I have to be honest: summer is my least favorite season.
And it’s mostly because of the heat.
I’m really not a 90-degrees-outside kind of person.
But summer comes every year, and part of mindfulness is learning to accept what you can’t change.
So I’m trying to find happiness in the heat. The silver lining of the it’s-so-hot-my-brain-is-melting cloud.
It’s Independence Day, where Americans across the country go nuts celebrating our independence from Britain.
We might be independent from Britain, but we sure aren’t independent from our stuff.
Our homes are getting bigger (but are housing fewer people per unit), our consumer debt is rising, and almost 10% of us use our hard-earned money to pay for storage for our extra stuff.
Just in my own neighborhood, a self-storage company recently bought a big plot of land that had previously held six different stores — so they could build another storage building catty-corner to their current one.
And not only is all this stuff costing us money — it’s also harming the environment. It takes a lot of resources to harvest, refine, make, package, ship, sell, and store the latest and greatest thing.
So this Independence Day, let’s talk about freedom from stuff.
Living in season with allergies is tough.
One key tenet of a lot of mindful practices, hygge living guides, and so on is living in season — that is, celebrating the now and the joyful parts of each season.
In the spring, this often looks like getting outside into nature, eating what’s growing locally, and throwing the windows open and getting fresh air now that the weather’s warming up.
All of this is great! …But slightly less doable when you’re allergic to the outdoors.
So how do those of us with allergies live in season when the season brings uncontrollable sneezing?
Does anyone else find that they get super revved up about homesteading when it’s the middle of winter and you can’t actually plant anything? Just me?
When it’s cold as anything outside and you want to scratch that homestead itch, here are seven winter activities for the apartment homestead to try.
For me, part of being mindful and living in the moment is taking time to find the good parts of the season I’m in — in this case, to celebrate the winter of 2022. (Well, 2022-2023. I’ve never been quite sure how to refer to the winter months!)
I like to come up with a sort of “punch list” or “bucket list” of things to do each season. They’re not exactly the same each year — this current winter will have a few new things compared to last winter’s. Some of them are projects I’d like to do, some are just fun activities.
I also like to pick something off my homestead skills list to learn each season. This helps me keep on track for my homestead goals, and also gives me a deadline to help keep me from procrastinating!
The point is to help me be grateful and present, recognize how lucky I am to be able to experience life and this season, and make my days more intentional. Especially during winter, when the nights are long and sometimes things feel kinda heavy, focusing on the good is good for your health!
Here’s how I plan to celebrate…
