Slow Living at Home: What Simple Living Means on Singlenesting

Slow Living at Home: What Simple Living Means on singlenesting

I’m thrilled that you’ve found my little corner of the internet! This home on the web is where I share about my love of homemaking. When I started writing about homemaking, I was a single woman who lived in various non-traditional households both solo and shared with roommates, housemates, even flatmates. Now, I live in a multi-generational household, taking care of my elderly mother. Most recently, I’ve been blessed to have met a man who will become my husband very soon and we are embarking on a new chapter of a non-traditional household of a different kind!

Throughout each phase and living situation, I’ve learned a common theme: homemaking is for any woman with a heart of making a home for herself and the ones she loves. 

And for the woman who finds herself living in a non-traditional household, such as solo, shared with roommates or in a multi-generational setting and caring for aging parents, being a homemaker is just as valid and worthy as those women who are blessed with a husband and children to raise. It just looks a little different!

I’ve broken homemaking down into six separate categories and this introduction series will give you an idea of what to expect to read and learn in each one. I’ve also linked the core post for each category so you can easily read about the philosophy behind each from a deeper perspective.

Each category represents a piece of what I believe goes into making a home truly yours. The names themselves are ones I created because they felt like me and how I like to approach each area. Still, a name only tells you so much. I believe it's worth defining terms plainly so there's no guessing at what each title means here.

So, let’s get into Simple Living! It might not mean quite what you’d expect.

The older I’ve gotten, the more important it’s become to me to slow down and simplify. While life outside the home can’t be controlled, there are methods to regain some of it inside. Thoughtful habits, rituals that bring a calmness to the chaos, carefully developed routines, being intentional with the products and ingredients we bring into our homes, are all practices to help manage a simple living philosophy.

When we choose to unhurry life in our homes, I think it’s more manageable for the hurry and hustle outside.

Slowing down at home also allows for the breathing space to appreciate the time it takes for things to grow. A habit, learning a new hobby or skill, a garden. When we’re not looking for fast, we often find ways of moving through the world with more ease, with more care, fewer toxins and more wholesomeness. Simple, slow living invites us to return to the ways of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers when they made do, mended, economized, stretched and planned ahead for leaner seasons. 

Here, I’ll share what I’m learning as I go. It’s a journey that I’m still very much on and I hope you’ll join me.

What Slow Living at Home Means Here

Slow living at home isn’t a look, nor is it a full lifestyle overhaul. For me, it’s a way of paying attention to the pace of the day, to what I bring into the house and to how I treat what I already own.

It also doesn’t depend on a particular kind of household. Whether you live alone, share a home, or care for someone else under your roof, a slower, cleaner home is still within reach.

It might look like:

• Swapping chemical-laden products for more natural options
• Reusing and repairing rather than throwing out and replacing
• Growing something, even if it starts as a neglected patch of garden

Lowering the Toxin Load, One Swap at a Time

The thing I keep coming back to is how much we bring into our homes without thinking about it: cleaners, candles, sprays, air fresheners. Once I started paying attention, I wanted gentler options.

That’s where essential oils come in. In this category, I’ll share how to swap out chemical-laden products for more natural ones. I first started by swapping out chemically body sprays with essential oil roll-ons. From there, I switched over to Young Living’s Thieves cleaning products. I feel so much better knowing my surfaces are getting really clean and that I’m not breathing in harsh chemicals. 

Try thinking of it this way:

• You don’t have to replace everything all at once.
• One swap at a time is still a real change.

Four Threads of Simple Living on singlenesting

You don’t need to do everything at once. Here’s what you can expect to find in this category:

1. A slower pace. Resisting the rush, even in a society that runs on hustle. Slowing down is a practice, one I’m still learning.

2. A cleaner home. Natural swaps, essential oils and simple recipes to replace store-bought products, shared as I learn them.

3. Old-fashioned resourcefulness. I’ve been thinking a lot about the methods and mindsets our grandmothers and great-grandmothers used: relearning them, practicing resourcefulness, and lowering waste. Reusing and repairing come before replacing.

4. Gardening adventures and misadventures. We’re rejuvenating an abandoned garden, and I’ll be sharing all of it, including the misadventures.

Where to Begin

If you’re not sure where to begin, try here:

• Choose one product you use often and look for a more natural alternative.
• The next time something breaks, see whether it can be repaired before you replace it.
• Slow one small moment of your day, like putting the kettle on and actually waiting for it.

I first started slowing down through a simple practice of being present while doing the mundane and rote things around the house. I’d intentionally unload the dishwasher silently and find things to be thankful for each dish and bowl while placing it in its cupboard home. This shift helped me to view the “never-ending” cyclical chore as something positive. We made good, nutritious meals, ate them on those dishes, which needed to be cleaned and put back again for the next meal. What a blessing to have the good food, the dishwasher soap and the machine to clean our dishes for us.

A Note on Doing This Slowly

The thing about simple living is that it will evolve over time. As skills develop and interests grow, simple may look like expanding into homesteading and preserving and stocking up from our own garden for the dregs of winter. Maybe it’ll grow into doing more and more handicraft hobbies that’ll turn into intentional repair rather than replacement. It could also look like less digital and more analog.

But, to start out, your home doesn’t need to be a homestead. It also doesn’t need to be finished. It simply needs to:

• Feel a little calmer than the world outside
• Be a little gentler on the people (and pets) living in it
• Make room for the way you actually live

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Thanks for stopping by and being here. I hope you found something that resonates and that you’ll stay awhile.