What a Start

Uff Da. I'm not even Norweigan...it's just that kind of day. I woke up in a bad mood, cranky, slow to start. Reading all of the HAPPY NEW YEAR posts on f-book made it all the worse. Why don't I feel as optimistic about 2011? Not that I feel particularly pessimistic, just not JUMPING FOR JOY! like the rest of the world seems to be.

Perhaps it's because today is another normal day. Nothing changed, nothing new. I still have a to do list a mile long, 10 SOLID pounds to lose, a mild cold, and the good 3 mile run that would cure it all still seems so out of my reach.

Fresh start though right? Today IS a new day, a new year for gosh sakes. If there's ever a day to start a new, today is it.

Ian asked me what my New Years resolution was last night and I paused. Lose weight/get in shape seems far too cliche. World peace? well duh, but unfortunately equally unattainable. Then it dawned on me... SIMPLIFY.

I wrote a post, what, 2 days ago about my struggle to come to terms with the new "simpler" me and now here I am wishing it on my whole life, my husband, my daughters, my house....everything. I am so overwhelmed with life on a daily basis. What clothes to put the girls in, how messy out house gets, how to possibly organize efficiently everything we own, money, what to spend it on, how to save it, who to give it to once we have some saved...everything seems like SO MUCH.

I used to watch this show called Avonlea growing up with my mom and sisters. It was a spin off of the Anne of Green Gables movies and I LOVED it. Not just for the flowing turn of the century dresses and petticoats, or horse drawn carriages used as transportation through the islands of Nova Scotia but for the simplicity of their lives. Yes life was hard, farming most of your own food, stoking the fire for warmth in the winter, sweating like a banshee in the summer, walking miles and miles to do anything. It sounds amazing. Just the kind of life I want. Hard, SIMPLE work.

But here I am living in the closest suburb to one of the largest cities in the country with a matchbox sized lawn, no real park or greenery in site or path on which to get to it (unless you count treacherous sidewalks), and the closest body of water costs money to go visit (seriously, have you checked out a parking lot by lake Michigan...CRAZY expensive). To top it off I'm raising two children here, amidst the humdrum of DVD players in cars, 12 billion shows on television, iphones and apps galore. Of course I can't "shelter" them from all this technology, truth be told I take advantage of most of it, but if I were honest with myself it wouldn't be my choice.

I so crave a truly simple life. Living in a remote village somewhere in a quaint old house with warm wool rugs beneath my toes and the only sound from outside would be the wind in the trees and the birds in the air. I want a hill to hike on, a lake to swim in and woods to run through. I want cash instead of credit cards in my pocket and a well stocked bookshelf, a chicken coop in the backyard and berry patches in the front. I want to play games at night with my family and surround ourselves with good music, company, and fun.

Sometimes I feel like I miss out on so much because of all the scurry and hurry to get so much done. For what? To check one more thing off my silly to do list? For new years I vow to take a good look at my life and to truly simplify in every way that I can. Spend as little time as possible on the things that don't matter and spend as much as I can on the things that do.

So I guess it is a HAPPY NEW YEAR after all. Funny how it seems to always work out that way.