Author Archives: Angela @ The Mango Memoirs

When I first felt God speaking to me about this journey of simplicity, I felt that he was posing one clear challenge. It was probably the one thing that made me the most nervous about going down this road. It was something that would make this choice of simplicity quite noticeable on a daily basis. The challenge was this: to become a one-car family.

I was afraid to even think of what this would mean for our the four of us. More honestly, I was afraid of what it would mean for me. We had just one car for the first two years after we moved back up to Duluth. Ella was a year old and I wasn’t doing a whole lot outside the house. If Pete was working and I needed the car, I would plop Ella in her car seat and drive Pete the five whole minutes to his hospital. But life doesn’t look like that anymore. Ella has school every day, Sam has appointments, Pete works 30 minutes from home, and I sometimes need to get out just to have a break from being home. I was concerned that this change would leave me feeling trapped and alone. I tried to figure out how I could get around this part of the simplicity plan.

rock crawling in Gilbert

I really did try, but every time I prayed about it, I felt God was clearly leading us to just one vehicle. That meant we would need to sell Pete’s Jeep, affectionately known in our family as Charlie. For a few days, I thought maybe we could lend her to a friend for these six months or just park her in the garage. That way, we’d be able to use her again as soon as the six months passed, or if we really, really needed her, she’d be available. But again, that was not what God was leading us to. He made it clear through strong feelings in both my heart and Pete’s, that we were supposed to actually sell Pete’s Jeep. This was mid-December, the week after God woke me in the night and put this plan of simplicity in front of me. Though we had decided to sell her, I found relief in knowing we would still have a month before beginning our six-months of simplicity. That would give me time to mentally prepare for one vehicle. Except that’s not the way it happened.

It didn’t take long at all for us to know who we would ask first about purchasing Pete’s Jeep. We had originally spoken to him about using the Jeep while we’re in Kenya, so Pete called to ask if he’d think and pray about buying it for a good price. Pete worked out the details with him and just a couple days later, he came by for Charlie. So much for the time I thought I had to mentally prepare! Suddenly, we were down to one vehicle. Looking back, I think this was best for me. God knew I would try to have complete control over the situation and plan out every detail before selling her if we had her any longer. This way, I needed to trust in His timing and control rather than my own.

ready for the Daddy/Daughter Ball

Two months after saying goodbye to Charlie, I can tell you that it has not been the struggle I thought it would be. Not at all. We’ve been able to manage getting to appointments and meetings and play dates without much trouble. A few times, we’ve taken Pete to work so I could have the car during his shift. That’s an hour drive, round trip, but we’ve discovered it’s really great family time. Ella thinks it’s exciting to take Daddy to the hospital. It has also given me the opportunity to listen to a couple audio books while the kids watch a quiet video in the back. I’ve gotten better at scheduling play dates at our house or having phone meetings instead of driving to a coffee shop or the church to meet face-to-face with someone. Living in town, public transportation is a bit of an option. We live walking distance from the bus line on a warm day. This morning I took a cab. I needed to get to a meeting downtown at the same time that Pete was taking the kids up to the med school for a lunch talk on international medicine. Once it warms up, I’ll be able to walk to the bus stop with the kids or bike more often, but today the windchill is -25, so a cab was the best option. When I went out of town with the kids at Christmas but Pete still needed to get to work, he rented a small car. These options do cost money, but they all equal far less than insurance and the cost of gas for a Jeep Wrangler.

These two months have certainly taught us to plan ahead. I can’t usually just run to the grocery store at a moment’s notice and we need to plan for days when Pete and I both need to be places. That takes a bit of communication. Ella knows she can’t dawdle in the morning and miss the bus or she won’t get to go to school if we don’t have the car. We’ve all had to learn to be flexible. Two months in. So far, so good.

THE STORY OF CHARLIE

Pete – with a handlebar mustache!

