Old style dream life vs real life

Fire_Fox

Slinky wrote: »

You mention that you don't drive. Is this down to choice or have you never got around to learning. IMO driving is a liberating skill, and will open up many more opportunities in your life. A schoolfriend of mine has been limited in her job opportunities through life by not being able to drive, relying on others for a lift for years, and now working in a minimum wage position in the only large employer within walking distance of home.

If you can drive, so many other opportunites will open up for you.

As a non-driver in my mid-forties I read that as "A schoolfriend of mine has been limited in her job opportunities through life by where she has chosen to live"

Everyone in my small family has actively chosen to live where there are good public transport links. My sibling and their spouse to commute into central London, myself and an aunt because neither of us drive, my parents and another aunt when they retired early and moved from a city (London, Leeds) to their 'forever' retirement homes in more rural areas.

I honestly think running a car can be as limiting as not running a car. Running a car means you need a certain household income level. The cost implication is much more noticeable in households on a low to moderate income, or one person households. The cost can make it not viable to work part-time, or to take a job with a lower salary so limiting you work-wise. Where you live or work can be limited by the lack of parking.

It is sad to me that so many children are ferried to school and activities nowadays, and that so many university students already run a car. Sad that young people never get accustomed to getting around by bicycle and/ or public transport and/ or walking.

Angel_Jenny

pumpkinlife wrote: »

Make it and they might come, even teenagers like cake . And if they don't, then you can sit and read a book and eat it, or invite friends around.

Perhaps look on Instagram for other vintage accounts of people who work outside the home and still live vintagely. There are quite a few around, but they get drowned out by homeschoolers and kept women with significant budgets for antiques and collectables (nothing wrong with that, but unrealistic inspiration for your situation).

Do you bake your own bread? That's a nice practical craft to start with - minimal equipment required, timeless skill and useful end product. You can bake a pie or cake to fill up the oven too. No-knead bread is great to start with.

I really like the idea of everyday rituals around ordinary tasks. I will look for some more realistic Instagram accounts - rather than the perfect life ones.

I have only ever made bread from a packet mix! I like kneading :rotfl: good for destressing! x

Angel_Jenny

Slinky wrote: »

You mention that you don't drive. Is this down to choice or have you never got around to learning. IMO driving is a liberating skill, and will open up many more opportunities in your life. A schoolfriend of mine has been limited in her job opportunities through life by not being able to drive, relying on others for a lift for years, and now working in a minimum wage position in the only large employer within walking distance of home.



If you can drive, so many other opportunites will open up for you.

A bit of both! I could never really afford it and have always lived in places with pretty good public transport. My Fiance drives so we do the big shop and longer trips together.

Angel_Jenny

Working_Mum wrote: »

Hey Angel_jenny I am not sure if you're going through a mid-life crisis or whether you are feeling a little bit of discontent and feel the need to change something!! A bit like having a small pebble in your shoe.

I completely re-evaluated my life when i went through a really nasty divorce. Finances and responsibility for my two children meant that i couldn't make any HUGE root and branch changes. I spent a bit of time trying to decide what my perfect life looked like - I did a vision board and wrote things down in my notebook (which i carried with me everywhere) and then set about a slow burning, long term plan to engineer a life I loved.

Basically every decision I took/take is made against these life goals. I tidied up and de-cluttered a drawer/cupboard at a time. I moved furniture around to be able to make my spaces exactly what I needed from them - I have a bay window in my bedroom - I have this as a small reading space which is furnished with a Multiyork chair from Freecycle, covered with a woolen throw I found during my de-cluttering, seated next to a small table I bought and painted grey and I rest my feet on a sewing box my Mum made in the 1970's!! I love this little space and will regularly place fresh flowers (from my garden) on my table and read or sew there.

I found these small, thoughtful changes really empowering and I now have a garden and home which reflects my style and tastes quite well. It has taken a few years but I have up-skilled by learning to paint/sew curtains etc but it has been totally worth it.

I have found that having a plan and working towards my plan every day (whether it was de-cluttering or investigating how to do something or checking the measurements on a piece of furniture seen at a car boot to decide whether it'll fit in a room at home) has kept things moving in the right direction.

Well done for being able to articulate the kind of life you want and taking steps to achieve it.

