luna acres

not a very flattering hair do. On the drive home from wedding dress shopping tonight I was thinking about my life now-a-days, here with Jonathan. It started with thoughts of my mental state back in the "dark ages", compared to now. Throughout middle school, high school, my brief stint in college, and the few years afterwards, I struggled agonizingly with depression and anxiety. I was very reserved, kept everything bottled up inside, had little to no self confidence, cried and mutilated myself versus confronting people with my words and emotions. It took me years and hitting my personal rock bottom (I believe everybody has their own, and they are all different) to get help. A few years of therapy, some mild antidepressants, and a lot of personal life decisions have led me down a path of calm, love, sometimes anger and fear, but now expressed in healthy ways (like art, or screaming.) Moving back to my parents place in the country was the first big step. It gave us a brea...

  Christmas brings up a roller coaster of different emotions for me. I love getting together with my family, near and far. I love the food! I love decorations and making things and having apple cider and peppermint bark. I love eating waaaay too much and sleeping for ages. I love focusing on what's really important, like each other. But I hate the materialism. Everyone spends so much time and energy and money on elaborate gifts, some thoughtful and sweet, others unnecessary and useless. I grew up in a family that overdid it for Christmas. We always had a huge pile of presents under the tree, even if it meant months of my dad working overtime, struggling to get caught up from the financial hole they had fallen into once again. I hate that we always receive so much more than we can give. I hate that I always seem to be broke during the holidays, which is probably because I work for tips, and mid-November through New Years is slow in every restaura...

I have been thinking a lot lately about money, and in particular our relationship with it. Today was our first Monday off. We now have Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off each week, with Monday being our resident farm work day. We need to work on tons of mushroom logs for next season! But back to my point, money.  Jonathan and I have made a conscious decision to live in a manner where our time (with each other, on our land) is more valuable to us than money. Don't get me wrong, we have to have jobs. We are very fortunate to be given such circumstances that we can get away with out working much. We live with my parents, which is sometimes incredibly frustrating (we are grown adults, what are we doing here?!?) but we deal with it because of the value of what we are given here. We aren't simply living here because we have a bedroom, like if we were living with parents in town, we are doing this, dealing with this, for the land. We will never be able to afford 35 acres of la...