progress

 

 

I’ve spent my “free-time Friday” this week, moving furniture around a bit within our little home.

I’ve now made room for my writing desk to go into our living room space so that it will front on to the big glass doors, which means I’ll now have a lovely view of our garden to look out on when I write, instead of only being able to see the top of the trees – which was my previous view from the dining room table – due to me being ‘horizontally challenged’ 😀

I love our garden so much – and love to take my laptop outside to write, when the weather is being kind – but of late its either been blisteringly hot, or pouring with rain – and as we don’t yet have a covered outdoor area, it means I am confined to indoors during those times.

Right now, we don’t use our lounge-room area a whole lot – its more of a winter area for us in the evenings; but when I’m home alone, I’ll often use the area for reading, otherwise it doesn’t get a lot of traffic – so I’ve been looking at ways to re-jig it, so that it not only gets more use, but is a more practical space for us.

And what better way to do that than to incorporate my writing desk into the area!

I have also been keeping a look-out at the tip-shop and the second-hand shops for a day-bed, which I will put along the wall that currently houses a huuuuuuge lounge-chair and a chest of drawers.

The drawers will move to the next wall over, and the lounge-chair will probably be sold.

We don’t use the lounge-chair, and rarely have visitors who would use it – so its just being a space-sucker!
(although our puppies may disagree with my opinions on this particular piece of furniture)

Its all a work in progress, and today I’m loving’ the progress I’ve made! 🙂

Sarah

 

 

 

My lovely calm writing space.
You can see the view I have, in the title Image for this post
🙂

gettin’ closer

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Its a year on from my “one step at a time” post – and I’m reflecting a bit about where I am now as opposed to this time last year.

Some things haven’t yet changed.

I am still at my job as a Manager, I am still working three days a week, and I’m still not a full-time HouseSpouse.
YET!

A lot has change though…

We have the house in town on the market – for sale.
We have moved full-time into the FarmHouse.
We have stacks of garden beds that are flourishing with edible produce, that fills our bellies with wholesome homegrown goodness.

We have enough surplus veggies that I am able to do canning so that our pantry shelves are stocked with a variety of foods that we know the ingredients of, and I routinely make our own bread.

We have chickens that supply us with all of our own fresh eggs, and we home-cook 95% of the food we eat.

I have managed to reduce our food budget substantially.
I have also paid off a lot of credit card debt, and will hopefully have paid off the remainder of it in less than a year.

We also no longer have cable tv or home phone line payments to have to find the money for.

I have reduced my clothing spending significantly, although we are going to need to buy some new-to-us work shirts soon, as the ones we currently share are getting a bit faded and threadbare lol.

And – we’ve reduced our power and water consumption!

I may not be as close to where I want to be as I would like – but I am certainly a lot closer than I was a year ago – and for that, I’m pretty darn proud of the headway I’ve made…

Sarah

gettin’ stuff done!

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I’ve been back to the house in town today, and have done some mega cleaning.

All the floors have been vacuumed, and some of them mopped.
The kitchen sink is sparkling like new and all the kitchen benches and the breakfast bar have been cleared and cleaned.

I have tidied up the front room / office, staged some furniture, pruned the houseplant and vacuumed up all the spider-webs.

I pulled all the furniture away from the walls on the patio, swept down all the walls, and vacuumed up all the spiders and their associated webs, then swept the patio tiles, mopped up some marks, wiped down the tables, and repositioned the furniture.
I even managed to get all the stairs and pathway swept, and the houseplant out there also got a bit of a haircut in the midst of it all.

The main bedroom is closed off so that the cats can’t get in, and there are only two bits of stripping that need completion in the spare bedroom, and then some touchup paintwork on those bits.
The 2nd bedroom is fine how it is.

Once our youngest daughters wedding is done & dusted, and all the various family members have gone back to their different corners of the country, I will empty the kitchen cupboards and drawers, and the pantry – but the kids will be staying in the house from this Wednesday onward, until Sunday or Monday – so it won’t be until next week that I can get to that.

The big bathroom has had the the last of the stripping and gapping done, and there are just a few paint touch-ups needed in there too, but the smaller bathroom just needs a wipe over and the shower recess needs a final scrub, but I’ll wait for next week to do that bit – cos the visiting kids are bound to make a mess!

I’m now back at the Farm, and have a pile of laundry to get through, as I didn’t do any washing over the weekend.

I’m hoping to get to whipper-snipping around the raised beds out near where we park the cars done while the washing-machine is doing its thing – but right now I’m waiting for a phone call that I don’t want to miss – and phone reception is a bit hit & miss at the best of times, but gets markedly worse the further you move away from the FarmHouse where the booster-box for the mobile signal is, so for now i’ll just hang around inside and get some chores done in here…

The whole Farm was mowed again over the weekend.
My Darling doesn’t find it quite as funny as I do, but the ‘clean green slate’ only lasts about 2 hours before the yellow woodsorrel (oxalis stricta) that is in plague proportions amongst the grass, throws up a whole pile of new flowers – so the entire paddock is just a sea of glorious little golden flowers.

It really is very pretty, but drives My Love demented, as by the next morning its back to looking unmown. lol
I can’t help but laugh – every.single.time!! 😀
🌼🌼🌼🌼

Go slow and enjoy the day Folks,
Sarah

today…

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Today is different.

Today I got out of bed quite well rested.
I had a really decent sleep last night, because it rained through the night, and i always sleep soooo much better when it rains.

I have also taken a fortnight off work – which actually winds up being 18 days – so that is a big load of stress gone off my back for the time being!!

And to top it off, I also slept well because My Love & I came to a very important decision last night, Continue reading “today…”

comparisons

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I’m having a bit of a ‘comparison’ dilemma at the moment and whilst I know that comparing oneself to others is never a healthy or helpful thing – I’m just not quite sure how to get it “out of my system”…

It makes it that much harder – because the person I am making the comparison with, is my Love.

My Love is 5 years older than me, and is a healthy happy vibrant person, who loves Continue reading “comparisons”

reflection

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On reflection – the other day, I was shown a perfect example of how I know I’ve changed over the last couple of years.
I had to go into town to do some shopping and plus a Physio appointment, but I was also going to the house in town prior to all that, to do some cleaning up.

I was halfway to town when I realised Continue reading “reflection”

one step at a time

I’m changing my Life.
One small step at a time…

I’m moving myself slowly and gently back towards being a Simple Life Farmer.

What does that actually mean?

To me and for me – it means that my Life will no longer be about working outside of the home.
It means that I will spend my days working our small 1.5ac holding (known as Strigidae Farm) growing as much fruit and vegies as I/we can manage to sanely look after.

It means I’ll be cooking the majority of our meals from scratch.
It means pre-prepping and freezing some meals – so that when I have busy days and just cant be bothered with dinner – there will be something tasty and nutritious easily at hand.
It means canning and dehydrating our surplus food, so that we have plenty of stocks for during non-peak growing times.

It means I will be sending my Spouse to work with a thermos of coffee, an insulated water bottle and a lunchbox of yummy home-made stuff, instead of drinks and lunch having to be bought.

It means I’d like to recycle and upcycle as much as I can – particularly when we’re DIYing around the Farm.

But – what it also means to me – is that I am planning on looking after not only my Spouse in a better way – but also looking after ME better…

Until next time – have a good one and look after YOU!

Slow down, enjoy Life and Breatheeee…

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