Charlie came into our family the week after Sammy was born. We had been planning on going from one car to two, and Pete had spent a lot of time searching online and calling dealers all over the country before his arrival. After we met our Samuel, Pete and I both needed to adjust to his unexpected diagnosis. I’ve written before that this time of adjustment is incredibly important and shouldn’t be glossed over or ignored. Fortunately, this was something we both recognized early on. We knew that Sam would be in the NICU for a while and Pete had found a Jeep he liked at a dealership in North Carolina. I knew the time away would be healthy for him, so we agreed that a quick flight out and the drive back would be good for him. He arranged the trip with a buddy and the two went to get Charlie.

date night

Pete spent lots of time adventuring with that Jeep – rock crawling up on the Iron Range, rescuing cars from the depths of snow-filled ditches, trekking through the flood waters of 2012 to close the clinic (just weeks after Charlie arrived in Duluth). We took the doors and top off for summer date nights and, when Sam was big enough, the four of us went on family rides together. We had a fantastic two-and-a-half years with Charlie!

Sammy & Daddy

To read other posts about our journey of simplicity, click here.

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Four weeks on our simplicity journey. Four weeks, and I haven’t been to Target once. Can I get a high five for that?! That’s a pretty big change from my once-a-week trek up the hill for groceries and anything else that happened to fall into my cart. Honestly, I haven’t really missed it. I’ve chosen not to do my regular Target grocery run in order to avoid all the other isles of loveliness the store holds. Instead, I’ve made two trips to a grocery store much closer to us. I think I can say it’s actually been a fun change. Sam and I swing in just for groceries. It reminds me of when I was little and loved going to the grocery store with my mom, making our way up and down every isle, getting only what was on her list. We’ve been doing the same.

I think I mentioned earlier that we’ve continued our date nights. That time is vital to our relationship and to the overall health of our family. It gives us an opportunity to simply be a couple, not parents with busy kids. We both look forward to our date night with great anticipation. We know that even if the week is incredibly full and our paths aren’t crossing as often as we would like, we still get our few hours together one night a week. We kept the line in our budget for paying our weekly babysitter, though we did cut out any money to do things during our dates. We thought we’d challenge ourselves to get creative and come up with no-cost date options. I’ll tell you, though, it’s just not as easy to find cheap options up here in the winter. Our favorite and most utilized option is Barnes & Noble. Cozy chairs and mountains of books to skim. Aside from “the library store,” as Ella calls it, we’ve also been using gift cards during our dates. I was actually quite surprised at the number of cards we had when I gathered them all in one place. We’re gift card hoarders, apparently.

On our date two weeks ago, we chose to use a card to Red Lobster, which is probably Pete’s favorite chain restaurant. When we arrived at our table, I set the gift card next to my glass so we wouldn’t forget to use it. But guess what we forgot? We’re so used to pulling out our card to pay after a meal that we did it again! We didn’t realize it until we were about to leave the restaurant and it was too late. Put that down for our first mistake of the 6 months of no extra spending. We felt bad, but the up side is that we still have that card for Red Lobster! Last week, though, we went to Blackwoods, a local restaurant with most entrees between 14 and 20 dollars. We had just one gift card for $20, but we managed to finish our meal with a final total of $20.90. We didn’t even share our plates. That was from two separate orders! The host was sweet enough to cover the last 90 cents (no, we didn’t ask her to do it) and we left a tip with a little cash I had in my purse. Success! We left that night feeling pretty happy about our choices. And for remembering to use the gift card.

We really haven’t had anything outside our budget yet. After four weeks, though, we’re starting to run out of a few things. This is a part of this journey that I’ve sort of been looking forward to reaching, mostly because it’s a new mindset for us. For example, yesterday we used the last of our dishwasher detergent. Since we’re trying to use what we have in the house before buying anything more, I did a search on Pinterest for a simple, homemade concoction. I did manage to find a very basic recipe using ingredients I had in my laundry room! Borax and washing soda were the two main ingredients. The third was sugar-free lemonade for the scent. I had to pick that up with the groceries, but it’s something that will definitely be used. Tonight I’ll be using the mix for the first time. I really hope it works! The blog I found it on was pretty hopeful, so we’ll see how it goes.

There has been one other big change in our budget since starting this journey, but it deserves its very own post. Can you guess what it might be? I’ll leave you hanging on that thought for a couple days, but be sure to swing by Tuesday because we’re going to be doing a fun giveaway in light of Valentine’s Day next weekend! You won’t wan to miss it!

 This post has been linked on A Little R&R