In the Beginning....

So, I will start at the beginning. For so long, I lived a life defined by society. What I mean by this is I thought that I had to have "stuff" to be successful. It was always important to me to have the newest gadget and the most up to date "things" no matter how much debt it put me into. My success as a person was defined by what other people thought about me. Basically, I measured myself by other people's standards. Throughout this time I felt a deep seated discomfort. I always felt ill at ease and like something was not right. I was always searching... the latest spiritual fad, the latest gadget, the latest pop psychology trend, whatever. I was trying to fill this need inside of me. No matter what I never could. Whatever contentment I found was always short lived. My house, my life, my mind was filled with "stuff" but none of that "stuff" could make me happy. Partially due to me, my first husband and I divorced after 7 years of marriage. I feel this was partly because I was not happy and it was not that I was just not happy with him. I was not happy with myself and I did not know how to fix that. I was moderately successful, according to society. I had a good paying job, a college degree, a house, a new car, an up to date computer, etc. But I was not happy. I was not content.

When I met my current husband, my lifestyle changed dramatically. We moved to a rural area. I quit my job when I became pregnant with our daughter, Isabelle. My husband is a blue collar worker and while he works hard, he never brings in a lot of money. I found myself thrown into a much more simple life. Instead of going out looking for something to do on the weekends, we worked in the yard. We started our own garden. We moved into a much older farm house. And I began to realize that I was really and truly happy. I started to fill a deep contentment rise up in me. Of course, I contribute a lot of that to my new found Christian faith.. But it was more than that. It was getting out of the rat race and learning to really live life. I found that I had more time to think about life, contemplate things, get to know myself, spend time with my children and get to know them, really spend time with my husband, and learn how to rely on my family instead of outside forces. As I have become more aware of what simplfying my life has done, I have wanted to take it further. As I stated above, we live in an older farm house. We do not have central heating and air. At first this bothered me tremendously. I had been brought up with central heating and air! How can one expect to survive humid, southern summers with no AC!?! But then, I thought about the fact that people used to do just that and they lived! I'm not going to say that we don't have window units... We do. But we try not to run them much and we only cool down the areas of the house where we are. For heat, we close off parts of the house and use a woodburning stove, one space heater, and a fireplace. Can I just tell you how wonderful it is to have the whole family gathered together in one room!? And I have discovered that my woodburning stove keeps my house warmer than a lot of houses with central heating and air! We are planning a bigger garden this year. We also plan to frequent the local farmer's market more for what we don't grow. My Christmas presents this year will come out of my herb garden and my vegetable garden. I also plan to learn to knit and sew. We buy used as much as possible. We frequent the local Goodwill, Habitat for Humanity Re-Store, and Thrift Stores. Some of the clothes I get from there are better than those I see in retail stores! And you should see the entertainment unit we got for 15 dollars!! We also frequent yard sales. We plan on visiting more this summer and picking up furniture to refinish... some for us and other to re-sale. We were contemplating on getting rid of cable, but my husband just got a job with Direct TV so we will be getting that for free. Still cuts out one of the bills! We are, however, going to limit how much the TV is on so that we can spend more time as a family. We are going to start re-cycling as much as possible. I will also be making clothes as much as possible to suppliment what we pick up at the Goodwill or Thrift Stores. I'm going to start line drying our clothes to cut down on the use of electricity for the dryer. Currently, we only go out on rare occasions. This is great because now it is a treat instead of something that is expected! We eat at the table every night. My kids love to spend time outside instead of having to go to the mall or the movies. Its an adventure but one that I am truly loving. I am learning so much about myself and my family. We are learning that we don't have to have a lot of money to get by. Instead we just make what we need, that frees us from so much stress.

So I will be posting more about my journey here as time goes by... I'm sure that there will be frustrating moments as well as moments of joy. But the important part is that it will be a journey of self discovery!