I'm F*cking Sailing

Sorry [not] about the title but.. This. A friend shared this post on Facebook.. and it couldn't be a more accurate representation of how I feel about what I'm doing in my life right now.

“I never thought I’d come back to New York. I have a lot of bad memories here. It can be an ugly place. My ex-husband lives here. On September 11th I was on the street below the second tower. So there are things I’d just prefer not to remember. But recently my mother got sick and I came home to take care of her. I was in a bit of a rut at the time. I’d fallen away from my passions. I was just working to pay the rent. And one evening I was walking by the river and I passed a place called Hudson River Community Sailing. They offered free sailing lessons. I don’t know why I stopped. I was intellectually convinced that sailing was not for me. I was getting older. I was out of shape. But I decided to give it a try. And I got hooked on it. I got kinda obsessed with learning to sail. I remember the first time I was out there alone. It felt amazing. I was in the middle of the Hudson, the wind was blowing, I could see the whole city, and my hand was on the tiller. It seemed like I was doing something impossible. I’m not white. I’m not male. I don’t own a boat. I don’t even have money. But I’m in New York City and I’m fucking sailing.”

 Humans of New York

...

Life is a crazy ride. My entire life has been one of transience, whether by circumstance or by nature. I can't remember the longest span of time I've ever lived in any place in particular- I feel like 2.5 years has been my limit, with a year being my average. As a kid I remember being in a new school every couple years, one year [grade 7, lucky me] I was enrolled in four different schools in 4 different towns. After high school I held down a job at the same company for 11 years, 6 of which I had 'no fixed address'. I took leave often to travel. 

Somewhere along the line, I became obsessed with an idea. My mind kept trying to equate a way, and my heart wouldn't let me leave it alone. I wanted to grow. Gardens, food, community structure- something sustainable for myself and abundant enough to share and even perhaps be profitable. I had an unstoppable desire to be some kind of farmer/gardener/homesteader. I was introduced to 'Permaculture' principles. It all felt so right...

But I'm a transient being. Ten years ago my circle grew to include the entire coast to coast span of the Northern portion of this massive continent. I set out with a backpack to wander Home the long way. I worked when I needed to, and found housing for the winters. In 2010 I started planting seeds. Guerilla gardening I believe it was called.. and then 'real' gardening behind people's houses. Mostly behind houses in which I did not live. I couldn't find a community where I fit so I tried building one. For my last couple years in Ontario, I was even fortunate enough to have a basement apartment and a back yard I could garden hard. 

Sandy Shores Farm was born in that back yard. It was a gift to my mother that I never got to give. She passed away the day I put the last seeds into the ground- mammoth sunflowers. I kept the seeds and left that place. 4 years ago- I transitioned back to the rucksack life.

I needed time to process everything. BC became my hang. I don't know why I decided to stay. Usually when people move west to encounter housing crises, breaking the bank and generally not succeeding at their first or fifth attempt at making it work, they move back home to safety. I couldn't secure housing for the life of me. Two jobs couldn't afford me a place, and keeping jobs without housing became more than a challenge. How would I ever see my dreams come to fruition if I'm living in a tent?! I didn't know exactly. But the dream never died.

My breaking point finally surfaced. 

Everything I owned [not much] was stashed in a 5x5 storage locker. I was staying in a tent and crashing a couch with a girl I was working with so I could shower and cook some nights. My credit had been decimated, I lost the truck I'd been living in, I lost touch with the few friends I had here whilst attempting to acclimate, and someone very close to me back home had just passed away. I was literally in the process of preparation to move back east when someone tapped me on the shoulder and said 'wait a minute'..

That someone was in the same situation and had the same dream. Maybe I wasn't crazy.

In January 2017 by some random chance, I found this little farm house cabin to rent. We planted a garden. A year later we were granted permission by our amazing neighbours to keep animals on their side of the property line. Almost two years, a couple dozen rabbits, two goats and a slough of chickens later... we have a farm. 

We don't have any money. My credit is still destroyed. I never inherited a piece of land, and the chances of me ever affording some in this province are slim to nil. I had no idea how I'd ever find a place to call home.. it seems like I'm doing the impossible. I'm in the valley surrounded by mountains with a beautiful waterfront view, and I'm f*cking Farming! 

Stay tuned.. this isn't over yet. ;)

Thoughts become reality- Love Your F*cking Life.

You really never know when your number will be up. Last week we lost a good friend, someone who reminded us all with every waking moment of his existence, something so critically important we must embrace it every day- Love Your Fucking Life.

