Fire (the good kind), sweaters,games, books and quilts on the windows is how we made it through the winter. I am doing the spring dance now though.
I found this amazing chair in the garbage. No joke. All it needed was a new seat bottom. The cushion and red velvet covering was there. So I borrowed a buzz saw from a friend and with a piece of plywood (that i found in the garbage) i made a new seat.
All furnishings courtesy of thrift stores, friends and the garbage boutique.
Saturday was spent outside building fairy houses and gardening. My daughter did the cutting back of ornamentals. (She likes tools!) No more freezes.
Monday night, the kids were at their Dads. I took a plate, salad dressing and seasoned sunflower seeds from a friend, out to the garden and had the most beautiful dinner.
I have been volunteering my Tuesdays at friends organic farm. Im learning and working outside, surrounded by beautiful people in exchange for experience, community and some vegetables. I highly recommend you check out the small, family owned organic farms in your community. They would probably love your help and you would probably learn and love.
I just dropped off the remnants of our 'not shopping' box at the thrift store. A few weeks ago I brought a couple items of clothing to a neighbor I thought would enjoy them. The last skirt i could wear to a 'job' or someplace professional, but not my garden. Gone. In exchange she had two boxes of clothes someone had given her. I helped myself, and then put some more of my clothes in the boxes. And then started calling similar sized friends. There was something for everyone and as we went along, some friends added items of their own to the boxes. Two weeks and seven ladies later, I brought a handful of clothes to the thrift store. It was such a fun and rewarding experience. It was so nice to see my beautiful friends, all of whom are on a 'budget', come up with something fun and new to them.
I am about to finish reading a fantastic and inspiring book. Radical Homemakers, Reclaiming Domesticity from a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes. http://radicalhomemakers.com Go to her site. Check it out. I cant say enough good about it, so i wont (really I need to go see about an art project). From the back of the book: "Radical Homemakers is about men and women across the US who focus on home and hearth as a political and ecological act; who center their lives around family and community for personal fulfillment and cultural change. It explores what domesticity looks like in an era that has benefited from feminism; where domination and oppression are cast aside, where the choice to sty home is no longer equated with mind-numbing drudgery, economic insecurity, or relentless servitude.... If you ever considered quitting a job to plant tomatoes, read to a child, pursue creative work, can green beans and heal the planet, this is your book."
The other night it took me at least an hour to fall asleep because of all the wonderful images from a beautiful day, running through my head. Laying in bed, savoring the day. What a change. What a life. I wish you well. xo
So much lovin!
ReplyDeletealways an inspiration!
ReplyDeleteLife is full of contradictions. The American Dream is a nightmare in diguise, you don't "wake up" sometimes until it's too late, sadly enough. I grew up in a simpler era, when life was supposedly wretched (Great Depression).
ReplyDeletePeople pulled together because it was about survival. It's astonishing how having little affects your outlook. No locked doors because who would be stupid enough to enter a house only to find nothing worth stealing. Rare was the case of SRD's (stress relateed disorders) or anxiety attacks. We would have block parties where a side street was free of cars. Ha ha. That was easy because hardly anyone had a car. Then we would share whatever food we had and dance, play games or tell stories.
Someone forgot to tell us we weren't supposed to have a good time, so we just enjoyed our ignorance. WE actually enjoyed the simplest pleasures which modern folks would disdain as
naive.
Then the postwar era brought in materialsm-keeping up with the Joneses and all the claptrap that went with it. Families began to break up because the grass was always greener elsewhere.
Nobody told us we shouldn't be unhappy, so we just suffered in our ignorance.
Amen. Thank you for stopping by.
ReplyDelete