Simple Kingdom

I haven't sat down to write here in a long time.

Life is busy and even when keeping it simple, sometimes I feel overwhelmed.

This summer has been wonderful on most fronts, but I did spend most of July in bed.  I had a lot of fun the last two weeks in June, I thought very little about what I ate and I paid for it.

Towards the beginning of August I began to perk up.  I am being more strict with my diet than ever.  I am always shocked by the difference that eating well makes. 


At this point, I eat mostly fresh, very little processed.  I rarely eat bread products and if I do, I make them myself.  If it is processed and sold in the store, I only buy organic.  But mostly I eat Fruits, Veggies, Eggs, Meat, Dairy, and nuts.

I rarely eat sugar.  Corn syrup, faster than anything else, will take me down. 


It doesn't sound that bad, because you can make so many wonderful things with what I can eat.  Because all of the ingredients are whole, fresh, and either organic or local, the food we eat tastes amazing.  I am thankful for that. 

I get frustrated, though, because I feel like I'm hungry all the time.  I get so tired of that feeling. 

Food is also a lot of work for me.  So when I do not feel well, I lose my appetite almost completely and then on top of that, I have to work extra hard to make sure I can have the food my body needs that I do not even feel it wants.  This is a very frustrating realization for me.  There are days when I eat a lot of Greek yogurt and organic protein bars because I cannot force myself to throw some ingredients in the mixer or crock pot.  There are other days my husband does all of the cooking. 

God bless that man.  He takes such good care of his family. 

When I am very strict, I also step out of the social grouping that food accomplishes.  I usually bring my own food when we leave the house.  I rarely go out to eat.  I rarely try the new restaurant.  I think this is the aspect of my strict eating that bothers me the most.  It is noticeable.  It creates social barriers.  It warrants and explanation. 

I don't like to talk about health and food all that much.  Neither has been on my list of interests.  Yet here I sit, having no choice but to pay close attention to both.

It has been an adjustment for me.  I am uncomfortable and self-conscious when people ask about it.  I fear they will not believe me.  Even if they do, I never want to be seen an unhealthy, or viewed as a person that cannot or does not cope well.


When I feel good, I feel amazing.  I credit that to the food I eat.  Therefore, I am thankful. 

I am thankful that I live in a place where food is attainable.
I am thankful for a husband that helps me on the days that it feels so hard to cook, or run to the store with two small children.
I am thankful that the food I am allowed to eat tastes so good.
I am thankful that I have the determination to make the good choices I need to.
I am thankful that something is finally helping me to feel better. 

And I am thankful that July is over, and I am back on my feet.

Today I am exhausted.

It has been a non-stop summer.  It has been hot, it has been wonderful, with the windows open and the fans on.  We have been in the sun.  We have been swimming.  We have been traveling.  We have been opening out home to friends.  We have weddings and parties and fireworks on the roof. 

We have been blessed.


Today, however, it is catching up with me.  This is the first summer I have felt well enough to have the windows open, to be in the heat, to enjoy parties with our families, to travel, to play, to be in a bathing suit.  I have not felt well enough to do these things in years.


Today I am tired.  Today my body is saying it needs a break.  I have bags to unpack, dishes to do, laundry to catch up on, floors to sweep, and a project list a mile long for summer birthdays and baby showers.


Today, though, I'm going to lie down.  Today is a reminder of why I'm so excited this summer to feel well enough to live again.  Today is a reminder of where I have been. 

Today I have the air conditioning on, the kids will probably watch a lot of television, and today I'm okay with that.

The projects and the cleaning will wait.  The laundry and the dishes will not. 


Many of the things we need we only have enough of to cover one day's use.  This is a benefit to me, as it does keep me going when I want to stop. 


Today I will start a knitting project, a birthday gift for a very close friend. 

I will wash our clothes.  I will put the dishes in the dishwasher.  I will drink coffee.  And hopefully, I will get a nap.

One thing you need to know about me up front is that I have had health issues since I was a teenager.  At sixteen, I was diagnosed with Mono and severe Anemia.  I was one point away from a blood transfusion.  I have not been the same since.

