Life with Children

my boys at a beach camping trip last year

It's been a while since I visited this space, and I find myself craving the community I had once knew from this blog. Connecting with like-minded people who are also concerned and interested in the same things as I am- something that is not always as easy in real life!

I finally feel that I have time to invest in myself and my little blog and my community again. I have 2 children, they are seven years apart. Something that I have found with both of them is it took until they were each about 5 years old where I finally felt like "me" again, someone outside of just being their mom.
I imagine most moms feel this way long before 5, how else would people have children so close in age? Or function? I personally do not function well on low sleep and toddlers. Now that my children are now 13 and almost 6 years old, I find myself longing for things like this little blog and a like minded community.

In the next couple of weeks, my family will be embarking on a long road camping trip. It is our first of its kind with both kids. We finally reached a point where we feel our youngest can handle more difficult travel and hikes. In previous years we have camped in short periods and closer to home. This year however, our trip will take us through 6 states and 5 stops.

I can't wait to share our minimalist camping experiences- we are already practicing packing our Honda CR-V for the trip. We'll see how it goes, and I cannot wait to share it with anyone who still checks things out here or any new readers who may find me!

Katie

Life Outside the Box

I grew up in the quintessential upper middle class family. My dad worked a white collar job, my mom stayed home. I lived in a lovely suburban home, went to great schools, wanted for nothing. I had (have) parents who love and support me. I still do. I am not saying this to be a braggart. I am just saying that, even when you have a great upbringing, a great life, you can still suffer from depression. and anxiety. And- with that is the guilt. Well, my life is great. Why do I feel this way? And feeling bad for feeling that way.

But that is really not the point of this blog post. The point is while I dreamt of a fairy tale wedding (and in my own way, my $500 wedding was a fairy tale), and a mini van and a cookie cutter home in the suburbs, something in my heart has always longed for more. Or maybe not more. But different. My idea of the world was shattered sometime in the early 2000's. when I was a college student and discovered the real affects of our affluent lifestyle- climate change, global warming, waste disposal, etc. And I knew I had found where my heart's passion is. I am at heart and environmentalist. But it is easy to sit here from my cushy house and say I care about the environment. But what am I really going to do about it? How am I going to take action?

For a while I did take action- I was active. I ran a blog about reducing my waste. I made positive environmental choices. But then I had a second child. I became complacent. I caved to the pressure of fitting in with the suburban consumer lifestyle. I am not proud. However, still in my heart I knew this was not where I wanted to be.

This blog has always been about my journey, and here I am, once again, back on my journey. Offline my family has made many strides; we are debt free (thank you Dave Ramsey!), we have stayed in our 1000 sq ft carriage house (no huge mortgage for us!) but I (we) still have a long way to go. Blogging helps keep me accountable. I hope to connect with like minded people along the way, but even if no one ever reads it, I know that I have felt accountable in my journey. If you are a zero waste, environmentalist, minimalist, simple living aficionado; I would love to meet you.

Please stop and say hello!
Katie

Being Content Where You are

This blog has been long neglected. Somehow having a baby takes the fire out of you to do anything else than just be. The time with littles goes by so fast. I know, my boys are now 10 and 2! Now that the little guy in is a little older, I am feeling the writing bug again.

This blog isn't about money- it's not about followers. If you want to join in, I'd love the company. I am chronicling my personal reflections on the ability to be content. Where I am- with what I have. With less.

Will you join me?

Personal Blogging vs. Business Blogging

I have been on quite the journey through blogging this year. If you know may (or if you don't!) you may have remembered in November 2013 I had my second child. Because of this, I was home from work, and money was tight. So, since I enjoyed my personal blog so much, I decided to look into blogging as a business, to make an income from home.

Blogging for profit is a totally different animal than personal blogging. Now, I am not saying in any way that it is bad or it is wrong. I think it is fabulous so many men and women can write about their passions, help others, and earn an income from home.

But writing professionally, and for profit turns out is really not my thing. At all. What to I enjoy most about blogging? Connecting with others.

