Cultivating Peace (& other New Year’s resolutions)


* This article contains an affiliate link. For more information, please read my Affiliate Disclosure.

 

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.I have a love-hate relationship with the month of January. On one hand I love that life slows down and settles back into a predictable routine. On the other hand I don’t always love how work speeds up and how there is a long stretch of winter doldrums before there are any other holidays to look forward to. 

I love how the new year brings with it a clean slate and a fresh opportunity to start over, do better, reach our goals and be the best versions of ourselves! Then again, I hate that the hangover from Christmas can make the everyday obligations of real life seem more like drudgery than at any other time of year.

I do love the calm, peacefulness of winter in January, and although I equally love the festive nature of the holiday season, by the new year I am ready to be still, quiet, reflective. I’m ready to focus on cultivating nourishing, nurturing habits that will help me be a better version of myself with each passing year.

Last year was a big year for my husband Ryan and I in terms of resolutions. First off, both he and I resolved once and for all to quit smoking. Yes, I, Mrs. natural health and wholesome foods advocate and frugal homesteader… I used to spend between $5 and $10 a day on killing myself slowly with toxic chemicals. I smoked for 15 years (Ryan for 20) and finally, after many attempts at quitting, we had enough. 

 

All you need to get motivated is the right motivation…

Our daughter was our biggest motivation, but aside from the other obvious health and money reasons, it just didn’t jive with our lifestyle or our homestead dreams and goals. When we think of who we want to be, “smokers” doesn’t make the list. So we quit! Once and for all. And we’ve never looked back. 

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.

Our daughter Evelyn has been our biggest motivation to quit smoking and stay quit. She has given me the strength to do things I never thought I could do.

It’s been almost a year now since I put out my last cigarette, and when that one-year mark hits next week, it will be one of the proudest moments of my life. 

For anyone reading this who is also a smoker wanting to quit, I can’t recommend the book Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Quit Smoking highly enough. It really helped me in my journey and was pretty much the driving force behind Ryan actually quitting for good. To this day he maintains that the book changed his life and he has never wanted to smoke again since reading it.

I also love the Smoke Free app for my smart phone (not an affiliate… I just genuinely love this app). It keeps track of the time since my last cigarette, how much money I’ve saved, how my health has improved and even how much money I will save each year I don’t smoke (the savings are jaw-dropping). Plus, it’s free!

Anyway, I won’t go on about this anymore, but I truly am living proof that quitting isn’t as hard as we make it out to be in our minds. I literally woke up one morning last January and decided I was done and I never picked up a cigarette again. Miracles do happen. Just sayin’ 😉

 

Cultivating the seeds of peace

This year I also have a different type of resolution. This resolution isn’t about pushing harder, doing more, losing weight, running a successful business, quitting bad habits or getting out of debt. While those are all noble goals (and are all also on my list of resolutions in one capacity or another), my overarching resolution this year is to cultivate peace in all that I do.

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.

I tend to be a bit of an anxious mess from time to time. In fact, this could be the understatement of the year so far. I’m much better now than I used to be because I’ve worked really hard on learning to manage my anxiety and emotions, but it’s still something that’s ever-present in my life that I continue to learn to work past. 

This year, the big “theme” is to make myself a priority and do what’s in the best interests of my personal health and well-being. Like many mothers, I devoted my life to my child the day she was born. But I also know that it’s in her, and my, and our family’s best interest if I take care of myself too and follow my heart and my passions along the way. 

Part of this is to really start practicing self care, and for me (a natural introvert who prefers peaceful silence over raucous festivities any day) self care entails finding peace and calm in the every day, and cultivating it among the chaos.

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.

I want to take time to focus on my breath; meditate and connect to the higher vibrations of the universe; be mindful as I’m cooking or doing dishes or gardening; go inward and find a quiet place even when the world outside of me is loud and overwhelming; make exercising my body a priority, not for aesthetics, but to feel good and to keep the vessel in good condition; let go of things that do not serve me; take time to just be without doing, producing and accomplishing all the time.

 

Slowing down for self-care (and to savour the moment)

We, as a culture, place such little value on self-care; on slowing down; on doing less. Every day is about how much you can get done in a 24-hour period. Can you speed up productivity? Knock off your entire to-do list every day? Time-block every last minute of the day to accomplish more? Multitask? Skip breakfast? Stop sleeping?

If we want to be healthy, happy, strong and self-sufficient individuals, the answer to all of the above is a resounding “No!”

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.

I think it’s a sign, don’t you?

Not to say there isn’t a time to speed up. Especially as a homesteader in the making, there is always work to be done. In fact, the work is pretty much never-ending. But the lifestyle allows us to escape the rat race a bit. That’s a huge reason why we’ve followed (and are continuing to follow) our homestead dreams.