This is post number 3 in my Thoughts become reality series, and probably won't be my last. In my first post titled Make a list, I covered how listing is a good first step in 'mind manifestation'. What you think about is often what you 'attract' into your life, and if you make a list of wants it gives you a base point for visualization. In post number two titled Never stop dreaming I went into further detail about visualization, and 'what to do next' once you get to where you want to be.

I've titled this post 'Love Your Fucking Life' firstly to honour our friend, and also because it's probably the absolute best way I could possibly express the most important thing that needs be discussed when it comes to 'mind manifestation'... and that's Gratitude.

No matter how 'shitty' your life may seem to be at the moment, no matter the struggles you might be going through, there is always something to be grateful for. If you spend every waking moment being upset or angry about the tumultuous situation you might be in, chances are, all you'll get from that is more turmoil. Find that one thing, that ray of sunshine, that smile from a stranger, a hug from a child, that fresh cool breeze and say: thank you.

Something incredible happens when you shift from 'I do not want this' to 'thank you'. Your energy shifts, your attitude changes, and the universe around you responds. Hold on to that gratitude as you move forward into your day, and you will find that as you go, you'll notice more things happening to be grateful for. The kindness of a stranger, an uplifting phone call from a friend, a courteous driver lets you out of a parking-lot onto a busy road.

Gratitude sends a powerful message into the universe from your heart. It tells the universe that you are open to receive goodness. When you are in a grateful state of mind and you will find that more things happen to be grateful for. Little by little you are changing your life.

...


I've been in my share of less than desirable situations. I feel almost as though each has a critical lesson that needs to be learned before I can move on, and in the end it always comes down to Gratitude. Homeless, jobless, stuck and alone... all of these situations have come up one by one or all at once since I decided to uproot my life and move west. And in each situation, it took arriving at my wit's end before I'd take a moment to 'count my blessings'. And it was only then that things would begin to change.

My current struggle has been a financial one. I've always been pretty keen and on top of my finances, even when homeless, jobless or traveling. This whole being rooted and learning a trade thing has been an adventure in itself. [Un]fortunately, I had to learn some things the hard way. I was subbing contracts through a company for work, which worked out really well for me. I could make my own schedule, work at my own pace and bid a decent price for the job.

Only problem is, it wasn't always easy to get paid. Having several month long periods of next to no money coming in, and only getting paid tiny portions when it did come, forced me to borrow with lots of interest. Until this year I've always had immaculate credit. That's gone pretty much down the tubes. My bills were always late, I was lucky if I can pay my already cheap rent on time. Something had to change.

I had to make it stop. I had to quit, and hope for the best. I started calling other contractors and leaving messages. Many of these contractors had asked us to do metal in the past, so I figured what's the harm in asking. I listed all of the skills I've picked up this past year, and all that I've learned and just felt so thankful to have all of these things out of the shitty situation. Learning what to do when we really have to improvise opened up my mind to new ways of doing things that I never would have learned in a less chaotic environment. Plus I've become super frugal. Even more so.

When I began to think about what might change if I have to quit my job, I was running through my mind all the things that I was grateful for amidst the shitty situation. I LOVE my team. We're a team of 3, myself and my partner and our friend, the 'muscle'. We work well together, we make it fun, our skill sets and abilities complement each other, and we Get Shit Done. I didn't want to lose that. Plus the builder that we get our contracts from is amazing. And the team of other trades we're always working with, they're great! Everyone smiles and shares, and helps one another out. I feel very lucky to have had a work environment like that. At the end of the day I could still say, "I love my job".

The day I started looking was the same day that company got fired by the builder. They never finished their end of the jobs on time, and delayed our materials which slowed us down on our timeline, and our pay! Persistence paid off, and we found another company to scoop us ALL up together, and right away... and even keep us on the same job site for the same big boss. Only now I'm the 'boss', I pick the contracts and the price, AND the companies we work through depending on the locations. And.. we actually get paid! After a year of struggling [and learning some harsh lessons], it's finally starting to pay off. Woohooo! It's going to take me a while to get caught up here, but I finally see the light!

...

No matter the shit storm I occasionally walk into, I know there's something going on worth celebrating. I do my best to smile at the positives. It might have been a huge pain in the ass to be working two jobs while sleeping outside, but it was kind of neat that I'd roll back to the forest every night and light a fire and watch the stars. Eventually, I found a Home. It sucks big time that I've gotten into a hell of a financial mess, but I learned a lot about homesteading and reducing my cost of living in the midst of it, and I'm very thankful for that. Once I put it all together, I create a better situation. Shit might suck for a minute, but I do my best to always find the light.

