Even those of us who deeply adore our homes find cause to leave them daily. Not always because we want to, but often because we must: to ferry children forwards and backwards, to attend jobs and visit friends and family, and though shutting the door on our only little safe havens is occasionally a wrench, entering the big wide world is simply part of being alive – something we must do if only to allow the sun to sprinkle a little
So yes: there is always reason to close the door on our lavender scented havens, and it simply wouldn’t do at all to declare ourselves shabby little hermits and avoid the world outside our four walls altogether even if our homes remain the centre of our creative universes. But we don’t have to abandon the house and all that it has to offer us in terms our nurturing our souls and kick-starting all our dreams just to go do the dull stuff.
We can reserve outings, and the time, creative energy and money they consume for children, work and family. For creative excursions of the Simply Abundant kind, for treasure hunting, walks in the forest, picnics with friends, tra-la-laing through the village with our baskets swinging from our arm as we simultaneously take our daily exercise and shop for an armful of
Supermarket shopping you see was invented to scramble our brains. To make us believe that debating the merits of two for one offers are what we were put on this earth for. Queues at the bank and post office were invented to make grown women weep and resent every single aspect of a life that seemed blessed before one finds oneself in a stuffy mono-toned nightmare. Costco was invented to inspire homicidal tendencies in otherwise sane housewives.
And we don’t have to do any of it. Not the bank. Not the council office. Not the out of town bookshop. We don’t have to give entire Sundays over to the DIY shed or drag whining kids up and down the freezer aisles. We can instead make all that come to us, and save time and indeed, plenty of money that might otherwise be squandered on frivolous temptation, while refusing to allow the ugly to inflict upon our carefully orchestrated lives.
While it is true that all I have mentioned above is in the long term the most blissful way to keep the mechanics of our lives ticking over, setting up the means to have life delivered to our door comes with one caveat: in the beginning it takes a whole lot of mental elbow grease and those of us impatient with modern technology are usually the ones quickest to throw in the
This is clearly madness of the time steal, soul destroying kind and I, as she in charge of your housekeeping health simply will not allow it, for today is the day to take a look at your typical week and decide exactly what tasks and moments can be liberated by the interweb. To spend many a fuddled hour setting up a basic grocery list on the supermarket sit and setting it on auto-pilot. To ring the local farm and arrange delivery of an organic veg box. To arrange to have your milk delivered. To seek out a parcel delivery service that will come to you. To use Amazon for bulk purchases and a program like Mint to manage all your financial accounts in one place. To order presents on-line in tune with a calendar. To look into local on-line council services and speak to your doctors about email appointments, prescription services and local pharmacy delivery.
All of this and much, much more is available at our fingertips and when we make the decision to utilize modern technology to our advantage, and further make the effort to set it up to work for us, we offer our vintage housekeeper free reign to play without being bogged down by the worst kind of domestic stuff and nonsense.
The time is right my Darling to start living an old-fashioned life by terribly modern means. Anything else is merely creative deprivation.
Other Things To Do At BrocanteHome
Browse the Bookstore
Discover a curated list of books to enhance and support life the BrocanteHome way
Life Love & Vintage Housekeeping the by BrocantePrintables on Etsy
Create your own Brocante Life Book, plan Christmas, set up routines and rituals or live life the BrocanteHome way with my guided workbooks and planners.
Take a Course
Discover mindful, meaningful days with self-led, habit-coaching courses from BrocanteHome.
The Slow Scrub Challenge at BrocanteMe 
Goal Setting for Homemakers 
The Brocante Round-Up! 
The Brocante Round-Up!
Absolutely Alison. There is nothing new at all about having things delivered. My Mom would pop her grocery order into the shop when she walked to Church on Sunday and it would be delivered in the week. The milk and pop were delivered as well. Going back further I remember my Grandma talking about the man selling muffins/pikelets at the door and a watercress seller. They used to walk to the shops to buy fresh goods like bread and vegetables. The only thing new is the way things are ordered. I try to do all my errands on one day and am happy to stay at home the rest of the week.