Something dawned on me last night while watching TV with MJ. I realized that I am content! I love my home, my dear husband and my sons. I have enough food, enough clothes, more than enough stuff. I feel at home, and at peace for the first time in my life.

Yes there are still bills to be paid, too many of them it seems somedays! Even that though doesn’t deter from the realization that even if I do not buy another object I have what I need.

This is not a sudden thing, although it suddenly hit me last night to put a name to it. I have for some time been slimming down my stuff. I crave open space and “breathing” room and I realized a while back that stuff clutters up the space we have. I do know some folks whose home is so full of stuff I do not enjoy my time there. The space is just too busy, and I find I cannot breathe when visiting.

Now there are a few things I would like to make homesteading a bit easier. For instance I hear lots of folks talking about dehydrators. I do not have one, it might make stuff easier. If I were true homesteader though, wouldn’t that mean I was doing things as my grandparents did? I am pretty sure Grandma Norden didn’t have a dehydrator to help dry her apples (she lived in MO.) and such. She didn’t have a pressure canner either, and she raised more food that I plan too, livestock and all. She raised from what I can find 5 children with much less equipment than I have, and I must only raise 2.

Why do we sometimes (or at least I do) feel we need more to do what they did with less? I read the old accounts of homesteading, and farming. I love that time period, settling the new country and finding your own place and working it. Their foods were simpler, and truth be told probably better for them that what we get now.

I wonder this sometimes about everything. I recently did some research on a shot the nurse was insisting my son needed. It is for a disease they have assessed is a threat to teens. This disease was not a threat when I was a teen, in fact it didn’t as far as I know even exist then. What if some of these “medical marvels” are actually hurting us? Giving the vaccinations might be like using a pesticide, they stop one thing so something stronger and more resilient is created in nature.

The gist of my thought is this, is it possible to go back to a simpler life or are we stuck wanting all the stuff we are supposed to NEED today?

Not being a wise woman I do not have the answer. I just know for me, right now in this time and in this place, I have enough. Enough

love and enough life. Enough to be comfortable and content in this time and this place. I can breathe and be happy.

As for my son and the shot, my research showed he did not need it, and the nurse ultimately agreed, for now.