This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.
Last week was tough financially. There’s nothing sympathy-seeking or whiny in that statement; we are no different than so many other families. I’m generally good at stretching our single income to fill all of the different parts of life – bills, long-term goals, kids needs, the farm – but man…it’s getting trickier and trickier to make it all work.
Anyway, I recalled a line I heard somewhere (you know how I collect quotes from anywhere and everywhere!) that can be best paraphrased as this: “When times are tough financially, you make it up with relationships.” I believe this statement was spoken in terms of the Great Depression era. Instead of wallowing in hardship, many families, while knowing on some level that they were poor, still chose to fill their home with love and laughter and generosity. And it didn’t take a lot of money (or any!) to make it happen.
Isn’t that such a good reminder? In our home, we can still have a home-cooked meal around the table together. We can work on the same puzzle we’ve made a dozen times. We can laugh at “inside jokes” that nobody else would understand. We can do our farm chores and commiserate on the animals’ antics. We can share a good book, go for hike, and open our home to friends and family. These little things are not insignificant. At the end of the day, we belong to each other – our relationships are what matter most anyway.
Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!
Around here, abundance looks like…
+ giving myself a little hair trim. I just snipped off the dead ends but it definitely looks better.
+ potting up my tomatoes and marigold seedlings. I had an awesome germination rate this year so I’m considering selling off the extras!
+ whipping up a batch of granola so the kids would eat up two containers of plain Greek yogurt.
+ receiving 179 (175 + 4 extras) baby chicks in the mail after a hand-wringing few days. Our chicks come from Pennsylvania and usually arrive within 24 hours, easy peasy. This time, they were shipped Tuesday afternoon, made it to Virginia by Wednesday morning…and just sat at the distribution center. Thankfully, we heard from the post office first thing on Thursday morning and picked them up right away. And miracle of all miracles, not a single one had died!
+ cleaning up my strawberry beds and transplanting a bunch of runners into a brand new section. If everything goes well, we should have double the strawberry output this spring. (My kids will be thrilled!)
+ selling 13 unneeded items for the Farm Sitter Vacation Fund: three books, two jeans, three shirts, two keychains, two dresses and a pair of sandals. After shipping and fees, I made $89.10!
Reading //
- The Table Where I Belonged by Pete Kauffman at Plough //
There are situations in any kind of thankful life that take the shape of a gift that must be accepted, with its corresponding demands. We are offered the gift, but even as we do so we release our self-image of the self-made man, the individualist, who blazes his own way in the world and has gotten here by asserting his rights. When you have received a gift, you have someone to thank, and the process of thankfulness implies a debt. This debt cannot be paid with money; the only acceptable currency is a piece of yourself. You give a part of yourself to your neighbor and now you belong to him, and he to you. You have a stake in his life.
- The Dream of the Rood from Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule // Continuing on in his series.
The Enlightenment may have failed, but it taught modern Western people something useful: how to interrogate power, and identify illegitimate authority. But while I learned this early, it was much later that I learned something else, dimly and slowly, through my study of history, mythology and, well, people: that every culture, whether it knows it or not, is built around a sacred order. It does not, of course, need to be a Christian order. It could be Islamic, Hindu or Daoist. It could be based around the veneration of ancestors or the worship of Odin. But there is a throne at the heart of every culture, and whoever sits on it will be the force you take your instruction from.
Watching/Listening //
- OFF FOR LENT
Loving //
- the greeting cards at Bloomwolf Studio // I stocked up on some birthday cards and there were quite a few cute choices.
- Bea’s birth story // Is there anything better than a birth story?! And she is absolutely precious to boot.
- this recipe for English Muffin Bread // Trying to save some money anywhere we can, so homemade bread is back! This one is always a hit with the kids.
- my bedtime read, Carrying Albert Home: The Somewhat True Story of a Man, His Wife, and Her Alligator // So bizarre and charming and funny all in one.
