Tuesday, August 31, 2010

I'm baaaaaack!

After an amazingly short (and cold) summer, I have finally wrapped my head around the fact that it is indeed over... after all, tomorrow is September 1st!!!  As I alluded to in my last post, I spent most of the summer on our lot in Nordegg, living in a holiday trailer with my two-year-old, while my dad, husband and mom made intermittent trips to the lot to work on building the cabin.  In a lot of ways, it was indeed a summer of 'living with less'... less water (we didn't have running water), less power (we only had a generator that ran for about an hour a day), and by default, less spending (pretty hard to spend money when the nearest centre is an hour away).  Some sacrifices had to be made however, and I ended up having to buy a lot of the foods that I would normally make: crackers, breads, sauces, etc.  On the other hand, I did manage to get to the farmers market on most of the weekends, and my husband regularly brought us goodies from our garden back home.  I also managed to get out berry picking on one of my brief trips home, and I now have raspberries and saskatoons in my freezer that will hopefully last me most of the winter.

With all of those positives to reflect upon, it is with some dismay that I share with you some of my 'failures' as it were from the past few months.  First of all, my work.  I work from home, and as such, I needed to have access to the internet over the summer months.  My cell phone contract came due in June, and, I decided to replace my phone with the latest gadget, and yes, I am talking about an iPhone.  I know, I know, that doesn't fit in with living with less AT ALL!  To make matters worse, my old laptop kicked it a few weeks ago in August, forcing me to replace it as well.  So, two BIG hypocracies on my part.  However, rather than beat myself up about it, I have decided to just roll with it, as these two items allow me to stay home with my son and keep up with all of my other 'living with less' duties!  My next 'cheat' involves my son.  While living between the two homes all summer, I decided to leave most of our clothes back in the trailer to make things a little bit more efficient while travelling back and forth.  All was going brilliantly until towards the end of the summer when my little guy had a major growth spurt.  I brought him home, only to find that not a single item of clothing left in his closet fit him anymore.  I hit up the local consignment shop, only to find a single pair of pants that fit him.  So, after allowing him to run around in a t-shirt and diaper for two days (he loved it), I finally gave in and bought him a few new things to get us through until I could find some more consigned clothes for him.  Boo.

So, now dear audience, I have a poll for you... Given my 'cheats', do you think it would be apropos for me to start all over again (ie. reset the timer for another 365 days), or just leave the timer running and roll with it?
I leave it with you to decide...

Can't wait to hear from you and see where the next season takes us,

All the best!

Marebare xoxo