Recently I have been diagnosed with Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome, which is something many people sneeze at.  Similar to the way Chronic Fatigue/Fibromyalgia was doubted in the 90's.

Just so that people understand, Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome occurs when the adrenal glands are no longer working as well as they once did.  There are many different stages, and one of the reasons it is laughed at by some people is that "everyone has that."

A lot of people do, at the very beginning stage, and a lot of people will never get worse.

I have a pretty advanced stage.

A year ago, I had surgery on my tongue and I wasn't able to get out of bed for weeks afterward.  I am anything but a lazy person, with a strong will and a high pain tolerance.  It is not in my character to spend a day on the couch.  Or a month in bed.


My doctor told me: there is no easy fix.  She told me to start simple, to change the way I eat and to see how I feel.


I was a Diet Coke junky.  I drank water about 5 times a week.  I drank about 5 cans of Diet Coke a day.  All day, every day.  I knew it was wrong.  I knew it was not good for me.  I was addicted.

I left my doctor's appointment, and I went straight to the health food store down the street from my house which I will reference often in this blog as my Co-Op.  I bought a glass water bottle with a silicone covering and plastic lid with a handle.  This water bottle has gone everywhere with me since, from room to room, in the car, in to restaurants.

That day I made the decision: water is what I drink.

I made the commitment to ingest water before anything else.  If I was hungry, I'd drink water first.  If I wanted diet coke, I'd drink water first.

Before I knew it, I no longer wanted Diet Coke.  I wanted water.  I craved it.

Something that must be understood about Adrenal Fatigue is that it is brought on by stress, and stress makes it worse.  The less stress I feel in my life, even in small areas like the car radio, the better I do.
I know that sounds a little crazy--like I'm straight out of the movie Safe.  LOL  I am a huge skeptic myself, but I will also do whatever it takes to feel better, to feel well enough to ride bikes with my kids.

Understanding how and why helps my skepticism as well.  If my adrenal glands are exhausted and then my body is essentially asking them for cortisol in order to drive to WalMart, drown out the car radio and the car engine while I figure out how to diffuse the fight between my kids behind me... and then ignore the cookies I'm not supposed to be eating straight ahead of me when I walk in the door and tell my kids that they cannot have them and then ignore their begging...  I feel worse.  This makes sense to me.

So how do I deal with that?  How do I help myself?

My health is the #1 reason my husband and I decided together to simplify our lives in a drastic way.


We have said goodbye to a lot.  But it's funny.  We don't miss any of it.

Our household is more peaceful.  I don't have to drown as much out.  I drive less.  I have less to care for, and fewer decisions to make. 

We are reaping benefits we did not even expect.

And all of these benefits, all the ways our lives are better, is why I started this blog.  Because in the end I was shocked that it did not at all feel like loss, but instead it felt like gain.

Every day I feel more alive, more thankful.

Every day I feel I am living a more quality life.


In the end, isn't that the goal?

Anyone that has even sat down and had one conversation with me could tell you one thing about me:

I love to make things.





I have always loved to make things.

As a child, my parents made a lot.  My mother made almost all of our treats: cookies, brownies, sweet breads, even candies.  My dad made toys with and for us.  With his help I made jewelry boxes, my own wrist wrap bracelets, even wooden para scopes for class projects.  My mom and dad made pinatas for our parties, clothes for our dolls, even back packs and bags to travel with.


There was a running theme my entire life:


Why buy it when you can make it better?

We grew up, and now my brother makes his own beer, wine, and mead.  He makes his own pizza crust and bread.  He is superb at these things.  I cannot even find hand-made for sale to rival his creations.

Now my father makes bread for our entire family.  Saturday mornings he grinds his own fresh, local wheat and bakes.  This is the primary bread for my children, for my mom & dad, and often eaten by my brother and his wife as well.


What a gift.


As a child, I often longed for store bought.  I rarely had things that were bought at a store and all of the store bought items my friends had seemed superior in some way.  They were so perfect - lacking the character brought in by human hands.  The cookies were so round, the carrots were so clean, their clothes so modern.

As an adult, and certainly now as a mother, I see things so differently.

