About

Recently I decided that life was too precious to be doing a job that I wasn’t very keen on anymore. In July 2009, I handed in my notice on my 12 year old career to become full time mum to my two boys, and retro wife to the lovely Mike.

I plan to fill my time in the way that my mum and my grandmother filled their early thirties: staying at home, raising their children, cooking, baking, sewing, knitting, nurturing and living a more frugal existence.

In the last 12 months my wish to impact less on our planet has grown and I have grown ever more uncomfortable with the ways of the consumerist world in which we live. Mike and I often talk about this stuff, but never, we feel, do much about it. Life always seems too busy, too complicated.

Without the complication and constant rush of juggling a career with child rearing and homemaking I am hoping that I can help my family lead a less impactful life.  And ultimately make us all happier and healthier too.

Rachel Ellis, July 2009.

Update:

Now, almost two years on since I made the leap away from my career I still have some way to go to achieving all of my aims but I feel (most days) that, as a family, we’ve come a long way.

We spend more time outdoors; we shop more locally and seasonally; we grow more of our own; and we have learnt to keep chickens. We buy a lot less processed food and I cook almost everything from scratch.

I have learnt some new skills like knitting, sewing and crocheting and we certainly (possibly because of the budget constrictions of being a one-wage-household) consume less ‘stuff’. I buy more things, including clothes, second hand and do quite a lot of swapping, borrowing and freecycling.

Of course we’re not perfect. I have bought furniture in Ikea recently, because it was cheap; I still feed the children fishfingers at least once a week; and I still take the car on the school run each day and despite swearing off the big supermarkets last year, I have been in them a couple of times recently, and for that I feel really bad!

I am working again, from home, and around the children. Mike and I have set up our own digital agency, which is very exciting. Getting used to living on one salary and getting used to living a more simpler existence over the last couple of years, has, we think, given us the confidence to make this big leap. We are really enjoying working together again, and love feeling that we have more control over our lives and what we do with them.

The boys continue to thrive. They exhaust us and amaze us on an hourly basis. I know we will always cherish these days; conveniently forgetting, of course, all the snot, the shouting and the tears.

Rachel Ellis, July 2011