Living Like Laura

On my simple living journey, there have been days that I’ve wished I could go back to the “olden days” of Little House on the Prairie with Laura Ingalls Wilder. This summer I had the opportunity to spend a night on the prairie in South Dakota that the Ingalls family called home for many years.In teaching our kids about simple living, we have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series to them. We’ve enjoyed getting to know the Ingalls family and imagining what life was like “back then”. In visiting the homestead, it was important for me to have the kids see firsthand what we had been visualizing as we read.Although we only planned this stop two days in advance, we were lucky enough to get one of only four RV sites at the grounds. This stop ended up being the kids’ favorite one on the trip! They got to live like Laura for almost a full day, visiting her one-room schoolhouse, riding ponies, making rope, and making dolls and button spinners just like she did. They saw that it was possible to have fun without electronics, the mall and lots of toys. They experienced true simple living-and they loved it!As an adult experiencing it for the first time, I enjoyed seeing the small homes in which she lived and the simple furnishings that worked so well for the family to accomplish everything they needed.I have to admit, I was envious. I realize that I’ve posted about things I can’t live without in my simple living journey, almost all of which would not have been available in the “olden days”, but with a life that simple (albeit requiring a lot of hard work), I’d be able to live without my printer, scanner and GPS!So while I can’t go back in time to the days of Laura, I can work towards creating as simple of a life as possible. And although that is going to look different than it did back in Laura’s day, it can be more similar than one might think. What examples of simple living can you learn from Laura? What could simplify your home?Blessings,Lisa