you’ve been on the road all day, a hot supper of leftover baked spaghetti or soup tastes fantastic! Also, it leaves you with only one messy cooking pot to clean.

Tip: if you’re reheating a casserole or one-pot meal, you may need to add a little water to the pot to keep the food from drying out and burning.

Any desserts I pack are self-contained, like cookies or brownies. These don’t require bowls and spoons–which would need to be washed afterward.

Breakfast

When we pack breakfasts for road trips, that usually means we’re camping or staying in a cabin somewhere. We really appreciate hot breakfasts when camping, although the quick and easy option would be cereal or granola bars.

Also, my husband usually cooks breakfast on camping trips, and I’m not going to pass up an opportunity to wake up to the smell of coffee and bacon from the comfort of my sleeping bag!

At breakfast time, we stick to the “one pot plus a coffee pot” rule. You can cook bacon and eggs in the same pan, with a little practice. Cook the bacon first, then push it to the side of the pan when it’s mostly cooked. Then pour the eggs in. Scrambled works best here.

Otherwise, a pot of oatmeal is a good choice, especially on chilly mornings. I like to mix quick oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and raisins at home, so I have a family-size portion ready to pour into the pot when the water boils.

3. Bring snacks

While not necessarily an actual meal, snacks play an important part in our road trips. Before we had kids, snacks could be a substitute for lunch. Toddlers need more structured meals than that, though. With kids, the role of road trip snacks is largely entertainment: it gives them something else to think about other than being stuck in a car seat.

Now, I would not recommend giving your kids snacks all day on a regular basis, but on road trips it is an effective strategy for preserving harmony. That becomes more important when you’re stuck in a small space with small, loud people.

When choosing snacks to bring along on a road trips with a toddler or young kids, I stick to mostly healthy choices plus one treat. For example, we often take dried fruits, nuts, granola bars, and a bag of cookies or candies. Another good option is to make a big bag of trail mix. That’s handy because you have fewer open packages floating around in the car.

If our driving time is less than five hours, snacks are probably the only car food I will pack. On shorter trips like this, the snacks look less like backpacking food and more like our normal lunches: fresh fruit and vegetables (cut up beforehand, if necessary), muffins or sandwiches, cheese or nuts, and maybe cookies.

After several messy lunches on the road, I’ve given up bringing along homemade sandwich bread. It’s just too crumbly for the car! Instead, we can make sandwiches with buns or bagels.

4. Bring something to listen to

Music is another good distraction when kids get cranky. These days, you have several different options for listening. There’s the radio, if you can get stations to come in where you’re driving. You might be surprised if the only station available is local folk music–or nothing at all.

There’s also Internet radio, if you have a way to play it in your vehicle, or a device with a way to charge it. However, you also need to be able to access the Internet, and our service tends to be spotty or nonexistent frequently. Maybe that’s because most of our road trips happen to be driving through long stretches of Alaskan wilderness.

A final option is bringing a device with music loaded onto it, or physical CDs (or cassettes, if your vehicle is old enough!) We take the old-school approach and keep a stack of CDs in our truck. It keeps me from getting hoarse singing “Over the River and Through the Woods” again and again and again.

Now, music isn’t the only thing you can listen to. Books on tape/CD/whatever are a good alternative, especially if your kids are older. Toddlers aren’t as interested if they can’t see the pictures. Lectures on Philosophy or Economics might be interesting to parents, but good luck hearing them over the kids. (Or if your kids are like mine, talks might put them to sleep!)

5. Give them something to look for

Older kids can play games in the car, but toddlers are a little young for that. One way to keep them engaged is to have them look for some landmark, animal, or special vehicles on the road (tractors, obviously).

If you’ve made the drive before and know what’s coming up soon, that makes it easy. If this is a journey into unknown territory for you, look on a map (or your phone) to find landmarks or natural features like rivers, lakes, and mountains.

Animals can be fun to spot, but it can also be very frustrating to kids if they DON’T see whatever it is they’re looking for. We have made the mistake of telling our two year-old to look for bears, and then he didn’t see any all day. We had better success with moose.

Looking for a certain kind of vehicle may be more applicable if you’re traveling on a busy highway. Little boys are probably more interested in pointing out tractors and dump trucks, but little girls could be engaged to find baby blue or yellow cars.

6. Streamline your stops

Stops are inevitable on a road trip with a toddler or young child, so it’s a good idea to be prepared for them. That means having a plan so that each stop doesn’t take an hour. I’m not talking about a rigid, down-to-the-minute schedule–just a basic idea of what needs to happen before everyone gets back in the car.

