Welcome to urban. paleo. simple

My life has been, and continues to be, complex. I am drawn to a simple life where I can get on with being happy and healthy. My journey started years back where I first encountered ideas of urban homesteads, living simply, and more recently of eating and moving in an ancestral way to promote health. It's been a meandering path and I am by no means near the end. I live in a town that is surrounded by countryside that is a mixture of farmed land, woodland and moorland. I attempt to eat and exercise "paleo". But most of all - I just want a simple life. 

I work a full time job that involves more than an hour's commute each day. It's a challenging job but I love it and would only swap it for a closer job if it was for the same organisation. 

I also suffer from depression and anxiety. This sometimes causes sleeping problems that mean that I struggle with having "enough" energy. 

So much of my time, and a fair wack of my income, is invested at the moment in paid work. My income is modest, below national average but not minimum wage. My only debts are a mortgage, my student loan, and a few hundred quid I owe to my mother from when she sold me her car a few months back. 

I am still learning to budget. Not that I have problems managing my money, but I want to develop my skills further so that I can save more than I already do. I would love to be able to overpay on my mortgage and pay it off early. I dream of the day when there is no rent or mortgage to be paid. 

Moving into my own home last year has been the first time since I was a student that I have had a garden. Sadly, this my first summer has seen a horribly wet summer cause slugs to consume nearly my entire harvest. I've just bought and assembled a chicken coop, but am now wondering whether they're going to end up costing more than than they'll pay in eggs. We'll consume all their eggs and then some, but perhaps I will be able to barter some of the resulting compost for stuff. 

So my challenges at the moment revolve around budgeting, learning to care for chickens, designing and running a very small garden that will still provide food, space for chickens, space for the dog to lounge in the sunshine, and maybe for me to lounge around in as well, and declutter the house whilst living with a hoarder. The person I live with is my ex. We separated because he's straight and I've transitioned from female to male. We're still great friends and enjoy living together. Plus there's the dog to consider. He is self-employed so is useful for practical stuff if and when he can spare the time. Which isn't often. 

My plans for this blog is to share my ongoing journey, my mistakes, my successes, a  few pictures, a few recipes. Recipes will be paleo, but generally fairly frugal. There might even be the odd post about raw feeding my dog too. I like fairly simply things. I love the handmade bowls in my cupboard, the handmade soap in my bathroom, my meals cooked from scratch, picking berries from my garden. I also love F1 and my computer and my DS. I covet an ipad. I would buy new books all the time if I had the money. 

Bob