Happy New Year & A New Blogger in 2019

Hi there Simple Year readers. It’s been a long time since I’ve been active around the blog, so I thought I’d stop by and wish you all a Happy New Year from the Last Frontier!

I feel a little guilty that I’ve been so absent from the blog lately, so I offer my sincerest apologies. As I’m sure some of you can understand, parenthood is quite the undertaking. Adding into that a child who had some significant medical needs early on, as well as my husband and I both starting new jobs and moving to a new city, things have been a bit hectic around the Middleton house. We are definetly feeling more settled these days and spending much of our time unplugged and enjoying our new little life as a family of three (or five if you count the dogs). I’m so thankful that the other awesome Simple Year ladies have been keeping you all posted with throw backs and new content though. They are really such an awesome group.

As for the Simple Year 6 family, things are going wonderfully, but I feel I owe you all a little update. We are still absolutely on our journey to living a more simple life. Things have changed pretty drastically in some ways since we’ve added a baby into the mix. We are cloth diapering, making our own baby wipes, making our own baby food, and being very mindful when it comes to purchasing too many toys and clothes. Another big change is that I’m no longer battling classroom waste since I am working a more tech-oriented job for the school district this year. We are still trying to provide a lot of our own food through hunting, fishing, and gathering. In fact, we just enjoyed some moose chili for dinner earlier this week and I snacked on some canned salmon for lunch. We are also living “small” right now and squeezing three people and two dogs into a 650sq ft house, which has been a true adventure and test of our minimalist abilities.

Our big goals going forward are to continue to provide more and more of our own food, increase the amount of homemade items we use and make in our own home (beauty products, soaps, etc.), and paying off all of our debt. I am hoping to revamp my personal blog, which was much neglected over the last year, but if anyone is interested in continuing to follow our journey, you can check us out over at http://middletonsofnowhere.blogspot.com or on Instagram at middletons.of.nowhere.

In closing, I’d just like to say thank you to all of you – the amazing readers! I’ve had so much fun sharing our life in Alaska and spending time communicating with so many of you. You guys are the best and really help make this blog special.

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Ok, onto the second and most exciting part of this post. We have a new Simple Year blogger who will be taking over starting in January! Her name is Alex and she is coming to you guys all the way from the UK! She has a big passion for all things sustainability. Some aspects of simple living and sustainability, like recycling and respecting nature, have been a part of her life since she was a small child. Other things, like minimalism and zero waste and the ability to shop and buy in sustainable ways, are big parts of her life now.

I am super excited to hand the blog over to her and read about her adventures over the next year. She is planning to focus on consumption and not buying things that cannot be recycled. Her passion for learning where and how her purchases travel from their origin to her home and then where those items go after she is done with them, is going to be so incredibly interesting. As an added bonus, she will be looking at how the purchasing she does for her company ties into sustainable consumption. The next year is going to be so full of super unique and fresh simple living ideas from Alex. Please help us welcome our awesome new blogger to this special little corner of the internet.