It may not seem important to have a plan, but it’s so easy to get caught off guard by things like, “Wait, did we change both kids’ diapers, or just the baby’s?”

For our family right now, having a plan pretty much means I feed the baby whenever we stop, and my husband is in charge of anything else that needs to happen. On our last two road trips with the kids, he changed the two year-old’s diapers and ran around with him outside every time we stopped.

If you have kids of several different ages, you could put each older kid in charge of a younger sibling during stops. That way, everyone gets a bathroom break and nobody wanders off by himself. (This only works if you have kids old enough to take responsibility for someone else.)

7. Lower your standards… at least for sleep

If your road trip includes a night or more away from home, be prepared to miss some sleep. If you have young children, you already know that ANYTHING outside their normal routine can disrupt their sleep. Spending hours stuck in a car seat, coupled with going to bed in a strange place–maybe even without a bed, if you’re camping–is a recipe for a bad night.

I don’t say this to turn you away from attempting a road trip with a toddler or baby. Not at all. I just personally find it easier to accept the fact that I probably won’t sleep before it happens, rather than be unpleasantly surprised. I figure one night of poor sleep is nothing to sneeze at. Two, and I start getting grumpy if I don’t get any coffee. Three, and I tell my husband no more trips for a while…

8. Stay flexible and remember it’s an adventure!

Last on my list, but probably one of the most important tips for traveling with kids: leave some wiggle room in your plans, and keep a sense of humor. You never know what might come up and throw a wrench in your plans. From unexpected sicknesses or injuries to flat tires or the steering rack coming loose in the middle of a deep canyon with scree slopes on both sides of the road, you can’t be prepared for everything.

One of the most important things you can do in a situation like that (besides attending to the immediate need) is to keep the atmosphere positive. The last thing you want is the entire family stressed and in tears. Remember it’s all part of the adventure.

These are my recommendations to make your road trip with a toddler less of a headache and more of a pleasant experience. It’s not as hard as it seems to enjoy traveling with young kids; you just need to have a game plan. I hope you find my tips helpful. If you have any other suggestions for traveling with children, leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!

For more ideas about simplifying and streamlining your day-to-day life, check out this post on developing a simple meal plan.

Posted on August 29, 2019August 28, 2020 by kimberly — 4 Comments

Cultivating Hospitality

Part 1: The Last of the Homely Houses

It was a night of thick darkness. The wind pushed at my car first from one side, then another. The rain spattered against the glass violently, and my headlights seemed futile against the outer blackness. Even the familiar roads seemed to stretch beyond their normal length, as a shadow stretches past its object. And then, all of a sudden, lighted windows flashed out like the beacon of a lighthouse. They seemed to spill laughter and cheer, as if the house could not contain its mirth. As I approached, I could not help thinking that this must be the “last homely house” described by Tolkien.

A Light in the Darkness

A homely house is the image of hospitality. An open door and a hearty welcome are among the most valuable things one can offer to his fellow man. To the weary traveler, it promises safety, comfort, and rest. To the starving, it promises sustenance. To the lonely, it promises companionship. To the confused, it promises assurance. To the anxious, it promises peace.

These homely houses are like islands in the midst of a stormy sea. So many houses stand dark and empty, while their inhabitants seek pleasure and entertainment elsewhere. People spend fortunes on extravagant homes, yet hardly live in them. Nobody is at home to welcome the stranger or traveler. And aren’t we all travelers, storm-tossed by the world at one point or another? Don’t we seek refuge from anxiety, confusion, or desolation? Are we not all in need of some bright and happy resting place to rejuvenate our spirits before plunging again into our daily battles?

The Personal Factor

But perhaps hospitality is outdated. Maybe it had a place in the ancient world or the Middle Ages, but surely modern peoples have moved beyond that with their huge technological advancements? We have found new ways of connecting with other people, even those who live on the other side of the globe or speak a different language. Contemporary society highlights social media and the myriad ways we can interact with others.

All the social media in the world can’t replace hospitality. The world can be a very cold place, and all of its technological “connectedness” can leave us feeling more isolated than ever. Interactions through text on a screen prevent one from experiencing another as a person. When we remove the humanity–the personal factor–from a situation, that reduces it to one of utility only. What could have been a congenial conversation turns into an interaction where the other person’s worth is based on whether or not he can answer my question or benefit me in some way.