Indeed there is always work to be done, but we must make time to do nothing as well. Time to be quiet and still and gaze out the window on a snowy morning while mindfully sipping on a cup of coffee (do you know I haven’t finished a cup of hot coffee since I became a mother? It’s insanity!).

With the New Year comes a fresh start and a renewed chance to create the life you want. For me, 2018 is all about slowing down, self-care and cultivating peace in all areas of life.

And so I am scheduling in time to unschedule this year. I am setting my intention to cultivate peace and calm in all that I do, because just like cultivating a garden, the seeds of peace must also be sewn and nurtured until they grow big and strong.  And I’m starting now, because while there is always a busy season in life, winter is the perfect time to slow down. Now I must rest.

A very happy new year to all of my dear readers. I wish you peace, love and joy in 2018 and beyond.

 

Until next time,

The House & Homestead

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HOMESTEADING
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6 Comments

  1. Mahesha

    You’re so right Anna! Work is never ending! I love the idea to schedule in time to unschedule. Its the best thing we can do for our mental health and peace of mind. ? xo? Mahesha, from Life So Blissful

    Reply
    • Anna Sakawsky

      Thank you for reading and taking the time to respond! I absolutely love listening to your hypnosis’ and guided meditations. I’d love to share some links to your blog and Youtube channel in some upcoming posts! Blessings Xx

      Reply
  2. Ruthie

    Living the homestead life has definitely helped me appreciate and slow down as the season dictates!

    Reply
    • Anna Sakawsky

      Yes Ruthie! Living closer to the land has helped me get into a rhythm of knowing when to step my game up and knowing when to rest. I still have a ways to go though so I’m trying to be really mindful and pay attention to the cues nature and my body are giving me this year.

      Reply
  3. Lynda Lu Gibb

    Sounds like more time in “our” back yard.(s)!

    Reply
    • Anna Sakawsky

      Lol. Yes, “our backyard.” It’s funny how we live across the yard from one another but the winter has us holed up indoors and we see so much less of each other. Can’t wait until spring to see you guys out in the garden! How are your chickens doing? Producing any eggs? We’ve been getting ours from other local farms but if you have any extras we will gladly start buying from you again!

      Reply

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ABOUT ANNA
Hi! I’m Anna, and I’m a city girl turned modern homesteader who’s passionate about growing, cooking and preserving real food at home, creating my own herbal medicine and all-natural home and body care products, and working toward a simpler, more sustainable and self-sufficient life each and every day. 
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If you haven't checked-in lately, the last week or so, we've sorta been in the trenches of homesteading and life over here. While some make it out to be glamorous all the time there are high's and low's just as there are in life. ⁣

With all that's going on, I've been making a point to find my way back into the garden, which is not only needed to feed my family, but also for some personal spiritual nourishment. ⁣

I just want to take a minute to love on my favorite veggie today, Broccoli! 🥦 It's one we plant over-and-over and I'm leaning into its abundance this year. ⁣

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I've got an entire post on How to Grow Broccoli from Seed here: https://thehouseandhomestead.com/how-to-grow-broccoli-from-seed/ if you're looking for any tips or tricks.⁣

In my "How to" post you'll also find a link to one of my favorite recipes for Cream of Broccoli Leaf Soup!
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29 5

Can I be honest?

Sometimes you've gotta take a step back and look at the life you've created for yourself and ask yourself "is this truly what I want?"

The other day I shared about losing two of our rabbits this week to Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease. The stress of losing them comes amidst a backdrop of heightened tensions around here...

From work pressures for Ryan to me trying to run a business and handle a very fussy, colicky 2-month-old (and a very busy 6-year-old), to things ramping up in the garden again and all of the other million things that need to get done (including multiple loads of laundry a day thanks to more spit up than I ever knew a baby was capable of producing), I finally felt like I was ready to crack this week.

Oh, not to mention we're doing this all on next to no sleep thanks again to our sweet boy.

I know this is all part of what we signed up for, but when it all happens at once, it can feel completely overwhelming. And when I'm completely overwhelmed and stressed out, that's exactly when I get sick too, which is exactly what happened a couple days ago.

Then yesterday (Saturday) I woke up feeling awful and decided to scroll Instagam as I nursed Noah. I saw other mothers with 6, 8 or even 10 kids somehow keeping it all together getting three square meals on the table every day while managing to keep a tidy kitchen and find time to Instagram about it.

I saw other homestead bloggers reaching new levels of success in their business that I can only dream about right now. And as I sat there in bed, covered in spit up with a ravenous baby nursing off me as I tried to console him, I felt sad for myself in that moment that I couldn't live up to the folks I was comparing myself to.

Later in the day I had to work, so Ryan took the kids to the beach and I stayed home. And I felt sad once again; Sad that I was missing out on yet another weekend with my family because I had created a life where I now have to work weekends just to keep up.