I began writing this series because of the reactions I get regarding my never-boring, always changing, unpredictable life that has allowed me to essentially 'live the dream'. I so happen to believe that there is a lot more than 'luck' or 'fate' involved. It's about intention, and using intuition. It involves speaking to- and listening to the universe, my environment, my mind and my heart. I have no science to back my experience with, although I'm sure it's out there.. I just want to share my experience as it is. This is 'how' I've managed to 'Live the Dream'.

Living life 'off the cuff' isn't always sunshine and rainbows, and I've had manage my anxiety to allow myself to continue living this lifestyle. I learn something new- and fall in love with every day. I've learned something that has allowed me the freedom to carve my own path in my moment of existence.. to Love My Fucking Life!

Thoughts become reality series

ta for now.. thanks for reading!

xo

Thoughts become reality- never stop dreaming.

If someone told me 5 years ago that in five years I'd be building a microfarm in beautiful rural BC, living in a tiny home, writing my own schedule, and actually driving, I would have said something like 'in my dreams'. Because it's true.. 5 years ago those were the kinds of things I was dreaming of.

I had no idea how I'd get there, all I knew is that is what I wanted. As time went on, unexpected events occured. Not all of them were 'good'. Some of them broke me down to the point I wasn't sure I'd get up again, but I did. Big losses, reaching a dead end in a 'career path', devastating realizations, dissolving relationships.. Instead of letting negative experiences of loss scare me into a corner, I allowed them to be gateways into positive change.

Visualization is key in manifestation.. and I've always had a pretty keen imagination. It seems as though these visualizations left a cookie crumb trail [in a roundabout way] to get me to where I'm at, but it was up to me to pick up on it. It was my responsibility to act.

Moving to BC [and throwing down roots] was never an immediate option for me. It was always more of an 'early retirement' plan. But it was there. I could never bring myself to uproot, and plant so far away from my mother. She suffered a long time with degenerative dis-ease, and I couldn't bring myself to leave [except to travel]. She lived my journeys vicariously through me and it brought her great joy.

Losing her suddenly was for many years a possibility, but I certainly didn't see it coming when it did. She was doing well, feeling better, and for the first time in a long time, smiling and happy. I was just about finished building her an epic little microfarm that she could visit and enjoy. It was a shock that slipped me into a downward spiral.

I too had been feeling better, I worked hard to get myself in the best shape of my life, and I had a home after a long stint of vagabonding, couch crashing and room renting. Life was pretty good, I felt 'settled'. Well, mostly. I still had dreams.. After she passed, I felt that my purpose had shifted. Many other things ended for me in the following few months. A few not-so-ideal changes in the company that I had been with for over a decade sparked my sudden retirement from the industry.

Lost and feeling unsure of what to do next, I sat in that garden. For days.. weeks. I set up my tent and slept in it. I allowed everything around me to just be. In my silence, a concerned friend reached out. I was offered some couch space.. in Vancouver BC. I agreed that I could use the vacation, and accepted. I spent the end of that summer moving my things into a storage locker. Then had an epic greyhound journey west.

From there, I cycled through a few temporary housing solutions while changing up my career objective. Whether I was planning to stay in Vancouver or I was just visiting was yet to be determined but one thing was for sure. If I was gonna stay a while, I needed to make money. After a few temp roles doing random shit I found myself working two jobs back and forth [and all at once]. Home and Garden stores, and landscaping.

Somewhere in there, I found myself living in a truck in the woods, then a tent, then a couch- then a trailer.. while I continued to do all of those things. Handling building materials and maintaining a garden center inspired dreams of building things, having a home and planting a garden. But living the way that I was worked me into isolation and exhaustion. At about that point, I'd met someone who had ended up in the same situation, but had just as large ambitions to get ahead.. to get back to living deliberately.

We collaborated on our dreams and discussed them out loud. We started reading books and watching shows and looking on the Craigslist. Tiny homes and living simply. In the searching and reading and dreaming I stumbled upon an ad for a little farm cabin for rent in the valley.. a few months after he had happened upon the ad that found us a sweet deal on some wheels.
 

Fast forward to today.. we've been out here over a year. We're in a tiny home, although it is rented, it has given us ideas (and space!) to build one of our own, eventually. We are about to plant for the second year on our microfarm, and I'm now writing my own schedule by getting contract work instead of typical scheduled 40 hour work weeks.

Once I had realized that I'd arrived at the threshold of my dreams becoming reality, I kept dreaming.. I began visualizing things that would improve our quality of life. Imagining other ways we could become more self- sufficient. Making more lists...

