Mom You Should Know: ‘Simple Mom’ Tsh Oxenreider

Tsh Oxenreider is a mom you should know. Tsh writes about life hacks for home managers at Simple Mom. She’s also writing a book on organized simplicity at home, due in bookstores late 2010.  Tsh recently formed Simple Living Media, LLC, where she oversees a variety of blogs, all geared towards simple living.  Her passion is to encourage all walks of women to find peace and contentment.

I’ve been a fan of Tsh’s blog, Simple Mom, for quite a while.  I’m not an organized person by nature and most of the time, advice about how to get “organized” results in adding more stress to my life.  But one reason I love Simple Mom is because Tsh offers real world tips in a helpful, positive manner. I met Tsh at a women’s conference last year and she is fabulous.

Tsh is a writer, a graphic designer, a wife, a mom, and a home manager.  She lives overseas with her family, so she experiences daily language blunders, cultural faux pas, and otherwise confusing issues that come with raising children cross-culturally as American expats.  She loves coffee, and she hates wearing socks. You can follow her on Twitter (@simplemom).

GLOSS: What’s your favorite recipe?

Tsh Oxenreider: Oh goodness, I don’t know if I can narrow down just one recipe.  I suppose one of our family favorites is “dutch babies,” which we have almost every Saturday morning.  Mix together six eggs, 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups milk, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 3 tablespoons sugar, and 2 teaspoons vanilla in one large bowl.  Pour the mix into a greased casserole dish, and bake for about 20 minutes at 400 degrees F.  Cut into squares, and serve with fruit, cinnamon, powdered sugar, syrup, or whatever suits your fancy.  I love this recipe because it’s super easy, it dirties one dish, and the kids like watching it puff in the oven.

GLOSS: How do you get inspired?  Do you have blogs, books or TV shows that give you inspiration to be creative?

Tsh Oxenreider: I don’t really watch TV, but I do love Barefoot Contessa with Ina Garten.  I love everything she cooks, and her home is divine!  Not sure if that kitchen of hers is real or a set, but I’d gladly cook there any day.  Hmm, books that jumpstart my creativity…  The Creative Family and Handmade Home, both my Amanda Soule, are wonderful.  I love flipping through now-defunct issues of Cottage Living magazine.

When it comes to blogs, I’m a sucker for eye candy — if content is king, like they say, then design is definitely queen.  I’m a sucker for Apartment Therapy (apartmenttherapy.com).  I could go on and on about blogs I love…  Oh, and I have to mention the gorgeous magazine Seeing the Everyday (www.seeingtheeveryday.com).  This new publication is just genius!

GLOSS: How do you de-stress?

Tsh Oxenreider: Very dark, bitter chocolate is my weakness, along with good old black coffee.  But for stress, I mostly enjoy reading and sewing.  With my book deadline just a few months away, I haven’t had nearly as much time to sew as I like, but I do try to use my sewing machine at least once a week.  And I’ve always got about five books on my nightstand at one time, and I read them at different times, depending on my mood.  I also love behind outside.  We live in an urban highrise apartment in a huge city, so a few times a week, we take the kids down to the grassy area by the bay for an hour of “AOG” (a$$ on the grass) time.  It helps us all unwind to just run around, feel the grass on our feet, and enjoy the wind in our hair.  Oh, and my husband and I have a date night every other Thursday, and that is etched in stone.  We don’t reschedule that for anything.  Usually we don’t do anything major — just dinner and coffee out, perhaps a board game or movie, or just wandering our neighborhood book store.  It doesn’t really matter what we do, though — we just savor having grownup conversation and remembering why we love each other.  Dates nights most definitely kill the stress in our lives.  It helps us remember the little things in life.

GLOSS: Give us a tip about staying organized.

Tsh Oxenreider: I don’t think having an organized home that’s ready for company is as hard as we make it.  The biggest culprit is too much stuff.  We don’t need most of what we own, and we spend far too much money and energy trying to house it all.  So I guess my biggest “tip” would be to get rid of most of your stuff.  One of my favorite quotes — and the one that’s the backbone of my blog — is from 19th century architect William Morris:  “Have nothing in your house that you don’t know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.”

That said, I guess another tip would be to think outside the box when it comes to storage.  You don’t need to buy expensive containers.  Our master bathroom is tiny — just a pedestal sink, a shower stall, and a toilet in about five square feet.  No storage at all.  We were racking our brains trying to figure out a shelving system that would fit in our bathroom, until one day, we were at the farmer’s market, and we saw a vendor tossing aside a plethora of sturdy black crates he was using for his oranges.  We asked him if we could have them, and he happily obliged.  We stacked four, and they’ve become our shelves.

GLOSS: Celebrity you would like to have over for dinner? Dream scenario?

Tsh Oxenreider: For dinner, I’d love to have Ina Garten do the cooking and table setting, enjoy picking writer David McCullough’s brain over dinner, and talking business with Martha Stewart.  Oh, and for laughs, I’d love to round up the table with Steve Martin.  How’s that for mixed company?

Visit Tsh over on Simple Mom (simplemom.net) and be sure to check out some of her very simple tools for organization.  One of my New Year’s resolutions is to be more organized and I’ve downloaded Tsh’s Daily Docket to help me.