I have been doing a lot of pondering coming into this year. Who am I kidding? I'm always pondering something as plans grow, change and evolve.
You know when you hear or read something that stirs inside of you and you just cant put it down? Well a little while back I listened to a pod cast while I was pottering in the kitchen about a lady was on there talking about how she started her journey into simple living. Like many of us, held the ideal of growing/cooking everything from scratch. She went right down deep into the rabbit hole of simple living and made bread, cheese, you name it she threw herself into the whole making EVERYTHING from scratch thing. Then her entire life was made up of these activities and in the end it didn't resonate with her, or her idea of what a simple life looked like. She found that way of life was complex and time consuming and took her away from what she was truly looking for in her simple living journey. That level of self sufficiency is a beautiful and inspirational thing, but it was simply not for her.
They re-assessed their lives and she became pretty much zero waste. Today she still lives minimally, frugally, but in a way that resonates with her. She chooses to buy good quality cheeses from small cheese makers and so forth, from people whose passion it is to make cheese. But her realization resonated with me, she wanted to simplify life so her life could become rich in experiences rather then things.
Here is a link to the episode HERE.
This was all stuff I kinda knew, but you know when you know you know something and its finally sits a little differently on your mind?
(^^^ That sentence totally makes sense in my head! Ha!)
There is a part of me that dreams of owning a little dairy cow, making cheese, having a pantry stocked with shelf after shelf of beautiful jars of my own produce.
Loving being able to ride my bike around town!
And its a beautiful dream, it really is. But in this season of my life its not truly mine. Its a little bit mine, but not in my heart of hearts. I want to be building experiences and memories with our kids. Bush walks, going to the beach, taking our little old van away for a night or two every month. I want to study without a mountain of work hanging over my head. To have the occasional regular daytime nap. The reality is this season we are in is really busy, and I want to be able to live simply and slowly enough to be able to enjoy it.
I do want a good productive veggie patch, I truly love gardening. But its OK if it doesn't resemble a market garden. I'm quite happy to preserve some of the produce, but I don't want to spend every waking hour doing it so nothing goes to waste during each growing season. Preserving is a wonderful and important tool. But I don't want to loose any sleep over it. In fact I don't want to loose sleep over anything in my life. I have spent enough time losing sleep over the past 8 years of parenting small children and I'm all about fiercely protecting my sleep these days. I'm happier, more patient and calmer because of it. All essential in raising happy children. I'm happy to give some produce away, pop some in our shop to sell and even give the chooks some imperfect fruit. And a dairy cow? Well the reality is not in this season.....
It kinda pains me to write this, like part of me feels like I'm handing back a part of a dream. I feel like this is the epitome of simple living, but the logical side of my brain tells me not to be ridiculous! That its about living MY authentic life and that trying to life simple, mindfully and consciously is whats key. These are simply tools to help us live the life we value.
And I have done ALOT on my simple living journey, sewing, gardening, de-cluttering. Oh my goodness the de-cluttering. I'm proud of how much our shopping habits have changed, how much easier my house is to tidy and clean. I'm proud my boys understand "junk" toys and why we avoid them, how they are happy and capable of assessing what they want to keep and why and what they want to donate. The reality is we are living in a tiny space and doing just fine! All 5 of us share the one bedroom, we all have one cupboard each which stores our clothes and its going great with room to spare. 5 years ago our priorities were very different.
There are some amazing blogs out there, and I kind of feel like I want to be doing what they are, to be doing "real" simple living, the full on self sufficiency thing. Who knows, maybe one day we will. But the reality for us is not in this season.
There are perhaps some triggering factors to this thought process. My heart of hearts is in helping build our community and helping it heal after the bush fires. I have been in conversation with various Rev's, people in the community and pitched a few ideas which have been given the green light. With a lot of support and enthusiasm beyond what I expected or could have even dreamed about hoping for. So this is going to take up a lot of my time and energy and I'm aware there is only so much fuel in my tank.
The thought process is kinda long term and multi-faceted. Our little country church has essentially shut down. There are services offered in the local nursing home once a month and there is a vibrant home group of about 15-20 people also held once a month.
The old church.
The thought is to use the church to create a kind of "community hub". A place where groups in the community can gather, where we can hold a family orientated home group which is starting shortly, perhaps a mothers group, and to use the large plot to create a community garden. The aim being to create a lovely space in which we can care for the community, and do church in a way that looks a little different but is in keeping with the community at hand.
Garden therapy is a very useful tool in helping recover from trauma, its relaxing, its healthy, it provides gentle exercise which releases endorphin's which help to counteract the cortisol stress hormones. The aim is to add a beautiful green zone to the scarred landscape. To show the community there is still a church here, going quite nicely thought it doesn't look the way they are used to it being. It would be lovely to do it in conjunction with kids and make it part of a regular mums and bubs/kids group, but also make it accessible to the older generation that are present and vital to this community. I'm thinking that if we used some raised beds hopefully the oldies from the local nursing home would be able to make it down too with a bit of help. It would be lovely to grow veggies, to share among the gardeners and so the garden is generous in nature, also it helps to spread the simple living message which I'm so passionate about. I hope that we can create a "quiet" reflection area with a lovely kid safe water feature and seats, lawn and a natural play space for the kids. There will be no fancy play ground, as their is no budget for that in a little country church, but imagination and creativity and hopefully we can create a special space. We have put it through all the relevant people and its got the thumbs up, so now to plan. I'm very excited, a little nervous and a little overwhelmed at the amount of work. But as with anything its just one step at a time, working steadily.
There are some good trees in the church garden at the moment, its quite wild and over grown, but its peaceful there. There are toxic oleanders to remove, trees to prune up and all sorts of jobs. I think its important o create a garden that works with both the old and the new. To create a garden that reflects both the history, the present and the future.
