slow Living ....................

I follow a lot of blogs and they are mainly written by women who have similar interests - knitting crafting baking - some are very inspirational and some fill me with envy.

I wish I had a stress free zone

I have recently been following littlewoolie and according to Jules profile she is a mother of 3 boys, a wife, a sister, a daughter, a gardener, a cook, and lots of other things .............. her interests are gardening, local food, sustainability, family, eating, cooking, camping, bike riding, knitting, crochet, sewing ......an exhausting list.

What sparked my interest was Jules reference to Slow Living in her last post she talks about joining in with Christine's Slow Living project diary project where you report on a variety of topics each month.

I clicked on the link and have found it a fascinating read - Christine has come up with nine headings and using her blog like a journal she writes each month about what she has achieved under each heading - click Christine's site for lots more information

The slow living concept was new to me so I looked it up and according toWikipedia

Slow Living - is the choice to live consciously with the goal of enhancing personal, community and environmental well being. Slow Living recognises the role that time plays in shaping the quality of our lives. By slowing down we make time to savor our experiences and to connect more fully with others. The process of slowing down involves simplifying our lives and minimising distractions so that we have more time and more energy to focus on what is meaningful and fulfilling. By consciously choosing to do less, we contribute to reducing some of the negative social and environmental impacts of our actions.

  slow living

The headings that Christine and Jules use are:-

NOURISH: PREPARE: REDUCE: GREEN: GROW:CREATE: DISCOVER:ENHANCE: ENJOY:

I have looked back at April to see what I could include under each heading - my list is very different to the lists of the two Australian women I have referred to - but it has been a very good exercise for me to do and made me think about other ways I could improve the quality of my life and environmental well being.

Nourish - I nearly always cook from scratch and try to reduce waste.

Prepare - I sometimes cook for the freezer and prepare meals in advance

Reduce - I cut down on household waste, I try to conserve water, and turn lights off when I leave rooms - batch cook to reduce electricity costs by filling the oven. Pass clothes on to others, recycle as much as possible.

Green - think I overlapped a bit with reduce - we use the three different coloured bins provided by the council and recycle paper, cardboard glass etc.. Composts all garden waste and reuse in the garden.

Grow - my partner has recently planted some fruit trees, apple and pear in the garden also some raspberry canes - but they look quite sad at the moment.

Create - have knitted lots of things, tried to master crochet and also for the first time tried my hand at felting.

Discover - I have read more - discovered Molly Makes Magazine, reading many more blogs for inspiration and ideas, also learnt quite a lot about setting up my blog page with perseverance have managed to add quite a few gadgets.

Enhance - this one is hard. I hope I enhance peoples life's as I always try to help where I can, I look after my grandchildren, try to be supportive to my parents and daughters - but I feel this is an area I should explore more - ?community activities

Enjoy - I am enjoying helping my daughter with the wedding planning, I am enjoying my blog, I have enjoyed going away for the weekend, and enjoyed celebrating my daughters birthday.

I hope you take time to click onto Christine and Jules blogs as they have really inspired me to think about what I achieve, accomplish each month I don't keep a diary but this seems a really good way to record what we do as sometimes we think we don't achieve anything.

My list this month is very brief as I didn't spend very much time thinking back - but from now on I am going to keep the headings to hand and give each one some thought on a regular basis




Will come back to this topic again - talk soon x











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