A couple of years ago I remember sitting in our garden hanging up socks to dry, and dreaming of a more simple existence. I had an idea that if I didn’t have to do the constant juggling of family life and career life then I would have more time to make positive changes for our family.
Ultimately I wanted my family to have an existence that made us happier and healthier but also I wanted us all to consume less, learn new skills that made us less reliant on others and tread a little lighter on our lovely planet.
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!
Anyway, here’s a couple of posts related to our more simple existence…
Lovely chickens; you will be missed
