Today is cloudy; the forecast says a chance for rain. We need some rain in the area because farmers have planted their wheat for next year. I don’t live on a farm, but farms are all around me. So, farming feels like part of my life. We do raise chickens for the eggs, and we grow a garden every year. Yesterday our current chickens, we have five, gave us five eggs! This is exciting to us. These chickens are only six months old. One chicken has been laying eggs for a month but to get five eggs in one day means they are all laying eggs. Just in time for the days to be shorter, which can mean they will stop laying eggs. Chickens need lots of sunlight to lay eggs. We will likely get some eggs every day but not always five every day. We also got our first apples off our apple tree. We planted it about ten years ago. It is a self-pollinating tree that should have been producing apples five years ago, but I’m happy to have apples finally. The birds or wildlife got most of them; we only found three, but I’m excited about the three!
Something that I’m learning to do this year is to be happy. I know that that’s crazy. People don’t learn to be happy they are happy. But my life has had a lot of trials and bad times. I’m not writing this to share my difficulty but to share positive thoughts and grow more positive experiences. I suffer from deep depression and anxiety, but I’m a survivor, and I’m going to be happy. I heard someone say on a tv show that sometimes you have to tell yourself to be happy repeatedly until you are happy. And that’s what I’m doing. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it’s a real struggle.
Recently I found a youtube channel that has inspired me. It’s Homestead Tessie. Please look her up; she shares a daily video about her life and she has a fascinating story and inspiring life. The only things we have in common are we both live in old mobile homes, and we both have an acre of land, and we both suffer anxiety. She suffered a significant life event that changed her life ten years ago. And her vlog shares how she is surviving and living happily. And I want to take her example and become happier.
I’ve been a believer for years that nothing changes by doing the same thing over and over again, expecting it to change. It won’t. So I have made changes several times in my life. Some of those changes have been wonderful, and some of them didn’t work out as planned. I met and married my husband in one of those life changes and we just celebrated 30 years of marriage. It worked!
So, you only change things that don’t work. And that is where I’m at right now. I’ve working on getting the negative out of my life, and growing the positive things in my life. So I will be sharing the positives, counting my blessings, and living a simpler life. I won’t be sharing my problems because that is private and not productive. I don’t have to live with oil lamps or cook outside like Homestead Tessie, but I could spend less time the negative like watching the news. I could eat less processed food and make my own. I hope you find this interesting and want to follow what I do. I will share what I’m changing and how it helps me.
Nina Peters 