Posts Tagged ‘friends’
LIFE: Easter Weekend
Two weekends ago Cale worked at the Architecture firm till late on Friday and all day Sunday.
Two Saturdays ago Meg’s ankles swelled up for the first time (21 weeks and counting!) from cleaning out the milk barn all day and, helping Cale cleanup the yard and flowerbeds from a long winter.
BUT this Saturday, we had our first big bonfire with friends.
This Saturday we got lost under our favorite tree (in front of our house) playing old school yard games.
Killed about 300 301 Mayflies (RIP). 
Took the tops off our cold frames and built a third raised bed (bring on the hot weather plants)!
Went to our first Easter Sunday service with Little Noodle (Meg cried).
And added venison to our fall menu (taken from a friends night cam on our family property)! 
It was a beautiful weekend and just what we needed to remind ourselves what all this “work” is for. There are a lot of people who love the idea of owning land, but it’s also a lot of work! Your weekends are full maintaining and updating the property, on top of working a full-time job, running a home based business, staying on top of household chores, and all that other stuff you have to do as an adult. There are small moments we relish the idea of a city plot where mowing takes 30 minutes (with a push mower), but then we have weekends like these and we’re reminded just why we could never live anywhere else.
Here’s to many more summer nights under our favorite tree, slow Sundays with family meals, and wondering how it will all be different next year when we have a little one running around.
Happy (late) Easter Weekend everyone!
From the Farm 
Related Posts
Lesson #2: Work Smarter Not Harder
This week we’re sharing lesson #2 in our series about running your business around your home life instead of letting your business run your home life. Figuring out how to work smarter not harder (thanks for the title James!) has been a very important lesson for us and something that we are still working on implementing. In order to work smarter not harder you first have to recognize that even though the marketing world would tell you something different there is no right or wrong way to do this. It honestly starts with knowing your own lifestyle and business perimeters and setting up tasks to help you stay within those boundaries. This will look different for every person, every family, every business. If you are single you may not mind working late into the night and if you are a mom you may find that you get your best work done early in the morning before the kids are up. Either way, you figure out how to work smarter by first recognizing what daily tasks are foundational elements to establishing a satisfying home life for you and your family.
Start by asking yourself what are the day to day tasks that have to be done in your home life? As fun as it is to dream up the perfect home life at the end of the day what stresses us out is the stuff that everyone has to deal with; chores and all that responsible adult stuff! More often times then not it’s the daily tasks of running a household that can easily distract you when you work from home so it’s important to figure out what those daily tasks are and how they align themselves up with your preferred lifestyle.
For me (Meg), my list looks like this:
Based on the list above there are four categories that are important to me and the home life I desire to have:
- Chores
- Marriage/Immediate Family
- Personal
- Social/Friends/Extended Family
By going back through the individual pieces that make up each category I was able to establish simple, everyday tasks that have helped me meet and maintain a healthy and realistic balance to my preferred lifestyle:
LIFE: Thinking Big
When I was little my dad once told me this…
“Small minded people talk about other people.
Medium minded people talk about things.
Big minded people talk about ideas”
So the question stands how are we thinking? I think it’s amazing how we can so quickly get caught up in what people think, or what is the hot new item right now. As we come into the Holiday season I just wanted to pause for a second and ask a simple question. What size is your thinking?
Recently we went camping with Meg’s family and as we were driving away I remember thinking, what have we talked about? I mean we’ve just spent 48 hours with people we love; what did we say? What did we do? How often do we spend time with people we love and when we leave we realize that the sum total of our time was spent talking about the new iphone, or latest gadget, or how bad someone’s style was in the booth next to us. Don’t get me wrong, mumu’s were never meant to be worn in public. But what I am getting at is how quickly we lose the quality of our time.
LIFE: California, Part 3
After the river ride and then natural water slide our Cali friends took us to Lassen Volcanic National Park. A few of the highlights included frolicking in a field, getting lost in a lava tube, and hiking down into the boiling sulfur pits!
LIFE: California, Part 2
I know what you are thinking; “THIS is California?”. I was thinking the same thing. But that is Tim and Anna. This is what they do. They go on adventures. They explore. They like to pull their car over at random places and say; “Follow us!”
Cale seemed excited and not skeptical at all! I was surprised by this cause he’s usual all about creating tactical games in his mind (War Gaming) like if the bad guys were to come out at this very moment what would you do? We’ll, what would you do?
At this point all I can think about is the fact that this is the kind of place where people get murdered. Like in that one scary movie I didn’t really watch but sorta watched… yes, that one!
But, they are our best buds. And we’ve seen them do crazier things than this… so we continued.
We followed their little toe shoes down, down, down into this…
I know what you’re thinking now; “Not so bad, huh?” Yep, that’s exactly what I thought too.
It sure looks pretty.
The water is nice.
Relaxing.
Oh, oh wait, you want me to do what?!
LIFE: Stress, Family, Baby Showers…
Last weekend I (Meg) took a little girls road trip with my mom, Aunt, and Grandma for a family baby shower in Arkansas. I’ve never seen a couple more excited to bring a little person into this world. It was a truly a wonderful time to get away, spend time laughing at “when I was a kid” stories and celebrating what life is all about…living.
We have been so busy lately with trying to juggle Green Couch Design blog, graphic design services, products and life (oh, yes that thing too!) it seems we’ve forgotten to take time out to remember why we wondered down this crazy path of self-employment.
LIFE: Welcome Home
Kids art is the best. They are not afraid to draw (or speak) exactly what they think. They put their innocence right out there on the table for all the world to see and in moments like these…it’s the most precious, most perfect piece of art we’ve ever seen.
LIFE: How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?
Ok so it’s time we let you in on a little family secret. Cale is the oldest of 5 kids and although they are all growing up (some married, dating, and college bound) we secretly enjoy working together. While some families loath the holidays or game nights, we tend to actually “plan” weekends together. And our family weekends inevitably turn into something physical like painting, picking the garden, and the latest…chopping wood!
Hawaiian Farm Girl: Final Farewell
It’s hard to believe that what seemed like a lifetime in reality equaled a mere 58 days. A lot can happen in 58 days- especially in Hawaii…
Hawaiian Farm Girl: Week 7
I live to discover. My curious spirit is often compared to a child, as I’m always looking out for things I may have never seen or noticed before. Noticing these things in nature is easy here; Hawaii is a place just waiting to unveil new discoveries to those whose eyes are open to its natural beauty.
High class design in overalls. It's the simple life of a farm through the eyes of a couple of crazy designers. We call ourselves Green Couch Design and we are Bringing Design Home.
