Choices...

We live a pretty simple and quiet life... David works from home now. We aren't involved in any outside organized activities. We get outside and walk or run each day. We take care of our chickens and enjoy their eggs. We enjoy meals out once or twice a week. We have one car. We are living on our savings account and David's supplemental earnings until our "retirement" age where we can start drawing from our retirement accounts without penalty.

We've always lived pretty frugally by America's standards. Which is how David was able to retire at 52 and take a year off for travel. It is no different now. We still live by a budget but are comfortable. But there are times that I think it would be nice to go out to eat more than we do. There are times when I want to be able to fund my crafting desires "right now". And I'd love to be able to eat "very locally". But our budget doesn't allow for these desires. So at times I find myself thinking maybe I should get a paying job to be able to fulfill these desires. Then I come back to reality and realize that if I spent my time working to fund these things, I wouldn't have the time (or energy possibly) to do them. Well, eating out I would. But then I'd have to exercise more to make up for the extra calories. 

So by the grace of God, I'll be content with my simple and quiet life.

It's cozy in here

While it's below freezing outside!

And...

Winter is back!

Yep...

David needs to build one of these!

Adventures...

gratitude:: Autumn in Texas

Adventuring with different lifestyles...

That title could be taken in a wrong way. What I'm talking about is suburban vs. urban vs. rural vs. nomadic vs. small town living. We've done all of the above!

Suburban: When our boys were growing up we lived in the suburbs of Denver and loved it! Our jaunt with rural living had me wishing that our boys could have experienced that and I was telling my oldest this and he responded that he LOVED living the suburbs as a kid. So not knowing anything different I guess it was the best for them! We lived in one middle class subdivision for 9 years, then "moved up" a bit into a newer neighborhood and my boys enjoyed it there. We did too! It was what we needed and wanted in that season. 

Urban: We lived in urban areas when our boys were babies (Denver); for a 6-month stint when Austin was a Sr. in high school and loved it both times! I loved being able to walk to just about anything we needed. Homes were older but had way more character!

Rural: When we moved back to Texas we wanted rural... and we LOVED it! We had almost 3 acres; had chickens and a garden; were neighbors with goats, sheep, donkeys and horses. We loved the quiet and how bright the stars are at night. We loved not having to keep up with the Jones' with our "yard". We loved the slow pace and the down home folks. The only reason we left this lifestyle was to venture into nomadic living.

Nomadic: As most of you know, we lived and traveled in a fifth wheel for a year. We knew that this was probably a short term arrangement for us but we loved it all the same! 

Small-town living: Where we are now. We live in a town with a population of about 6000 people. We can walk to just about anything and can actually walk to the end of town in any direction and it wouldn't be hard at all! We love the quiet, the simple, the down-home folks. We have multiple Mexican food restaurants as well as many other very good places to eat. We have a very nice HEB, hardware store, department store and lots of convenience stores. We have a town square and a library and many churches. We have big store shopping anywhere from 15-40 minutes away depending on which big store you want to shop. We've only lived here 6 months but we feel like we have enough to realize which one we really like the most. 

Which one do you think we like the most?