"...all about how my life got flipped, turned upside down."
Do you have the Fresh Prince theme song stuck in your head now? No? Hmm...
"And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there. I'll tell how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air."
How about now? Yeah, you're welcome. :)
"And I'd like to take a minute just sit right there. I'll tell how I became the prince of a town called Bel-Air."
How about now? Yeah, you're welcome. :)
The last few months have been CRAZY around my house! I have been waiting to talk about it because there were some things that needed to be straightened out and people who had to be told in person and I didn't want to be one of "those bloggers" and allude to big news that I couldn't actually talk about yet. Anywho...Remember when I talked about how we were purging and simplifying? Well, what really kicked that into high gear was our upcoming move!
Yep. We are moving. Again.
The answer to your question is: Yes. We have lost our minds. Lol!
You see, the simplification that we have begun doesn't just involve our possessions. We are simplifying our lifestyle as well. We are sick and tired of life in the city. We thought moving to a smaller city would make it better but what we really want is to move out to the country. So after lots of discussion and prayer, we have decided to move a couple of hours south to where my husband grew up.
The closest "city" (if you could really call it that) is a couple of towns away. For a few years we will be renting a house in town while we save up to buy a few acres in the woods to build our small house on. Our new place is on a double lot though so none of the neighbors are super close like they are here and there are lots of trees in our yard. It will be a big change going from where we were a year ago (the third largest metropolitan area in the country) to a town of around 2,000 people. I am really excited about it though! Jer is too since he will have tons of cousins around to play with and woods to tromp around in.
The other area that is being simplified is Shelby's job. Time spent traveling has steadily increased over the last five years to the point where he was on the road 4-5 months out of the year and it has really taken its toll on all of us. He has also felt called to get back into some kind of ministry but since the traveling was often on short notice, he couldn't really commit to any sort of scheduled activity. He will still be working for the company but in a different position that will just be a side job and won't involve any travel. For his main job, he would like to get back into welding if he can find an open position. Whatever he ends up doing it will hopefully be some kind of 9-5 job where he can just go in, do his job, and then clock out and not have to think about it again until the next work day.
Some say that he is wasting his genius I.Q. by going back into blue-collar work but we've never really cared about what others think. ;) We have come to realize that there are a lot of things that we are *supposed* to want for our lives but we just don't. We have no desire to keep up with the Joneses. Our goal is for a simple, self-sustaining lifestyle. So we will continue driving our beat up 20-year-old vehicles that we paid cash for, work blue-collar jobs, and save up the cash for our little house that we plan to build by ourselves with enough land for a small farm to feed ourselves. I know it all sounds weird to most people but to us it sounds like heaven on earth.
Now that I am done rambling on about all of that, I should probably update you on my 90 Day Challenge.
The goals were:
Yep. We are moving. Again.
The answer to your question is: Yes. We have lost our minds. Lol!
You see, the simplification that we have begun doesn't just involve our possessions. We are simplifying our lifestyle as well. We are sick and tired of life in the city. We thought moving to a smaller city would make it better but what we really want is to move out to the country. So after lots of discussion and prayer, we have decided to move a couple of hours south to where my husband grew up.
The closest "city" (if you could really call it that) is a couple of towns away. For a few years we will be renting a house in town while we save up to buy a few acres in the woods to build our small house on. Our new place is on a double lot though so none of the neighbors are super close like they are here and there are lots of trees in our yard. It will be a big change going from where we were a year ago (the third largest metropolitan area in the country) to a town of around 2,000 people. I am really excited about it though! Jer is too since he will have tons of cousins around to play with and woods to tromp around in.
The other area that is being simplified is Shelby's job. Time spent traveling has steadily increased over the last five years to the point where he was on the road 4-5 months out of the year and it has really taken its toll on all of us. He has also felt called to get back into some kind of ministry but since the traveling was often on short notice, he couldn't really commit to any sort of scheduled activity. He will still be working for the company but in a different position that will just be a side job and won't involve any travel. For his main job, he would like to get back into welding if he can find an open position. Whatever he ends up doing it will hopefully be some kind of 9-5 job where he can just go in, do his job, and then clock out and not have to think about it again until the next work day.
Some say that he is wasting his genius I.Q. by going back into blue-collar work but we've never really cared about what others think. ;) We have come to realize that there are a lot of things that we are *supposed* to want for our lives but we just don't. We have no desire to keep up with the Joneses. Our goal is for a simple, self-sustaining lifestyle. So we will continue driving our beat up 20-year-old vehicles that we paid cash for, work blue-collar jobs, and save up the cash for our little house that we plan to build by ourselves with enough land for a small farm to feed ourselves. I know it all sounds weird to most people but to us it sounds like heaven on earth.
Now that I am done rambling on about all of that, I should probably update you on my 90 Day Challenge.