Compromising Human Dignity

This attitude of basing a person’s worth on performance or productivity can easily become a habit. This affects our interactions and relationships with people we do see face to face–or “in person.” This phrase is key because it shows that when we are physically present with another human being, we experience his or her personhood. This is more than his speech, voice, and physical appearance: a robot has those. It’s his entire being, composed of body, mind, and spirit. This being calls for a response worthy of a human person.

A response of utility does not acknowledge the dignity of a person. However, when all we see is a line of text on a screen, it’s easy to forget that there is an unrepeatable human being at the other end. All this to say that we as persons desire and need to be treated with a dignity and kindness, and hospitality does just that. This is why hospitality is so important, today and in every age: it is a distinctly human trait which nourishes body, mind, and spirit.

The Elements of Hospitality

Physical Elements

Hospitality’s first aim is to provide for the material needs of the body: food, clothing, and shelter. Whether it’s an elaborate feast or a simple repast is not the point. The point is sharing food with someone who’s hungry. Just like any other virtue, hospitality focuses outward, on other people. It isn’t turned inward toward itself. Hospitality sees a need and does what it can to help, like the Good Samaritan. He showed hospitality to a stranger even while he himself was traveling, and had to go out of his way to provide for the needs of the injured victim.

Thus hospitality isn’t something you can only practice at home. But it does start at home. Hospitality is about taking care of people and providing for their needs–and what better place to do that than in your own home? Within a family, there are countless opportunities for feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, comforting the sorrowful, and attending to a host of other material, mental, and spiritual needs. Indeed, family life is like a school for learning mercy and putting it into action.

Intangible Elements

Besides providing for the physical needs of the guest, hospitality attends to his mental and spiritual needs as well. The most important of these are the gifts of rest and refuge. There is a hospitality of the heart which extends beyond a physical offering of food and drink: it invites him to participate in the life of the home he has entered, to be a part of the family for a time.

This doesn’t mean that each guest learns everything there is to know about his host, or vice versa. In fact, respecting privacy is an important part of hospitality. But welcoming a guest to participate in family life means accepting him as he is. This acceptance is what produces a psychological place of rest, a safe haven where one can relax his constant vigilance.

Hospitality in Middle Earth

In The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien describes Rivendell through Bilbo’s eyes. He says it is “a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.”

What makes Rivendell such a perfectly balanced environment? How can one house suit every temperament? Hospitality draws the guest in, but also gives him space to himself. The thoughtful host may offer an array of activities, but not insist that the guest participate in all of them.

Offer the Best

Let’s look a little deeper at what Rivendell offers to guests. The first thing Bilbo mentions is food. This is not surprising, as he is a hobbit. It’s pretty important to us humans as well. But it’s not just any food: “More than a meal! A feast!” Merry tells Frodo jubilantly. “As soon as Gandalf reported that you were recovered, the preparations began.” Elrond gives his guests the best he can offer. Of course, not everyone has the means to feast their guests. We see the same hospitality in The Hobbit when, years earlier, Bilbo entertained an unexpected party of dwarves. His food was not fancy, but he gave the best he had.

Sleep is the next item on Bilbo’s list. It would be easy to say that everyone needs sleep, and leave it at that. There’s more to it, however. Frodo’s injury and subsequent recovery in Rivendell highlight the importance of sleep for healing and rejuvenating both body and spirit. This restorative sleep is not possible unless one is in a safe place, so sleep and safety are closely connected.

Revitalizing Leisure

Story-telling and singing probably aren’t the first things that come to mind when we think of hospitality. But again, hospitality is about more than food and shelter. In The Lost Arts of Modern Civilization, Mitchell Kalpakgian speaks of the “revitalizing leisure of hospitality” which “cheers the heart, uplifts the soul, exhilarates the body, and elevates the mind.” (p. 4) Leisure activities such as singing, dancing, good conversation, story-telling, sports, and games are very much a part of hospitality.

The final item Bilbo mentions in his description of Rivendell’s hospitality is “just sitting and thinking.” Any host might wish to entertain his guests and enjoy their company, but it takes humility to step back and allow the guest time alone.

A hospitable household will never lack friendship. And true friendship is a gift that technology cannot give. If families are the building blocks of society, then hospitality is the mortar that glues them together. It unites people in their common need for food and shelter, as well as companionship. Welcoming another person enriches both the host and the guest, and makes their lives a little brighter.

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If you enjoyed this article, continue reading Part 2 of the Cultivating Hospitality series.