It almost seems like a snowball effect of my thoughts becoming my reality. Once I'd seen it happening, my faith in possibilities grew, which opened up my mind to even bigger possibilities.

Upon moving here, the land owner was very strict on his 'pet' policy. He doesn't want any animals in the house. We'd asked one time before how he'd felt about us keeping rabbits, but he never really gave an answer.

He summoned us to the big farm last weekend to help with a project, and when we were done, J asked why it was that he didn't want us having animals. Once he'd learned that we intended to keep them outside the house, and mostly wished to have them to help us clear and maintain the land, he agreed to let us have livestock. I couldn't believe it, I'm still in shock! I thought for sure my dream of having goats was one I had tucked away for further in the future. Now all I have to do is build them a home..

...

Never stop dreaming.

- once you've achieved your goal or arrived to your dream situation, don't let that be the end! Expand on your dreams.. there's always room for improvement!

- Make a list! Listing goals, to-dos, and things you want or need is a great way to jumpstart visualization. You have to see it happen to make it happen!

...

Thanks so much for reading and following. This is part two of a blog series I'm writing about thoughts becoming reality. I was inspired to write this based on many social media comments from friends and family saying that I'm 'living the dream'. I am, I'm living my dream. And I believe this is how I got here. There were many unexpected turns along the way, and a good number of 'why me' moments that came full circle to an eventual 'oh, that's why'.

I can't promise anything, but I'm sharing because I believe that there has been more than luck and good timing involved in my dreams becoming my reality. I truly believe that mindset shapes our reality. That's why 'waking on the wrong side of the bed' leads to a shitty day. That's how many athletes win competitions over and again. Visualization is a powerful tool, and mindset is half the battle!


xo

Thoughts become reality- make a list

The idea that thoughts become your reality is not a new one. The "power of intention" or "mind manifestation" has been written about over and over through time, and I happen to believe it to be true.

I've always been the type to write things down. Journals turned into blogs and day planners and notepads, and as it would appear, my thoughts became reality.

I never realized at first that this was the case. I had my 'aha!' moment a few years ago when I made my first attempt to get healthy again. I had made a list at the beginning of the year of goals that I wanted to achieve. I'm pretty sure I didn't even look at the list again until the year was almost over.. and somehow, everything I'd written down had happened.

It was a mix of goals that were easily attainable with a little effort, goals that would take a lot more effort, and goals that I could not yet even envision a path to achieving, but I'd written them down anyways because they were important to me. One by one I had achieved them.

I thought, this is pretty huge.. so I started writing a list at the beginning of every year. And every year, most if not all of the things I'd written down had made their way into my life.

Early this year I had another similar 'aha!' moment... it's not just the lists. After reading back over my blogs, forum posts, and day planners from the past few years, everything I wanted or dreamt that might happen in my life did, one way or another.

Now I'm not saying I simply wrote everything down and that's it, it happened. There were steps along the way. Nudges from the universe so to speak, gut feelings and presented opportunities that needed to be taken. But writing it down, for me, was the first and most critical step.

And even though I "know" this, I clearly still experience some pretty hard times. It might be because I have the attitude that anything worth having is worth the challenge. It's probably because I still have my doubts, and worries and anxieties about life situations. Even so, I always knew no matter what I would pull through.

So back to manifesting the things. Of all the ways that things have come to be, I think the most powerful suggestion I've ever made to myself/the universe is The List. The grocery list gets purchased, the "to-do" list gets done, the goal list becomes achievements, and... The List... it happens. One way or another or another or another.

Maybe it's because when I make a list, it becomes a bullet note of visualizations. As I'm writing the list, I'm seeing very vividly what it is that I want in my head. Sometimes it's in that moment of writing the list that I have a sudden idea on how I might tick that one thing off. Other times, something completely unexpected happens that results in the intended conclusion, but I could have never seen it coming.

It could simply be that for me, making a list is the best way to tap into my subconscious. I'll find myself happening into a situation that would somehow, as if by magic, end up leading me to something that I wanted, or a place I needed to be.

I don't know what it is, to be honest. But it seems to work for me ;)


...


Thanks for reading. This is part one of a multi-part series I'll be writing over the next few months about mindset and manifestation. I have too much to say to write everything down in one go, but I feel the need to share. I've been through a lot of sh*t in my life as many have, but I've also been very lucky and incredibly blessed- and I think there's sort of a "reason" for that.. state of mind.

That's all for now. Stay tuned for more wonderful weirdness.

Xo