I can say I am grateful. I am grateful that we came to the realization that the lives we were living were not our ideals. We had each other. We had our health. We had our jobs. We had family. We had friends. What was missing?
We leased a farm north of Atlanta about an hour away from 2011 - 2013. We loved the privacy, the serenity, the deer who called the farm their home, the Red-Shouldered hawks who screeched above the trees, hunting the pastures. What we didn't like was that the farm was on a rocky slope. When there was heavy rainfall, the driveway would be washed away. The parking area would be flooded, and giant, gaping holes would sink into the pastures leaving dangerous spots three feet wide by four feet deep. Then "urban sprawl" or a outlet mall, whatever you'd like to call it, started intruding on our drives into our places of work. For me, that meant an hour and a half to two hours...each way...to drive 34 miles.
What started out as an "it's okay I drive this far, I come home to the farm" became "I can't handle this anymore!" We started dreading our drives to and from the farm. The flooding, the holes, the drive. It was all too much. We wanted to be closer to our families in case of medical emergencies and doctors' appointments (as we have family members with health issues,) and it was all taking a toll.
We sold most of our farm items we had collected, and we moved back to suburbia. It was nice to have the convenience of a major interstate nearby to hop on and travel to our places of work. It was not so fun to pay suburbia rental prices ($1300+ for our area. For the same price, we had been leasing an 11 acre farm.)
As time has gone on, we have realized we just aren't cut out for suburban life. We enjoyed our neighbors at the farm who told us tales about how they had lived on the road when it was dirt, single lane. We miss neighbors taking responsibility. For example, a neighbor's tree had fallen on our fenceline, and he was out there the same day replacing it when we got home from work. Here in Suburbia? Good luck. \
We created this blog, Purity & Simplicity, to, how do I put it without sounding "deep" or cheesy.... "purify and simplify" our lives. That works. We have written out our plans and our goals. We know there are others like us. "We want to get back to simplicity, but we can't." SURE, you can! At least you can use us as an example either way: succeed or fail, learn what not to do, learn what works, and why.
I suppose I should tell you a bit about ourselves first:
We are Shelby and Andrew. Shelby is early 30s. Andrew is late 20s. We have been married for three years and together for six years. We do not have children, and we do not plan on having children. Unfortunately, if you are looking for a "how to" blog for families with children, this isn't it. We have two dogs: Grimm and Gidget, both aged six years (they will be six years old in two months.) Shelby works full-time in an office job and is also in school for a Bachelor's in Psychology and pursuing a Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy. Andrew is an automotive technician for an auto dealership, and he has been one for the past seven years. He is also a trained EMT-I (Emergency Medical Technician - Intermediate.)
We, like most of America, have debts. The majority of our debts were caused by impulse buying, stupid decisions, and carrots of credit dangled in front of voraciously hungry asses' faces. We lease a home in suburbia, and we have two vehicles we finance.
The first and foremost goal is....to get out of debt. We want to whiddle down our bills to solely our rent and utilities as well as gasoline for our vehicles (public transportation does not go near our works,) and groceries. Our grocery bill we hope to off-set with planting again this year.
After our debts have been paid, we will be looking to lease our buy another farm or homestead within reasonable distance to our workplaces. We will remain at those places for at least two to three years as our long-term goals are to move out west (NW Montana or NW Washington state...maybe some other places to consider, but those are the areas we enjoy the most.)
For now, this blog will just have to be status updates, tips and tricks, and more...but not too much...just enough. We'd be more than happy to try things our readers suggest to see if they work here in suburbia.
Thank you for reading our blog.
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