As some of you know, I recently took a family vacation for a week to Disney world and to visit family. Throughout the week I read the new book Notes from a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World
The book is divided up into the following categories:
- Awakening
- Food
- Work
- Education
- Travel
- Entertainment
- Revival
It was the first book in a while that kept me up late at night reading. Maybe it was the relaxed vacation mode, but I just devoured what Tsh had to say about slowing down our pace in life. Her story unfolds in Turkey as we learn about how different our American culture is in terms of how we value our time, food sources and resources. In America, we value EFFICIENCY. Just scroll though Pinterest to see how many posts are proclaiming “How to be More Productive.” I generally rate a day based on how many things I cross off my to-do list. Reading this book, and thinking about our slow days at the beach, are making me rethink how I view my idea of “productive.”
As a parent, there is a natural amount of chaos and to-do’s that exists in our lives. However, we can control more of how we manage the chaos than we give ourselves credit for. Take birthday parties for instance. Over vacation we celebrated two of the kid’s birthdays. After giving the kids the gift of Disney, we realized that they didn’t need to have additional parties. Although it’s not the norm, after reading the book I felt better about my decision to swim upstream and do what’s right for our family. In our case, it’s keeping things simple.
So if you are inclined to slow down the path of your life and enjoy the one life you have, hop on the blue bike and settle in for some wonderful words. Put down the phone/email/Pinterest/Facebook/Twitter/etc. and just read. You may find you don’t want all those distractions in your life.
Here’s the video that I saw months ago before the book came out. It’s delightful and it may inspire you to make a change.
Notes From a Blue Bike is written by Tsh Oxenreider, founder and main voice of The Art of Simple. It doesn’t always feel like it, but we DO have the freedom to creatively change the everyday little things in our lives so that our path better aligns with our values and passions. Grab your copy here. I was provided an advance copy to review but all opinions shared here are my own. All Amazon links are affiliate links. Find more at #notesfromabluebike
from Amazon, along with a wet erase chalk marker. I wanted the label to be more vibrant than with just white chalk. I made a mistake on one label and this stuff really does wash off with a wet towel, and I reused the label with no problem. I’m hoping that if I need to change a label in six months, I can still wash it off. Time will tell!
. I labeled everything that I felt would be a mainstay item in my pantry, including breakfast items like steel cut oats. Random items like Israeli couscous I didn’t label as I only get it for specific recipes in small amounts.
