Hello BFF’s! I’m not going to bother filling you in on my to-do list that we chatted about in my previous posts and whether I’ve accomplished it or not.
I haven’t.
So, I started to ponder other things we could chat about.
We had one 65 degree day and boy did that feel good for the soul. In our part of the world, mid-March still has snow on the ground and you’d better not put away your snow pants for another month. Snow is not a rare occasion for a while longer.
But, I’ve been dreaming of spring flowers and strawberries. And fabric and dish towels. My Spoonflower cart has a bit of yardage of some of my old fabric faves from previous designs and some new designs I’ve worked on sitting there waiting for me to consider it full and then pay for it.
Wait ’til you see them on a dish towel…happiness.
This past month I have mentioned, on more than one occasion in my chats with people, that I was still wondering where the simple country life was. Part of the reason why we moved our young family was due to the lure of country life. Simple country life.
You know, lemonade and tree swings. Hot days lazing about. Cold winters putting a puzzle together by the fireside.
I grew up in rural Upstate NY and loved every minute of it. Although my family did not farm anything, I was surrounded by farmland and the people who did. My scent memories are often of country nature smells, even manure. Ahhhhh. The smell of the fields during a summer night still makes my soul melt and add in the sounds of crickets and other naturely night sounds, I could lie there listening forever.
My after-college life landed me in the area where my college was and my suburbia days began. A country girl at heart, I also enjoyed my days with most things at my fingertips. At some point though, the country life started calling me back.
I began fantasizing about sipping Country Time Lemonade on the porch once my chores were done and I wanted our children to have that same experience.
The interesting thing is that they have started telling me over the past few weeks that they wished they could live the simple life again. I’m an awkward bird, as you know, and I already keep things pretty quiet and simple. We all love being at home with little routine so I do not add busy-ness to our days in the form of extra activities and running around. But as my muffins age and with the new school and being closer to family, we do have opportunities to be involved in activities and being out and about.
Even fun things can keep you busy and away from home.
I’ve been pondering their wish and asking them questions to find out what they mean by “the simple life”. We’ve gone through a lot of changes this past year and are still heavily in the middle of upheaval, so that by itself has interrupted our simple life. Because we love being at home, I think we’re really craving a place of our own. Our current living arrangement is temporary and we feel that.
None of our current world is bad. But it certainly does not feel simple.
What is the simple life? Is it our own place? Is it being at home everyday? Is it in having more routine or less routine? Will we feel it during the summer when we have no school routine? Will it feel better once we hit the one-year mark of being in our new world? Will things feel more familiar then once we start to repeat them and does that bring simpleness? Was all of this change the reason for losing sight of the simple life or did it just shift the factors of daily life enough and we need to be patient as we settle into our new “shoes”?
Would chickens and more critters make life feel more simple? What about owning an old farmhouse that needs major love? And living back and forth between our two places should make things simple. I bet starting an online country shoppe would make things simpler. Having a garden we can’t manage because we’re so excited to get our hands dirty finally will most definitely bring on simple life.
What do you think about all that kids? Can’t you just see the simple life right around the corner?
Looks like I’m on the right track…
