These will continue to be researched and added to, started or gathered together in order to start...some personal, some family
1. Begin attending a local place of worship. We've put this off for different reasons in the past, but now it's time to find a shul.
2. Stepping up inroads to land finalization and relocation.
3. Determining on paper the ACTUAL savings/costs, advantages/disadvantages of my returning to the job I had. Will weigh financial realities and compare money saved by more careful managing from home (all meals from scratch, really stretching our money, no gasoline expenses, pack all lunches/cook all meals for other family members, etc) VS. the cash. Will also weigh the health impact of working nights, and the reality of how much I can get done in a day here at home, etc.
4. Researching greens and crops that would last the winter here. Must get them in the ground. Plan to do floating row covers or something along that line if necessary during colder weeks.
5. We MUST start substituting grocery store items with our own homegrown/homeproduced. The only of these we're actually using on a daily basis are the fresh and dried herbs and the homemade kombucha. Oh yes, and the diabetes plant/gynura. It's a start, but it's not enough. Greens are top on the list for the immediate, also leaf lettuces and radishes.
6. More experimentation with unfamiliar but available plants, such as cooking young papaya leaves, clover, and others.
7. Need to weekly eliminate ANY storebought breads, with exception of maybe flour tortillas now and then, with my own homemade. Same thing with any sweet treats, occasional desserts. Do NOT plan on making these in large quantities, though, because we're trying to cut back, find our balance. We've lost a little weight just cutting back on them a bit and substituting other things.
8. Find tried and true soup recipes...ones I get asked to make again. Ones I have ingredients for without having to include half a dozen difficult ones. ( I really appreciate Lemongrass's recent recommendations...thank you, I look forward to trying them out!!)
9. Take the time to shop a few places for specific things. I can find real deals out there on specific items, but they're places I seldom shop for much of anything and don't think to go on my weekly grocery shopping. I'll be divvying up the food budget to make stops for these things since they're close by and it would save me maybe 1/4 of my weekly budget. Need to find somewhere with better prices for meat, even though we've cut back on meat quantity by about half.
10. Ultimately, to achieve reducing weekly grocery bill by half within a year's time. I am now spending half of what I spent last year weekly.
11. Increase my physical activity daily. I've lost some weight now, not much, but without trying, simply by getting more rest and eating better, eating more homemade...and, I think, by drinking such copious amounts of the longer-fermented Kombucha (not as sugary as the younger kombucha) I think it's something my body's been needing, and now I FEEL like doing more...yay!!
12. Begin planning the spring garden beds and order seeds.
13. Expand useful recipe base for things to make all meals last.
14. Find the many ways to use the pumpkins and winter squashes since the prices of these right now are really reasonable.
15. Don't know if I can achieve this one, but if so, great :) Can we find a small freezer by late November?? If so, I'd like to watch the sales on turkeys and get some. For now, it would feed us for a long time...till the day we can have our own (praying praying praying...) The prices are so stupid these days, it's maybe my onlyhope to find affordable meat in quantity.
16. Write the thank you notes I have procrastinated.
17. Declutter my desk area, my closet, the back porch. Keep floors mopped regularly (we have allllllll tile floors) Keep laundry folded right after washing. Empty a couple of piles in the garage to free up two more laundry baskets for that purpose. Oh yeah, and those dishes that keep replenishing themselves in the sink even after I've just gotten things back in order (grrrr...) :)
18. Keep saving our loose change for the Kiva.org/Doing Not Thinking Challenge.
19. Plan simple things for Hannukah. I have no idea what we'll do.
20. Make EVERY shabbat a special celebration in our week. Have the music, meals, clothing ready no later than Thursday, since it allllwayyyyyssss seems to get put off till Friday afternoon and then either gets rushed or otherwise goofed. I want it to be a relaxing time, a planned time, an oasis.
21. Every week study the Torah portion ahead of time, and read my Bible every day. I'll be concentrating on the version by Friedman...love his literal translation and brief yet historical insights in his Torah translation with commentary.
22. Do something with that neglected front flowerbed. (Update: Just started that today, whacking the bushes back with the HEAVY limb cutter since we don't have a hedge trimmer. My forearms are obviously out of shape. I got half of them done and my arms feel like they weigh forty pounds and feel like I imagine Popeye's do, ahoy!)
23. I ordered yarn...this, and this...for The First Time In My Life!!!!! (so excited) I'm SO NOT a thready sewing crocheting knitting person. But my daughter has a neglected Knifty Knitter set, and inspired by Warren's success making things with his KK, initially inspired by Angie's KK success here being modeled by the cutest pictures of her kids, I thought of the time I could be sitting beside my sweetie as we watch movies and in an hour or two I could have a real, homeknitted hat or scarf, or (as I get better) a longer project such as a throw blanket. So this project is underway.