But, through this past year long journey I did discover something I am good at, like, and can do from home. And now I work as a virtual assistant, helping others. Tuns out I am quite technically inclined! (Despite my want to be a creative so badly). As we age I do think we discover more what our gifts are, and start to care less whether or not we fit into a mold.

Thus leads me to the separation of my business blog and my personal blog. This is my personal blog. I hope you will follow me on my personal journey.

If you are interested in my professional life, you can check out my professional site here; http://katiedettra.com . It is still under construction :)

I currently work for an awesome blogger whom I love doing behind the scenes tech-y stuff.

Working from home is truly a blessing. Especially for an introvert like me.

How do you feel about business vs. personal blogging?

Is anyone still out there?

I went through a round of official blogging. With a real domain and a real site. And at the end of the day, I miss this little blogger blog. I miss the friends I made here and the little blogging community I had.

Maybe I will write here again? Life is busy as a work at home mom of 2 rowdy boys. But, the urge to write cannot be ignored.

Blogging Through the Bundle- Strawsome Glass Straws

One of the things I was most excited about in this Healthy Living Bundle was the bonus offer credit towards glass straws. I have been wanting to try glass straws for a while. You think I would have them already, considering the "low waste" factor, but I could never really justify shelling out the dough for them when I could always just you know, drink out of a cup without a straw.

The number 1 reason I wanted to try glass straws was for smoothie drinking. (Smoothie pictured above made green by the addition of collard greens, and idea from the "Green Smoothie Challenge" Book.)

The only container we have large enough to hold our monster green smoothies that we have are ball mason jars. And while I am perfectly capable of drinking it straight from the jar, what tends to happen is I get smoothie gunk on my nose where the rim of the jar hits it, as exhibited in Crappy Selfie.

Crappy Selfie

I was very excited to use my $15.00 credit to Strawsome. I ordered a "straw sample kit" which included one short straw, one short smoothie straw, one tall straw, and one tall smoothie straw.

The tall smoothie straw fits perfectly in my ball canning jar and allows me to sip the green goodness without worrying that I might have gunk on my nose. It is also really easy to clean. They provided a little cleaning brush with it, but I have been just putting it in the dishwasher.

Verdict: Awesome! Why didn't I try this sooner? Oh yeah, I'm cheap.

If you want to try Strawsome, check them out here: Strawsome

I am not affiliated with them, but I am a satisfied customer who uses her smoothie straw every day!!

YUM!

Blogging Through the Bundle: Was the Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle Worth Buying?

(photo credit: http://ultimate-bundles.com)


So I came upon this ebook deal, called the "The Ultimate Healthy Living Bundle". Being as I am into e-books, and healthy living I decided to check it out.

It includes 73 ebooks, and a bunch of bonus offers. The total price was $29.95, or $39.95 for the Kindle/ebook version (which I bought).

Being that I have to analyze every purchase to death to make sure it was worth it, I am going to be talking about each book and bonus offer here on the blog, so then when the next sale goes live, I can decide if it was worth the price or not (and maybe you want to know if you should buy it too?)

So far I have already read 3 books.

The first book I read right away .

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

Crash Course in Natural Parenting by Karli Von Herbulis

This book is just the basics in Natural Parenting, I will say most of it was stuff I already knew so I was a little disappointed. But, it would be great for someone just embarking on natural parenting.

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

The 30 Day Green Smoothie Challenge Guide

I am no stranger to green smoothies. We were whipping them up in our Blendtec long before it was  cool. But, this book motivated me to actually do it every day. In addition, it inspired me to use other greens besides my go to spinach and kale. I would recommend this book if you like green smoothies. Or even if you don't. :)

(image taken from http://ultimate-bundles.com)

Clean and Simple by Stephanie Langford and Writers @ Keeper of the Home

I'm not going to lie- I stopped making my own cleaners since the birth of my baby well, almost a year ago. I have gotten used to the convenience of buying stuff. I was excited about this book because hey- 7 cleaners and you can clean your whole house! The recipes seem very easy and doable. I enjoyed the book, but since I have yet to make the cleaners I cannot vouch for whether they work or not (maybe I should get on that?)


I have more Books of the Bundle waiting for me on Kindle.... Stay tuned!!!

Katie