a shitty mood

I usually really like Mondays.

They generally start – once my Love has gone to work – with some quiet contemplation.
No tv, no radio, no music – just the quiet of the morning, with the different birds all chatting away at full volume; like a mass of old folk outside a newsagent, talking about their plans for the week…

Its a morning when I wander around the garden – just me and my dog, looking at what needs doing, what needs attention, picking a few things as I go, and planning what I will water before the day heats up, and maybe a few rounds of ‘fetch’ to keep the dog happy, engaged and to fortify some of his training.

Its also when I sit and have a quiet breakfast, and think about how incredibly lucky I am to be in this place, at this time – and how grateful I am to have what I have surrounding me.

But some mondays – I just get the shits!!

Some mondays I get annoyed that I am going to spend the next 4-6 hours after my Love leaves for work, washing dishes, cleaning up the yard, sweeping, vacuuming, and mopping the floors, making the bed, wiping down the benches, watering the garden, packing up the garbage, emptying the fridge into the cooler bags so I can take it into town, packing non-refrigerated stuff into carry bags and lugging it all out to the car; collecting the laundry and lugging it to the car, packing up the computers and lugging them to the car too.
Locking up the sheds, closing all the blind and windows, turning off all the powerpoints, then pulling down and locking the roller-doors; clicking the collar on the dog, and putting him in the car and his seatbelt on, all before the final locking of the door, and getting in to the car to drive to our house in town, where we’ll spend the next four days.

When I get to town, its time to unpack all the stuff I’ve only just put in the car, put all the fridge and food stuff away, then start on the weekends laundry after lugging it too, up from the car.

Once thats on, its time to prep the house for us ‘moving back in’ for the rest of the week.
The floors all need vacuuming and mopping, flat surfaces all need wiping down, as do the vanities – even though I’ve done them all on the friday before, prior to heading off to head to the Farm!

I plan the menu for the week, and in between all that I reload the washer & dryer numerous times (we don’t have a clothes line in town 😕), and I take a trip to the grocery store to do the shopping for the next few days.

Today was one of those days when I had the shits…

Walking around crankily doing what needed to get done, being pissed off at having to close up and leave the Farmhouse for the next few days- when I sooo want to be here; mumbling to myself about what a stupid waste of time it was doing this same dance – every.single.week – just to go to a house that I didn’t want to have to deal with any more, and to a job I no longer want be at.

I was bloody miserable..! 😖

Even the dog knew something was up with me, so he was tailing my every move, and was constantly under my feet, or in my way – which of course was just making me crankier… 😒

It was time to just STOP!!

Time for an attitude adjustment – this wasn’t a good mind frame to be in, and the chores needed to be done whether I was happy or cranky.
It was going to be a lot more pleasant doing them – if I wasn’t in such a stinky mood.

So, I made myself a coffee, sat at the table, took off my glasses, and just stopped.

I consciously listened to the birds, and thought about how wonderful it was going to be, when I didn’t have to pack up and leave every week; when that time comes that I can spend the day all day in the garden if I want to, or tinkering about inside writing or painting a wall, or sewing something.

I thought about how lucky I am to have two roofs under which I can rest my head at the end of the day; when many are curled up on the ground with nowhere to call home.

I thought about the job I have, that brings in some income – no matter how ‘small’ it is…
Many have been to a hundred or more interviews and still have no job, and no idea where they’ll find the money for their next meal.

I thought about how grateful I am, that my Love supports me, and is willing to keep supporting me – not just emotionally – but financially too; in my soul-deep need to return to the ‘job’ I love most – that of being a HouseSpouse.

And then it came…
I could almost physically feel my mind and body shift.
Gratitude washed over me, like a slow, warm wave – leaving behind calm in its wake…

Today I chose to be happy.

I don’t manage to shift my attitude every time it stinks.
Sometimes I like to wallow in my misery, sometimes it almost seems that I like to have a ‘woe is me’ pity-party, sometimes I give in to the feelings of loneliness or rejection or whatever…

But then there are times like today – when I can look at myself objectively – and I can give myself the kick in the pants or the quiet space that I need, to get to where I need to be.

And on those days that I succeed? – I’ve got to admit – I’m pretty damn proud of me, for turning it around…

Until next time – look after you!

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wants & needs

As I’ve said before – I’m at the point in my Life now where there’s some things that have taken on more importance than others…one of those things is my OWN happiness.

I’ve worked at my current job for almost 9 years now, and have worked my way up about as far as I am able to, with the way that this particular business is structured.

I’m also at the stage where I am no longer enjoying my job – a job I used to love.

