do you ever sit back and compare what your life was like a year ago? two years? five?

i find myself doing that often. especially in this past year. 2012 & 2013 were years that kinda flipped the script on me for reasons i can’t delve into on the internet. it’s the internet! you already know too much about me as it is.

but i can say that one of the big changes in our household is our financial status. that’s no secret. i’ve talked about being poor again on here previously. i’ve always lived a life of modest means. my needs were met but nothing too extravagant until sometime in my mid 20s. i made a really good salary and i met and married a man who made a good salary. i experienced a few short years of abundant income, even in my decision to leave full-time employment. most often we had more money than we could spend and i was diligently squirreling money away for a rainy day.

and then the rainy days came, rainy weeks, going on a rainy year. thank goodness for that diligence.

so now you find our family very much like so many others, scraping by, making it but just barely. i have questioned this season in my life and have come to a realization of its purpose: to show me how to live the life i really want.

and to show me that the life i dream of living is valid and important.

after careful thought and inventory, i have to admit that i wasn’t living the type of life i desire before. i wasn’t being authentic and it was making me terribly unhappy. isn’t it funny how less money often equals more happiness? i could get into a list of reasons why this is but i’m sure you know them. even if you’re a sitting pretty, scrooge mcduck doing back strokes through your sacagaweas you still know deep down that money distracts and deters.

being poor makes you focus on the important things in life. it makes you question what you really need to be happy. you can’t focus on what you want. you have to focus on what you need.

sometimes i feel pressure to go out and take any old job that i’m qualified for to force a solution to some of the problems but then i stop myself and think about what i really want my life to be about and i am overcome with the strong, sure feeling that my life needs to be about less and not more. the answer is not to go out and make more money. it is to eliminate things from my life that are energy, monetary and time sucks.

because here’s the thing: i’m the happiest and most fulfilled with my life’s work that i can ever remember.

if i had to architect a perfect life’s work for myself i could sit back right now and laugh at myself for my worries because i’m already there. i’m doing it. I spend every day with my daughter and that is the most important thing to me and it always has been. i remember having these thoughts in high school and feeling guilty that i didn’t have strong career aspirations because what i really saw myself doing was being with my family, tending a garden, running an efficient household. but that seemed so anti-feminist at the time. well, and figure in that i was nowhere near home & baby making at that time. i wanted to see and experience life first.

but i know that i’ve always had this in me. i’ve always dreamt of this life. i’ve always wanted my life to be about mothering and babies and living a sustainable existence, living simply, living free.

i’m with my girl. i help women become mothers and men become fathers. i educate darla with life and adventure. i am conscientious about my connection to this earth and take that into consideration with every purchase and action i take. i am lucky enough to have a part-time job that believes in what i do and i believe in what they do. that job even aligns with my earthy sensibilities. and i get to write here. this pays me nothing but it sure gives me an outlet and i treat it like a job. because some day i hope it will be.

i love writing this blog and i love having you read it. i hope my readers can see that this blog isn’t about telling you how to live your life. i can’t give you ideas and how-to’s on putting together a dashing ensemble. i can’t give you crafty instructions for throwing amazing parties. i can’t give you recipes that are going to wow your family and nourish them. even though you will find those things on here from time to time, you won’t find that sort of instruction here on the reg.

the only thing i can offer to you, readers, is myself. i can only offer you how i live my life and my feelings and thoughts about that. i can offer you my desires and my mistakes. i can offer you the hilariousness of my daughter that gets me from one day to the next. i can offer you my struggles. and i can offer you the ideas and strides i am making towards creating the life that i’m passionate about.

so, what i want from my life is simplicity, peace, love, happiness and adventure. i want fewer things and more experiences. i want to live a life in accordance with my connection to the earth and my fellow human beings. i want a life that is focused less on how much money is in my bank account and more on that feeling of fulfillment i have that has settled down into my core because i’m doing exactly what i want with my life {although i wish i could do it a little more frequently. expecting columbus couples, give columbus birth arts a chance!}

awww gosh, i never know how to finish posts like this. maybe i’ll just end it by saying thank you. i’ll end it that way because it applies in every possible way in my life and to so many people. yes, that’s perfect:

thank you.