So I guess this year my simple living journey is shaping up to look different then I expected. But I have great peace in my heart that this is the right direction. That after all that has happened with the fires and everything else that this is right. Perhaps wider spread then I imagined it would ever be. But change is good, a challenge is good and detours are all what make a journey interesting, yes?
Anyway I best get back to my study, enough procrastinating!
Much love,
Emma
xx
You know when you hear or read something that stirs inside of you and you just cant put it down? Well a little while back I listened to a pod cast while I was pottering in the kitchen about a lady was on there talking about how she started her journey into simple living. Like many of us, held the ideal of growing/cooking everything from scratch. She went right down deep into the rabbit hole of simple living and made bread, cheese, you name it she threw herself into the whole making EVERYTHING from scratch thing. Then her entire life was made up of these activities and in the end it didn't resonate with her, or her idea of what a simple life looked like. She found that way of life was complex and time consuming and took her away from what she was truly looking for in her simple living journey. That level of self sufficiency is a beautiful and inspirational thing, but it was simply not for her.
They re-assessed their lives and she became pretty much zero waste. Today she still lives minimally, frugally, but in a way that resonates with her. She chooses to buy good quality cheeses from small cheese makers and so forth, from people whose passion it is to make cheese. But her realization resonated with me, she wanted to simplify life so her life could become rich in experiences rather then things.
Here is a link to the episode HERE.
This was all stuff I kinda knew, but you know when you know you know something and its finally sits a little differently on your mind?
(^^^ That sentence totally makes sense in my head! Ha!)
There is a part of me that dreams of owning a little dairy cow, making cheese, having a pantry stocked with shelf after shelf of beautiful jars of my own produce.
I do want a good productive veggie patch, I truly love gardening. But its OK if it doesn't resemble a market garden. I'm quite happy to preserve some of the produce, but I don't want to spend every waking hour doing it so nothing goes to waste during each growing season. Preserving is a wonderful and important tool. But I don't want to loose any sleep over it. In fact I don't want to loose sleep over anything in my life. I have spent enough time losing sleep over the past 8 years of parenting small children and I'm all about fiercely protecting my sleep these days. I'm happier, more patient and calmer because of it. All essential in raising happy children. I'm happy to give some produce away, pop some in our shop to sell and even give the chooks some imperfect fruit. And a dairy cow? Well the reality is not in this season.....
It kinda pains me to write this, like part of me feels like I'm handing back a part of a dream. I feel like this is the epitome of simple living, but the logical side of my brain tells me not to be ridiculous! That its about living MY authentic life and that trying to life simple, mindfully and consciously is whats key. These are simply tools to help us live the life we value.
And I have done ALOT on my simple living journey, sewing, gardening, de-cluttering. Oh my goodness the de-cluttering. I'm proud of how much our shopping habits have changed, how much easier my house is to tidy and clean. I'm proud my boys understand "junk" toys and why we avoid them, how they are happy and capable of assessing what they want to keep and why and what they want to donate. The reality is we are living in a tiny space and doing just fine! All 5 of us share the one bedroom, we all have one cupboard each which stores our clothes and its going great with room to spare. 5 years ago our priorities were very different.
There are some amazing blogs out there, and I kind of feel like I want to be doing what they are, to be doing "real" simple living, the full on self sufficiency thing. Who knows, maybe one day we will. But the reality for us is not in this season.
There are perhaps some triggering factors to this thought process. My heart of hearts is in helping build our community and helping it heal after the bush fires. I have been in conversation with various Rev's, people in the community and pitched a few ideas which have been given the green light. With a lot of support and enthusiasm beyond what I expected or could have even dreamed about hoping for. So this is going to take up a lot of my time and energy and I'm aware there is only so much fuel in my tank.
The thought process is kinda long term and multi-faceted. Our little country church has essentially shut down. There are services offered in the local nursing home once a month and there is a vibrant home group of about 15-20 people also held once a month.
The thought is to use the church to create a kind of "community hub". A place where groups in the community can gather, where we can hold a family orientated home group which is starting shortly, perhaps a mothers group, and to use the large plot to create a community garden. The aim being to create a lovely space in which we can care for the community, and do church in a way that looks a little different but is in keeping with the community at hand.
Garden therapy is a very useful tool in helping recover from trauma, its relaxing, its healthy, it provides gentle exercise which releases endorphin's which help to counteract the cortisol stress hormones. The aim is to add a beautiful green zone to the scarred landscape. To show the community there is still a church here, going quite nicely thought it doesn't look the way they are used to it being. It would be lovely to do it in conjunction with kids and make it part of a regular mums and bubs/kids group, but also make it accessible to the older generation that are present and vital to this community. I'm thinking that if we used some raised beds hopefully the oldies from the local nursing home would be able to make it down too with a bit of help. It would be lovely to grow veggies, to share among the gardeners and so the garden is generous in nature, also it helps to spread the simple living message which I'm so passionate about. I hope that we can create a "quiet" reflection area with a lovely kid safe water feature and seats, lawn and a natural play space for the kids. There will be no fancy play ground, as their is no budget for that in a little country church, but imagination and creativity and hopefully we can create a special space. We have put it through all the relevant people and its got the thumbs up, so now to plan. I'm very excited, a little nervous and a little overwhelmed at the amount of work. But as with anything its just one step at a time, working steadily.
So I guess this year my simple living journey is shaping up to look different then I expected. But I have great peace in my heart that this is the right direction. That after all that has happened with the fires and everything else that this is right. Perhaps wider spread then I imagined it would ever be. But change is good, a challenge is good and detours are all what make a journey interesting, yes?
Anyway I best get back to my study, enough procrastinating!
Much love,
Emma
xx
