The Two-Step Shuffle

My house is a mess. In fact, I’m having a hard time concentrating on work this morning because it is so messy. After ten days of hosting and travel (and my hubby being alone and in charge of the homefront during the last stretch), it is in total disarray. Beds unmade. Empty fridge. Piles of laundry. You get the picture.

Starting at Home
This mess has once again caused me to remember one important quality of women that I keep running into time and time again: our environments affect us--our moods, our perspective, our health--especially our home environment. This is why I’m placing such a high premium on homegrown solutions during this Recessionista series. Because even though some economic solutions admittedly start with the Federal Reserve and Congress, Many of them start in the home. Our homes.

Two-Step To-Do
A Recessionista’s homegrown solutions essentially fall into two categories:
1. Dealing with the stuff you have. Or, in fancier terms, cultivating stewardship of our resources. What I mean by this is that part of the battle is just getting organized and efficient (and creative) with what we already own. This includes budgeting, simplifying, cleaning, sorting, repurposing and using what you have. Collectively these actions provide a counterbalance to over consumption and materialism.

2. Strategically adding to your supplies is the second category. Call it preparation or stocking up, this second step cultivates sustainability for our families and neighborhoods. It includes growing and stocking up on food, collecting emergency items, and keeping important things (like toilet paper and birthday candles) on hand just in case. All together, these actions strengthen our local communities and provide a healthy counter to multinational growth and large institutions (like government and giant corporations).

Obviously this morning I will be working on the first category--getting my house back into order.

Try It!
If you are curious about these homegrown recession solutions, I would love to invite you to try some of them out. For instance, if you haven’t done so already, now would be a great time to tackle some spring cleaning, or to do a budget tune-up (I’ll be writing about this soon!), or to make some spunky spring accessories from some repurposed fabric. I recognize that these activities seem small and mundane compared to those hashed out in the press and on television, but remember that small, mundane activities all added up--like a family taking a mortgage loan that was just a little too big, or an investor being just a little too risky--have the power to become Big.

And so do we.

Previous Related Posts:
Modern Benefits from a Vintage Chore
Homegrown Resilience
Now is Our Time