Month: January 2016
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Teaching our children minimalism
Obviously we do not force an austere, monkish existence on our children. Yet, we still think it is important to instill in them certain values: a wariness of consumerism, sustainable thinking, recognizing joy in objects. I can give you three examples of how we have been teaching these lessons: 1. The Rock Collection 3 year…
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Our Japanese mansion
In 2008, in preparation for our first child, we moved to the biggest apartment we ever lived in in Japan. It had the glorious name Chunichi Mansion Chiyoda. And it certainly was a “mansion” as far as we were concerned. We had a living room/dining room, a bedroom, a room for the baby and I…
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Downsizing is freedom
When my brother sent this text, I realized that I skip over the reasons for downsizing too blithely. People are missing the point. One doesn’t live small just for the sake of living small. This is not merely an expression of claustrophilia… it is a means towards an end. Let us explore one of the…
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Nice coverage of tech issues at the local level
Kudos to Kelowna Capital News, one of our local newspapers, for running a special on technology last week. Tech is one of the dominant problems in the global zeitgeist, and it is not often that a local paper will put the resources into exploring such an issue in a local context. The Tech Talk package…
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CBC radio interview on downsizing
Here is the interview from earlier this week. Thanks to CBC reporter @BradyStrachan for posting. [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/242158105″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]
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Driving me to downsize
During my interview with Chris Walker on CBC Daybreak South yesterday, I struggled a bit to explain the single motivating spark for our downsizing mission of the past couple of years. I rambled a bit about the empowerment of gardening, but luckily did not get into the maker movement or ethical computing or other such…
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It is tiny houses all the way down…
People have been asking me about my downsizing, amazed that we would get rid of all our books, clothes and empty our living room of all the furniture. Their eyes get even bigger when I say we are looking to go from the 1000sq ft. home we are in now to something around 700. But…
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Downsizing
Library of books I never read — Fired! Closet full of clothes I never wear — Fired! Old couch and coffee tables taking up space in the living room — Fired! Living room — Fired! Credit card debt — Fired! We’ve been downsizing. Over the past couple of years we have been removing ourselves from…