A Joyful Keeper

Look for the bare necessities
The simple bare necessities
Forget about your worries and your strife
I mean the bare necessities
Old Mother Nature’s recipes
That brings the bare necessities of life

As I sit in my chair forcing myself to rest (it’s hard when you “have to”, isn’t it?!), I’ve been thinking about what the bare necessities of keeping a home are. What is the minimum that needs doing in a home while the mother is sick or unable to do much?

I have a tendency to write loooong lists, but this isn’t about a long one. It is about a short one, the shortest possible to “survive”. This is what I have come up with:

- meals need to be cooked

- dishes need to be washed & dried & put away

- clothes need to be washed & dried & put away

Hmmm… that is pretty short. There must be more that needs to be done, surely! Well, the animals outside need feeding daily…. and the kids need to do school…. and the floors need to be vacuumed if they get really “bad”…!

Last night I didn’t get to sleep thinking of all the things I should be doing when I get better. Honestly! You’d think I could just relax and enjoy this enforced time of rest! But no, even when I should be sleeping I am making out long lists of things that need to be done! I’m sure Baloo would not agree with them being the bare necessities of life.

What do you do when you can only manage in survival mode? What are your “basics”? What are your “bare necessities” in the home?

I got up early this morning, snuggled up in my comfy chair next to the fire, and had a lovely cup of tea with my Quiet Time! From my chair I watched the day dawn… the children are still fast asleep and the house is oh so quiet. I can hear Little Red, our rooster, crow every now and then in the distance. I love these quiet mornings!

Some mornings when I get up, I reach for my laptop first. I tell myself that I will just check my mail, and then put it away and have my Quiet Time. Before I know it, an hour has passed and I have gotten quite distracted! I may have decided just to check one or two blogs, and…well, you probably know how it goes! Suddenly the children are up and asking me to make porridge.. and the noise level in the house increases. I may still get my Quiet Time basket out and journal, pray and read my devotional,… but the silence and peace has gone, and I end up rushing through it. My day, as a consequence, often doesn’t flow quite as well!

As you have probably noticed, I am not blogging very much at the moment! During the Sabbatical I took at the beginning of this year, I was too busy to really think and pray about my plans for this website and blog. Over the last month, I have been doing this, and also re-evaluating the priorities in my life. I have come across some very pertinent posts about the internet and blogworld, like this one at Dominion Family. Oh, that one really struck a chord in my heart!

I am a very impulsive person. When I decide to do something, I jump in with both feet and lots of enthusiasm! I am quick to follow God’s leading in areas, but also quick to stop if I feel it is not right anymore. Many times I have felt like closing down this blog, for a lot of the same reasons in the post above. As Cindy writes:

“In the end, it was not the evil things on the Internet, not even the arguments and negativity, but rather the good things that bogged me down. So many, many good things. Pictures of decorated houses, libraries, recipes, book suggestions (this alone has been enough to almost drown me), crafts, knitting, aprons, sewing, frugality, weather, poetry, audio files, friends, homeschooling suggestions, music and the ideas, the wonderful, wonderful ideas.”

However, I have not felt peace about stopping either. Rather I feel that God is teaching me to balance my life. I know that many days the internet takes up way more time than it should. I could remove that temptation altogether, but then I wouldn’t be learning as much.

I have come to the conclusion that I will keep this website up, and continue to blog as I feel led - which some weeks may be often, and some not at all! I am not going to worry about how many people come here to read. I am not going to be pressured by the “experts” to be constantly posting new content so that my numbers stay high. I want to live life with my family, and sometimes share about that life, but not obsess about blogging every minute of it.

One of the reasons for this blog is to leave a legacy for my children - to let them peak into my life as they were growing up. This is still important for me. But I don’t want them to look back and say, “Mum was always blogging and not spending time with us!”

Another reason for this blog is to bless people out there in the big wide world. If I can even encourage one person to enjoy their role as a keeper of the home or as a homeschool mum or just as a mother… then I am happy.

Peace comes with knowing you are in God’s will for the moment. Seasons change, and God leads us to different areas. If there comes a time when He wants me to close down this website, I will. Until then, I will still be here, but only when time allows it.

