Hygge Daily
As I first began to embrace Hygge daily, I truly felt overwhelmed. I had no idea where to begin. I could see no obvious starting point. Over the decades the path has become more clear.
My life has always been a struggle. “Nothing ever comes easy for Carol” was and still is a constant mantra I am plagued by. It’s one of those earworms that gets stuck in my consciousness. It’s hard to shake off the feeling that life is too hard, but thankfully these feelings too shall pass!
I have been studying and embracing paganism since I was 14 years of age. Now almost 6 decades later, I still experience the terrible debilitating depression, which immobilizes me and makes my world dark.
Anti-depression drugs never helped me at all, only causing me to feel a numbness towards the world and rather than being depressed, I felt nothing at all.
Four decades ago, I found the power of positivity. I was studying the Tarot and found a podcast which suggested using positivity to guide your path. The idea is that every time we feel a negative thought or feeling, we should seek out the positive — the speaker suggested creating a murder mystery to discover what positives could ‘murder’ the negatives… and the idea of vigilante positivity caught my imagination. It isn’t always an easy mystery to solve, but it does lift me up when I feel down.
Three decades ago I found the power of gratitude. Instead of feeling hard done by or cheated or wronged or envious of the things I ‘want’ but don’t have, I bring to mind the things, people and experiences which I have and can feel gratitude for. I have made it a practice to find something each day to be grateful for.
These two powers sustain me daily, and are my lifeline out of the Oubliettes of Depression when they strike.
Two decades ago, I looked into my DNA Heritage. I used three companies to compare the results. Yes, this was an expensive venture, but as one of the three companies was completely independent of the other two, I felt I should get back a fuller picture of my DNA, of my genetic roots.
My brother Thom had been very much into genealogy, and had managed to go back as far as the 9th century discovering that we had Germanic Celt heritage.
The DNA results that I received back from the three companies more or less confirmed all of my brothers research. Strangely enough, they all confirmed that I had 90% Germanic Celt and 1% Roma (popularly known as ‘Gypsy’) heritage. They were not in absolute agreement about the other 9%, two choosing DANISH and one choosing SCANDINAVIAN (which includes Danish, lol). So I began to look into the Scandinavian traditions.
Over a decade ago, I embraced Döstagnung, or Swedish Death Cleaning, and as I ‘let go’ of physical material things and removed clutter, I was also on my journey to embracing Hygge! I ran several online 30-Day Döstagnung Swedish Death Cleaning Events on my Facebook Forum. They were a lot of work, but people seemed to find guided decluttering helpful.
My journey is not unique, I don’t think. As a practicing hedge witch, I realize the more I think I know, the more there IS to know.
I am still on my personal journey. I still find myself immobilized by dark depression on occasion. I still live with the daily low grade pain caused by inflammation due to Systemic Lupus Erythematosis, Fibromyalgia, Rheumatoid and Osteoarthritis, Reynauds Syndrome and simply aging and the incredible pain of the injured and recovering muscle groups and pinched nerves that support my right hip and knees. I use CBD oil both internally and externally, positivity and gratitude to combat these negatives.
I BREATHE.
I am not ‘slowing down’ but rather moving more consciously, with more awareness of each task, of performing each one well and truly thoroughly.
I BREATHE.
I take lots of 20 minute rejuvenating breaks from my tasks, where I read, write, craft or NAP! I make time to enjoy creating a meal, choosing ingredients and herb or spice combinations which are medicinal as well as flavourful and nutritional.
I BREATHE.
I stop and listen for a few heartbeats to the world with my eyes shut — when doing my farm chores, when waiting in a queue, at an event or community gathering, in a shop. Only a few heartbeats, a long breath in and out again. I am filled with a light of appreciation and gratitude by those focused moments. They ground me. They center me in Hygge. They make it easier to breathe.
