Green & Simple Living, Part 1

I've been trying to step out of my comfort zone a bit lately and try some new things.  =)  A couple of weeks ago I gave a talk at my MOPS group about Green & Simple Living.  I actually had a lot of fun with it, and I was happy with how it turned out.  So, just for fun, I thought I'd share it here, in parts because it's so long!


Green & Simple Living, Part 1

So I’ll be talking about green living and living simply today.  Those can kind of be two different topics, and there can be a lot that goes into each of those things, but those are two things that I’m really passionate about, and for me, they kind of go hand in hand, which is why I’m talking about both of them.  So I’m going to start out by sharing a little of bit of our journey towards living more simply, talk about what that means for us, how living green plays a role in that, and then sharing some easy ways to start incorporating some of those things into your own life, as well.  And I’ll try to leave some time for questions at the end.  There is also a craft project you can try when we’re finished.  

I think I’d start by saying I’ve always craved a simple life.  And definitely the kind that comes to mind when you think of those words.  When I was a little girl, I love the Little House on the Prairie books, and that was what I played, all the time.  I wished I had lived back then.  I loved their small houses, their farming, how they did everything themselves, and I really wanted that.  So it’s kind of always been there for me, on some level.  

My husband and I got married nine years ago, and we just kind of started life the way most people do.  Seth was finishing up his bachelor’s degree, so we lived in the married dorms for a while. We were both working, so we were busy, but we were having fun.  We liked to go out on dates, I was having fun decorating our apartment.  As Seth finished his degree, he realized that he didn’t want to pursue the career path that he had originally planned on, and we were kind of in a crossroads of trying to decide what to do.  Around that time, we got pregnant, and Seth found a new job that earned enough money for me to stay home once the baby came.  Once we were down to one income, we had less money, so even though I’ve always been a frugal person, this led us to be more so, and to find more ways to save money, and that’s actually one of the things that led me to more natural and green solutions, that I’ll talk more about a little later.  We lived a fairly typical life for a while, I was home with the kids, Seth would work all day, and he would come home tired, so we would eat dinner, play with the kids, watch TV, and go to bed.  And it’s not that we had a bad life, but it wasn’t always very fulfilling. 

Seth had always wanted to go back to school.  He was not happy in his current job, it was really stressful, and involved sales, which is really not something he likes.  So he really wanted to pursue some different things.  We started really thinking and talking about how we wanted to live our life.  Seth knew he didn’t want to fight his way up the corporate ladder, he wanted to do something that he enjoyed.  He has always loved writing; that’s always been his passion, and if he could have a dream job, that would be it.  Of course, that didn’t seem very practical, especially with a family, but we decided that we really wanted to live our life to the fullest, and do what we loved.  So he started looking around at creative writing graduate programs.  He applied to several, and then got accepted to SPU’s program.  So that was one thing that led us to our more simple life.

To be continued....