Taking Back Time.

I'm having a hard time with something, I always have. And I know I'm not the only one. I'm just gonna come right out and say it- 40 hour work weeks are bullshit. When we were indie contractors, we basically made our own schedule. We would work when the materials/ stages were ready, and if we finished earlier we'd leave early, still getting the flat rate that we had billed for the job. Our jobs were completed efficiently and on time, and we still had time for our lives. Every once in a while we'd have to do long days to get a project finished, but for the most part, worked on average 30 hours a week. Unfortunately as indie contractors, the work wasn't always guaranteed, so we decided to seek out a company to hire us as a team. 

When we were hired by this company, we did our first week like 'normal' workers. We tried the 8-8.5 hour work days, plus the drive, plus our home and farm chores. The company had a sample of our work ethic, and we had a taste of 40 hour weeks on top of our busy half way homesteading life. Then we had our official 'on the books' hiring meeting. We explained how we love the work, take pride in our work, but can't fit a 40 hour work week plus commute into our lifestyle. Much to our surprise, they were more than willing to work with us, given the quality of work we provide.

It's been over a year. We have it worked out to have every other Friday off. We work 7 hour days, and a four hour day evey other Friday. We're paid biweekly, so we'd work a half day, get our checks, do our banking, groceries and errands with the rest of our 'shift'. 28 and 32 averages to 30 hour weeks, or 60 hour pays. Because of tax brackets and whatnot, we only make roughly 60-80 less a week missing those 10 hours. Let that sink in for a minute..

When we worked 40 hour weeks, we were making 600 more a month combined. But! We had 40 hours *less* time a month. Divide that up, that's only an 'additional' 15 bucks an hour... COMBINED. that means those 'extra' 10 hours a week, we were only taking home an extra $7.50 an hour each because working more hours meant we were making more money- and thus had more deductions taken. Plus we save on fuel and miscellaneous spending that happens when we go to work. After all said and done, we're basically giving those extra 10 hours a week away for free. Going to work every day costs time *and* money.

And to what advantage? The company doesn't get any more or better quality work out of me. In fact, longer days means I'm more exhausted the next day and production slows down. It's an observable fact that we as 30 hour a week workers get more done than the "full timers". The company benefits by getting the same or more and better quality work without having to pay for more hours. We get more hours a week to live our lives. Win, win.

There's 168 hours in a week. I spend roughly 50 hours a week sleeping or resting, that leaves 118. My 30 hours working, so 88 left. 13 hours average commuting takes us down to 75. 30 hours a week on farm chores, 25 left.. so if we were working 40 hour weeks, we would have 15 hours a WEEK of idle time. That's it. That's for extra projects, reading, shopping for stuff we need, volunteering, going for a walk, spending quality time together and with our animals, friends and family, leisure activities.. life outside of work. Real, life.

No....

No. That's not enough. This is our life we're talking about here, and we should really consider living life before we're too old to do anything about it..


I understand that it's my choice to have 30 hours a week of farm chores, gardening, working at home. But some people work two jobs to get that food, or to be able to afford various lifestyle choices. I choose to grow my food, and live this life. That's the kind of 'work' I'd rather do to keep myself fed. I'm not at all saying that my way is the right way, and everyone should work less so they can stay home and grow food. I realize that's not possible for everyone. What I'm saying is, I feel that we truly undervalue our time on this earth. And not just monetarily. Our hourly wages, is that really all we're worth?

Someone, somewhere at some point in time set this standard of living that many of us in this current societal structure have adhered to. I think it's about time that we reevaluate these standards as individuals. What do we really need in our lives? What are we paying money (and thus time) for that really doesn't benefit us? Is there some way we can shift our energy to be put into something more self-fulfilling instead of selling the best of ourselves to someone else and not getting an appropriate return? What can I do or create that I can use myself or sell/ barter/ trade for what I do need?

