The news was not good this past week for those of us who cling to the past and curse technology. The Easy Bake Oven, an icon since 1963, has had to get into the new millennium of change due to the ban on 100-watt incandescent light bulbs in 2012. Hasbro, with a promise of being on the edge of the hottest trends for today have launched the Easy-Bake Ultimate Oven.
The announcement prompted me to resurrect an article I wrote back in the 90’s on life and the impact of the easy bake oven. A sort of tongue-in-cheek comparison to modern women and stereotype limitations and so appropriate that it was originally printed in Modern Woman Magazine in the fall of 1997. I was going to update the references to the ‘90s but decided to leave it intact. The message is as relevant today as it was when I wrote this piece over a decade ago – enjoy!

 I can’t say there are too many weeks in my life where I have given myself some time off! Not that writers ever really rest, but I am working without distractions. Spending the next week or so out of the city and here at Landlocked is peaceful but proving to be hard work to bring myself down to a relaxed pace. The excitement is limited to the occasional pop in from my mother who lives nearby, the odd dog barking, and having to pause to wave from my makeshift driveway patio as a car passes by (everyone in this town waves to one another walking or driving by). About the only things interrupting my quiet writing time are the birds chirping or the breeze occasionally whisking in a lost piece of paper up against the fence, but other than that there is really not that much going on.
I find it difficult to take the pace down to a slow meander and still my mind. Proof in that statement is that I had only been here a day and a half and had already harvested the raspberries and made 18 jars of jam and sewn an entire quilt top which has patiently laid waiting beside my machine in the city for months. Excitement is Thursday mornings when the fresh farmers market runs – nothing like in the city as this market has one small family vendor but no shortage of fresh potatoes and string beans, and a loaf of fresh baked Hutterite-kitchen bread. In a town with only three eating establishments the opening of the new Chinese restaurant was big news and packed in the patrons in spite of the temperatures soaring into the 30’s Celsius and no air conditioning.
Small town life (about 700 people in this prairie hideaway) is a lifestyle all in itself. As this is a self- professed lifestyle blog it is obvious then that I see a correlation between where I am sitting and what I am writing. The best part about small town life, for those that have not experienced it for any length of time, is that it is, to sum it up in one word, simple.
Simple in a good way. No stress unless you make your own, no traffic or rush hour, and especially no retail shopping therapy distractions. People are madly sharing the raspberry harvest around town as the harvest is plentiful, jars are being pulled up from the cellar in anticipation of the garden harvests and for the most part people are simply relaxing. The day starts early on the hot prairie as the gardens need watering and the house cooled overnight needs shutting in from the day’s heat ahead. Evening cold suppers are planned and prepared in the morning before the kitchen is too warm leaving the rest of the day carefree to enjoy the shade and a good book.
Surprisingly this past weekend one of those prairie storms that come out of nowhere late in the day when the temperatures seem almost too hot to manage anything more than a shuffle around to fill your cold drink. Leaving as fast as it arrived and depositing inches of heavy rain, thankfully no hail on the gardens, this storm took with it the power. In the city life halts to an anxious standstill if the electricity doesn’t flow as if a lifeline has been cut for what seems like an eternal hour of waiting for that flash of lights and the modem blinking again connected to the world. Here on the open prairie the power remained out a full twenty hours, into the next evening literally shutting down the town with no shops open, no eateries, no liquor store open on a hot long weekend Saturday, no Friday night out or Saturday hustle bustle shopping. The long weekend passed just felt even longer in a relaxed gift- like way as the busy world out there somewhere hummed on the grid without this quiet prairie town. Luckily there is no street light in town so traffic was not snagged!

I promise some updated pictures after the weekend … enjoy yours!

I had the enormous pleasure of a road trip or two this past month coupled with an amazing writing experience (read about it on my writing blog at Inklings On Writing)

I did make note of a few lifestyle changes in my life-on-the-road experience that I am incorporating into my newly slower-paced lifestyle I am striving to take on. Being away and living out of a suitcase (or two, if you are a girl – not apologizing, just saying) – can be a humbling experience. I quickly realized how much time and energy each day goes into the process of daily routine when one has too many choices. At home it is only too easy to try on a few shirts, hum and haw over the ‘look’ for the day, deliberate the jewelry and accessories, the shoes and bags and even the jacket, wrap, scarf or whatever completes the look.

On the road and out of the suitcase life is very simple and choices are limiting and that is a positive observation. I am vowing on returning to daily routine to simplify my wardrobe, my accessories, and even my purses and shoes (gulp). I am going to approach the next season’s wardrobe change with a new eye for simple, my style, my look and only what makes me feel fabulous. After all why would I want to spend one day in something that did not make me feel good about myself and my world.

At Landlocked I am slowly unpacking boxes and boxes of my favourites that have been stored and moved many times over the years waiting for a spot to ‘be’. In that process, with each box that empties to my gleeful discovery of my own treasures boxed away far too long, I realize how much I have missed my favourite things. I have enjoyed re-discovering why they were my favourites in the first place and worthy of dragging along in too many changes and moves in my life. The simple answer is they make me feel good. For whatever reason surrounding oneself with what we love, wearing what feels good, wrapping yourself in your own style and your own comfort zone is a good feeling. It is not about monetary value or riches, it is about a personal connection to yourself, your style, your story.

Cottage life is not about two weeks in the summer but rather I am discovering that it is about an inner peace and comfort celebrating one’s story and the place where one fits.