About
Welcome our family website and blog.
Welcome to the Thomas family website - we are Mum - Sarah, Dad - Paul, and our three children A - 14yrs, K -12yrs and L – 8yrs, and we live in Devon with Grandma (Sarah's Mum) and our family dog – Pumpkin. We moved to Devon from West Yorkshire at the beginning of February 2010 and are currently and unexpectedly settled in Torbay.
We are an average family in many ways, but also aim to live an easily and joyfully earth friendly and ethical life as much as we can.
Paul is a software engineer, currently working as system support and development officer at a University, where he's also the sustainability person for his team and floor. His interests include: eco gadgets, open source computing, bushcraft, trees.
I (Sarah) home educated our children who have learning disabilities and my interests include: multi-media art, how children learn, earth based spirituality, nature and wildlife, on-line eco-shopping and eco-research, especially for holidays by public transport. I am also a trained complementary therapist and healer, Holistic Aromatherapy, Reiki and Colour Healing, and I trained and worked as a staff nurse back in the 1990's too.
Our children are home educated due to our sons' learning disabilities and mainstream school totally failing them in the first instance but also because we now believe it provides them with a much richer individualised education and real preparation for life. We all love home education too.
Family life is very important to us and we do lots of things together including: playing Lego, board games, Hornby (trains), computer games, Wii, watching DVDs, gardening, going to the beach, walking in the countryside, arts and crafts, bush craft, geocaching, camping, going out to the cinema/theatre, going out for meals and to museums/places of interest, celebrating the earth based festivals, getting together with friends and much more.........most importantly enjoying life!
So what do we do that is earth friendly and ethical:-
We don't have a car and use public transport for our travel needs as far as possible – which was much easier in West Yorkshire than Devon! Thankfully we have made wonderful, generous friends in Devon and car-share when needed.
We eat and drink 99.9% organic at home and at least local food when we go out as much as possible. This is due to the health and well-being benefits for ourselves and the earth and also buy organic clothing, bedding, towels etc. as far as possible within our family budget.
We reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible, this includes buying recycled goods where possible (like recycled paper and glass) and also buying the best and most reliable goods we can afford so they last longer.
We also choose fair-trade goods, enjoy shopping locally and are conscious about the ethical impact of our choices.
Buying local good and eating locally produced food is much easier in Devon and Cornwall than Yorkshire!
We choose energy saving electrical goods, monitor our energy consumption and turn things off, rather than leaving them on standby.
We use natural remedies, homeopathy and healing/complementary therapies as far as possible for our families health.
We garden organically and in harmony with nature and use companion planting and support wildlife too.
And probably do many other things too which have become second nature us.
The Earth is amazing, it is our home,
so we believe it deserves our care and respect and not to be abused.
Through our website and blog we'll share some of the things we're doing and useful/interesting information. Somethings you may find helpful and others not – please pick and choose what is right and helpful for you and your family and we hope you enjoy our using website...
Sarah Thomas and Family
Disclaimer
The Natural Earth Living website and blog mainly consist of our personal views. We would never purposefully mislead, but it is the users responsibility to check information and external websites and we take no responsibility for any damage or loss arising from information on the Natural earth Living website or blog or on any external websites linked in any way.