((Hugs))

The pebble is growing! I keep feeling pressure from others that I should be doing more with my qualifications (no degree though) but I am just not career minded. I love my domestic days at home so I am not someone who would be happy working insane hours.

Oh that makes so much sense - having a goal and assessing decisions as getting you closer to the goal or further away. I am going to make a vision board for sure!!

I need a plan and to get excited about making changes rather than being afraid as a default setting. x

Angel_Jenny

Fire_Fox wrote: »

As a non-driver in my mid-forties I read that as "A schoolfriend of mine has been limited in her job opportunities through life by where she has chosen to live"

Everyone in my small family has actively chosen to live where there are good public transport links. My sibling and their spouse to commute into central London, myself and an aunt because neither of us drive, my parents and another aunt when they retired early and moved from a city (London, Leeds) to their 'forever' retirement homes in more rural areas.

I honestly think running a car can be as limiting as not running a car. Running a car means you need a certain household income level. The cost implication is much more noticeable in households on a low to moderate income, or one person households. The cost can make it not viable to work part-time, or to take a job with a lower salary so limiting you work-wise. Where you live or work can be limited by the lack of parking.

It is sad to me that so many children are ferried to school and activities nowadays, and that so many university students already run a car. Sad that young people never get accustomed to getting around by bicycle and/ or public transport and/ or walking.

I really could not afford driving lessons (the hundreds I would need!) or to buy / insure / run a car. It can sometimes feel a little limiting but I would not be a happy or confident driver at all.

Lots of public transport where I live! x

lassfarfromhome

Hi Angel_jenny, I really understand there being a difference between your dream and actual lives- I'm in a similar boat myself. What works for me is focusing on small steps. Even with something as simple sounding as wanting to do more baking can seem overwhelming to put into practice because of it's vagueness. I try to break things down into manageable, distinct tasks, and diarise e.g. spend 30 mins looking for one cake recipe I would like to make", then you might find a day in your diary to make said cake, then make sure you have all the equipment you need, then buy the ingredients. Just b moving slowly towards the life you want, and you will get there

lassfarfromhome

p.s. have you thought of taking a break from Instagram. I deleted my Facebook account when I started paying careful attention to how it made me feel. I always felt more dissatisfied after checking it.

Angel_Jenny

lassfarfromhome wrote: »

Hi Angel_jenny, I really understand there being a difference between your dream and actual lives- I'm in a similar boat myself. What works for me is focusing on small steps. Even with something as simple sounding as wanting to do more baking can seem overwhelming to put into practice because of it's vagueness. I try to break things down into manageable, distinct tasks, and diarise e.g. spend 30 mins looking for one cake recipe I would like to make", then you might find a day in your diary to make said cake, then make sure you have all the equipment you need, then buy the ingredients. Just b moving slowly towards the life you want, and you will get there

Yes! Vagueness makes things overwhelming to me. I am taking small steps in the right direction (still on my declutter mission) and actually making time for what I enjoy x

MJ_Wilton

Hello Angel_Jenny. I feel like I’ve found a kindred spirit! I too would love a simple countryside life surrounded by a library and the things I have crafted, and I’m also hampered by living in the wrong place with not enough money to change it! But I feel I’m a few steps ahead of you, so here’s what I do to “deal with such a disparity between your actual life and what you want”:

I’m not good at sticking to new resolutions. So I try to alter my habits gently. I practise my knitting (I’m not very good yet) while I watch TV. Sometimes I knead read with the tv on too!

I can’t promise myself I’ll bake every week on a particular day. But I’ll pick out a recipe so that when I’m in the mood to bake, I won’t waste that time looking through cookbooks or pinterest.

I’m slowly learning to bake better. I’ve got a simple recipe for cake I baked until I perfected it, and now I’m branching out to pastries and more complicated cakes. I’ve started learning about bread too, using library books. I recommend Jack Monroe’s books, since her recipes are so affordable. No buying fancy ingredients you’ll never use up and it doesn’t feel like a waste when it goes wrong! And she does such a lovely variety of baked things

Our garden isn’t tiny, but was overgrown with weeds when we moved in. Little by little I’ve been claiming it back! Each year I’m adding a couple of new flowers and a new food crop as I learn how to care for them. It’s about to be our third summer here, and we’ve got strawberries, two tomato plants, one lettuce, one cabbage, one cauliflower, four runner beans and a huge row of potatoes! Most of this was free. My Granny gave us a few of her spares – do you know anyone who grows their own veg who could share with you? And our potatoes were once growing eyes at the bottom of our cupboards! When I find one that’s got a bit old to eat I’m delighted nowadays, and chit and plant it up!