24. I sketched some chicken pictures for possible red-on-white embroidering, or maybe applique? to make some squares throughout the winter for later assembling a quilt or other project...(y'know, when I learn how to sew??? lol)
25. We have honed hand-sketched house plans down to a few basic designs. Now I'm concentrating on trying to imagine what specific things we'll need to incorporate for ongoing real life activities...shelf space for fermenting, storage, kitchen arranged in best way for canning and food prep and large quantities of things needing to be cleaned and chopped, etc. Windows situated for best through-the-house airflow, some sort of passive design that encourages temperate interior during exterior extremes. Siting gardens and animals in relation to the house and our need to access them quickly yet not be too close. And so on and so on...
26. Will I Can??? I have a dozen quarts, new in the box, sitting there. I have a soup pot that could act as a hot water canner. This is where I got stuck with the kombucha, before taking the leap. I could start with something easy, like lemon curd. Or pumpkin pickles a' la Throwback at Trapper Creek, or Pumpkin Butter a' la Kathie. And yet I circle the project slowly and with trepidation. Hmmm...
27. Make my own laundry liquid/powder. Yep, another procrastinated project. I think cleaning out the cluttered corners of the laundry room would inspire me to get that underway.
28. Correcting my typos before posting on the blog. Yeah....right (lolol)
That's it for now...just needed to put this to keyboard so as to have the list handy! :)
Showing posts with label Doing the Process. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Doing the Process. Show all posts
Monday, October 27, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
We Don't Know What We're Missing
When I moved down here to join my husband four years ago, there had just been back-to-back hurricanes that decimated the area. As you might imagine, housing of any sort at that time was at a premium, since there were so many displaced families whose homes had been damaged beyond the point of live-ability. At that point, you had to pay expensive rents for the most basic four walls and a roof, and our first rental was a good example of that.
You see, I'd had the cutest of small cottages for a house in Tennessee, with walls painted in warm ochres and buttermilk shades, large vintage poster prints, bookcases with books everywhere, and open cabinets in the kitchen with neat stacks of dishware, a comfy armchair, fireplace, and a tiny dooryard garden brimming with perennials and regular hummingbird visitors. A red front door and trailing vines up the brick walls...an elderberry bush entwined with a white lilac were right outside the dining room picture window just next to the birdfeeder and its flat platform tray that had a constant entourage of mourning doves pecking for seed.
And my dog, Shadow. The best dog I ever had...ever. The most intuitive and loving and gentle part-black lab mix Heinz 57 dog, whom I still miss to THIS DAY. He would ring the string of camel bells that hung from the inside doorknob of the front door when he needed to go outside. He would sleep in the hall between my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom doors at night, our protectors. I miss Shadow!!
Shadow was one of the hardest parts of the move, the other being leaving the one place I'd lived the longest...for 14 years. After the hurricane, the ONLY place we could find to rent did not allow any animals. We appealed to the landlords for an exception, but they wouldn't budge. And the shelters in Florida were so overburdened with animals at that point that finding a temporary adoptive family for a Tennessee dog was impossible in our situation. I had to leave my dog to an adoptive family in my Tennessee town. I won't even go on further about that...it was a hard decision, and I'm still sad.
I'm not sad I joined my husband here...where he is is my home. The rental unit we found was the most run-down place I'd ever lived, but Jack did a lot to get it in order before the big move...you should have seen it before. It was a tiny, squat square of concrete blocks, painted over some decade past but not since, and the exterior looked like someone had sneezed on it...it was dingy greyish-white with huge smears of pinkish and greyish mold streaking the sides, especially anywhere the roof water ran down. The interior was not much better. The roof and fascia were infested with termites. The front windows and door were those moveable strips of glass that open outwards, but couldnt because the hardware was stripped, but still managed to leak any cool interior air right to the outside. They were a safety hazard, too...very easy to break into. The back door was a few strides from the front door, and was an ill-fitting sliding glass door, again, with broken track and easy-to-break-into latch. The kitchen cabinets and bathroom were indescribable, except to say that the only thing I've seen worse so far were the outhouses in Romanian campgrounds in 1985. These at least flushed :)
Well, Jack got in there and bleached everything, and painted many coats of fresh white paint. He repaired doors simply so they'd close, or the holes someone had put their fist through would now be filled and sanded flat and then painted. The fronts of the kitchen cabinets were so rotted, the laminate was blistered loose and hanging in strips. The insides of the cabinets were murky, sticky, filthy, and rotting. The stove had one eye that worked and the oven was burned out and had loose wiring hanging from the inside. There was a tiny sink, just enough room to put our table and sit 2 or 3 people if you didnt scoot your chair out too much, and two tiny bedrooms.
We did do the best we knew how to with it. Off came the cabinet door laminate, everything got a coat of white paint (or two or three), including all the interiors of the cabinets, and everything was fumigated. The police were out every night to the neighbor across the street who aired her romantic grievances publicly with a loud and repetitive vocabulary usually starting with the letter F, standing in her driveway throwing out the latest boyfriend. There was a pit bull chained in an empty lot directly across from us. Our front door had no doorknob and had to be pulled shut and locked each time with a key just to keep it closed.
