Simplicity Mer

As someone who struggles with OCD thoughts and subsequent anxiety from that, mixed in with a dash of social anxiety, I've had quite the cocktail to produce inner turmoil on a regular basis for the past 15 years, or so. I'm a 32 year old mom of two and I'm on a perpetual quest to, in general, feel good mentally, physically, and spiritually. We all want to feel good, right?

About 10 months ago, my family and I moved out of a city that was not very large in proportion but it was quite large in population (116,702). That may not seem like a big city to you (or maybe it does) but to me, that was a lot of people. I grew up on a farm in Ohio, so it was a big difference. 

We had purchased a two bedroom town house in a not-so-safe neighborhood in 2015, but it's what we could afford at the time. We were lucky to have good neighbors directly connected to us. There were often many transient people in the neighborhood that didnt exactly look trustworthy, drug deals, drug addicts, police on our street often, murders, suicides, etc.

 There were also some really outstanding and good people. It was a weird mix. Anyway, I generally felt unsafe. Keep in mind, my next door neighbor had a completely different attitude. She loves that neighborhood and feels perfectly safe there, even while knowing about the crime problems. Perception is your reality. We ended up having our two kids in that house and I felt more unsafe as time went by. I wanted my kids to grow up in a safe neighborhood. We had outgrown the house as well.

We sold the house and we found a different one in a less populated town on the west side of the Utah valley. There are farm fields, horses, Utah lake, the mountains, and lots of wildlife. For a while, the field next to our neighhood was the roaming land of a herd of antelope. That was fun to see! The house is one of the smallest in the neighborhood and it is the happiest blue color. We loved it but we knew we wouldn't get it. There were multiple offers on the first day of it being for sale, including ours. We were sad because it was a such a cute house and every other house we had looked at previously was a fixer upper. 

We were shocked when the real estate agent told us the seller accepted our offer. We moved a few weeks later. Now, we live in a cute neighborhood that is hilly, safe, and ever growing. Our town is growing too. Costco is being built about 5 minutes away, among other newly arriving businesses. It's getting big quickly and I wasn't happy about that at first. I left a largely populated area for a reason. But instead of lamenting and complaining, I've started a journey of finding enjoyment and peace in place I live, no matter how much it changes. "Bloom where you're planted", if you will. 

This blog will be about doing simple things and connecting with nature to feel good. Whether you are introverted, extroverted, have mental illness, or not. We can all benefit from nature and simplicity, no matter if you live in a high rise apartment in a big city or if you live in an old house in the country. Of course, there are other things that you can do to feel good and should do, but you'll have to attend to other resources for that, I suppose. Thank you for following me during this experiment. I still have a lot to learn and I'm happy to share it here.