But the silver lining was that the work I had to do yesterday forced me out into the garden, and it was probably the most soothing thing I could have done for my soul.

(Continued in comments…)
...

86 23

Sometime homesteading looks like homegrown vegetables and freshly laid eggs and sourdough rising on the counter.

And sometimes it looks like tears when you have to bury one of your animals 😔

Ryan went out to feed the bunnies yesterday and Flopsy -our little black and white bunny- was laying dead in the pen. There was no blood, other than a little bit by her mouth. Seems like something internal happened. We’re not sure what.

Evelyn helped lay her to rest yesterday. It was a hard weekend for her. First she stayed with grandma and went with her to put her sick, 17-year-old cat down. Then she came home to the news that Flopsy was gone.

But I believe she’s more resilient because of it. We talked to her about how death is a part of all life, and allowed her to go through the stages of grief and process it however she felt she needed to.

Homesteading isn’t always sunshine and rainbows and snuggly barnyard animals. Homesteading teaches us hard lessons and helps us to become stronger and more resilient by challenging us daily.

Yesterday was a sad, hard day. But I’m glad we got to experience it together as a family.
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What does self-reliant really mean? Is it actually achievable, or just a pipe dream?⁣

Over on the blog today I'm unpacking all of these thoughts, and the things I do know for sure as a homesteader, mother and member of a strong and self-reliant community. ⁣

But I really want to hear from you! Post in the comments below what self-reliance means in modern times, or what steps you're taking to be more self-reliant. ⁣

Read the full article here: https://thehouseandhomestead.com/what-is-self-reliance/ or at the link in my bio
...

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The spring issue of Modern Homesteading Magazine is out now!

It’s that time again...

The time when things begin ramping up in the garden, the barnyard and the home.

From trays of seedlings to baskets full of eggs, spring is in the air and I don’t know about you, but I’m here for it!

It’s also time for a brand new issue of Modern Homesteading Magazine, and boy do we have a good one for you…

In the spring issue, we cover a diverse range of topics from how to trade your skills for land to the realities of going off-grid, from seed-starting to what to do with too many eggs, and from the simple joys of a homemade herbal cocktail to the sometimes heavy emotional toll of raising meat animals.

In this issue, you’ll find:
🌱 What it really takes to live off-grid, with Tammy Trayer of Trayer Wilderness
🌱How you can trade your skills for a piece of land with the SKIP program from the folks at Permies.com
🌱 Everything you need to know about seed-starting to set your garden up for success and abundance!
🌱 What to do with too many eggs! Author Mimi Dvorak-Smith shares 800+ ways to use ‘em up when your hens start laying.
🌱 How to make your own healthier cocktails with homemade botanical syrups
🌱 Dealing with the emotional toll of raising meat animals on the homestead

Visit modernhomesteadingmagazine.com to login to the library and read the spring issue (current subscribers) or subscribe for just $19.99/year to read this issue and gain instant access to our entire library of past issues!

#modernhomesteading #homesteading #selfsufficiency #springonthehomestead
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29 5

If you grow plants from seed (or if you want to), you’re likely going to want to start a few of them indoors. And if you start your seeds indoors, something that will make your life so much easier (and make your seedlings bigger, stronger and healthier) is an indoor growing stand with grow lights. ⁣

I've got a post I'm sharing with you today that will walk you through choosing the best type of lighting for whatever you're growing and then a step-by-step guide of how to make your grow stand, along with product recommendations if you want to make yours just like mine! ⁣

Ours can accommodate up to about 200 seedlings, but you can make yours as small or big as needed:)⁣

You can check out the post here https://thehouseandhomestead.com/how-to-build-indoor-growing-stand/ or at the link in my bio. ⁣

Let me know in the comments what you're growing new, or what you're most excited about in your planting journey this year!
...

25 1

Theme of the Month: ADIDAS ⁣
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Before you just start throwing seeds in the ground or into red solo cups on your windowsill, it’s important to take some time to read your seed packets and get to know each crop’s specific needs.⁣

Understanding the information on a seed packet is super important when it comes to gardening, especially if you want your plants to get a strong, healthy start and produce an abundance of food for you. And what gardener doesn’t want that?!⁣

Set yourself up for success and take a minute to read through my 𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘰 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥 & 𝘜𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘥 𝘗𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘵𝘴 𝘎𝘶𝘪𝘥𝘦, before your weekend gardening plans begin. ⁣

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This all-natural homemade toothpaste recipe is made with just four simple ingredients that are good for both your body and your bank account!⁣

I’m on a personal mission to replace every commercially-made, toxic product in our home with homemade, all-natural alternatives. One-by-one, I’m getting closer every day.⁣