- Get healthy - I haven't done
muchany working out but I have been eating more whole foods and making more things from scratch. Some of the recipes that I have found have required tweaking and multiple attempts but I have found some good ones that I will start sharing with you soon. - Read the Bible everyday - big, fat fail. I have been praying every day though.
- Spend only on necessities - success. Since we have been spending so much time sorting and purging our stuff, it makes me want to stop buying new stuff altogether because I don't want to have to deal with getting rid of it later!
- Make one new shop item a week - success-ish. I have added a bunch of new items but many of them were from our Halloween collection that we are getting rid of and not items that will be part of the regular inventory. I will start working on that goal again after we move.
- Write one quality blog post a week - January and February went alright but I didn't have much for March. I got busy with the purge and I am trying to figure out where craft blogging fits into our lifestyle simplification. I will still be crafting and blogging but I want to make sure that I am making things that we really like or that serve a purpose. I don't want to make something just so that I can write a post about it and then have that item sitting around adding to the clutter in our house. So I have ended all sponsorships except for AdSense and I will be posting whenever I have something to share instead of keeping to a strict schedule.
- No recreational Pinterest or Facebook - success! Well, I think I ended that challenge about a week early but that's close enough, right? Since going back, I have removed a bunch of people from my Facebook news feed because there was too much negativity on there. I spend some time on Pinterest while watching tv in the evenings but not during the day at all. Even then, most of it is looking for new recipes to try and occasionally hitting the geek and humor sections for fun. I have mostly been staying away from the craft/diy section because it makes me want things that I don't really need.
There you have it. With the move coming up in less than two months, my new 90 day challenge is simply to keep my sanity intact. Lol! I am working on increasing the inventory that I have for the shop so that I can continue accepting orders while we are moving without having to worry about everything selling out. I will also be continuing the purge and spending freeze until after we move. That is pretty much it. I hope to get some posts scheduled but with all of this craziness going on, I'm not making any promises. :)
How about you? Did you give yourself any challenges? I would love to hear about how they went!
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This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting Polish The Stars.
8 comments:
"Some may say that he is wasting his genius I.Q. by going back into blue-collar work"
There is a shortage of skilled labor and a need for more respect for it. Many of learning disabled students show a huge aptitude for it and are very successful after they survive school.
Good luck on your next adventure.
I didn't mean any disrespect towards manual labor (its pretty much the only life that we have ever known). What I was saying is that because my husband's I.Q. is in the 99th percentile, people think that he should pursue a career that only uses his mind but he is much happier working at a job that uses his hands. People also give him crap all of the time for only having an associates degree because they think that he should have pursued a doctorate. Society tells us that we should keep climbing the corporate ladder but he has done that (upper management white collar work and what we consider to be a large house) and now we are choosing to go back down the ladder (blue collar manual labor and a small house) which most people think is weird or that we are not living up to our potential. All I am saying is that just because you have the *ability* to do something that society has deemed important, it doesn't mean that it is what will make you happy. We all have to decide for ourselves what is important to us. :)
I love the new way you choose for living! With a farm, with your boy in the woods with their cousins. I also think that it's heaven on earth! I live in a big big city in south america and with my husband we also dream of living in a little town in Cusco, growing up our own food and have some kids going around free! I wish you tons of luck in your new adventure! Be safe and have fun!!! xoxo
This post makes me want to sell everything I own including our new house and simplify! We are in the same boat (super intelligent husband and the same sort of mindset) and for a brief moment there we sort of lost touch with who we were and fell into that "keeping up with the joneses" mentality. But we are shaking free of it, my husband is exploring what he would like to with himself as white collar doesn't appeal to him either and are already considering the best time to sell our home (the one we just bought lol) to simplify a little. I'm also with you on the whole land, country, smaller home thing! I wish you guys much luck! I'm a little jealous ;P
Megan,
I am very happy for you and very jealous of you. I always wanted a small house in the country with lots of kids and a happy husband that went to work and came home at night. Didn't get it. Oh, well, God knows what He is doing even if I don't. One person I recommend for the healthier eating is Susan Powter. A lot of people see her as a bit extreme but her recipes are good and we enjoy them very much. Ms. Powter has published a couple of cook books and a book entitled "Food". Very interesting reading. These can be obtained through your local library or Amazon. Wish you the best of luck.
Maureen
You have discovered the secret to happiness, Megan. Do what you love/is right for you and don't listen to the nay-sayers. I'll look forward to future posts (about your 'downward progress' :) in your entertaining and in formative writing style.
Best of luck to you and your family!
Kay
You are great encouragement to me. I pray Gods blessings of provision for a job Shelby will be enjoy. Can't wait to see your future posts. I have a desire to start a blog but no idea where to start or what to blog about besides physical pain? :-)
How is the 90 day challenge going? I should start one.
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