I love the concept of simplicity.  Chaos abounds in the world.  Mad dashing to and fro. Complicated living. Harried Spinning. Trying to wrap life up in beautiful packages with ribbons and bows. Unrealistic expectations. When it all starts to come undone, we crash in a huddle of despair wondering what went wrong.  If only.

If only we’d embrace the art of simplicity.   Stop the dashing and spinning. Find fulfillment in simple ordinary days. Will you join me in unwrapping simplicity? On Tuesdays in December, I will be joining Emily and others for Tuesday’s Unwrapped.  In keeping with my theme of unwrapping simplicity, I will be sharing how I embraced an aspect of simple living that helped make life easier or taught me a lesson.

Today’s gift of simplicity was dinner.  Preparing dinner is sometimes a complicated ordeal around here.  I get busy, then realize I’m hungry.  I feel too tired to cook and clean up, so it’s easy for just the two of us to go grab something.  Our pocketbook and waistlines say we need to stop this madness.  Or, I do cook, but so many pots and pans are involved and time invested that I feel like I’ve spent all day in the kitchen and I don’t even want to think about doing dishes.

Today, I was out with my father and skipped lunch, so I was very hungry when I came home.  I remembered two things that would make dinner easy.  One was a jar of Spicy Orange Marinade my husband had purchased on his last shopping trip without me, and the other was fresh chicken breast I had purchased yesterday. Two simple gifts that when combined could be heavenly.  I knew if I chopped the chicken breast it would cook up quicker than we could run out to get something and since it was using what I already had on hand, it would also spare our pocketbook.

I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder and cooked until done, then I drained a can of carrots and added a half jar of the orange sauce and let it simmer.  In the meantime, I had a bag of frozen Trader Joe Rice that I microwaved, then added to the pot for a very tasty, one dish dinner that was fast and easy.  Simplicity at it’s best. It was tastier and healthier than most of our eating out choices in a small town. And, I only used one cutting board, one sauce pan, two bowls to eat from and a handful of utensils, so clean-up was no big deal.  It was just enough for two, and it was gone before I thought to take a picture.

This may not seem profound or unwrap worthy, but there you have it – a simple gift or two in the middle of an ordinary day that helped me see that I can embrace simplicity in my everyday life and let go of harried spinning. A gift that allowed me to feed my family a savory meal without a lot of time invested. A gift that didn’t involve take-out and as an added bonus makes my house smell wonderfully orangey.  But more than the food, it was a gift that helped me enjoy showing hospitality to my husband in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. It was simplicity. Unwrapped.

Simplifying in grace,

Teresa