Episode 4 - Life is in the simple things

Click the link below to listen to Episode 4 of Simply Living Podcast!

http://simpleblessingspodcast.buzzsprout.com/

This week is all about summer, past and present.

Words To The Sounds

Check out the following to read if you don’t want to listen 🙂

Summer. I see a picture-perfect scene with greenery and trees turning into a beautiful sandy beach merging with clear blue water oop, a small wave just crashed on the shore. ahhh There’s a palm tree leaning over into the picture. Beautiful not straight palm tree, oh summer.

Now, what does summer actually look like? Well, it looks like mowing grass, weeding gardens, going to an office, making and pulling apart beds, scrubbing toilets, doing loads upon loads of laundry (seriously, y’all please tell me it ends?), constant vacuuming, dusting here and there, scrubbing mud off the floor, fluffing pillows, making coffee, spending hours upon hours in the kitchen, having the oven on when it is 90 degrees outside. Summer looks like work. It just isn’t the picture I think of when I think of summer.

We all have work in the summer but we set time aside to enjoy the summer too.

What do you do when you enjoy summer? Water skiing, swimming, fishing, gardening, smelling the manure in the air, the sunshine, thunderstorms, flowers or anything else you can think of. For me, I sit out on the porch and read a book while drinking homemade lemonade (only the best…a wink 🙂 ). Throw a frisbee back an forth with my cousins. Maybe talking or maybe just chasing the frisbee as we throw it the wrong direction from our target (we may not be stars but we have fun 🙂 ).

I absolutely love working outside. Oh my goodness. With the sun high, bright and warm (70 is perfect) my happiness level jumps up 30 levels! I love to mow, take out the weeds in the garden, I love to do maintenance and fix-up projects outside.
On the cool nice days in the summer I love to open the windows and get a lot of work done inside. It is really just amazing!

Summer Before

I worked on berry farms for 6 years and loved it! Well, last 3 years I loved it. The first three years I loved the people at the farm but the work was very repetitive and hard on the body. The last three years, however, I, along with one of my best friends and my cousin, basically helped with everything but bookkeeping. We worked on a blueberry farm in the rolling hills of Menomonie, WI. This job was from 8-3 Monday to Saturday and on Sundays, we worked 12-4…I think. I think Sundays varied a lot.

The jobs we did were; weeding, trimming bushes, trimming grass, mowing the grass, picking blueberries, fixing busted pipes, we freaked out over snakes that surprised us, guided people to rows, checked people out when they were done picking, we had an absolute blast! Oh, and taste tested 🙂

When the owner came up to us and said: “this will be the last year.” My friend and I cried. We absolutely LOVED our boss and our job. We had such a blast and made so many memories. She and I grew much closer and became better friends. We live about 4 maybe 5 hours away from each other now but we still talk all the time, thank the Lord for technology!

Guys, I miss my job. I love the jobs I have now but every summer I looked forward to working on the berry farm. When people asked what I was doing I always got so excited! I got to say I was working at a blueberry farm. I got to say I had a great job. I got to say I had the best boss! Not that I don’t have that anymore but it just isn’t the same.

My work every summer was fantastic. My summer work was my favorite thing. Yes, I was super tired after each day. Yes, I had days where I did not want to go into work. Yes, I looked forward to those days when it was raining and work was canceled but I loved my job none the less.

Summer Now

My summer work now is just a tad different. I clean bathrooms, I clean bedding and towels, I vacuum a lot, there is a ton of dusting to do and dishes that need to be washed.

I do love my job. I get to work with my hands, I get to put a smile on people’s faces, it really is very rewarding! It really truly is, it just isn’t the same.

BUT I planted potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, and some other goodies. That makes everything great! Just having dirt to play around in and good plants to work with makes everything 140% better 🙂

Now I have much going on, sure, but I also have downtime and free time. What do I do during my free time? A little bit of everything I suppose 🙂 I bake goodies, I create some kind of dish in the kitchen, I watch a movie or TV show, maybe work on some projects or do some yard work. Any and all of the listed above are some of my break time things which is great because some of them actually double over as work things so I can relax and get things done. If you have never relaxed while getting stuff done let me tell you, you are missing out! It is one of the absolute BEST feelings ever!

I would LOVE to hear what you guys do during the Summer. Do you work more or do you relax more? Do you have a summer job?

Let me know down in the comments on Instagram, Facebook, or on our blog!

Yard work. Yard work is work. When you are doing it by your self it really isn’t that fun. At all. When you are doing it with friends or family the work isn’t so much work any more…all the time.

Growing Up in The Country

Growing up there was a lot of yard and projects to work on. I grew up on 6 acres. We had LOTS of fun, yes, but we also had lots of work 🙂

There was always weeding that needed to be done…my mom did most of that 🙂 There was building of different things, mowing, picking up sticks (we had really messy trees), taking care of the animals, fixing gutters, cleaning out the gutters, planting or taking out bushes and trees, maintaining the pool (which won’t happen anymore because our pool died this past winter/spring. sad ;(

There was always stuff to do, the list also grew as the summer went on and we didn’t have a lot of time to work on all the projects, especially when us kids got older because we got jobs. The weekends became family work days. They were fun for sure!

Some of the building projects we actually did on our own as kiddos, we made forts…a lot 🙂

Other projects we worked on but our dad was there a lot to oversee and teach.

Growing up in the country was so much fun. I seriously LOVED it! I went home a week or two ago and I helped my parents and brother with some outside chores. I got to say, I really missed it. They come over hear to the B&B to help me with big projects. It really just isn’t the same to work on house or yard projects alone. What a blessing to have family able and willing to help out!