When I lost my website in March, I lost a few pages of my simple living story. Instead of trying to type up January’s entry again (I’m not quite sure what I said anyway!), I’ll paraphrase briefly the situation in my home as the new year began. It can be summed up quite easily…debt, stress, debt, desire for simplicity in our daily lives, debt, coveting what we didn’t have in our possession, debt…I think you get the picture! My husband, Jim, and I finally realized we had all we really needed right under our noses ~~ two healthy children, shelter, food, transportation, clothes on our backs, and a stable and very happy marriage. We no longer wanted to try to "live like the Jones’s." The past few years have been stressful….events included a move to a different state when our youngest, Ian, was only a month old (he will turn 4 in June), the realization that our daughter, Jenna - 5 years old, had hearing loss which resulted in months and months of initial diagnostic testing and treatment, and finally - Jim spent 18 months obtaining his Master’s Degree which meant that he was rarely home to help in day-to-day activities and childrearing. All of this was made more stressful by the fact that I had not formed any lasting relationships since our move to Tennessee in the summer of 1995 (living in an older neighborhood and the lack of church attendance or a job outside the home didn’t help matters either!) Through all of this, Jim and I dealt with our stress by purchasing material items in an attempt to fill the void created by our stress. This in turn led to more debt! Late 1998 after Jim had graduated and our family was settling into a better routine, Jim and I decided we needed to get our lives in order and so I began reading books on simple and frugal living. These include the Tightwad Gazette series by Amy Dacyzyn, Simple Living by Janet Luhrs, and How to Pinch a Penny til it Screams. I also began to realize that I was not happy with my stress levels. I decided that I had not yet determined what things made me happy as I was always taking care of Jim and the kids! So I began reading Simple Abundance and Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self, both books by Sarah Ban Breathnach. These books have helped me tremendously in my quest for self-acceptance and a peace in living a simpler life. I also decided I was finally going to lose my extra 25 pounds and "get healthy." My final decision for "Mama to be happy" was that the kids would attend public school in the beginning. As much as I’d like to homeschool the kids, right now is not the best time to attempt this. In the future, the public school vs. homeschool decision will be one my husband and I will consider on a yearly basis. I guess that’s a good overview of how our year began. I know there are probably some things I’m leaving out since I’m trying to remember what I wrote in January, but you get an idea of our frame of mind as we approached simplifying our lives in 1999. To read more about other changes we are making, click on the links below! To begin reading my Simple Living story or view other entries on this subject, click here!  WHERE DO YOU WANT TO GO?
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