Because of that, I have scaled right back and have gone from working 5 or 6 shifts a week, down to two – and for a day either side of those two days, I’m either talking myself into going to work, or ‘recovering’ from the mental and emotional load that’s has come from being at work.

Additionally, my workload responsibilities have increased dramatically in the last 4 years, but the pay rate has remained static, other than the obligatory CPI increases.
It’s just not an ideal way to ‘waste’ 4 days a week…
As far as I’m concerned, there a lot more useful and productive ways I could be spending my time – and that’s my goal at the moment.

I’m hoping that by the end of the year, I will be able to resign/retire from work – and once again be a full-time House Spouse.

My Love and I have discussed this in depth, and we’re pretty sure that once the house in town has sold – well be able to swing it!
I am currently earning less each month than the mortgage payments on the house in town, so with that mortgage gone, we’d actually still be ‘ahead’, even without my wage!!

Life is not static, no experience (pleasure or pain) permanent, but for now – I simply have to live it, and make the best of it that I can – whilst working toward and preparing for being able to move to the Farm full time; leave work, take up my role of full-time House Spouse, and continue to grow the Life I want and need…

 

chicken curry

This morning I’m making a chicken curry.

When I’m making this particular one, I think the flavour is improved by using roast chicken – but (a) I don’t have the time or patience to pre-roast chickens at the moment, and (b) buying a roast chicken from the supermarket every time I want to make a curry would work out more expensive than buying a curry from the takeaway shop!

Soooo – what I do is this: our supermarket often has a ‘sale’ on their roasted chickens right before the next lot come out of the oven, (I’ve become pretty good at learning the timing of that!) and they mark them down to about a quarter of the price.

So I buy 2 or 4, depending on freezer space, take them home, pull them all apart, make up meal sized portions, and date-stamp them before popping the lot in the freezer.
Then – whenever I want something to have roasted chicken in it – whether it’s a salad, a curry, or a pasta dish – it’s just a matter of grabbing a bag out of the freezer.

Super simple, super frugal – & super tasty! 😁

 

Green beans, baby kiflers, and a portion of frozen roasted chicken – all waiting to be added to the pot to become a yummy chicken curry!

coffee, coffee, coffeeee

There’s no two ways about it…I’m a coffee junkie!!
A usual day for me is at least 4 cups — 6+ if I’m at work.

BUT – I very rarely buy takeaway coffee.
Theres two reasons…
I make a great cup of coffee – even if I do say so myself – so I’m more than a bit of a coffee snob but even more than that, I’m a coffee CUP snob!

Takeaway coffee can be dodgy at the best of times – unless you get it from a regular place, with a regular barista – but it realllllly shits me paying up to $5 for something I can make for about 40c at home, which I know will taste great every time.
But what irks me even more, is takeaway cups!!
They are shit for the environment, and to cap it off, they usually taste like shit too…!

My preferred coffee cup is a double-walled stainless thermos type, with a closable lid – to keep my coffee hot hot HOT.
I soooo don’t like lukewarm coffee. lol

Last weekend, I somehow left alllll of my stainless cups out at the Farm – which meant that I had to use one of my other ‘travel’ cups for work this week – and it darn near killed me!

My coffee didn’t stay hot for longer than a half hour, and the coffee certainly didn’t taste as ‘good’ as it usually does.
It may well have been psychosomatic – but thats totally irrelevant!! lol

Soooo – I planned to duck out to the Farm this morning before going to the supermarket, to drop stuff off that I’d packed in the car earlier in the week; and intended to grab one of my cups while I was there…which of course I got sidetracked with unpacking stuff and forgot all about – until I got to the supermarket, and went to take a quick slug of coffee before going in, and was greeted with a mouthful of tepid coffee from the non-stainless travel cup. BLERCH!!!!

And this is how I ended up with another beautiful double-walled stainless cup…

Needless to say – I got home from the supermarket, unpacked the groceries while the kettle was on to boil, washed out my gorgeous new cup, then promptly made myself a delicious hot cup of coffee, in my new cup, in celebration.

Ahhhhhh – its gooood..!

 

I usually have purple cups, but this one just looked too unusual and delicious!

 

a bit more back-story

Back in the middle of last year, we bought 1.5ac in the foothills outside of town, in a beautiful part of the northern Queensland Tablelands.
You can read about that over at the Strigidae Farm blog, so that I’m not wasting time by rewriting about it here. 🙂

So – for the last 8 months or so, we’ve been slowly working our way into making the shed a home, and getting our house in town presentable for sale.

