Slow living Getting Started.

I once heard slow living described as Intentional living, by forgetting about the crap and the clutter and focusing on what is important. Such as family, friends, memories and experiences.

This at the time was the polar opposite to how my life was going, I seemed to always rushing, eating on the run, losing everything that wasn't nailed to the floor. It was a life that was draining any spark that I had in me.

I was watching an Australian Drama and there was a mention of slow living/ living intentionally. I typed it into Google, that moment everything began to change I sat back and really looked at my life how much of this crap that was in my house did I actually need? The answer is not much I still had moisturisers and old socks in the back of the draw that I brought before I moved out of home (9 years ago).

It took me almost 3 weeks to go through every inch of my house, and purge myself of all the crap that was cluttering the corners of my life, (Roughly 6 Garbage Bags)

Here is a few things that I learnt:

Clutter is bad,
Anything can be clutter it doesn't matter how small it seems. Don't keep anything that you don't think is beautiful or useful. I kept only things that made me smile, things that only conjured good memories.

Take care of what you have.
At times I have been guilty of neglecting what I do have, I guess with so much clutter hanging around it all seemed to hard and I never seemed to have the time. By removing the clutter it all suddenly became a lot easier to mange. I also began to look at great ways to clean my home without chemicals.

You Can Afford It,
A big part of slow living is slow food, buying local and cooking good wholesome foods that nourish the body. It always looked like a massive number of ingredients, and I thought how can I afford so many ingredients for every meal. I started comparing the costs between the food I usually by and the more healthier foods. A great example would be a block of chocolate costs usually around $3.50 a kilo of Apples costs between $3.50 to $4.00.

Some things can wait until tomorrow.
I had a hard time to just stop and enjoy time with my kids, it doesn't matter if the washing sits a little longer or the dishwasher isn't unpacked. Just enjoy your kids while you have them, because they grow before your eyes and unless you are looking you will miss it.