Rose Colored Glasses

Anyone missed me? I know it’s been a very long time since I have posted anything here, but let me assure you that those reasons are no longer a factor in my life! Being that I am newly unemployed also means that I have once again reclaimed my 1st amendment rights! I am sorely dismayed that anyone in this day and age who has a blog, Facebook, My Space, or other social networking site is subject to the fear mongering put forth by employers, bankers, or any other pathetic corporate institution who wishes to stick their two cents further into the lives and freedoms of the average American, even if their blogs happen to be as benign as mine. It’s a very sick sign of our times. However, I no longer have to worry under the yoke of fear that I will be an HR concern should I post a recipe for homemade laundry soap, or support Urban Homesteading. Those days are far behind and I am now free to live my life as the Green Goddess I truly am In my new posts I will also show you not only how to live a “greener” lifestyle, but to do it on a budget! Anyone who knows me can tell you that I have been trying to pinch the hell out of old Abe for years! Luckily trying to turn one penny into two has made my family’s transition from a dual income household to a single income household much less turbulent. Like I’ve always said….We’ve never been offended by the word CHEAP! Ha!

You may be wondering how we did on our 6 month challenge to live locally and sustainably. Well, (drum roll please…) WE DID IT! We managed to spend more than 70% of our economical buying power locally!! It was a challenge at first, but with research and training ourselves to live life in a different light we managed to make some major changes. We also managed to make those changes fun! For instance, the holidays were turn into a “Homemade Holidays” which required us to make gifts for our family. This caused a lot of thinking and manual labor, but in the end the gifts we made I think were worth more than anything we could have bought! For situations such as birthdays, etc. we simply asked others to consider gifts cards from their fave local vendors, restaurants, shops. This helped us explore many new places that we’d not yet ventured!

Eating of course has been more than an adventure for us. The fact that we as a family have gone on a low fat diet, as well as living locavore really meant that we needed variety in recipes. I took that challenge on and with the exception of one or two dishes that we all agreed never to make again, we’ve enjoyed being creative! We’ve also learned a valuable lesson on how eating healthy and locally effects us in a very “immediate” way. When I say “immediate” I am referring to the few times we have dinned out and ordered food that sounded really good, but turned out to be way to rich for our systems. Ha! Each of us has learned this lesson the hard way  However, this was a very good lesson not only for my husband and I, but more so for our son who we pointed out that “clean living” has such a positive impact on your physical person that even one meal that isn’t at the same level of quality we are used to can make you feel like junk for a day! Think about how bad we’d feel if we still lived that way! He really took that to heart, and his father and I took it to heartburn 

I guess as George Jones once sang “These rose colored glasses that I’m looking through, show only the beauty, cause they hide all the truth.” It’s been so nice to be able to strip away a lot of unnecessary clutter, bad habits, and rat race mentality from our lives in pursuit of a much more simplified, greener, healthier lifestyle and home for my family. With February right around the corner I would have normally been found hiding in my house praying for winter to be over, but these days with the promise of spring right around the corner there is so much to do before it gets here that I am happy to be kept busy through each season! Living seasonally is also such a welcome feeling….the feeling of being connected once again to the cycles of life has brought me more than I can describe. I hope for all of my readers that we begin a movement to take back our right to be human, our right to belong to nature and re-connect to the land that we have seemed to have gotten so far away from. Not only for our health, but for our mental health and the longevity of our children and our grandchildren! We must reclaim the beauty of being.