Whilst most of it has been very enjoyable, it’s also been difficult.
My darling Spouse works a lot – and works long hours – pretty much 7 days a week, and loves the job with obsessive passion.
I only work a couple of days a week, and am now at the point of being very ready to wave goodbye to my job – and I’ll talk more about that decision later…

Up until mid last year, we used to take to breaks of about 3 weeks each, every 5-6 months – but since we found the Farm, we’ve decided that for the time being, all our finances and energy needs to be directed toward the goal of moving there permanently.
This won’t be able to last for the long term, as the only time my Love can really relax is when we are out of the country – so I think this is a decision that is going to need to be revisited…

We tried to do a ‘stay at home’ holiday in December, and it lasted about 3 days before she was back at work 😐 – and even though she adores her work – she needs a break…!

Anyways – back to the process of preparing for moving from house to farm – and the difficulties therein.

We’ve been slowly doing the shed conversion – and it now resembles a home enough that we could pretty much happily move in tomorrow.
The only things we don’t have, that the ‘normal’ home has is septic, and running water inside.
We currently use a system of buckets and jugs for water inside, we have a camp shower under an awning outside (which we love love love!), we do dishes outside under the awning also – which I’ve spoken about in another article, and we have a portable camping loo – which currently needs emptying every couple of weeks – but if we were there full-time, it would need emptying weekly.

I am the loo emptier – as my Love just doesn’t have the stomach for it.
Just the thought of it, and the facial colour changes, and the gagging starts.
Its pretty funny actually!
Emptying it doesn’t bother me in the least – and we are lucky to have a designated dump-point in town, which is free.

Oh yeah – the other thing we actually do need to be able to move out full-time, is to finish the fencing for the house yard, as we can’t bring our small dogs out until that’s done – or they’d just wander off and go make friends with the neighborhood – which probably doesn’t want them as friends. lol

Now this is where some of the difficulties come into play…
I am not in the most fabulous of health or physical condition – and some of the things that need to get done are just beyond me.
I also have a very small car, so the likes of moving furniture, just aren’t a physical or logistical possibility.
All I can contribute to that chore, is moving what I can to the patio at the house in town, so that it can be loaded in my Loves truck, and bought out.

And therein lies another couple of the problems.
a) I pretty much can’t help with carrying anything heavy down the stairs
b) the truck is almost never bloody home, to be able to put stuff into – and when it is home – there is no one around to help my Love get the stuff down the stairs and into the truck!
Aggghhhh!
I can help at the other end – cos the Farm is flat – so I don’t have to be wrangling stairs…

I’ve managed a lot of the packing of things like books, linen, clothing, and general ‘stuff’, and have been able to bring a lot of that out on my own.
Each time I come out, I load the car up as much as I can – so that the trip isn’t a ‘wasted’ opportunity.
But then there is the problem of not having anywhere to put stuff we need, once I get it to the Farm, because all of our drawers, cupboards, etc are still at the house.
Its ok with the stuff we can store – like books, blankets and winter clothing – as we have a storage container – but there just isn’t any place inside our Farmhouse to put stuff, (except for the kitchen shelving) – other than on the floor!

When you are living in a 9 metre by 7 metre space, one of the last things you need is stuff stacked up all over the already limited floor space.
Besides – I would quickly go a special kind of demented at the mess of it all…!

Soooo – we have still yet to find a work-around for that particular dilemma, but hopefully lotto will land on the doorstep – and I’ll just hire someone to come move everything. lol

At the moment, we also have a friend coming to the house in town, to do some of the bigger jobs that need doing prior to sale.
A lot of the little stuff I can do myself – but until the big jobs are done, and the majority of the “stuff” is out of the house – the just isn’t any point in getting into the little jobs – as a lot of them (like deep cleaning) will just need doing again once the building, sanding, painting, repairing etc has been completed.
And there’s no point cleaning to do the painting, until all the repairs are done.
Catch 22 again…

Soon(ish), I will tell you about the plans we have for the gardens on the Farm.
There’s nothing quite like a productive (& pretty!) garden to make you feel more centered and relaxed 🙂

And remember, if you’re enjoying Simple Life Farmer, please sign up to have updates sent directly to you.
(you can do this in the ‘please join me’ box)
I hope you do 🙂

Until next time, look after YOU!
Sarah

Our bottom paddock
Back when we first started converting the shed into our home.
Here, we are putting in two sliding-glass doors – on either side of the huge window in the centre.

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coincidence?

If you’re anything like me – as happens when you start out afresh with something or reinvigorate an old ‘love’ for something – whether it be cooking, knitting, gardening, diy or even fixing engines – you do a lot of reading…

This week I had a really weird ‘coincidence’ happen to me – which I didn’t realize until I sat down to have breakfast, on Saturday morning.

