Ever had your confidence shaken about your SS lifestyle?

[Wifezilla]

Thanks for the feedback

It will look totally different this year though. That area under the arbor in now part of the duck run (STUPID HAWK!!!)

They don't start from the ground every year, I'm sure of it. They just lose their leaves like the trees do, and get new leaves in the spring.

Yup. I trim it back every year to make sure we can still get underneath

It took Audrey (the vine) about 5 years to get to that point. She is 7 now.

 

[Beekissed]

meriruka, your home is lovely and inviting and your taste in decorating is great! We should all be so lucky!

I often lose sight of life by wishing things were just DONE! That the walls were all painted just right, my furnishings all look just right and are comfortable and pleasing to the senses, etc. Then maybe I could get down to the fun stuff I've always wanted to do.......

A wise man once said that life is what happens when you are making other plans. I think that must be true because time passes so quickly while we struggle to get things just right.

If it's any consolation, I still have not built that platform bed I so badly need and am still sleeping with my matress(a freebie from the local ads) upon two twin mattresses on the floor! After 3 years now........ :/

BUT, my wealthy aunt came to stay and said my bed was the most comfortable one she had ever slept in and promptly sent her $6000 Swedish memory foam bed back from whence it came!

 

[meriruka]

Wow! $6000 for a bed! Didn't everyone read that and make a mental list of all the stuff you could do with $6k?

I've slept w/ the matress on the floor and it really is comfortable.
Well, you don't have to buy a dust ruffle and you don't have to clean under it, maybe in another 3 years you'll just leave it there and decorate with a Japanese motif?

 

[kcsunshine]

Mine's on the floor too, but I miss the storage space.

 

[cjparker]

Once, back when I was living in an apartment and only dreaming of owning a home and land, I went to a friend's house for the first time. The "lawn" was covered in ummm, "native plants", the whole house needed a paint job in the worst way, and it was outrageously in need of a major reno inside. All except one room. My friend and her husband had lovingly and with great talent restored the fireplace and mantel. The husband had carefully created a wood inlay pattern that mimiced the larger pattern of the wood floor that they had restored. They had scraped away years of paint and dirt from the window panes to reveal the gorgeous leaded glass. They both worked full time so they didn't have but a handful of hours each week to devote to this, but they did what they could as time allowed, and never apologized for what wasn't done. They were so comfortable in that home.

I envied them! The weeds, the peeling paint, the table in the so-called dining room that was covered in power tools and dust, the wavy, rotting wood floors in the other rooms.....it didn't matter! All I could see was that they had a HOME that they were creating out of the vision in their minds and that it was a loving work in progress. Now that I have my own work-in-progress, I look back at their lifestyle and try to remember their one-day-at-a-time motto. Someday my home will be exactly the way I want it, but the journey is as pleasurable as the destination.

 

[DrakeMaiden]

Thank you for sharing that story, cjparker. Your friends' story is inspirational. It is so hard to remember that these things take time, and the more space you have to work with, the longer it will take.

 

[ducks4you]

We're all here to IMPROVE on what we have. We are NOT here to compete. SS isn't a religion--sometime I feel a little obssessive about it --participation should make us feel better. We can "cherry-pick" the parts of SS that we like best.
Myself, I'm a rebel from the "keep up with the Jones's" mentality that I grew up with in the suburbs. Heck, my mother is STILL buying me things that she likes that I can't play with!! She bought me a Svorsky (sp?) glass horse for my birthday in December. Anatomically it's a poor statue--I got a better one in ceramic and cracked glass from Green Stamps when I was a kid--and she wants to dictate where I keep it, and tell me not to touch it. (This is how she runs her house--museum, maybe? Anybody here love the film, "Drop Dead Fred"???--that's MY MOTHER!!!!)
Rome wasn't built in a day. Your place isn't going to be what you want right away, either. Think about WHY you live where you live, and be joyful about that every day. Then your changes/purchases will be all the sweeter!!!

 

[Ldychef2k]

Goodness, that horse story and living in a museum rings true with me. My mom values her home and her possessions so much that we are not allowed to set foot in certain rooms of the house. We had to stop having holidays over there because there were 23 people in two 19x12 rooms. You weren't allowed anywhere else.

My mom is absolutely aghast that I have the word "poop" in my blog title. She refuses to click on it, and when she forwards the occasional email of mine to her friends, she removes the automatic signature so they won't see that her daughter says such a word. I know she has her idiosyncracies, and of course I just love her to death, but her unintended slaps in the face are enough to make your skin bleed.

And referencing this story with the topic, I don't feel that her attitude has shaken my belief in what I am doing. I wish she understood that it's okay to buy things on sale and to live on less instead of always wanting more. But I am happy, and she is angry. So...I think I win in the end !!!

 

[Beekissed]

Oh, yes! You DO win! You can say poop all you want........

Don't ya just love this kind of life?

 

[Farmfresh]

You just don't really APPRECIATE poop until you take on the SS lifestyle.

Poop goes from a dirty unmentionable unavoidable item to a everyday such-is-life occurrence that we actually cherish! No better fertilizer can be had. Living a SS lifestyle we literally turn poop into wealth by filling our pantries with the garden bounty.

Hurrah for manure!!