Hygge Love

Hygge Time!

I have discovered that the life I yearn for and concepts I love, have a name! You all have probably heard it about a million times, but I (just back in the blog-osphere) am just getting to know it.

However I was BORN with the idea...

There are blogs, Pinterrest boards, books, articles, how-to's, guides, and catalogs devoted to it.

Most of which are actually.. or so it seems to me... contrary to the principal of Nordic Hygge.

How, you ask, would I know this if I'm just finding out what the heck this is?

Insider information, foreign exchange student that stayed with my best friend. She's informed me that, while the cozy things are great, Hygge is about people. Leisure and cuddling, being with relaxing ease. Hygge is good for the soul AND the pocketbook.


No need to buy anything!! It's about snuggling in to what you have and cozying up to the simplicity of joy.

I can do that. ...even if I do love looking at all the 50 shades of white images of a Hygge decor and wardrobe. Did a cream fisherman's sweater ever look SO necessary :)

Yet I have my grandmother's crocheted afghan (in about 10,000 different colors because that was Hygge to her) or the quilt she made of their old clothes that my mother loved telling stories about and THAT is really the ESSENCE of Hygge!! It's you and love and appreciation!! Not what stuff Bed Bath and Beyond just got in.

So pull your socks up and light the candle you love, poke the fireplace if you have one and put some orange peels and cinnamon on the stove to simmer. Winter is here and all that's cozy springs from it.

Mission Hippy #4

January 30, 2014

Welcome to Mission Hippy. A weekly meme where we post about how we intend to treat good ole' Mother Earth better! Even if you're just taking baby steps (like me most of the time) make a post about it and link up!

This week I've made a HUGE decision. This will be one of the biggest Mission Hippy's I bet I ever do. I've decided....to downsize. 

 I love my house. This is such a hard decision!! But it's not fair. This house needs a family. This house was EXACTLY what I needed EXACTLY when I needed it. But that time is passed and although I haven't owned it very long, just 2 years and 2 month, I'm going to bid it a wonderfully fond farewell. 

I'm also leaving the town I'm in. My kids are gone. And while I'm very vested in my church, I believe my faith is portable. Even my best friend is moving away this spring. 

I have to own a home, I have too many cats to try to find a place to rent, but I'll find something more efficient. More compact. 

I hope someone comes along and turns that whole lawn into a garden :)

How about you? What are you doing to minimize the footprint this week?

Mission Hippy #3 - January 16, 2013

First off, let me just say... I have NOT YET remembered my dang re-usable bags!!  Luckily I haven't been to the store that often either.
I'm not going to get frustrated but just keep resolving to take this step... this is definitely a 'better late than never' item. And I'll get there one of these days.

So this week... it snowed. My neighbor, bless his heart right down to his toes... came out with his snowblower and did not only his sidewalk but mine as well. :)

Which is awesome and I owe them like a pan of brownies or something fun like that...but I'm a shoveler. There is nothing quite so green and quite so eco-hippy as shoveling your own snow.

When the snowblower headed my way I could smell that horrible 2 stroke smell. Is that the smell of sloth? really?

And the noise. while the shhhhhhhrech shhhhhhrech of a snow shovel on cement is exactly symphonic, it's not as bad as a huge self-propelled snow blower. or as in my neighborhood, 4 or 5. Even worse are the snows where someone decides the leaf blower will work. Really? If the leaf blower moves it you don't think you'd do just as well with a nice, no fossil fuel, or electricity hogging, noise creating, broom???

So that's hipspiration for today...

If I can do it... ANYONE can do it :)
(almost... if you can't maybe you can hire a teenager who can!)

Please ... leave a comment on what your Mission Hippy was this week :)

Mission Hippy - Foraging

Mission Hippy #2 January 9, 2014 (actually posted on January 10th because I forgot)

Foraging!

Ok so I don't even remember what it was... but something today at work had the word foraging in it and it got to me to thinking.. foraging, hunting and gathering, finding things... finding useful things instead of buying things... Looking for things I already own or that I can create with what I own or what I can find that wont cost me any real money!! :) 

 

It's more than repurposing: It's eggs from the guy I work with. It's morels in the spring from the public hunting land. It's growing my own tomatoes from seeds given to me from a friend.. and yes, it's going through all my junk to find fun stuff to use. 

 

Here's my 'foraging idea' for now.

I am buried in craft supplies and I have scant little Valentine's decorations.

So I'm going to take a paper bag and cut out some hearts, wax them , and lace crochet with variegated pink thread around the edges and make a garland. Zip cost. Million dollar bang. and hella cute! (I'll prove it soon!)

