Two weeks ago I attended the World Domination Summit in Portland. I went with the hopes of meeting amazing new people, gaining new perspective on my business ventures, and igniting some serious inspiration and motivation.

While I certainly did meet some amazing people, I left a little disappointed. I wasn’t overwhelmed with ideas and inspiration in the way I thought I would be. I wasn’t riled up and ready to go. Instead I was feeling my normal old self.

When the summit was over I headed north to Seattle to visit with family before heading back to my “normal life”. I was sitting in my father’s kitchen while he made us a quick lunch of black bean chili and as he opened a can of beans I suddenly realized that it has been more than a year since I’ve opened a can of anything other than tuna.

I was raised on home cooked meals and my father has always been quite adept at making something tasty from whatever is in the refrigerator. He is by no means a processed, packaged food sort of person, but as I looked around his kitchen I started to realize just how differently mine was stocked.

I saw 12-packs of canned stewed tomatoes and black beans. The last time I was in a Costco we were prepping to serve 60 people dinner at Burning Man. I saw a store bought loaf of bread and two boxes of granola. I make us a loaf of bread and granola every week. I saw milk, eggs and yogurt in chain grocery store packaging. We buy our eggs from 3 different farms that we can name and our milk and yogurt from family owned farms less than an hour drive from our home.

I’m making no judgment on which is better, but in that moment I came to realize just how different our food choices were. The more I thought about it the more I realized many of our life choices were quite different. Dan and I don’t own a car and neither of us has for many years. We live off of one middle-class income in one of the most expensive cities in the US, but both of us live better now than either of us did when we were single and making twice as much money.

While at WDS I also listened to a talk by Joshua Milburn, Ryan Nicodemus, and Joshua Becker on living a minimalist lifestyle. Joshua Becker made one statement that seemed to bring it all together for me. He said that to him living a minimalist lifestyle wasn’t about seeing how little he could get by with it, it was about choosing to have things in your life that you value and getting rid of the things that distract you. This I can get behind.

I came home to Dan 5 days after the conference had ended with more appreciation for the life we had and were creating. I came home determined to live a life of intention. I came home full of inspiration. I am inspired to focus only on what I have control over and not live a life of reaction. I am motivated to make choices that support my values. I want to create a lifestyle where money comes in because I’m doing things I enjoy and goes out toward the things that make me happy.

I share all this not because I want to convince you our way is better or to receive a pat on the back. I tell you all this because it’s at the very core of what On Becoming A Housewife is all about - intentional choices and all the pleasure and fun that come from doing things that really matter to you.