Skip to content

ZenGirl

I am stay at home with 2 kids, married to my best friend zenguy. I am in to simplifying, slow and sustainable living, I am frugal, love reading, writing and watching romantic movies. I believe in family, friendship and community.

12 ways to help your unemployed friends and family

There are lot of people right now without a job throughout the USA and other parts of world.  California where we live is one of the place that was hit hard in form of unemployment and foreclosures.   According to the LA times, California’s unemployment rate is in the double digits, in some regions it is as high as 12%.  Click here for the LA times article .  It is tough and scary with no prospects of the economy improving anytime soon and foreclosures seem to be rising rapidly.  As if, this was not bad enough, many necessary goods are getting expensive during this recession,  I wrote about it earlier, please check out, Irony of Recession .  Being kind and compassionate with your unemployed friends may help a lot, even if it is hard for you to relate to them.  You can help in many ways even if you can not help financially. So, let’s look at a few ways to help them.

Read More »12 ways to help your unemployed friends and family

How to comment on blog

I like to get comments on my articles and like to leave comments on other blogs. It does two things, one is author feels appreciated with right and relevant comment and other readers get to know more about your site and gain you a minor back links too.

I always love to hear from my readers. I always write and rewrite my own articles and write about something that close to me and my life and at the same time useful to most of you. While, so far my few readers have been leaving thoughtful kind, related comments, I am getting much more unrelated comments and spams lately. Although I have a great plug-in that catches most of these Spams before it reaches me, there are still more are showing up on my comment queue waiting for approval and I rather spend time writing and connecting with real readers here instead of cleaning out SPAM Folder. Hence I thought of writing a small comment policy here, just so all of us are in same page about commenting here.

Read More »How to comment on blog

Surviving without money possible?

Daniel Suelo
Can you survive without any money at all? It seems impossible for most of us, we need money or credit of sort to survive. There is at least one person called Daniel Suelo that we know, who is doing it in America. I am sure, there are many more who are poor and forced to live on little, but not many who would want to do it voluntarily. How so, you may ask? He does not have a job, house, car, TV, much possession or debt. Check out his incredible story here .

Interesting thing about this modern day Sadhu is, that he is being doing it since 2000, for past 9 years. He literally lives in a cave, near small town Moab, in Utah. He shares his small cave with insects and other small animals, as he says, it is their place too. They mostly do not harm him and he does not disturb them.

Read More »Surviving without money possible?

10 Simple Things That Make Me Happy!

Many times simplest things can bring smile and happiness in us. If you think back on times in your own life, you will realize that many of these happy memories has nothing to do money or things money can buy. Best things in life are not things, and costs nothing.

There are few simplest things in mine and Zenguy’s life that makes us happy:

1. When Both kids R and Little P are healthy, smiling and sleeping well.

2. Sitting and Drinking hot fresh and hot ginger chai-tea made by Zenguy

3. Eating simple home cooked meals or hanging out at our favorite food place.

4. Seeing cleaner house at night, after clean up of toys.

Read More »10 Simple Things That Make Me Happy!

Why we can not win on 100 things minimalist race!

Being minimalist is “IN” things to do right now and seems to be around everywhere in past few months on blogosphere and news. Are you a minimalist or want be one? Everyone’s definition of minimalist is different and sure thing as minimalist can come in various colors, shapes and sizes. For example, one well known blogger claims to write minimalist blog, where one can clearly see, she is in to shopping, fashion, jewelry and pushing minimalist products, other famous blogger wants everyone to change to his way of minimalism and asked non-believers to unsubscribe his blog! Are they minimalist or not?, that I will let you decide. However, I will tell you one thing there is NO one size fit all solution for minimalism, we all can be minimalist in our own ways without judgment from others.

Read More »Why we can not win on 100 things minimalist race!

How To Find Your Core Values: Part 2

Last time we looked at all possible values and did exercise to find your top 10 values. Then we narrowed it down to top 5, most important values that describes who you are;

If you have not read or done this exercise, please look at How to find your values: Part 1 of this series before reading this article.

If you have followed the steps and done the exercise right, you will have top 5 values, let’s put them in order of importance. Why this step? Is it necessary? Yes, and I will explain it with an example, so it is easy for all of us to understand. Core thing is finding your own values is tofinding a simple balance between what your heart and mind wants , once you got the balance life choices becomes easier to make.

Read More »How To Find Your Core Values: Part 2

How to find your core values : Part 1


Do you know your own personal, core values? We all have values, deep down in us, however sometimes we may not be aware of these values.

Some times we may take steps based on our perceived values and we feel unhappy or feel something is not right, that is because we may not have followed a value inside us. Many of us, live whole life not ever being aware of these values, but can you imagine if you lived the life based on what you felt inside as a human being? Would not that be wonderful? Would you like to find out and try it?

Finding value is not quick thing, it may require some deep soul searching time. Your values are like your mission statement, your beliefs. Values could be based on your past experience, and influences from your life such as parents, friends, peers, what you read, what you see, and hear can make up who you are, but it is much more than that; It is a foundation of who you are deep inside.

Read More »How to find your core values : Part 1

Link love: Good reads around the net

Here are some great reads around the net, that I hope you will enjoy reading it too.

Betsy Bargain at Talk Thrifty to me has wonderful tips to celebrate Mother earth’s anniversary Happy Anniversary Mother earth

Leo Babauta at Mnmlist.com wrote very thought provoking post about Society, Re imagined: How to make it a reality

Leo Babauta does not know me, but like many others, he has inspired me to more minimalist and simplified life, you can read his interview A call for simplicity in this age of chaos by Tammy Strobel of Rowdy Kittens blog.

Read More »Link love: Good reads around the net