May I encourage you not to feel pressured in your blogging? Enjoy it, and when it gets too much, as it will at times, take a break and don’t apologize! Blogging and the internet are good if we use them wisely. But they should not put more pressure on us. Goodness knows we have enough pressure put on us from all directions! Take time today to hug your children a few more times, to call a loved one, to write a letter…. switch the “post editor” in your brain off for a little while, and enjoy life!

I’ve been feeling tired lately. I struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I feel sleepy throughout the day. The days are getting shorter, too, and I feel like I am not getting much done. All of this could make me very depressed, but it doesn’t. Instead I feel peace, because I am beginning to understand the seasons.

In Spring, I felt energized, ready to plant anything I could! I got out in the garden, made up pots of veggies, planted seeds and watered them faithfully until they popped up from under the soil and reached out to the sunlight.

In Summer it was hot. There were days when I was physically tired from working hard in the garden - from hauling water from the bathtub to the tender plants that were struggling in the harsh heat. I was excited to see tomatoes starting to form on the vines, and oh, the fruit growing bigger on the trees! It was invigorating! I watered, I weeded, and tried to stay cool.

At the end of Summer, and early Autumn I brought in my harvest. I did some canning and freezing. I started to get tired, but the end was in sight. The leaves began to fall from the trees. The frost came and killed the rest of my veggie garden. My body started to lose its momentum… and I started to get tired.

I found this poem a few days ago. It expresses what I am feeling:

Who Loves the Trees Best?

Who loves the trees best?

“I,” said the Spring;

“Their leaves so beautiful,

To them I bring.”

Who loves the trees best?

“I,” Summer said;

“I give them blossoms,

White, yellow, red.”

Who loves trees best?

“I,” said the Fall;

“I give luscious fruits,

Bright tints to all.”

Who loves trees best?

“I love them best,”

Harsh Winter answered

“I give them rest.”

by Alice May Douglas

Winter brings rest. I now know why I am tired. It is time for my body to rest and it is part of a simple life to give in to this rest.

Somehow in our modern lives we have decided that we don’t need to follow the seasons anymore. In days gone by, people went to bed with the sun and got up with it too. Did they fuss in the winter when the days were shorter? From reading books like Little House on the Prairie, I have learned that they went along with the seasons. In winter the men mended and maintained their tools. The women quilted and sewed. They accepted a season of rest.

We don’t need to do that anymore. We have electricity and can stay up way past dark, working. We can drive at night, keep up all our activities, and not slow down one bit during winter. It is not an accepted thing anymore to slow down during the winter season. We must all keep going, a hundred miles an hour, in the hustle and bustle of what we now call life.

I want to follow the seasons. I need a season of rest. My body tells me so. My heart tells me so. And the seasons tell me so. Now is the season to hunker down with my children. It’s time to light the fire and sit on the couch, reading stories to each other. It’s time to pull out the unfinished sewing projects. It’s time to use my preserves and have a stew cooking on the stove all day. It is time to enjoy the hard work of the seasons gone by. It is time for a season of rest.

I can’t believe it is Wednesday already. This week is just flying by. But I must say, things are starting to fall back into place and into a routine in our home.

Yesterday I spent quite some time in our bedroom, which has been a disaster zone since we moved in. It has been the place where everything gets dumped when the rest of the house needs to look good! I know I shouldn’t do that, but I don’t have a place for everything yet, so that is what happens. After working on it for a few hours, it is looking much, much better. I can now open the door properly (lol!), and walk beside my bed without tripping over stuff. I still have a bit more to do, but I have made a good start.

Over the next few days I want to do some more preserving. I got some Quinces given to me and I want to make jelly. I’ve also got the last of the apples that are starting to go bad in a few spots and are therefore not suitable for eating. I am thinking about either stewing them, or trying to make apple jelly from them. I don’t want to bite off more than I can chew, but I also don’t want them to go to waste.

