Surviving the Wild Winter

 I can't believe I haven't posted since January!! Here it is March. The last month has been a challenge for sure. The weather coupled with covid quarantine, coupled with no power.... 

I live in the upper Willamette Valley and we had one heck of an ice storm. Although destructive, it was also really beautiful. 

We were the lucky ones. We lost power for only four days. Some people lost power for more than two weeks! We also have a wood stove so we were able to cook and keep warm. We loaded the cooler with the ice from the freezer (the only time we opened it the whole time) and all the perishables from the refrigerator. Then we set the cooler outside the door on the deck, right on top of the layers of ice. We love only a little food - again we were fortunate. 

And then the clean up. 

The clean up got my back outdoors and my whole attitude started to change. I'm excited about the yard renovation. I'm a kinder, gentler person. I can breath better. 

Oh - and the Simple Abundance journey. I'm still doing it. January and February focused on gratitude. It's so amazing to me how much we have to be grateful for and how little we let that gratitude guide our lives. I started a gratitude journal. Each night (well, most - still working on that habit) I write at least five things I am grateful for. There are days that are harder than others. Some of my gratitude is that we had heat during power failure - My husband got his first covid vaccine - The sun is out again. 

My life is very different today than it was a year ago. A year ago I worked full time. A year ago I was training Early Childhood professionals. A year ago I saw my sister regularly. Today I am not working. I was let go from my job because they couldn't wait for covid to pass. I can't do face to face trainings and I've never set up any zoom trainings (working on that one!). I'm still in the mind set that I only have a couple of days to get everything done because I work on the other days. Wait - no - I have the whole week!! So as I'm excavating my authentic self through the Simple Abundance journey, I'm also learning to rethink my time. 

So many new things. So many new ideas. I'll try harder to get here at least every week to let you know how it goes. Interested in the journey yourself?