Wednesday 29 August 2012

Goal 4. Camp at 5 Provincial Campgrounds


You know what is awesome? Fire. And hard ice cream, especially when gotten from a cute highway stop. I hope everyone is really enjoying their last week of summer and is enjoying the best summer has to offer you. I have written about some of the fun things we have done here, and here, and here!

Recently I have been feeling burdened by the frustrating minutiae of life and it has really pulled me down. This has led me to question spending time on spiritual and emotional health, because it takes so much time and can be so easily defeated. I need time to figure out and deal with much more mundane and practicum problems, such as my awful haircut or lack thereof.

But this weekend I realized something. The point of working on spiritual and emotional health is not because it has immediate and measurable outcomes; it's because when you feel joy and inner peace and strength your {insert mundane problem here} doesn't matter as much. You still have all the same issues but you are a less fragile person and you are not finding your self-worth within your ability to deal with these issues.

Prince Charming is totally jealous of my non-motion sickness because I am typing this while driving home from our 4th provincial campground, Carson-Pegasus Provincial, and our first one in Alberta! We had a great weekend with Belle, Cogsworth, Mulan and Attila. It was truly awesome.

I hope you will take time this week to do something awesome. Maybe use the excuse of working on your spiritual and emotional health to take the time for it.

What awesomeness have you experienced this summer?

Thursday 16 August 2012

How having a mouse can improve your life

Source.
We have a mouse in the house.

We saw it for the first time Thursday, then on Saturday morning and again Monday morning.

We have stuffed every single hole we can find with steel wool, we currently have 9 traps out of 3 different varieties and we have re-cleaned out, put in containers and labelled all our food. We have even cleaned out several closets.

We hope that the mouse has gone, since we haven't caught anything yet. But we are still on the lookout.

But this isn't what the mouse has done that is good for us. No,  the mouse has made us talk to people.

I have talked to many many people at work. I have talked to my landlord and neighbours. I have talked to all of my family members various times. I have opened up a bit about our life, and now we have a connection.

I have also learned that some things that you are afraid of simply have to be gotten over. I have to get over my crazy fear of mice and talking to people has helped with this a lot. People give far better advice than the internet too.

So the next time something horrible happens in your life remember that there may be great things that happen as a result of the terror and you will probably grow as a person. Open yourself up, to new ideas and people. See what can happen.

Isn't that great to remember?

Thursday 9 August 2012

Goal 76. Make your own preserves (the easy way!)

Did you guys know that its already August?! This summer has gone by so fast! I am sad to say that we haven't really done a lot of the things that I love about summer, and have spent a lot of time on pinterest inside the house.

So I decided to do something summery and make some preserves! But I am cheap and a little bit lazy. Plus we are on a sugar-free diet, so making a whole bunch of super sugary jam didn't seem like a good idea. Actually I have found that there is a brand of pectin that requires much less sugar, but it has to be ordered off the internet and I didn't want to miss great fruit deals. So instead of actual canning, I decided to freeze instead!