To me, part of simple living is making the most of what you have. I am trying to live out of the pantry as much as possible this month, using my bulk staples, produce from the garden and whatever I have in my freezer. But simple living is not always easy. Most times it is just downright hard work! Baking and cooking from scratch takes a lot of time. Sometimes I get discouraged and am tempted to take the easy way out and buy the ready made stuff from the shops. These are the days I need to just take things a bit easier. But when I do make the effort, it pays off in so many ways. I revel in the fact that I haven’t been to the supermarket for a week or so. I enjoy watching the pantry empty out a bit! I love to see freshly baked cookies on the bench, and casseroles coming out of the oven. It’s hard work, but rewarding.

And on that note, I’d better keep going. I need to make my jellies, cut down my asparagus, get my washing out, check on my chookies… you get the picture! Time flies when you are having fun!

We had a good start to the school day with all of us watching “The Story of Stuff”. It dealt with a lot of the issues I have been trying to teach the children and myself. Last week I started a Frugal Friday post, but didn’t finish it in time. Looking at this 20 min video confirmed to me what I was trying to put into writing (and hopefully will finish writing and be ready to post this Friday).

As we get back into the school year, and settling into our homestead, there are lots of issues to deal with. First of all we have to get used to actually doing school at home, instead of on the road, on an airplane, in between moves, at other people’s houses, etc, etc, etc. Secondly, we have to deal with doing school at the kitchen table, in a small house, without enough space to have all our school stuff out. Both are a challenge. The first one will happen eventually… slowly. The second one needs a lot of work!

I have decided to pack away a lot of the school books that sit on the shelf “in case we need them” during the year. It hurts to do this, because I love to just get up in the middle of something we are studying and say - “Hey, let’s look up some more about that in this book!” I have a LOT of old National Geographics that I got from the op shop or from friends, for example. But I don’t have the space to put them out. I am going to pack them away…. but then a voice says to me… Why are you doing that?! Once they are packed away, will I really ever look at them again?! Probably not. I guess I am thinking that one day we might build a school room in the shed, and then I’ll have lots of space to put them all up on bookshelves… and in the meantime they can just sit in the huge shed we have. The main thing is that I need to get as much as possible out of the house so that it is easy to maintain, clean, do school, etc.

I am really not that bad at getting rid of stuff. I do it all the time. We never have garage sales or sell stuff. We give it away. The Lord has blessed us by receiving free things, and we bless others in the same way. It’s just that we have moved into a house that is half the size of our old one, and I need to make tough choices.

Back to the video “The Story of Stuff” . It generated a great discussion with the kids. They talked about toys and stuff they had that had been cheap and broke the first day they had it. They talked about things that they have had for a long time, and that they thought was worth the money they spent and worth keeping. One of these things was Lego. We still have the Lego I played with over 30 years ago. They agreed that a big thing was to stop spending, even though this is very hard to do. Daniel initially gave the example of the Playstation as a good buy…. then when I made him think about it a bit more, he sheepishly agreed that we were on Playstaition number two, and the controls had this wrong with them and that wrong with them…. I think he started to get the picture.

We talked about growing things ourselves to avoid packaging. We looked at how many things were “needed” to sell meat in the shop - the styrophome tray, the plastic/paper thingo to absorb blood & liquid, the glad wrap, the labels, the ink on the labels and the glue on the labels. Compare this to one plastic bag when we kill our own meat. I could hear the gears turning around in the kids’ brains!

It’s not easy for any of us to change our lifestyle - whether it is us as adults or the children who have to do what their parents are doing. We have moved to the country deliberately. The price paid is the highest for my dh, who has to commute every day, for almost a total of 5 hours. We want to teach the children why we are doing this - why we grow veggies, why we want to grow meat, why we want to reduce our waste… This little video was a real eye opener for all of us. For me, it confirmed that we are on the right track. For the children it explained a lot of things they had no idea about.

Steps to simple living, sustainable living, homesteading…. all of these things are part of a journey we are on. It will take time to learn, but I am glad we have made the first steps.

We had a lovely day today. Went to church this morning, and this afternoon enjoyed afternoon tea with some other homeschooling friends. Robyn and her dh dropped in too, so we really had a relaxing day.

