Simplicity

I'm working through the worksheets for the Mama Blog to Mama Biz e-course by Kathy Stowell and one of the exercises is to identify 3 values that I stand for, find a quote that speaks to each value and write a blog post on it. So. Here I am and here is quote #1:
The best things in life are nearest-breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life. ~Robert Louis Stevenson
There are days when I think I should just sell out and move to the wilderness. Forget trying to look after this house and all this stuff. Forget everything school requires of me and kids. I imagine life in a cabin to be simple. My only cares to keep warm, look after the few necessities we own, and make sure bears don't eat us. The kids would be outside all the time, calmer and sleeping better. We would be the picture of health.
I crave simplicity.
But a part of me knows I can curate simplicity in the suburbs.
::I can donate anything I don't know to be useful and beautiful.
::I can streamline my cleaning routine or lower my expectations of myself and my house.
::I can plan our days better, taking into account when our energies are low and planning less or taking advantage of those times when we can manage more (but not too much more).
::I can revisit my beliefs-dinner together every night, whole foods, not buying into every want, whim or fad my children talk about, being authentic to myself about each request on my time.
::I can also write into our schedule (in black pen!) time to be outside.
Ultimately it is my choice.
Gratitude Sunday is a blog post I try to write every week so I can remember how grateful I am for the simple things like fresh air, sunlight, bread, the privilege of looking after this house I have been blessed with, the privilege of serving customers healthy food at one job and enabling folks in a small way to get outside at my other job.
I think as moms, many of us take for granted "life's plain, common work as it comes". Dishes, laundry, cooking dinner, bathing babies are as plain and as common as it gets. Those of us who manage to see it not so much as drudgery but as sacred moments in a day are tuned into the simplicity of our lives. Does simplicity manifest more simplicity until through the process of elimination we are left with what really matters?
All I know is there are a lot of blogs out there with beautiful pictures of laundry hanging on the line, dinner simmering on the stove, favourite pottery mugs on sunlit countertops.