I spent a long time being the sort who put in my time at work, came home to an easily prepared or packaged meal, and flopped down in front of the TV for the evening. Needless to say urban homesteading has been a wee bit of a lifestyle change for me. Although I made the decision to be more self-sufficient in fall, the changes that I needed to do in my life started a little over two years ago.
That's when I got teased by my boyfriend at the time about not eating much meat. I got really defensive when asked if I was a vegetarian. That night I got to thinking about my diet. Was I getting enough protein that way? Was I eating well at all? The next day I woke up, requested Becoming Vegetarian from the library, and never ate the same way again. TV started slowly getting phased out as I learned to cook (and realized I actually liked vegetables) and I spent evenings searching for healthy recipes and whipping them up. I learned about flylady and started implementing her routines to use my time efficiently.
When I moved to this house over a year ago in October, I set up the TV and couldn't get any channels. I just smiled at the uncooperative screen and knew this was the way my life was going anyway. I hooked it up to the DVD player for a little entertainment on the weekends or on cold winter nights and felt that was more than good enough. The extra time earned by giving television shows up completely sent me looking for new opportunities to improve my life and set goals. I turned back to my flylady routines and updated them to include taking care of my critters, gardens, and cooking from scratch.
Isn't it funny how 3 changes worked together perfectly to prepare the way for the new lifestyle needed on my little city farm? Was there a defining moment (or a mini series of events like mine) in your life that shaped who you are today and why you strive to live the way you do?
3 comments:
I have always been pretty country but what sealed the deal for us was working in construction and seeing the bubble getting ready to burst. We realized that when it burst it was likely not coming back in our lifetime therefore we needed to make some HUGE changes.And so it began
Great post! Love it when everything works out toward a certain goal that you may not have even realized you were headed toward. We could definitely cut back our TV usage at my house. My sister watches it so often...then we end up watching it when something interesting is on and we have a bad habit of watching NCIS all the time :)
That's great! I prefer no TV personally. I've spent the last 2 years w/o one and my husband had one when we moved in together....which he broke w/in 3 months. He's anxious to get a new one, but we're doing fine for now. (I do admit we have a projector with a large screen which we use to watch movies and the occasional sports game.) But beyond that...there's not a lot that interests me on the TV.
For me the foundation for the life was always there probably, but the catalyst was taking home the injustices and unfairness of the world via watching the movie Blood Diamond.....gave away, started reading more, embraced more simple things.....
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