Another Granma gifted us the seeds she got free with her gardening magazines but didn’t want. Free flowers! Seed packets start at under £2 and can have hundreds of seeds in them. I recommend Sweet Peas for an easy, colourful, and above all cottage-garden feel I always make sure I’ve got pots of flowers on the windowsill outside, so I can see them from indoors. Sure the rest of my house is ugly, but at least I can see my aquilegia Grandmother’s bonnet!

Even without much garden, pots are ace. I’ve herbs growing indoors on a few windowsills. I’ve little wooden and chalk-board holder for one, and a self-painted plain pot for another. It looks very pretty, even though the rest of my seeds are in loo-roll tube and old ice-cream tubs! But I’m slowly upgrading and choosing to focus my attention on the things that do look how I like them.

I hope this this given you some ideas on how you can add a bit more of what you love into your life. The answer to “how do you deal with such a disparity between your actual life and what you want” is, I think, make small changes in the right direction. And then focus on enjoying them!

So start that Saturday tea-time. Even if it’s only the days you’re off work and feel like baking. Drink it alone with whatever china you have, but bake enough for others to share if they want. Maybe it will develop into a lovely family tradition, or maybe it won’t. But either way you’ll feel better for living a life more like your aspiration!

vintageteainmywardrobe

Angel_Jenny wrote: »

Been a bit introspective lately and realising that I drift along. So I decided to figure out what my ideal life was (aiming to be practical not requiring a lottery win!) and my ideal is so far from my reality.

Currently I :
live in a city
have limited craft skills
very limited funds
violent job
tiny garden
clutter

The dream would be:
growing fruit and vegetables
being able to bake well
nicely decorated & organised home
a calmer & simpler life
more vintage style

The lottery win ideal involves a cottage in the countryside, chickens, a library, and hiring people to teach me craft skills! Have you ever seen rememberingtheoldways on Instagram? That is the dream - homemade cakes, vintage knick knacks, and Saturday tea time.

How do you deal with such a disparity between your actual life and what you want?

I am working on a list of things that I actually can change x

Since I can remember I have always always wanted to be a stay at home mum looking after the home in the countryside with chickens and sheep, making my own clothing and growing everything we needed. Prior to that I wanted to be a nun :rotfl:

I have since I went to Uni over 14 yrs ago! Stopped telling people my dream because the reply I used to get was "don't you think your worth more than that" or "you should be moving up the corporate ladder" ect ect

When I was 18 I meet my other half, he moved from England to here to be with me and after 7 years we both managed to save up enough for a house. He's an unskilled worker so doesn't earn above the minimum wage unless he does overtime and I am lucky that I have a Government job but I am not ruled by money sadly and just have no aspirations to add more stress into my life.

Because of this I never got my house in the country and I will NEVER be able to afford to be a stay at home mum and for a long time I thought my dream was gone and I was lost. It's only recently that the other half has pointed out that I could do my dream anywhere. So I don't have the country house with land but I do have a small garden so why don't I grow everything I can do. So I don't have all the time in the world to bake but I could learn how to bake one thing at a time and bring them in. I'm hoping to learn how to make sourdough and yogurt in June! Yes I will never be a stay at home mum but maybe if we play everything right he could be a stay at home dad and to me, when I really think about it all I wanted was a child to love.

Dreams are amazing, everyone should have them but I've learned you have to work towards your dream and your dream shouldn't be based on someone else's dream. I follow a few very popular vintage instagram accounts and they are lovely to look at and I wish I could do what they do on a daily basis but you never see the hardship. Remembering the old ways has a million kids! You never see how they probably scraped by just to live so they could bring them all up. Remember you are ONLY seeing what they want you to.

I'm excited to see how you progress in this and will be following along and joining in where I can.