When I think of slow living, I think of relaxed afternoons, sipping coffee outside, taking in the fresh air and watching the birds flit in and out of the trees. We have the spot to make that a reality but the garden needs work,,,,,a lot of work. Time hasn't been on our side. Our lives feel too rushed and chaotic. I long to slow things down but even though I know how it should be, I feel that there are always things that need doing.
Hubby has a new job and while he loves it, it has left us with less time with both of us at home. We were a self employed couple, working together each day and we were always home by around 4pm, sometimes earlier. While we had time, we didn't have money. We lived week to week and you would always have weeks where jobs would get cancelled and so your whole budget had to be reworked to try to make the money stretch a bit further.
I think in life you can't win. You have a choice of time or money, it is rare to have the best of both worlds. While I am still working at our business, albeit a little scaled back from what it was with both of us working at it, I do still get some days where I get home early and that gives me time to think about where we are in life and come up with ideas to make our reality a little more like the reality that plays out in my mind.
Currently I am on a decluttering mission. We have so much STUFF!!!!! Stuff that we have accrued during our 14 years together. Stuff that followed us during an interstate move, stuff that has accrued since that move and stuff that has been inherited along the way from our previous relationships etc. Although we have gotten rid of so much stuff since our move here 7 years ago, we still have way too much I feel. I am listing things on Ebay but once they end and if they haven't been sold, they will be leaving this house, either through our local Facebook Pay it Forward page or donated to a charity shop.
I have a vision of what I would like our home to look like. While I don't think we will ever be a totally minimalist family, I would just like the clutter to at least be clutter that we love and use.
We are in the process of painting our house and I want to go through room by room and do it up and make it look pretty. I aim for a colourful boho style of decorating.
Outdoors, we want to turn our front garden into a native style garden to entice the native birds and bees. Our back garden I want sectioned into 3 areas - one side is very narrow and I would ideally like it turned into a secure cat run as we are not allowed to let our cats outside in our area, so a nice big play area outside in the fresh air would be lovely for them (also to get the cat litter trays out of the house would be awesome!!). On the other side of the house I would like to create a nice fernery type space with fuschias, ferns and other shade loving plants as it doesn't get alot of sun on that side. That side would ideally be a quiet spot to sit and read and feel relaxed and cool. Then on the largest area, directly out the back we have a large pergola/verandah bbq area which overlooks the rest of our yard. We have fruit trees lining the side and back fence, they aren't huge trees yet but they are definitely growing each year and are quite healthy. My dream is to turn this part of the yard into a mini food forest. This is going to take time, lots of time but we hope to keep chipping away at the vision until it becomes a reality.
Slow living is something we used to know when the kids were younger and we were living interstate. I was a stay at home mum with 6 kids - 4 of mine and 2 of hubby's. We had his kids alternate weeks and my kids full time apart from every second weekend. Life was busy but slow if that even makes sense. My job was keeping the home clean and tidy, preparing lots of home cooked food and managing the diary of kids sports and school activities. I have to admit, I loved that life. My heart was full and I had a real sense of accomplishment at the end of each week.
Decluttering is the beginning of reclaiming that style of life. Home cooking for my family is something I love to do. I love to try new recipes and I will share them with the world here in my little blog. I love to craft, although I don't get alot of time to do this currently. I love to try different things and my dream is to try lots of different crafts and I aim to one day create enough items to have a market stall.
I will get there, we will get there. Slowly,,,,one step at a time!!
Hubby has a new job and while he loves it, it has left us with less time with both of us at home. We were a self employed couple, working together each day and we were always home by around 4pm, sometimes earlier. While we had time, we didn't have money. We lived week to week and you would always have weeks where jobs would get cancelled and so your whole budget had to be reworked to try to make the money stretch a bit further.
I think in life you can't win. You have a choice of time or money, it is rare to have the best of both worlds. While I am still working at our business, albeit a little scaled back from what it was with both of us working at it, I do still get some days where I get home early and that gives me time to think about where we are in life and come up with ideas to make our reality a little more like the reality that plays out in my mind.
Currently I am on a decluttering mission. We have so much STUFF!!!!! Stuff that we have accrued during our 14 years together. Stuff that followed us during an interstate move, stuff that has accrued since that move and stuff that has been inherited along the way from our previous relationships etc. Although we have gotten rid of so much stuff since our move here 7 years ago, we still have way too much I feel. I am listing things on Ebay but once they end and if they haven't been sold, they will be leaving this house, either through our local Facebook Pay it Forward page or donated to a charity shop.
I have a vision of what I would like our home to look like. While I don't think we will ever be a totally minimalist family, I would just like the clutter to at least be clutter that we love and use.
We are in the process of painting our house and I want to go through room by room and do it up and make it look pretty. I aim for a colourful boho style of decorating.
Outdoors, we want to turn our front garden into a native style garden to entice the native birds and bees. Our back garden I want sectioned into 3 areas - one side is very narrow and I would ideally like it turned into a secure cat run as we are not allowed to let our cats outside in our area, so a nice big play area outside in the fresh air would be lovely for them (also to get the cat litter trays out of the house would be awesome!!). On the other side of the house I would like to create a nice fernery type space with fuschias, ferns and other shade loving plants as it doesn't get alot of sun on that side. That side would ideally be a quiet spot to sit and read and feel relaxed and cool. Then on the largest area, directly out the back we have a large pergola/verandah bbq area which overlooks the rest of our yard. We have fruit trees lining the side and back fence, they aren't huge trees yet but they are definitely growing each year and are quite healthy. My dream is to turn this part of the yard into a mini food forest. This is going to take time, lots of time but we hope to keep chipping away at the vision until it becomes a reality.
Slow living is something we used to know when the kids were younger and we were living interstate. I was a stay at home mum with 6 kids - 4 of mine and 2 of hubby's. We had his kids alternate weeks and my kids full time apart from every second weekend. Life was busy but slow if that even makes sense. My job was keeping the home clean and tidy, preparing lots of home cooked food and managing the diary of kids sports and school activities. I have to admit, I loved that life. My heart was full and I had a real sense of accomplishment at the end of each week.
Decluttering is the beginning of reclaiming that style of life. Home cooking for my family is something I love to do. I love to try new recipes and I will share them with the world here in my little blog. I love to craft, although I don't get alot of time to do this currently. I love to try different things and my dream is to try lots of different crafts and I aim to one day create enough items to have a market stall.
I will get there, we will get there. Slowly,,,,one step at a time!!
