Rethinking Lifestyle

Yesterday was the worst day of my life thus far. I should have seen it coming, but when it came, it caught me by surprise. My bosses had decided that my position is not to be funded from April 1, and yesterday my boss and HR appeared at my office to terminate me with immediate effect.

Obviously, I will be looking for another job, but in the short term, and whilst I have some unexpected time on my hands I will be looking to simplify my life and reduce costs as much as I can. And I would hope that I can reduce my impact on the environment too.

When it comes down to it, what do we need to live – our priorities should be healthy bodies and healthy relationships with families, friends and our local community.

There are a few things I will be cutting back on with the loss of my job at University of Manitoba. My mileage will be the most significant. Not travelling back and forth up the 59 highway, will be my biggest contribution to the environment. 18.6tonnes CO2 per journey, done 4 days a week – 74.4tonnes CO2 saved each week 3868.8tonnes per year. Wow – that is a significant reduction in impact, and obviously it will save me money in my pocket too.

My gym membership has to go – my lunchtime classes have been great for stress relief and a chance to meet up with like minded individuals. Today, my local community is my gym as I walk my dog – we can do longer walks now I don’t have to get down to work, and I can talk to people and observe the changing seasons.

Having more time at home, but with less money for groceries means I have to think carefully about food. We have a cold store full of produce – mostly canned and dried, and our freezer is full too. However, its all too easy to pick up something from the grocery store on the way home from work. My incentive to use our garden produce and save money will encourage me to cook those dried beans, rehydrate the dried butternut squash, take a tin of tomatoes and a few other choice ingredients to make a casserole. And I have no excuse not to perfect my bread making skills.

In deepest winter, there is little I can do in the garden, but I can buy the seeds we want for this year. We are planning to try growing chick peas amongst other legumes. And according to the gardening guru on the CBC on Sunday morning, it is not too early to start some of the seeds for those first plants to go into the greenhouse and out in the garden. I’ve not tried growing peppers from seed -perhaps this is the year to try.

As you can see, I am trying to be positive about my change in situation. It just needs a change in perspective – I have to seize the opportunity given me, for however long I have it.