I'm also swapping out furniture pieces in my house from room to room. I had a thing for ladder shelves for awhile and now I'm selling those and moving some of my better pieces in. Not to mention just freeing up floor space. And art work too. 

Mission Hippy #1 Jan 2, 2014

OUR INAUGURAL MISSION HIPPY POST!

And there was much rejoicing....... yay.

Just kidding... small is ok by me. Even if it is JUST for me, that's ok too because it will help me remember to keep taking steps.

Our first Mission!! Should you choose to accept it....

Is there anyone else out there like me with about 12 of these bags but you never remember to ACTUALLY get them to the store? Drives me crazy and makes me so annoyed with myself when I come home with yet another stinking plastic bag.

So now. This week. I focus on actually taking in re-useable bags!! 

Link below to your post with your experience with plastic bags vs. re-useable bags. 

I'ld love to hear how anyone actually made it a habit to take them in all the time.

Not JUST a New Years post... Also a NEW MEME!!

I've never started a meme before, but I think I'll try to make this a weekly feature. Thursday sound ok?

My inspiration for this project has been growing for a few months now. I HONESTLY can not put my finger on when it started but it went from social awareness to a social consciousness and is expanding into a social movement in my own house. My kids (liberal arts college students) stuck me with the 'hippy' tag. I didn't mind and now have opted to own it!

Every week on Mission Hippy I want to discuss one social issue or, better still, on social action we can take, intend to take or have taken that week to live up to our Hippie Mission to make the world a better place and make us better people for the gift that is this world. It can be anything from choosing to carry that soda can to the recycling bin instead of just toss it out the car window, to becoming self-sustaining vegan!

There are lots of sources for "Hipspiration" 

I saw this on Facebook on New Years Eve:

What an amazing list!! I'm racking my brain for a really awesome #7!! Please, someone post something super cool!

I discovered TED Talks this year. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design and all the speakers have a max 18 minutes to talk but manage to make you want to change the world, or at least yourself in some of the most inspirational, touching, funny, poignant ways! Now many or most of you have probably already found these and are probably just as addicted as I am... but for those of you who haven't, or for those of yo who haven't seen some of the amazing Social Issues talks, here's the link: 

It literally makes me want to have a flop-on-the-floor-like-a-fish tantrum that this has been around since 19 frickin 84 and I JUST found it this year!!!! I'm so pissed at my past sometimes!!

But MOSTLY I want our inspiration to come from EACH OTHER!! Come on in ANYTIME and leave a message, but if I at least TRY to run this every Thursday, maybe we can sorta remember to be conscious of the idea all week... or a least I can :)

I hope you like the idea... I DO hope, like the TED slogan, that this spreads. I DO hope to see change in my life. I DON'T expect it to be immediate or ginormous! Just a little bit better each time.



I'll get a better linky tool eventually, but for now.. Please feel free to use this one or leave your idea, hopefully with a link to a post about it on your blog, in the comments... 

peace out! ...
no? too much. ok.. THANKS :)

The un-expected

So just when I decide I'd better get my feet back under me and get going on an emergency fund. The worst thing happened.

My dad went into the hospital on the 19th. At 86 every hospital stay is serious.

He passed away on December 26.

Not only was I not emotionally ready for this. I also wasn't financially ready. Which makes me angry with myself. To have to borrow money to travel to  my father's funeral. This scenario is a nightmare.
But I did. I borrowed money from my mom's account ... she's in a nursing home so I have to be sure and pay it back or the Medicaid folks will say I"m 'hiding' money. She wanted me to have it but that's beside the point...

The point is I should have had enough money!!

My dad was a huge proponent of one basic financial tenant:

Spend less than you make... put the rest away.

Do you think after almost 50 years I could figure this shit out???

So I'm in Evansville. And my dad was my only family here aside from my step-family. No one was really 'getting together' the night before the funeral.

I called my step-mom to let her know we were in town and she invited us to dinner at a local restraunt...
That was God-send number 1.

We spend some time with her and I met one of her sisters and brother-in-law. Super nice people. We talked for awhile and then opted to go to the hotel.

Hotels are rarely cheap anymore. even less so around holidays. I contacted an old and dear friend to see if she was available to meet. We had seen each other in about 15 or 16 years. She was and she came out to the hotel...

She called me over to where she was talking with the lady at the front desk when I went out to meet her.. seems my dear dear friend had had a coupon for a free night's stay at this very hotel... and she got the hotel to apply it to  my bill... I was nearly in tears.. well, actually I was in tears!

God-send number 2.

Now I can focus on why I'm here. ANd now I can quit worrying about how to get home.

And I can also use this story and my father's precious memory and wise philosophy to motivate myself to do better. for me, but especially for my girls.