This moose mascot is outside a gas station convenience store/Taco Bell in Strasburg, Ohio. He’s eye catching enough I saw some teenager pose for a selfie with it while we were there.
Do you remember all the fun advertising gimmicks of the past? Big statues, nice kids’ meal prizes, colorful fast food playgrounds, and memorable tv commercials have been replaced by industrial eating areas, grey and brown decor, and cheap junk prizes in the kids meals.
It’s like a swarm of depressed accountants have taken over the world. The homogenization is truly uninspiring.
I clearly don’t belong in this modern world of ours. I like kitsch, color and things that make me laugh. I was as delighted by this moose statue as could be. Silly, probably, but I do like character and this guy has it in spades.
I have seen signs that home design trends are veering away from the minimalist look and into something that looks more curated with textures, color and antiques. This is my personal style so it makes me happy to see cozy, collected, and warm spaces catch on.
Will we see a shift in public spaces too?
I hope so.
Around here things are starting to settle down after a few months of not feeling settled at all. It’s part of my annual life cycle but one I’m never completely prepared to face. To add insult to injury, a volunteer commitment turned busy, stressful, and strangely enlightening for a few months.
Things are better now.
Around here, Spring has sprung. My lilacs are blooming and the landscape is greening up. At the moment, it’s breezy and 54 degrees with a gorgeous blue sky.
Around here I’m slowly catching up on chores that were ignored in favor of restful things during busy times. In fact, it has been a good season for reading and for that I’m grateful. I have made decent progress working through my TBR piles.
It is time, though, to get some stuff done. So far I have meandered from one thing to another but probably need to make a list and stick to it.
Things here will be in turmoil for a while, though, because I’m having some work done in my master bath. I don’t mind because the results will be so nice. Eventually.
Around here I’m trying to figure out some adventures close to home and to maybe expand my horizons some. I need to drive new roads and see new things .
Around here, I’m retooling my eating once again, this time embracing an anti inflammatory way of living and trying to figure out what that can look like in my daily living. Good nutrition can relieve pain and other issues but the American diet is not centered on things meant to soothe and nourish our bodies.
I need to do some more research before my next grocery trip.
Around here, things are improving. The above picture is my current view. Scout is asleep in the sunshine, just a few feet outside the frame and it’s not such a bad view.
Around here, I remind myself that as the sun rises and sets every day, we too are given the opportunity to start again every day.
How will you start again today, tomorrow, and all the days after that?
The first time I heard the phrase “Grandma Core” was in a thrift store while sifting through a box of forties era recipe pamphlets, Someone had written the phase with a smiley face on a scrap of paper and taped it to the box.
That was a few years ago and I was a little taken aback to learn there was an actual name for my style and living intentions. And I was a little annoyed that it has a strangely ambiguous connotation that some might interpret as negative. You now often hear it referred to as the more palatable “Cottage Core.”
Lately, I’m hearing these phrases everywhere as social media influencers claiming to be deinfluencers tell us about a better way to live than with fast food, fast fashion and lots of junk from the store. It’s an aesthetic but it’s more than that.
They show us their thrifted finds, clotheslines, and bowls full of cherries on a window sill. They show us doilies on side tables with handmade baskets used to disguise tv remotes and charging cables. They show us the bread they baked and their farmers market bounty.
It’s quiet and slower. There’s no tv over the fireplace. Instead, there’s a vintage painting and with thrifted brass candlesticks. There’s no harsh light or rushing.
If the internet were scratch and sniff, these videos would smell of apples simmering in cast iron, rising yeast, and of freshly laundered towels.
This grandma or cottage core concept fits well with my attempts at embracing analog living.
Soft sheets, textured throws, a cozy corner to read, something bubbling on the stove top or baking in the oven. Feeding the birds, soft light, knick knacks, a bowl of hot popcorn, a quiet hobby, meals on the porch. Thrifting for things that were made to last, using what you have, cooking instead of ordering, fixing instead of replacing.
I enjoy this slower pace of life.
I have built a lovely, quiet little life for myself – a grandma core life if you will. Soon I’ll have more energy and time to be out adventuring. In fact, White Lightening goes for an oil change and tire rotation this week. I’m already thinking about day trips and am excited to be out exploring again soon.
But I’m also grateful to have this quiet, lovely home to come back to after a long day of adventuring.
Grandma core? Cottage core? Analog living? You can call it anything you like but I think it’s pretty fabulous.
We have passed the mid point of March which means spring will soon be here. In southern Ohio, this season used to stretch on for a couple of months. Now it’s more like three weeks of moderate temperatures before giving way to humidity and heat.
It occurred to me this weekend that I have a boatload of outdoor work I want to get done before summer moves in. Incidentally, it is mostly the same stuff I wanted done last year.
There’s a big patch of poison ivy and weeds surrounding a tree stump in my front yard that desperately needs addressed. The house needs power washed. There’s a shed needing cleaned out. The back porch needs a good scrub. There’s a lot of flower bed work too.
This would be a great time to take care of that shed and the junk piled up around it but I’m lacking the motivation and time to get outside and tackle it.
This doesn’t bode well for the rest of that list.
Meanwhile, we received snow last night. It was eighty degree just a few days ago. Maybe next weekend.
What’s on your spring list? It would be good to get our chores done now so we are free to adventure later.
When I talk about doing a No Spend Challenge, people often dismiss the idea and tell me that I’ll just run out and buy a bunch if things when it’s over. I’ve been doing this every winter since 2018 and can honestly say that it has never worked that way for me.
I think that’s because I use this time to work on habit and mindset changing rather than just on not spending money.
January was pretty strict but February allowed for a some spending including for Valentine’s Day and my mother’s birthday. I had to eat out a couple of times and spent $25 on a congratulations present for myself after receiving good news at work. Otherwise, I bought groceries and paid bills as planned.
Last night I bought a pair of shoes for work that wasn’t budgeted for but was needed. There’s actually a story behind this.
I found myself at the office one day this week wearing a pair of dress boots that look fine but that are worn out. Foot health is important so I’m a firm believer in good shoes.
Yet, there I sat wearing painful shoes all day long.
I started thinking about how many times lately I’ve had sore feet and how I have a couple of other pairs of shoes that need to go. I am not a poor person and I can afford to buy what I need. So I went to the shoe store last night with a list. I was in the market for dress shoes, dress boots and walking shoes. I found one of the three and was glad for it.
The problem is that the selection in stores isn’t that great and what they have often isn’t made that well. I hate to keep buying shoes that will wear out in no time.
As I stood in a sea of shoes that I didn’t want, I thought about all those people who told me I was wasting my time because I would just overspend later. Even when I need l to spend and have an excuse to do so, I just can’t seem to pull it off.
I’m continuing the challenge into March with a budget line item for shoes. As part of this process, I’ll be decluttering the shoes in my closet.
I’m trying to think of anything else I might need to budget for this month and am coming up dry. I have a trip planned for late April so I’m hoping to carry the challenge through the end of March or perhaps mid April.
It seems to me that the habits I wanted to change are in good shape. I’m cooking most meals, solving food waste issues, cutting impulse buys, and changing how I look at the excessive amount of badly made stuff in stores.
That’s pretty darn good, if you ask me. Best of all, the money saved now will fund things I value later this year. Adventure season will be here before we know it!
Are you doing a No Spend or Low Spend Challenge? I would love to hear about it.