Have a picnic

June 15th

There is something about eating outside that makes the food taste exceptionally more satisfying. Even if it's a peanutbutter sandwich.

My five year old son asks if we can "go for a picnic" every.single.day. Sometimes I grab the picnic blanket from the car and say "sure!" and we have a spontaneous lunch in the backyard, under our little tree. Many times I think about how much work it would be for me. But in reality, it's less work. I have to make the kids and myself lunch anyway....and when we eat outside, I don't have to clean up ANY crumbs off ANY tables or floors! 

We soak in the vitamin D, breathe in the fresh air, listen to the birds. The kids are happy because it's a different experience than eating indoors. They're more likely to eat whatever I've made for them and to eat it all. It's some sort of picnic magic that causes this.

As I'm writing this post, i'm in my backyard, daydreaming about picnics and suddenly my children are literally running in circles around me as fast as they can while screaming. Next, they team up and rip up grass and throw it at me continuously while laughing like minisicule maniacs. So, I go inside, my only option to escape.

My husband is making dinner and he announced that it's done. Wahoo! I asked him if we can have a picnic, so we have less clean up. He says no because the pasta he made would be hard to eat without a table. I silently disagreed. 5 minutes into dinner, our 2 year old silently stuffs her cheeks with pasta like a chipmunk. It went unnoticed until too late. Suddenly she spit it all out onto the table and then ferociously wiped it onto the floor. "We should have eaten outside" I said to my husband.

If you don't have kids, you probably won't have much to clean up anyway. There are other benefits for you, and for everyone. The key is to find a quiet spot. Make something healthy to eat, so you feel good during and after the picnic. My husband absolutely loves to have a "french picnic" which has simple foods such as grapes, cheese, and bread or crackers. Silence your phone and don't touch it. If you're under a tree, look up! Notice the beauty of the light pouring through the leaves and branches. Notice the birds flitting about. If you're alone, ponder on the beauty of the space around you. Maybe say a prayer in your heart or meditate. If you're with someone, have a meaningful conversation about something that doesn't bring you stress. Talk about how the food tastes. How pretty the plants are. How the clouds look. Where you want to go on vacation. Be present and feel the simple peace from being outside, enjoying your food. It's free to go outside to eat, so do yourself a favor and try it out.

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.