Rainy Sunday Ramble

For a couple weeks now I have been thinking about the vacations people take. Lots of people find great pleasure in heading off to remote locations to "rough it" for a week or two, often sleeping in tents with no modern conveniences at hand. Others head out for small cottages by the sea, staying in quirky little places that have old kitchens, and tiny bathrooms. Furniture that has no style and certainly does not match. Others might head out for distant countries and stay in places where it feels "chic" to have walls that are not smooth or squared. Where you might endure only a bath tub and no shower or have to hang clothes up in a wardrobe since there is no closet. I recently saw a home for sale in the Caribbean that was over a million dollar price tag and yet the house was old and had been added on to and added on to so many times that it had about 4 levels all on the first floor, and had a bath that you had to step over the toilet to get to the sink in the one tiny bath. Of course there are folks that travel in style too, staying in 5 star hotels and resorts, but still lots of folks "get away" to quaint fishing villages where life is very old fashioned and slow and the point of the vacation is to get away from the rat race of working hard to get more stuff that you want to get away from at least once a year.

Why not just live simply and slow all the time so there is no need to want to get away from it all ?

I smile reading about folks adventures as they vacation on a Dude Ranch or Working Farm, and after their stay, they spend the next year waiting to go again, does that mean my lifestyle is actually a dream kind of vacation spot for some ? We have the old fashioned house, the doing it the old way existence, nice food, chopping wood, milking goats, gathering eggs etc every single day and yes, we love it. Sometimes we measure it against what everyone else seems to have and wonder if we are missing out on something, but then it comes back to the same old thought. We love our life. This morning, Emery is tinkering around the house, doing little jobs that he has put off because the outside work had been demanding his attention. The rain has slowed us down a bit today and kept us inside.

We may not have the scenery of some vacation spots, but we sure do have the lifestyle that is slow and easy. Time to talk in the evenings, time to nurture relationships and we get to play in the dirt and call it gardening. We get to sleep worry free each and every night. We get to sit out under the stars by the fire pit when we want to and for the most part we don't feel obliged to live like the Jones. We are human and do feel pressure from time to time to think success is measured by what you own. It doesn't last long and stings only when we feel it from our families or those that matter dearly to us.

For me, it always comes back to this, I am most content in tee shirts and skirts or pants, flannel shirts added on in winter. Comfy shoes and wool socks. To be chic is hard work and there are other things I would rather be doing than trying to be stylish all the time. Granted date nights its nice to clean up a bit and be all girly. Make-up and jewelry are not my thing, never have been. Gets in the way when you are stacking wood and digging in the garden. Nail polish doesn't last a day, my hands are far too busy for that.

I suspect that old fashioned living will always be my deepest calling and straying from the old fashioned ethics never seems to bring me any happiness. At times I remind myself of some young person trying to see the world by taking trips here and there to find something, themselves perhaps and yet feeling so complete only as they walk through the gate to their home when they return.

One thing I have learned in the past few years, that personal happiness is not always related to momentary pleasures and momentary pleasures certainly do not guarantee that deep and abiding happiness.

Rainy weather always brings out personal reflection for me and today has been that sort of day. Measuring the value of what surrounds me, not the things, but the actions of my choices and the actions of those nearest and dearest to me. The intangibles. Life is good and keeping it simple works for me. Keeps me grounded. Keeps my head out of the clouds where visibility is not always the best.