I have
always been the sort of person who finds the beginning of a new year as a
therapeutic, soul cleansing event. I love the feeling of a new year ahead,
where anything seems possible, you can reinvent yourself, clear out old baggage
(both physical and emotional) and begin on another journey. Last year was one
of my favourite years, it was my 7th year being with my husband,
which I know people say ‘the 7 year itch’ well for us it was more of a ‘7 year
awakening’ I feel like we really learned the true value of each other and it was like the penny dropped, we are in this together,
for the long-haul and we must always value and put each other first. And it’s
been bliss. We cut out the excess baggage; we stopped making the 4 hour journey from Cornwall back to our roots (and a whole lot of negativity) in Southampton and instead totally focused our energies on the life we are building
in our new home of Cornwall. We kept positive; we no longer allowed other
peoples negative energy to zap us. I read books on Buddhism and we made some
amazing friends. So yer, 2015 you rocked. But alas a new chapter must begin,
and I plan to make this one every bit as fantastic as the last.
And so…… I
have hit the ground running in 2016; I have been looking within to understand
what make me tick, what brings happiness, peace and harmony to my family and
what we could all do without. I feel for us living more simply is key. The
whole reason we moved to Cornwall was to get away from the negative rat race of
town life and focus more on happy, healthy, family time in a peaceful setting. So
2016 for us is going to be all about reducing our carbon footprint, relying
less on money, eating healthy organic foods and becoming as self-sufficient as
we can. I have tried to put a list together of the key aspects that I’m going
to attempt to focus on;
- Make homemade everything!
No more
buying cleaning products, as the existing products I have run out I will keep
the containers and refill them with healthy, inexpensive homemade products.
There is a wealth of knowledge on pinterest on this subject, so I won’t be
short on recipes! Im abit of a cleaning addict, and breathing in all those chemicals on a daily basis is no good for me or the other people in our home, and so i will be using natural cleaning products with no nasties!
I plan to
bake once a week, ready for the week ahead, which will actually be some great
mother and daughter time for me and little bee as she absolutely, loves to
bake!
I will no
longer buy lotions and potions, if we have a health problem I will look for
natural remedies, rather than rushing to the chemist and pumping us full of
artificial drugs. I actually started this one yesterday, one of the twins has a
terrible cold, we had no vix vapour rub left, so instead I found a recipe and
made a homemade, healthy, organic, natural version, and it worked great!
- Grow our own!
We
already have two chickens in the garden, so have an abundance of eggs, I plan to
get 3 more chickens, and so fresh organic free-range eggs are definately on the
menu for 2016! In addition to this my husband has been busy using his carpentry
skills making me a stand for the top of the drive where amongst other things we
can sell our excess eggs, which will then pay for the chickens organic food and
bedding, meaning the chickens are having no financial strain on us.
I
also want to create my own herb garden; it seems like madness to be spending
money at the supermarket every week on cut herbs for various recipes when I
could just be growing them in the garden!
I
also plan to grow as many veggies as I can, we are hoping to get lucky and
source a greenhouse second-hand at a low cost!
·
- Reduce money spent/buy nothing new!
This
is going to be the real challenge for me.
Having moved away from a consumerism, 'keeping up with the jones' town
lifestyle to the countryside has slowly made me reduce the amount I spend on
items we really don’t need, (Lets be honest, im no saint, its mainly because i live down a lane in the middle of nowhere, therefore getting access to shops is about an hours drive!) for ourselves and the house. I do however love to
have a nice home, but I feel now that I could have more joy from not spending
on unnecessary items and instead reconnecting and loving the items we already
have! So my mission is to stop spending! And to help me feel more accountable
for my spending I’m going to keep a money journal. Everything I spend is going
to be written down in this little journal. I hope the process of actually
having to write down and be accountable for every penny I spend will help me to
think more and spend less! Accountability people, accountability!
Also
the weekly food shop, I plan to reduce this by a third. We already have eggs,
my dad is a butcher, and so he gets us our meat, cooked meats and cheese on his
weekly allowance, so these items are all already free to us (lucky us!) so with
growing our own herbs and veg we could potentially have some meals which our
almost free! And then with baking as well, I’m confident I can bring down the
food shop bill!
Wash
clothing less! We seem to have a problem in our household with people wearing
an item of clothing once, or using a towel once and then throwing it in the
laundry basket, when in actual fact things only really need to be washed when
they are actually dirty! So all 5 of us will be assigned a fresh towel on a
Sunday, and it’s to be kept and reused until the following Saturday, I mean
seriously, you use your towel when you’re at your cleanest point, surely it can
last a week! And clothes are to be folded and put away, not washed unnecessarily!
This will cut down on the washing machine being put on 2-3 times a day
(seriously guys, I feel like I’m drowning in washing most of the time!) and
then having to put the heating on when we don’t even feel cold just so I can
get the washing dried!
I
can’t express to you the excitement I have to start our family on a more
greener, healthier and simpler life and I hope you will enjoy reading all about
our journey…..
'The mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is open' - Dalai Lama
