Yearning for a -Free Life

There has been, naturally, discussion here and there of people not being ready to end their Christmas vacations. If you have already ended your Christmas vacation and wish you were still on it, I'm sorry to be admitting that we've had two weeks.

But it doesn't feel like enough.

I could really use another week. Or two. Or three. And I am looking inward to figure out why.

The only answer at the moment is that there is some sort of disconnect between how I am living my life and what I really want. What the innermost part of me says is how I was made to live. But what is it that I really want? Well, watching Pride and Prejudice recently, the version with Keira Knightley, I found myself going, "Yes, that is the life I would like." Not just like, but would thoroughly enjoy and love, I think. While they only show a bit of the involvement the family had in the goings-on of the household, it was all so much calmer and less rushed. Sure, there's laundry and some tending of the animals and some cooking. But other things, too. Go for walks. Hang out under trees with books. Travel by carriage--and not be in such a rush and it's not even that big of a deal if your carriage breaks down and affects your timing. Attend parties. Live fairly simply--yet still have enough to have hired staff. It was, as at least one site has described general life in the early 1800s, a leisurely life. Even for those who worked in typical lower and middle class settings.

from http://janitesonthejames.blogspot.ca/2011/08/trees-in-jane-austens-landscape.html

As this Christmas season comes to an end (it's the 10th day of Christmas, by the way), I find myself really longing for that kind of a -free life: constant-rushing-free; constant-outside-demands-free; too-much-excess-free. I'm not sure at the moment what the first step to take is for that--to attain a leisurely sort of life that doesn't slip into just plain laziness--but the desire is there.

What about you? Do you have similar thoughts about your own life? Things are too fast-paced? Too full of outside demands and even too much stuff? Will you join me this year in reclaiming the simpler, -free life that your inner self is asking for?

Life Is Never Completely Calm

I took a very unintentional break from posting. I had a crazy June, including company that stayed with us until the day before we left for Hawaii, our trip to Hawaii (which was amazing!), our dog back home nearly dying from IMHA while we were in Hawaii, taking care of that when we got back (and still taking care of...), looking for a house to purchase, finding a house to purchase, working our butts off for two weeks to get our current house ready to sell, showings, offer, house sold... Oh, add to that various doctors' appointments, looking after my nieces and nephew for the month of August--just during the work day--physiotherapy for messed up rotator cuffs and who knows what else. Thoughts of posting would come and almost immediately leave.

Outside our condo rental in Kihei, Maui, Hawaii.

Now that school is back in session, things are actually a little calmer. For now. Our possession date is September 29, so I somehow need to have a good schedule of homeschooling, getting things done for moving--like packing and the many phone calls and arrangements that need to be made for things like house insurance, electricity...--AND get things done that are important to me that I somehow lose track of, like blogging, writing, business building and continual learning/self-improvement. It has really hit me these past few weeks that there is never a time where things are calm and I can't wait for things to be calmer or have in my mind things need to be a certain calmness. I need to create the schedule I want, to create the life I feel I'm being led to live but not taking action on.

Now, perhaps my saying, "Life is never calm," means I'm actually creating a life that is never calm. That's okay, I suppose. I don't necessarily want life to be calm all the time, just have more control over what I do, more conscious choices, including the food I eat (yes, I will get back to blogging about dairy-free and other -free eating!) without chaos distracting me. Although maybe that's the real lesson: To keep doing what I need to do regardless of what's going on around me!

Do you find that your life is never calm? Do you feel you use your time each day the way you would really like to?

An Afternoon Adventure (or Why I Don't Believe In Weather Forecasts)

I was all set to get the missing ingredients for the Shepherd's Pie: go pick up my niece and nephew from school with my 4-year old niece and the 2-year old little guy in tow; stop at grocery store for the couple of items I needed with the 4 kids in tow [as I type this, I'm thinking to myself, "Um, the plan wasn't a good one to start with!"]; go home; start supper.

That was the plan.

And then it started to rain.

Not just rain, but at times torrential rain.

Monday, they were predicting 20% chance of rain for yesterday with a mix of sun and cloud. When I looked mid-morning, it had changed to 40% with clouds all day.

It rained for over 3 hours at my place. So much for 40%. But I'm off track here.

I headed off with the 4-year old and 2-year old in the van. It was raining lightly at that point; we'd had a short-lived deluge earlier, but it wasn't bad when we left to go pick up my niece and nephew. Which was good since the 2-year old had arrived without a coat today. (It was clear skies this morning and nice; you can hardly blame his dad. Besides, they had predicted a low chance of rain and a mix of sun and cloud!)

Within minutes of leaving my house, my wipers were on full blast and despite that, I was having some serious visibility problems. Even while stopped at a red light. This lasted for a good stretch of the road. I arrived at my niece and nephew's school a little early and the rain calmed down while we waited. Then it picked up again when I had to go into the school...with the 4-year old and the coatless 2-year old.

And this was just going to be the first leg of my trip.

The thought of torrential rain potentially returning while I tried to take 4 kids in and out of a grocery store--and just realizing the sheer amount of time it would take with 4 kids--cancelled all thoughts of actually going with them. Before the cancellation, my mind went through, "How important is it to you to have a vegan supper tonight?" My immediate mental response: "Not that important." I might one day have a higher level of commitment and forge ahead despite such rain, or perhaps I'll have enough vegan recipes under my belt that I'll whip something else up when a plan falls through, but for today, that commitment was not there. Not for that kind of rain. For which, had I known it would be that bad, I would have changed my dinner plans in the morning, possibly figuring out something else that was vegan with what we have in the house, instead of finding myself late afternoon in an insane downpour and realizing that it just wasn't going to happen and I'd have to figure out something else for supper very quickly.


Forecasts. Huh. What are they good for? Absolutely nothing! ;D

Does life ever go as planned?

So....

My plans yesterday didn't work out.

I thought I had everything to make the Shepherd's Pie from How It All Vegan. Well, technically I did when I had originally planned to make it this week, except that when I went into the fridge yesterday, some of the ingredients were old and rotten, but I forgot they were what I was counting on for the recipe. And then I forgot that the recipe calls for soy milk, which I don't really ever use, but my mind simply processed it as a non-dairy milk, which I had.

What I needed was not a non-dairy milk, but rice milk.

I don't have any rice milk in the house, only almond milk. I've made mashed potato topping in the past with almond milk and it tasted very strange to all of us. I had contemplated going out after my niece was picked up, but by the time that happened and after her mom and I had talked a bit, it was kind of late. I ended up searching for a decent vegetarian or vegan meal I could serve my family very quickly. Ended up deciding on potato and onion perogies with cooked green beans and raw veggies. I should have made more green beans than I did because they disappeared. The perogies (store-bought) had egg in them, so not vegan, but it was a meatless meal for Meatless Monday! Our first! lol. It does mean, however, that I did not stay grain-free and wheat-free. I think I ought to be able to today. (I keep having Kathy Freston's words coming into my mind when I start getting all "absolute" on the change: "Lean into it." Just a little note to myself here: Lean into it. It's okay if we aren't having every meal vegan and wheat-free!)

This afternoon, I should be able to pick up the necessary ingredients to make the Shepherd's Pie tonight. I'm a little nervous, looking at the ingredients, but they said that it has guests coming back for seconds. *crossingfingers* I guess if I want to continue the trend, I'm going to have to figure out a veg*n supper for tomorrow night. And make sure I get the necessary ingredients today. ;)