Life Offscreen

Last week had me gathering, pressing, pinning and posting autumn packages to some of my favourite bloggers around the country. I’ve been lingering on walks, noticing small details, things to gather and post to friends. I defy anyone to suggest that brown paper packages tied up with string aren’t among their most favourite of things.

It started with a conversation about the perfect wild restoration of time spent in nature. Ever since Kate and I stumbled upon our shared passion for the outdoors her podcasts have been a regular listen, full of creativity and yarn indulgence. When she suggested we share some seasonal adventuresome ideas I was quick to agree. Add to that my love of pencil and paper and we simply had to involve the post office in our plans.

So began The Life Offscreen Project: a simple action that we hope will cause a ripple effect reminder to get outside and off our screens. The idea is really simple:

Send a snail mail reminder to a friend to get out and enjoy some seasonal adventure.
Use your mail as a prompt to notice the little things, to gather and share some outdoor inspiration.

Over the coming weeks you’ll notice other bloggers joining in and little pieces of mail being shared that we hope inspires others to live life on the wilder side. You don’t have to sign up and no one is going to hold you accountable. This is your moment to share and discover. If you have taken part in the project though, we would love to hear from you!

To start you off, we’ve gathered some of our other freedom-seeking friends and created a Pinterest board with plenty of inspiration for a Life Offscreen.

See you on Instagram? #lifeoffscreen.

No Idle Hands

Tom’s grandad always loved to see people busy with their hands. A prolific and talented cross-stitcher himself, he often used to extol the virtues of ‘no idle hands’. Not only was I born to a crafty family, I also appear to have married in to one. Tom’s mum is a stitcher of many things, whilst Tom himself is rarely far from a pencil or craft knife.

I’ve always preferred textile to paper, doubting my artistic ability after plenty of dispiriting childhood moments when the picture in my head would refuse to translate itself on to paper. So, at the beginning of the year when I swore to try a new craft, it seemed natural to pick up some cross stitch. This little amber bee has taken me quite some time. I’m not sure I have the patience for counting squares and fiddling with different shades of thread, but I’m pleased with how it’s looking so I shall bloody-well persevere until it’s done!

I’ve also been overcoming my fear of drawing, thanks to Jennie Maizel’s Sketchbook Club. The project has just enough structure and freedom to make it all seem ‘doable’, with my added delight in now being a frequenter of the local art shop. My grama has always been the one buying the art supplies. Her house is full of beautiful big canvases she’s painted over the years. So, I’m sure she too would be an appreciator of ‘no idle hands’.

Summer Snaps

It’s been a long luscious summer filled with very little screen time and plenty of fresh air. So many blog posts have popped in to my head, only to be discarded in favour of a walk in the last light. We’ve explored beaches in all kinds of weather, been mountain biking for the first time and walked almost every track in the forest. It’s been a summer close to home, appreciating our local landscape and keeping our eyes peeled for signs reading Land For Sale.

My electronic neglect has rekindled my love of paper and pencil. I’ve picked up old notebooks and bought new art materials, inspired by Jennie Maizel’s most marvellous Sketchbook Club. I love her achievable projects and am delighting in filling every page with shape and colour. I’m cooking up some more offscreen papery plans with Kate from A Playful Day, which I can’t wait to share with you next week.

With the recent rain I’ve got my run back on. Walking in the rain is just no fun, but splashing through puddles at top speed is a different matter. I’m excited about this change to the season. I know I’m not alone in relishing the first golden leaves and chill in the air, even if it means the return to busy schedules for many.

With this, the final week before school starts, we are back to it, making ready for the madness of a new term. It’s been an adjustment and I’ve struggled to get my work head on, still slipping in to August habits (lie-ins, long lunches and the odd afternoon nap.) One August habit I’m hoping to hold on to is my daily yoga. Somehow aiming for nothing more than to turn up at my mat has made it achievable. I think it fully justifies buying one of these.

This week is a gentle but firm nudge, tipping us headlong into the term as we glance back at snaps of this perfect lazy summer.

Tiny Homemaking

Last month I mentioned my plans to spend some of the summer reading about log cabins. The plans to read have, perhaps inevitably, fostered plans to build. I found a fantastic book about the tiny house movement that resonated with so many of my thoughts about living well, it felt like a hundred disparate thoughts all finally tying together. I’ve joked for years about running away to build a cabin in the woods. I now realise that by mentioning it so often it’s shifting from an impossible dream to a determined goal. Other people do it, why can’t we? Heck, my Grama did it, so it’s in my blood!

The drive to consume (information, fuel, electronic goods and more) is thrust at us from so many directions that resisting it feels subversive. But the tide is changing. I regularly come across people sharing their stories of cutting the clutter from their lives. I’m inspired by the conscious choices people share, about what fills their houses and their days. I like the idea that building something with our own hands make us conscious of how we live and what space we need. It would be a privilege to live well outside of the mortgage trap, to find out how little we can live on and grow our lives from there.

I’m in the middle of reading Klein’s book, This Changes Everything, and boy does it. She presents information in a compelling way that demands we pay attention and be informed about our part in the global picture. I’m only a short way through, so I’ll spare you any misinformation, but I really would urge you to read it.

I hope that the trend towards minimalist design goes beyond style. I hope we are becoming more conscious about what we consume, how we travel, where we spend our free time. I hope that I can be more conscious, informed and brave. And while building a tiny house is a pipe dream for now, I can certainly start by reducing the unnecessary ‘stuff’ in my house and being conscious of the wider impact of my choices.

Yoga Every Day

Yes, every single goddamn day. Because I was foolish enough to write it on my alphabet year list and because any day is improved by a good stretch.

I thought August would be a good month to start a daily habit, with long days, plenty of sunshine and a quiet work schedule. My August has started off a little more hectic than planned, but that only further warrants the moment of calm that yoga brings.

I’m not following any particular course (though if you’re looking for one, I recommend Erin’s). Just turning up to the mat every day would be a triumph for me. And if the sun gets a few salutes along the way, or I manage that double pigeon without looking like a crumpled chicken, then all the better.