When I first built The Dragons Nest, I installed an ENVI ELECTRIC Convection heater. I was living where I had the ability to plug into grid power
Here’s a few of the things that made me choose an ENVI, and why it might be the right choice for you:
Saves energy: Pulls just 4 amps per hour
Healthy: The Envi's fanless system doesn't blow dust or allergens and doesn't dry out the air.
Ultra-safe: Have kids or pets? No worries! The Envi is always cool to the touch.
Effective: 100% Pure Stack Convection System gently warms your rooms.
Silent: Our fanless design means the Envi is completely silent, so you can sleep easy or enjoy time in your living room without any annoying noises.
Installs easy: You can install an Envi on your wall in minutes thanks to our helpful template frame!
Stylish: Envi's slim, space-saving design is just 19" wide, 22' tall and 2" thin! I installed it on a wall under a window, and had a small wooden cabinet in front of it.
If I was not living off-grid, I probably would have kept it.
it used stored electricity that I decided I could use for other things. So, when I moved off grid, I swapped out the ENVI for a nice little propane heater.
Once I had decided to go propane (and it wasn't an easy decision... those nautical wood stoves are so darned cute!) I started asking people if they were using a propane or gas fireplace and what they did and didn't like about it. It seemed the only thing people didn't like was that they created more heat than they liked.
After several cool spring months heating with antique paraffin burning oil lamps (they make a fair bit of heat!) I was given a little propane heater CSA approved for use in mobile homes! Yay! I could try out propane heat at virtually no cost! I was super easy to set up, as it's freestanding on it's own little legs. I found that propane heat worked just fine to heat The Dragons Nest. There were only two things I wasn't thrilled about. It had an open flame with a barred grill, preventing you from brushing your hand against the flame and occasionally when set on high it created an odd odour. I have carbon monoxide detectors, so knew it wasn't creating any harmful gases, but on super cold days I could never put the heater on high. I also had an unrealistic worry that a large moth would fly into the open flame and then set itself and my house on fire. A friend mentioned that her open flame fireplace contributed a lot of humidity to the air in her house. I had noticed higher humidity levels in The Dragons Nest, but put it down to living surrounded by lush humid forest.
I used this little heater for two winters, and found that the propane it used was very reasonable. I began looking at other propane heater options once more, this time looking for direct vent unit with an enclosed flame.
I chose the MARTIN Gravity Vented Wall Furnace, series MDV12. Its max thermal output is 8,800 BTU/hr, and that’s a lot of heat. It was easy, but fiddly to install. It took 5 hours and 47 minutes from start to finish.
I had to cut a 9 1/16" diameter hole in the wall of the Dragons Nest! That was both difficult and scary!
It probably would've been a bit easier (and possibly quicker) if I had sourced out all my tools beforehand. It seemed most of my tools had been hard to find, but ran out of battery power and I had been unable to find the battery chargers!
Necessity is the mother of invention! I cut the hole by drilling about 40 holes close together along the outside edge of the circle shape which was drawn onto the wall through the cut out on the template provided with the unit to aide with accurate installation. This helped me easily finish cutting the hole with my jigsaw. I HAVE all the correct tools... they have all been put away for the winter and I couldn't exactly remember where! Hahahaa!
The instruction booklet was sadly lacking in useful information, giving the only the most basic 'highlights' for installation.
It was really awesome to measure the wall thickness!
I had guessed around 6” but the walls of The Dragons Nest are 6 1/2” thick!
You can see the layers!
1/2” plywood wall board inside, then 4” of rock wool insulation, then 1/2” construction exterior plywood, then exterior 1/2” thick SilVerBoard insulation,, and finally 1” Douglas Fir Board&Baton (meaning where each Baton strip is the exterior wall is 7” thick!)
Once the thimble was wrestled and dominated into subjugation, I attached the vent to the unit and set it in place on the wall.
When the heater was securely mounted to the wall I went outside and installed the second mounting plate. The first was installed on the inside wall, and the unit mounted over it.
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