Most Saturday mornings have become a bit of a ‘ritual’ for me.
After we’ve woken and sat and had our coffee together, chatting about our individual planned days and the world in general, my Love goes into town fairly early to tend to our other animals, then goes to work – so I get to start the rest of my day deliciously slowly…

First thing is to get dressed, otherwise I’m pretty sure I could happily spend my day in jammies.
Once dressed, I pop a couple of bits of bread in the toaster, and while its cooking I do a sweep of the kitchen benches, gathering anything that didn’t get taken out to the dish-washing area the evening before, and I get everything set up ready to do the dishes.
(and for me – doing the dishes is its very own ’strange pleasure’ lol)

Once that’s done – my toast is ready, so me, my toast and my juice spread out at the dining table, with either my pen and lists, a book or an internet article I’ve been saving to read while I eat and just look around at the beauty outside.
As an aside – I seriously can’t wait until we have a decent outdoor table to have breakfast at!

Now, bear with me while I back up for a minute…
A couple of days ago, I had to go to BigW in town, to get some stationary supplies.
I of course somehow ended up going to the Stationary via the Books section, having a quick glance about as I passed though – trying super hard not to get sidetracked by alllll those books that would love to come home with me…

However — a small book, not much bigger than a notebook, with a grey and white cover drew me in.
The title was ‘Destination Simple’.
I flipped over to the back cover – and read only the first line: “simplify your life – from the inside out”.
I didn’t need to read any more, or know who it was by, or how much it was.
This book had chosen me!

Fast forward back to Saturday morning breakfast time, and that quiet bit of the day when I like to catch up on some reading – and I remembered that I had the book that I’d bought the other day, to make a start on!

Bite of toast, slurp of juice, and I smooth open the cover to the first page – which is the Acknowledgements:
to everyone who has read of listened to Slow Your Home over the past few years: thank you

Somewhere on the back of my neck, a few little hairs begin to raise…

I put down the book, and drag the laptop to within reach.
I wake it up, and pull up my browser.
Typically – there are about 12 tabs open.
I skim across the tabs, hovering my cursor over each one – reading each title as I go, but not opening them.

At the fifth one, I read: ‘Slow your home – slow right down and live the simpler life you want
😐

I open the tab, and its a blog: Slow Your Home
Author: Brooke McAlary

I look down at the discarded book beside me – Author: Brooke McAlary

I grab my phone and double-click my way to my podcasts app, and scroll through the list of podcasts still waiting for me to get to.
Amongst those waiting to be listened to is: The Slow Home Podcast with Brooke McAlary
😐

Those little hairs on the back of my neck are zinging by now…

I’m sure many would say that in my subconscious, I came across the book because I already knew about it, because I had seen it on the website, or heard about it on the podcast – but the thing is this: I had yet to even open the website, had yet to even listen to even one of her podcasts, and as such had no idea that a book even existed!
I had no idea Brooke McAlary even existed.
And just to cap it all off – she’s and Aussie too!

Added to all of this, the fact that the BigW in our town is not known for stocking anything that even remotely resembles ‘alternative’ reading!
Its pretty much narrowed down to either cook books, kids books, or the paperback equivalent of chick flicks!!
~ Ugh ~

So – the dishes might just have to wait a little bit longer this morning.

I think I’m going to spend a little bit of quality solitary time, getting to know this woman – and to see what loveliness she has to add to my Life.
I’ve got a feeling already that its going to be enjoyable…
I’ll let you know how it goes!

If you’re enjoying Simple Life Farmer, please sign up to have each new update sent directly to your inbox.
(you can do this in the ‘please join me’ box)

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

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a strange pleasure

Many would think I’m very odd – but one of the lovely things about the early part of my day when I’m at the Farm, is doing the dishes.

I have an old ‘bench’ of sorts, outside partially in the undercovered area, where I have my plastic dishwashing tub – which I fill with water from a bucket and a boiled kettle.

Standing out there, amidst the trees and our collection of potted plants, up to my elbows – swooshing warm sudsy water over the dishes, just gives me such a peaceful feeling – and at the end of it all, I have lovely clean dishes, and a sense of accomplishment to start my day off with…

It’s one of those times when it’s all about how you view the task at hand.
I choose to view it as a relaxing, cathartic accomplishment which I’ve done well, and that I have every right to be proud of.

What better way is there to start the day, than in being proud of a job well done! 😏
Sarah

Not everyone’s idea a of an enjoyable chore, or an ideal place to do dishes – but it sure is MINE

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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