The key to contentment for the weekend homesteader.

Are you a weekend homesteader? 

Sometimes I just want to skip forward in time. Right now, my husband and I currently hold jobs in town where we live as on-site apartment managers during the week. But we recently bought a farm where we spend our weekends blissfully working on creating a country homestead. But it's difficult being split between two places. We face challenges keeping a garden watered in two places, for example. Don't get me wrong, we love the jobs. We've been super blessed here.  

But sometimes, I just want everything at once. "Forget being a weekend homesteader! I want it all, and I want it now!" I throw a little inner tantrum. Can you relate? Even if you don't have a second homestead our there, do you find that because of a full-time job, your homesteading tasks get side-lined to the weekends?

There's an old story. A fairy gives a boy a magic ball of string. Whenever he wants to skip forward in time, he just has to pull some string from his ball. If he pulls a little, he skips forward in time just a bit. If he pulls a lot, he might skip half a year. 

I want that ball of string! 

This month has been crazy. With our lives split between two places, sometimes we can't even visit the farm on the weekend. Plain old life (like other obligations) kinda gets in the way of my country-life dreams. I'm forced to stick my homestead plans on a shelf for a while and watch them gather dust. 

It's been one of those months. I've found myself thinking: If only I had that boy's string, everything would be peachy-keen. I could pull just enough to propel myself through time to where I can live my dream every day, not just on weekends. 

Then my inner grown-up kicks in, "Don't be a fuss bucket; that time will come soon enough.  There's plenty to be content with today if you'll just look around."

I don't like it, but my inner grown-up is right. It's hard to feel content today, when all I want is what I see coming tomorrow.

I have a super smart friend. She's writing a novel about people who can pull themselves through time. But there's a side-effect to the pulls. You go crazy. The more you pull, the sicker you get. Maybe it's the same with the ball of string. Maybe there's a reason time travel only happens in stories. It wouldn't be good for us. Not in real life. The real living of NOW is what matters. NOW is all we really have, since the future doesn't exist yet.  

Recently, my friend said something I thought was wise: "Cherish the good in each moment." She's right, you know? Whether I'm in the city or the country, NOW is where life is happening. Will I look for the good and cherish it moment-by-moment, no matter where I am? 

Cherish the moment. How can I cherish my weekends in farm-girl-land, if all I let myself think of is what I don't have, or what I can't change? And how can I be happy in the city, if all I do is wish I could be somewhere else? (And--hello--that job in the city is what's making my farm girl dream possible in the first place.) See. There's the good. Cherish it. We're just happier when we stay in the moment and keep a lens focused on the good stuff happening now.  

So much for that magic ball of string. Maybe I'll should just take up knitting. 

Joy--Fearless Farm Girl,

"Farm girl: it's a verb, because it's what you do."