I make many of my toys owned by my children.  I knit; I sew.  I tell them the toys I make them are stuffed with my love. 

I have grown to see that all of the creating my parents did for me was out of love.  They were making things out of love for me.  They were providing for me with their hands, not just their money.


I was so fortunate to marry in to a family that is as artistic as my own.  My husband was raised in a similar way.  Most of his clothes and food were hand-made.  Our children play with a doll that his grandmother made for him.  How special!

With four grand parents that create for them, as well as a mother that does, my children rarely ask me to buy them anything.  Their first question is: "Can you make me this?"

At five years old, I have a son that is designing his own play things - friends he wants to bring in to an imaginary world he has also created.  There is no smile big enough to contain the happiness this brings to my heart.


It seems to me that in our society's quest for perfection, for efficiency, we have lost site of the reality that creating for our families is a way of loving them.

It seems people focus on bigger, better, and more instead of small, special, and unique.

What a deep and devastating loss this is for our culture.

This used to be the way of life.  People created for their families to survive.


It is hard for me to talk about this with many people.  Of course my family discusses it.  It's easy for them as this is the way we have lived for as long as I can remember.  It is not only a tradition for us, but we have many members participating, so many that when you look around our house, it is full of items that have been made with love specifically for us.

It is uncomfortable for me to share the importance of this because I am afraid people will feel judged by it; I am afraid people will feel I am saying their belongings, their lives are not good enough.

That is never my intent.

I have never taken decisions lightly.  I weigh them so heavily that I actually hate making them, but I can say that rarely do I decide something without great reason behind my decision.

My decisions are always personal, not political.  For this reason, few people even know to what extent we are a hand-made family.  Few people know our life-style in general.  They just lightly and jokingly call me a hippie, and I smile because I don't mind, and I love to laugh. 

Still, in my heart, I have such a deep desire for others to know the joy of creating for the people they love.

It doesn't have to be elaborate, or perfect.  People are so intimidated by the concept of creating, but it is such a wonderful adventure.


My best friend recently taught herself to knit, after years of watching me do it.  She wanted to knit something for her son.

She learned.  She made scarves for herself and then for her brother in law.  She then decided to learn to crochet, turned on You Tube and did it.

She had never been a fiber artist, and will say herself that she's not crafty.  But she did it, and has now given hand-made gifts to family and is working on a blanket for her sweet little boy.

How inspiring.


It does not have to be a big deal.  Maybe make chocolate chip cookies with your kids, instead of buying Chips Ahoy, or help them make a card for their grandparents instead of buying one.  If you hate it, don't do it again; but you might be surprised by how fun it is to hand make love for the people closest to your heart.

I believe:

In God.
In myself.
In my husband.
In my children.


I believe beauty is found in silence, in small things.

I beleive beauty is all around.

I believe beauty is almost always ignored.


I believe:

In our pursuit of perfection, money, and advancement, we have lost some of the most valuable things in life.

I believe those things are worth finding again.



I am:

A woman.
A daughter.
A wife.
A mother.
A writer.
A photographer.
A friend.


I am:

Simple.
Unique.
Determined.
Individual.
Wise.



My mother tells me I should write a book about the way we live. She says I have reasons behind my choices that she has never heard before.

She says I inspire her, but she is what inspired me.  It is my desire to inspire those outside of our Simple Kingdom.  It is my desire to draw them in, to have them understand why I make the choices I do, and to maybe inspire them towards examining their own choices more closely.


I named this blog Simple Kingdom because I find the richest living happens when you strip things away. 

My Kingdom consists of an old brick house in a Midwest city, a husband that embraces me for all that I am, a son hungry to learn and to live, a daughter full of love & sweetness, and two cats.

It seems while the people around us are pursuing bigger and better, we are pursuing less.  Less time in the car, less things to care for, less spending, less shopping, less TV time, less computer time, less gadgets, less noise.

It is my goal to run this blog mostly anonymously, in a pursuit for honesty and openness.  While I have always been a simple person, some health concerns were what pushed me towards living simple in more extreme ways.

These things will all be discussed further in future posts.


For now, thank you for reading, and welcome to my Simple Kingdom.