Pretty simple.

For anyone who has read this blog, I have a singular mantra I live my life by: simple peace. To me, it’s everything. It defines how I want to live our lives. With so much available distraction and chaos in a modern world, simple peace eschews the false grandeur and embodies a life that is focused on simplicity, doing things for myself and reducing as much outside noise as possible.

The pursuit of simple peace was what allowed me to quit my executive jobs (now twice) and move into a lower stress professional life working for myself. Simple peace allows me to focus on honoring the traditions of my mom and grandmother by preserving food and hanging clothes on my Zen-like clothesline. Simple peace allows my husband and I to work side by side growing food, which honors the efforts of his grandparents. But mainly? The pursuit of simple peace gave me the time carved back into my day to focus on home, family, our lives and our future. Simple peace quite simply (pun intended) put the me back into my life. It allowed me to find balance between how I – and we – wanted to live and how I could find the time to do it.

With so much about what simple peace is, it’s also important to note what it isn’t. The biggest thing? It’s not easier. For example, at least six days a week, I’m making meals from scratch. Definitely not easier. I also hang clothes on a clothesline vs. just tossing in a dryer. We grow a good amount of our own food and I’ve not purchased an onion, garlic, potato, bean or pepper in years. I also don’t purchase oregano, basil, sage or thyme. I wouldn’t think of purchasing tomatoes or their byproducts of marinara, salsa or paste. I mix all of my own spices, dry my excess herbs and make my own laundry soap. Simple peace is work. It’s not complicated – it generally follows the traditions of our mothers and fathers – and it’s generally not big on being outward facing. I’ve had enough of boardrooms and outbound planes. I can still do it when necessary, but it’s nice to be home.

Lately, though, the concept of simple peace has needed a little… je ne se quais. While hugely satisfying as a way of life in the long-term, every once in awhile, life still needs a little sparkle. That’s where the concept of living pretty wormed its way in. If I’m honest, the idea of living pretty was probably always lurking around, I just didn’t notice it. But now? Well, I’m noticing the value of a little extra every now and then.

Obviously, part of living pretty is what we all indulge in. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have a slew of Pinterest boards at our disposal or we wouldn’t spend so much annually each year on Christmas decorations. (The National Research Foundation determined that the average American planned to spend $261 on holiday decoration in 2024. I would hazard a guess that I’m a bit above average on that front. 😊) So, living pretty isn’t new; I’m just coming around to how it impacts my mantra of simple peace. If I’m completely candid, that has resulted in a bit of a mental tussle over the last few days.

On one hand, the concept of simple peace seems to be in direct contrast to living pretty. Everything that simple peace stands for – eliminating noise, getting back to basics, needing less so you can earn less – appears to be in conflict with the concept of living pretty – adding frivolous sparkle to one’s days. And yet… well, it’s important to note that even during the height of rationing in World War II, the Germans and Dutch both preserved tulips and roses. Preserving beauty – both as a part of one’s heritage and as a source of happiness in daily life – is truly important, not just then but now as well. For me, the addition of a little sparkle is – and can be – very symbiotic with simple peace. The simple peace makes you appreciate the living pretty when it happens; and the living pretty could get old if you didn’t quickly return to simple peace. All of this led to one of my new mini-epiphanies (and please remember that I was trying not to do these anymore…): I can live “pretty simple.”

Pretty simple to me is really about mostly living in simple peace. It’s about allowing quiet, steady, simple and calm rule the day. It’s about keeping chaos and noise at bay by doing things sometimes the harder way, but definitely the more quiet and independent way. But pretty simple? It’s about every once in a while letting the pretty in. Whether its my Christmas decorations, my back deck furniture layout or the fresh bouquet of tulips I put on my island yesterday, pretty simple reminds me that it’s A-OK to have a little noisy joy. In fact, life demands it.

This weekend will have a lot of the pretty simple in it. After dinner out last night with friends, today we are working on our basement. Cleaning out the basement and running a new water line for a spigot closer to the gardens are two big priorities for our post-renovation lives. Each, in a way, honors simple peace. It’s time to shed the excess that we kept during renovations in case a replacement board, set of screws, paint color, etc., was needed. Today, we will list all of the doors and trim we painstakingly took off as we replaced those upstairs on Facebook marketplace for free. That alone will create much needed space in our basement and the doors will go to a good home, hopefully for a family that is doing their own renovations. In running the new water line, we will also make it easier to grow food and maintain our yard as hose lines won’t have to run nearly completely around the house just to get to the garden.

But later tonight? Well, I’m going to put a little champagne on ice and I’ve got a cheesecake with some soon-to-be-made strawberry topping. After landing another new contract and securing my business for another year, we have decided to have a small celebration. We will also load up the new slide for our home planetarium that my husband got me which features the southern hemisphere stars. It will be fun to indulge in a little Antigua memories.

And life will go on. Day after day, we will bounce from the noise we cannot escape to the simple peace we embrace to the living pretty we indulge in. It’s a cycle and it is often out of rhythm. Yet, in the pursuit of this cycle, I find an intrinsic purpose to pursue the correct balance – for me, for my family and for our future. So, here’s to living pretty simple. For the most part. Okay, for today. That’s all I can really promise.