Adults no longer know how to have fun once they reach a certain age. Everything becomes way too serious and goal oriented. Today I decided to throw all of that aside and have some fun, playing in the snow like a child.

This is a video about my life in North Carolina, and an introduction to my YouTube channel. I came here to grow my own food, and to purchase food locally, to learn to forage and provide for myself. And this is a video about that journey.

Too much technology turns my brain to mush and makes me feel terrible. I get this confused, foggy-headed feeling that I can only clear by going outside and moving my body. So today, when I found myself with a technology hangover, I did just that. I grabbed my dogs and we went to a local park with a beautiful waterfall.

I’m an introvert by nature—I burn out with too much social interaction and require a lot of alone time to recharge, so living alone and working from home suit me really well. Over the past two years, however, I’ve realized that although I love to hermit, there’s a limit to how much hermitting I can handle.

I’ve been in Western North Carolina for almost two months now, and I’ve had a great time exploring my new home. I arrived during the peak of the fall leaves, which was magical, and something I had never seen before. Seeing the hillsides covered in reds and oranges was at the same time beautiful to my eyes and confusing to my brain, as it was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

I moved to Western North Carolina! It was hard to leave my life in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, but deep down inside I knew it was time. 2020's fire season really scared me, and I was done with seven months of winter and snow. I really wanted to move somewhere with more consistent rainfall, where I could buy some land and grow some food, which is how I ended up in Western North Carolina.

I'm raising monarch butterflies! I didn't actually even know it was a thing until I got to California in June. Raising monarchs is a magical and exciting undertaking, but if you're going to do it, you have to be prepared for some potential caterpillar and chrysalis death. I had some of mine die, due to the tachinid fly.

I moved out of my little mountain cabin and left Colorado. The whole process was a bit sad—and pretty stressful, but ultimately, it was the best path for me to take. I have some exciting plans in my future, but I’ll tell you about them as they unfold. So much is changing so quickly, that I have no idea when I’ll actually land where I plan on landing.

The dance between winter and spring continues in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. We had a thunderstorm and some rain this week, but it was quickly followed by snow. The forest has been so full of water—there’s water running everywhere and the creek is much higher than I’ve ever seen it. This spring is much different than the last, but that’s pretty typical for Colorado mountain living. Nothing is ever the same, one year to the next.

Springtime in the Colorado Rocky Mountains is like a dance between the seasons—winter doesn’t want to let go, but the sun gets more powerful by the day, causing it to slowly (very slowly) slip away. Colorado Mountain Living can be a bit trying in the spring, as the warm days feel like teasers between snow storms. But that’s just a part of mountain living in Colorado.

The last few weeks have been pretty tough—not gonna lie—but I’ve also had some good times in my little Colorado mountain cabin. I spent some nice, quality time with some chickens and a house pig—and I also spent some not very nice moments with that same pig (Hint, hint, pigs should not live in a small cabin). I also found out that my Colorado mountain living adventure will be coming to a close (for six-ish months), but I hope to return to my mountain lifestyle in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, sometime in the fall or winter.

Colorado mountain living can be a little rough and adventurous in the winter—especially when we have a big snow storm. Last weekend I was preparing for snowpocalypse 2021, where it was predicted that we would get 40 inches of heavy, wet snow.

The weather this week has been pretty warm, with a cold day here and there, so there’s been a lot of mud and slush that turns into ice. All of the footage in my video was taken in the forest, right across the street from my house. A place where I’ve never seen another human. I know my neighbor and her kids come up here sometimes, but I’ve never run into them, or anyone else. It’s an introvert’s dream come true.

Winter in the Colorado Rockies is around six months long—so around February, I’m usually craving a change of scenery. Even though it’s been warmer out than usual, everything is still asleep right now, so you’re either looking at dead plant material or snow—there’s not much change going on.

We finally had some decent snowfall! It’s been such a relief. While we still need a lot more to make up for the drought conditions we’ve been having, I’m so grateful for what we’ve received this past week.

It’s been way too warm and dry for a typical February in the Colorado Rockies. The last two weeks have been filled with hopes of snow, excitement when the snow falls and then disappointment by the lack of accumulation.

The biggest thing that’s really stood out for me over the last couple of weeks, is that life is what you make it. My first three years living up here were full of excitement and exploration. Last year, with all of the chaos going on in the world, I made less of an effort to do anything fun or adventurous, imagining that life would get better again “once this was all over.”

I’ve been wanting to start a vlog about my life in the Colorado Rockies for a really long time now, but I never really knew when and how to start. The reality of beginning something new, however, is that there really is no perfect time to start anything—you can never truly be “ready”—you just have to decide to start and then do so, and that’s exactly what I did here.

If you’ve lost your joy and are looking to find it again, this video is for you. In it, I share with you one simple trick that I use to find joy again, that you can also adopt to bring joy back into your life. The trick that I use is changing my perspective, and when I’m talking about changing perspective, I don’t mean metaphorically, I mean visually.