Summer Life

It's officially the first week of summer. The kids are finally out of school, while at least for a week. July 6th, the kids go back to school 4 days a week for 6 weeks. I'm really happy that they get to have summer school at such a young age to help them maintain what they have learned through their year in school. I think it will help them have a better start to the school year in the fall. That being said, summer is a time to have fun and enjoy some time away from the hectic pace of the school year. Unfortunately, I have to continue to work, but I am going to continue to work part time so that we can have some family fun. I am hoping that we can take some time and enjoy some time hiking and spending time outside with family and friends. I am also hopeful that we can get to the beach and enjoy the water. I think this may be the summer that we get the kids out kayaking. I want to make sure that we expose our kids to spending time outside in nature and enjoy everything that our earth has given us. This winter, we started taking the kids snowshoeing. We all had fun and got outside in one of the worst winters we have seen in a while. Now it's time to share our summer activities, even though we have started taking them hiking and camping a couple of years ago and plan to continue that for the years to come. With summer hopefully in full swing, we have started planting our garden. We have most of our tomato plants and our pepper plants in the garden. We have what seems like a good growth of salad, and we had a good start to our peas, but they got eaten by bunnies. My husband took time and fixed our fence that got damaged this winter, so hopefully that will help us keep the animals out and our veggies in. We have also planted seeds for cucumbers and luffa plants. I just bought a container blueberry and raspberry plant. I am looking forward to being able to go out and pick berries as we need or want them. I need to get back to the local nursery and pick up a couple of eggplant plants as well as some potato plants (I have purple potato seeds prepared for planting) and get our squash and kale/Swiss chard plants going. I really want to get away from eating predominantly meat and start eating a lot more green veggies. I really want to start following through with my diet goals and my creative goals in life. I need to start eating clean and spending time being creative. I need to continue to get my life organized and get rid of things that I don't need. The sad thing is, I know what I need to do, I just need to get motivated to do it. I am hoping that eating a clean diet with less processed foods, less starchy carbs, more green leafy veggies and lean protein (including beans), and way less sugar. In our society, it is so difficult to eat clean and healthy. There are so many reasons and justifications to make you feel better about eating processed junk food. I truly believe, once you get your body free of processed foods, you will succeed in living a clean natural life. Its not easy to rid your body of these foods, but it is something that I continue to try to work on. I also want to work on my goal of learning about herbs, natural medicine, and essential oils. I am hoping to share some of my challenges and hopefully more success as I go along. This is something that I continue to work tirelessly on and something that I will always work on. Here's to living a handmade and natural life and enjoying the process of getting there. Amy

Handmade and Natural Health

As I've written often, I continue to seek out my true way in life. I continue to want to focus on living a handmade and natural life, but it has not been easy. I continue to love being creative, sewing and other fiber arts as well as paper crafts and photography. I continue to want to learn about herbs, aromatherapy, and natural remedies. I want to have a life that is more natural and healthy. My lifestyle, currently, is no where near where I want to be. I have a crazy amount of stuff that I really need to get rid of or find a place for. I'm thinking that my lack of organization is big part of why I am not living the life I want. I am hoping to get more organized then attempt to get more focused on my goals in life. That being said, I am going to work on getting more organized. I am going to get back to basics (as I have often said) and start working on living life the way I want to. I am going to get my garden going. I am going to work on having a suburban homestead, where I can hopefully start living off my land within my means. I don't and won't have animals anytime soon, but I have a nice large garden and want to make sure I use it appropriately. I have plenty of crafts supplies to be able to continue being creative. One thing I have forgotten about for a long time, is my love of natural health and remedies. I really want to learn about herbs and essential oils. I want to grow my own herbal medicine garden. I want a herbal garden to be a huge part of my suburban homestead. I want to have a real suburban homestead. I want to eat healthy, natural foods. I want to be creative and sew and knit, and crochet. I need to take some time away from the web, from Facebook, and unplug. Life is too short to be addicted to technology and TV. Summer is here and I want and need to spend good quality outside fun with my family and continue to do even when the weather gets cold. I will continue to blog about my experience in suburban homesteading and what I learn while doing so. I am hopeful that I can get back to following my beliefs and my passions as I live my life. I am hoping that some day, I'll find my way and figure out how to be happy living my life. I have so much happiness already, I just need to make sure that I am following my passions and dreams while being with and loving my family and loving life. Love, Amy