Living Deliberately - Being at Home

Okay, because I have a short attention span and like changing subjects often I am rolling the last two days of the week of "Living Deliberately" Posts into one.

But first; from the garden today, a 3/4 pound zuchinni, the first of the season. It's very heavy for its size, and it will be delicious as part of our dinner. (That brown spot is a penny, so you can see the size of the green torpedo) And cheap! Money spent on garden this spring $342.00 - harvest so far - three meals of bok choi, half a dozen incredibly pithy radishes and a 12 ounce zuchinni. Ah.... frugal living at its best! ;)

But back to our Audit - In the first of the two posts I'm covering Rhonda talks about the things we can (or could) make at home and thus be more self-sufficient. I have to admit that beyond gardening, composting and mixing up my own garden sprays, and drying quantities of fruit and veggies I am not much of a manufacturer. I do bake bread, but not all the time. I do not sew and freecycled my brand-new and never used sewing machine to a young family who needed one.

I do not know how to knit, though I am going to try to learn, if only to make dishcloths and a funny little knitted booties Tony likes as slippers in the winter. I keep working on learning to do more things. I think it would be fun to make my own soap, but will probably never get around to doing it.

But the last post in the series speaks to me, as she talks about the satisfaction of being at home.

I like this place very much, but if you've read this blog for years and years you'll know I loved the wee trailer we had before. It was small and inconvenient in many ways, but before we moved in we completely redid it and made it "ours". And when I saw "we" I mean 80% of the work was done by our long-suffering son, Ian, with a weekend of hard labour by Zak.

I look at the wood paneled walls here, and the dark wood cabinetry and dream of painting and painting and painting. I know what I like. Crisp, icy white, a glowing apricot and cobalt blue. I'm thinking on it. I just read a FlyLady testimonial from a woman who painted the entire outside of her house in 15 minute sessions. It took her two years, but it's all done now. Gives me ideas, but maybe not sane ones.

But in truth I am very content. I love the size of this place, and the efficiency of it. I love the garden, the birds that splash in my bath and my nice new deck. And that's what Home should be, a place you love.