I’ve been thinking about simplicity so much lately. I suppose it is because we are going to be moving out to the homestead in a few months, and I am trying to prepare myself for the move. I worked out that by the time we move out to the farm, we will have moved 5 times in the past two years. No wonder I am worn out! No wonder I never feel like I am on top of things! Add to that still trying to get used to things back here and I want to take this next move ever so slooooowly!

I have never been the type of person to store things because I can’t let go of them. I am happy to give things away. With our new house being about half the size of our current one, I am wondering what I am going to do with all our stuff! Should I just box it up and store it? What is the point of that? Will I ever use it again? Maybe when we extend the house I’ll need it…. maybe when we add a little guest bungalow…. maybe….!

One thing I do know - whether I end up storing my excess stuff or not, I do not want the house cluttered and full of things. I don’t mind the house being small, but I will not be able to cope with it being cluttered. So, again, I will go through my cupboards in the next weeks. I will give away things I know I don’t need, and some things that I love I will pack away for the future.

I will keep the basics of what I need in the kitchen and school room. School will probably be at the kitchen table, so I will have limited space for school books and supplies anyway. Sewing will be only my UFO’s - the rest of the fabric will be packed away until I FINISH everything I have started (oh dear!!). I will keep it simple.

Yesterday I did a big cookup in the kitchen. I ended up with a few meals in the freezer and a huge batch of cookies. I also ended up with a mess in the kitchen. In my new kitchen I will not have the space to have as big a mess as I created yesterday!!! I will need to do things one at a time, and clean up after myself each time. I was exhausted last night because I took on too much. I should have kept it simple.

Simple living… it touches so many areas of our lives. It is what we read, what we eat, how we dress, what we spend our time and money on. It is a journey.

What is it that draws me to simple living so much? I’ve been pondering this question for a while now. I know God has been speaking to me about it, and I am taking small steps towards it. But why? Why are so many more people, not just me, wanting to go back to a simple life?

Our life has become so complicated. With freedom and technology has come a huge complicated lifestyle. I enjoy reading other blogs where people have chosen a more simple lifestyle. They have gone against what the modern world is saying, and have almost stepped back in time.

This past week I have been looking around me at the large house we are renting. It is just FULL to the brim of stuff. I look around me and wonder what I am going to do with it all. I know that I have to be ruthless. I do not want our new house to be full and cluttered. I want it to be simple. I want to be able to have it tidy and clean in a short time - not spend hours every week shifting things around. It is only a small three bedroom, one bathroom house, and I don’t want it stuffed full of STUFF!

Over the years my dh traveled a lot, and sometimes we were blessed to be able to go with him on short trips. During these trips, we would stay at furnished apartments. I was always amazed at how quickly I got the “housework” done at these places because there was no clutter and extra things lying around. The kitchen had the basics, and they were enough. Then I would come back to our own home and think - Oh my! Do I need 4 frying pans? Do I need 10 pairs of scissors? (er, yes, they were always going missing, so I’d just buy another one….!) How many wooden spoons do I really need?

Think about all our time saving appliances, like the dishwasher. After I got a dishwasher I found that I didn’t have enough dishes, because after all, we should only run the dishwasher when it is full. Instead of washing the lunch dishes and using them again for dinner, they would sit in the dishwasher… waiting…. The same with mugs. We don’t very often use more than 6 mugs at one time - but I need more than that, because as soon as they are used once, they go in the dishwasher and sit there until it is full. The dishwasher saves us time…. but I find most of the ones I have had, I had to practically wash the dishes before I put them in, or else they wouldn’t get clean.

This post isn’t very coherent, I’m afraid. I am just writing down my thoughts as they are madly going around and around in my head! The thing is, I long for a simple life. A life that is uncluttered by things - be they tangible or intangible. When I have so many things that I feel pressured to do, I can’t spend that time with my children during the day as I would like to. I find myself telling them more and more often that I will come in a minute to play with them, or that I’ll listen to what they are trying to tell me in a minute. I want to change. I need to change.