Posted on August 6, 2019February 4, 2020 by kimberly — 9 Comments

5 Perks of Living Little

Unexpected Benefits of Tiny House Living

While I don’t really consider myself to be a member of the tiny house movement, our family does happen to live in a pretty small space. We were going for the Alaskan cabin experience, which usually means small. So we get to enjoy some unlooked-for benefits of tiny house living without even trying!

The 576-square foot cabin we’re renting is a good size for our family at this point, but as kids get bigger (and possibly more numerous), private bedrooms would be appreciated!

That’s a ways down the road, however, and for now we are perfectly satisfied with our 2-room place. I am particularly excited that one of the two rooms is a bathroom with running water, which is a huge improvement on our last cabin, if you ask me!

Dry cabin living requires a lot more effort for basic things like bathing, washing dishes, and doing laundry. In fact, it can seem like those tasks make up your entire life. It was rewarding, but I’m not sure I would happily return to a house without plumbing.

Anyway, as I said before, we are saving up to buy a place with actual bedrooms. But I really do like the idea—and the actual experience—of living in a small space. Here are a few of the benefits of tiny house living:

1. It brings your family closer—literally!

This may seem like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised at what a positive difference it can make in family dynamics. If you have the option of shutting a door, you can isolate yourself from others even within your own house. If not, you’re forced to learn how to get along with those closest to you. It’s amazing how much your sense of family unity grows merely as a result of being in close proximity to one another. Even my husband commented on the difference after staying in a “normal-size” house for a few days: he said it’s too easy to lose people in a house that size. Being an introvert myself, it took me a bit longer to appreciate the constant company, but I do now see the value of it for family relationships.

2. It keeps you from accumulating too much stuff.

If you don’t enjoy wading through a morass of belongings on your way to bed, you simply live with less stuff. While this can be true for any size of home, a smaller space inevitably means less storage space—and believe me, you realize this quickly if you’re transitioning to a smaller home than you lived in previously! Nobody wants to live with cardboard boxes stacked against every wall, and that eyesore can be a wonderful incentive to declutter your life. Furthermore, it’s easy to refrain from buying unnecessary stuff if you know you don’t have anywhere to put it! Or to politely decline gifts from well-meaning relatives and friends. If they’ve seen your small house, they should understand.

3. It makes you appreciate what you do have.

This one goes along with the previous reason. If you don’t have a lot of storage space, you begin to realize which items are more important or useful than others. When you realize this, you appreciate the really useful items more. To give you a small example, we own one plastic sippy cup. Our toddler loves it. That’s HIS cup. If he had three to choose from, none of them would be as special as this one. Of course, this concept applies to more than just dishes. Kitchen appliances, bedding, books, music, craft supplies, holiday decorations… the list goes on and on. We only have so much space, and sometime it’s hard to let go of things, but it is very freeing when you no longer feel stifled by all of your stuff!

4. It encourages you to spend more time outside.

Okay, so this depends to some extent on what type of area you live in: urban, suburban, or rural. We’re lucky enough to have several acres of woods around our cabin, and a decent neighborhood to walk through. However, I’d wager that even if you live smack-dab in the middle of a city, a small apartment would still be an incentive to get out more. Remember what I said about a small space meaning constant company? As a mother and an introvert, I find it quite a relief to send that “constant company” outside when it gets too loud. I also appreciate my daily walks—both for the exercise and for the chance to clear my mind. Fresh air does wonders for mind and body alike!

5. When you lose something, there aren’t too many places for it to hide!

I don’t know how many times we’ve turned the house topsy-turvy looking for car keys, backpacking gear, a can of clams… The point is, it doesn’t take very long to thoroughly search our house and find what we’re looking for. There are only so many pieces of furniture to look underneath, and only one closet to ransack.

(By the way, having closet space at all is a huge benefit! Remember this when you’re looking at different tiny houses or cabins. You don’t realize what a difference it makes until you have to hang your clothes on a rack next to your bed!)

I remember when I was growing up, things would just go missing and never be found again—or at least not until months or years later. That doesn’t happen in our tiny cabin! (Except with socks, occasionally…) This is one perk that may sound funny, but really comes in handy.

I could go on, but I think those are the main things I’ve come to appreciate about our small-scale abodes over the last 2+ years.

What about you? What makes you excited about living little? Have you learned any lessons along the way? Leave a comment below! I would love to hear from you!

For more on simple living, check out this post on making a simple meal plan!