This is just the beginning for me. As my lifestyle shifts to one more rooted in nature, I am exploring more opportunities to be self-sufficient. I am working to shift to a more home-based means of accumulating income, and less of a need for one. When I envision 'retirement', I'm not old, leaving a company I've given my best years to, settling down and waiting to die. For me, retiring will be when my own life and how I live it provides enough abundance to no longer need to hit a punch clock on someone else's dream. The following 'meme' is basically a summation of what I'm getting at..

"My goal is to build a life
I don't need a vacation from"

That is essentially it. No one is saying anything about not having to work. A productive life will always require work. My goal is to get to a point where I only have to attend a "regular day job" enough to cover basic bills, and have the time I need to build, grow, seek and trade for the things I need myself. Put the effort, and time and hard work into my life, the land on which I live, and my community. For now, it is what it is. Slowly buy truly, we're taking back our time.

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. ;)

Juneuary.. and sorta summer.

I can't even.. it's been almost two months since I've had a chance to write. June was.. strange. Cold. Like.. unusually cold. And rainy. Not that I'm complaining, but It's been an interesting season for the crops. My bro came to visit pretty well a month exactly after my folks had come and gone. The farm has been busy, work has been busy. Even our sworn 'church days' aka Garden Sundays have been infiltrated by laborious tasks when usually we try to stay home in the garden to enjoy nature's bounty.. and catch up from the week.

Three weeks into June we were thrown a bit of a curve ball. StarShip Delilah died on the side of the highway, luckily just off our road.. close enough to slowly limp her home. I wasn't ready for her to die on all levels. I had become attached to that little blue vessel. We were put out for a week in the process of finding her a replacement. Given that we had zero cash saved, and made it by on the gracious help from family and associates, we are now back on the road. Playing catch-up in the busy season though, has proven to be all kinds of exhausting.

All kinds. So effin tired.

I feel a little bit like we've bitten off more than we can chew. I'm up at 5am [well, if I can drag my arse out of bed that quick], and we might be lucky to take our work boots off at ten. We work metal in the daytime, farming in the evenings, and market on the weekends- and a landscaping gig whenever I can fit it in. I cheat and drive barefoot just to enjoy those moments of freedom from being shod. But besides that, my available time for self-care has been reduced to brushing my teeth while I'm taking my morning.. well, you know. I just can't bloody well find the time. And I'm suffering profusely for it. I did it to myself, though.. I did promise myself I'd find things to do. Now if I could just manage my time.

Between my autoimmune disorder dropping my thyroid into first gear, adrenal fatigue, the weight gain that comes with it, and the heat.. I'm just spent. Sleep is elusive yet I struggle to stay awake. Anxiety cranked to max, especially when city is involved. Something has to give. One thing I'd like to do less of, is spend all my time leaving our little town to go work for money that we wouldn't need so much if we didn't have to go to the city for work. Such a catch 22.

To gain a bit of balance, catch up on home and farm work, and spend a little less time on the road, we have decided that starting this week- Wednesdays are farm days. Be it here on the homestead, on one of our other sites, or down at the shop... we need more time to do our own things. Hopefully this will help to break up the week for me so that I can start to get my health back in order as well.

The goats are doing awesome. They are my joy, and our mascots on the farm. I never would have imagined they'd be so easy to train, and so well adapted to our space in such a short time. Which is good.. because the rabbits have proven to be a lot of work. It's still worth it for my partner to have healthy organic meat, but we need to work on tightening our system of caring for them so that it is far less time consuming. We're about half way there.

It's been a strange season for the gardens. Everything fruit finished early, and our vegetables are struggling to catch up. The heat this past couple weeks is pushing them finally.. I can't even wait to bite into my first vine ripened homegrown tomato. I swear I dream about it..
 
That's about all I've got for now. One of these days I'll have a moment to sit and write about it. About all the strange happenings and coincidences, the new opportunities that have shown up as if we had called them into existence ourselves, and all the weirdness in between. But for now it's Sunday, and I have a little more enjoying of that to do before we get back to business.

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