About Minimalism, Zen..

Getting Creative

Recently came across the concept of "minimalism" in a blog. Very simple, common sense idea but that I have (most of us have actually) lost when caught up in the society's swirls. Between this blog and one another blog of his, the author Leo covers lot of relevant aspects of life.  Most of the posts are on the dot. I like the author's crisp and up-to-point short posts on each subject. Most such authors of self improvement, personal productivity create needlessly longer posts that fails to get enough attention from me atleast. This was different. For the past two weeks, as a baby step towards getting my life right, I have managed to do the following  -

• Stopped visiting deal websites like slickdeals, deals2buy etc as often as I used to. If I dont have a need to buy anything, I dont have to know which is going cheap or is on a deal. Lot of peace and time saver for me.
• Almost completely stopped watching old movies which I have watched already. Even classic ones included. This has given me better sleep because of more sleep time as thats when I watch old movies as I do not have cable connection (another good thing atleast till now).
• Spend more time with family. ( I could do better but lot of improvements here).

I hope to keep continuing the above. Some others on my to-do lists are to eat healthy and do more towards my careers and to my immediately family.  Let see how far I go.

Today's pic shows my son busy at one of his creative stints. I liked the composition particularly when I cropped the pic to fit the rule of thirds. The DOF and IQ are very good from my new Tamron 28-75 f2.8.

Whose Line is it anyway ? - #16

• When we moved out of our previous home last month, I was eagerly looking forward to that. One reason, amongst others, was the endless graffiti on walls by my son using his crayons. In the new home, his artistic skills get itchy I guess when he sees the new white walls. I had told him strictly no graffiti on the walls. He had to ask why. Rather than concocting a reason, I thought, the real reason would be confounding enough to him not to ask further. So I told, because, we dont own the house and the owner may not like it when we move out. With a mix of frustrated and bored expression, he cried out loud "Why don't we move to a house which does NOT have any owner ?".  
• We thought we have somehow successfully imbibed in my son the fact of him being a vegetarian. But we do consume eggs and he has been french toast for breakfast for the past few weeks. He knew that eating chicken is not vegetarian. While on the subject with my wife today, he really did not like the fact that the eggs actually come from chickens and that we eat those eggs. My wife tried to convince him that eating chicken is not vegetarian while its okay to eat the egg. Something did not seem okay in his little mind and he wanted the eggs to be "more" vegetarian. He wondered loudly, "Why don't we instead buy eggs from VEGETARIAN chickens ?"

A recent conversation between my wife, my son and I. I was commenting on how expensive Pre-school is (~6K USD). The little one was eagerly listening in apparently."How much will you earn when you grow big ?" - my wife to my son.

"Eight thousand"..the number that sounded greater than 6 to him at that moment. We laughed.

"One hundred thousand" - he quipped, 100 being one of the biggest number known to him. We were still laughing. "What would you buy with all that money ?" -  My wife this time.

"A BIG car..." - he said. "and then...A BIG trash can" (we have no idea why a trash can should come next). ..."and then a BIG house". A smile of relief on our face. 

My wife continued "what do you do with the BIG house". No hesitation from him "I will live there with my wife and kids"..my wife was worried by now ..."What about us?". "You can also be there". Peace !

Pictures of the 1.75 (1 + 0.5 +0.25) men taken by my wife at Mount Laguna Snow.