The benefit of making all-natural toothpaste at home is avoiding the unhealthy additives found in most commercial toothpastes by substituting ingredients with proven benefits for oral health.⁣

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Wishing you health, wealth and squeaky clean teeth… The all-natural way;)⁣

You can find the recipe here https://thehouseandhomestead.com/all-natural-homemade-toothpaste-recipe/ or at the link in my bio.
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21 2

It's that time of year 🌱 seed starting season! ⁣

I know you can feel it too. The transition from winter to spring is truly a special time. It’s when life begins again. It’s the very first taste of all that lies ahead.⁣

So before you go just planting any and every seed you can get your hands on, I've got a list of 8 Things to Think About Before Starting Seeds, to get you off on the right food! ⁣

I will walk you through, planning, sowing, containers, watering, lighting and more, and if that's not enough you can download my Seed Starting Cheat Sheet at the end to lay it all out. ⁣

I hope you're as excited as I am for the beautiful Spring season that lies ahead:)⁣

You can find the list here https://thehouseandhomestead.com/before-starting-seeds/ or at the link in my bio.⁣

What are you planting this year? Anything new you've never tried before? Share with me in the comments!
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25 5

Ever thought about growing mushrooms at home??

A great EASY way to get started is with one of these mushroom grow kits from @northsporemushrooms

All you need to do is cut open the pack, spray with a little water (the kits even come with a handy little spray bottle), and then sit back and watch the magic happen!

And seriously, watching mushrooms goes does feel a little like magic because they grow so fast you can practically see them growing, no time lapse necessary!

The mushrooms are ready for harvest in just a few days. No gardening experience or land necessary! Even a newbie homesteader in an apartment in the city can grow these babies!

This is a great way to dip your tow into the much bigger world of mushroom growing and harvesting, and to try out a few new varieties that you probably won’t find anywhere else.

I grew Pink Oyster Mushrooms, Lion’s Mane and Blue Oyster Mushrooms (all pictured here). I’ll be using the Pink Oyster Mushrooms in a rigatoni pasta for dinner tonight. I turned the Lion’s Mane into Lion’s Mane “crab cakes” and the Blue Oyster Mushrooms are delicious as part of a stir fry or sautéed in butter and spooned over sourdough toast.

If this reel intrigues you, you can grab your own mushroom grow kit (along with time of other mushroom related products, including fruiting blocks, outdoor log kits, medicinal tinctures, capsules and more) at northspore.com. Use code HOUSEANDHOMESTEAD for 10% off your order!

And if you haven’t yet, be sure to check out my interview with Louis Giller of North Spore Mushrooms in the winter issue of Modern Homesteading Magazine. You can also find my recipe for Lion’s Mane “Crab Cakes,” along with other delicious mushroom recipes and an in-depth feature on medicinal mushrooms including Lion’s Mane, Reishi, Chaga and Cordyceps in the winter issue.

Visit modernhomesteadingmagazine.com to subscribe or login to the library and read the current issue.

Mushrooms really are pure magic, don’t ya think? 🍄 ✨

#mushrooms #mushroomhead #shrooming #eatyourshrooms #mushroomsaremagic #modernhomesteading #urbanhomesteading #homegrown
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If you’ve been following me for any length of time, it probably comes as no surprise that I don’t exactly love relying on the grocery store to provide for me and my family, and that sentiment is only getting stronger as time goes on.⁣

Between supply chain issues, rising food costs and the plethora of unhealthy ingredients, chemicals and GMO foods on grocery store shelves, I’d rather toil in the garden and kitchen all year to grow and preserve my own food than have to rely 100% on grocery stores to provide for me.⁣

But that being said, we are in no way 100% self-sufficient so when I do go to the grocery story, I haveI have some ingredient guidelines in mind that I use when shopping for my family. ⁣

Check out my shopping tips, what I do and don't buy, and where and who I like to buy from here at this link https://thehouseandhomestead.com/healthy-grocery-shopping-tips/ or at the link in my bio.
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Usually by late February/early March, right about nowish, I’ve pretty much had enough of winter and the thought of enjoying a tropical fruit platter and a cold adult beverage on a sunny beach in *insert tropical vacation destination here* seems to be just about all I can think about...⁣

But with a newborn at home that's about the last thing on our to-do list right now! So this year, I will be visiting my tropical escape via my favorite Low-Sugar Mango Jam recipe. ⁣

If you do have tropical vacation plans, have a piña colada for me 🙏🏼, but if you don't then this recipe may be just what you need to "escape" for a few minutes into that tropical paradise:) 🥭🍹⁣

Check out the recipe here https://thehouseandhomestead.com/low-sugar-mango-jam-recipe/ or at the link in my bio. ⁣

Let me know how the recipe works for you, and if add in any additional fruits to change it up!
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