This was our honeymoon suite :) heehee
We knew it would be temporary, and we lived there about a year.
During that time, we opted for no TV...after all, where would we put it?? The only few square feet where equipment would fit housed our computer and the paperwork for our small home business.
Living there was good for us. It taught us a lot about scaling down our possessions, and using what is most necessary. It also taught me how much I adore having a place to do laundry in my own house...now. And having a stove that works, and an oven that works, and trees to look at from the windows that DO close and a door that DOES have a doorknob :)
All that to say that an unexpected thing happened related to the TV. We kept our TV because we enjoy watching movies. But during that first year, we had no TV service because we kept thinking of that place as temporary and didn't want to get cable service hooked up until we moved elsewhere. And we couldnt get reception without cable service. Then we moved a year later to a much nicer, very clean and spacious rental (yay!), and we had become used to going without any TV reception. We opted to forgo it a bit longer, and kept using the TV just for a monitor to watch DVDs and videos now and then. That lasted a year.
Then we moved here and again, the same thing...we just don't like seeing ourselves being nickled and dimed in so many areas of our budget, and TV was one of those nickle and dime parts of our budget. So we've been without TV reception for four years now, and have seen no programs on either standard TV or cable at ALL. We have found we can check out DVDs for free from the library and get a lot of the awesome PBS documentaries and dramas as well as every sort of movie, how-to video, or musical production that way. They even have some television series...some are old re-runs and some are contemporary...all without commercials.
We haven't tried Netflix yet, simply because we haven't exhausted all the good stuff we can check out for free at the library here. We are not non-TV watchers, if you count the TV as a monitor only rather than getting regular reception. But when we want to watch something, it's deliberate...we put something in when we want to watch that specific thing.
What I didn't realize was that I'm not being brainwashed to buy products, to think of myself as "deserving" of this and that consumer retail item, to eat fast food or restaurant food, to compare my body to those of airbrushed supermodels, to buy certain brands of trendy toys/foods/healthcare items/gadgets, and I don't have any idea what the cutting edge is in fashion or home decor.
When we want the news, we listen to radio and look for ourselves at any newspaper in the world on the internet.
We miss the constant barrage of these things...though I'd never have thought of them as such:
1. fear-mongering
2. manipulation of the news facts
3. vulnerability to trends...be it economic, fashion, healthcare, travel, consuming
4. being told to buy buy buy certain products
5. being told we're deprived if we don't buy those things
The constant stimulation to buy things came SO often through the TV! And now that it's missing, I marvel that I'm so much more resistant when I do hear the advertisements...after all, it's so constant on things such as the TV that we often tune them out but don't recognize how automatically those repetitious product-hawkers replay in our heads...the catchy jingles and slogas and visual images DO effectively advertise....EVERYTHING.
I'm very very sobered by what's happening in the world. We are taking action in small ways, and sometimes bigger ways, for our own family in response to those. But there's a big BIG difference in now and THEN
I realize that the constant barrage we used to have, mostly through the TV but also from other places, produces a REACTION rather than a thoughtful responsive action. There is a difference.
It just dawned on me today that we don't know what we're missing, and that's why we don't feel like simplifying, reducing, becoming wiser in the ways we work or spend or buy or create or interact or recreate...any of these things...are something extraordinarily "abnormal." We turned off the noise. Now we can think. Even if we don't think MORE than we used to, we're not distracted by all the "noise" of advertising, of suggestion. We have underestimated just how effective that noise was. When it was turned off, we didnt lose our ability to unwind by snuggling up on the couch with a good movie...we lost the voices telling us we were discontent and needed something better or something more, or told us WHAT something we should consider.
I think the constant barrage of all that noise, not only from advertisers on TV but also the frenetic pace of the corporate world and its set up of disconnects, is an overload. When in any area it is quieted for a length of time, things sort of settle into a peacefulness (not complacency) that comes as a sense of relief. Even with all the other demands and deadlines, removing one or two major contributors of that constant advertising or other "urgency" can bring some balance.
I realized today I have no idea what the trendy toys are...you know, the ones everyone HAS to have for holidays or birthdays or because the updated one just came out. I have NO idea what is even on TV! I can't really be an informed small-talker in conversation when it comes to these things...I never saw a single episode (or sometimes even HEARD of) most of the TV programs that are on now. For example, I Googled favorite TV programs, and here's the list of the ones they consider the most popular:
One Tree Hill Don't know this one.
America's Next Top Model Never seen, but surely it's self-explanatory.
Dancing with the Stars Same here.
Gossip Girl Never heard of. Went through enough dramas like this when my daughter was in junior high...no appeal to me now, ha!
Big Brother 9 George Orwell? Haven't heard of this one.
American Idol This was around before we went no-TV-reception. I sometimes watch youtube clips.
Biggest Loser I'm aware of what this one is. Wish I could be on it! Not sure I'd want a million people watching me get on a scale at ANY weight, though :)
Grey's Anatomy Never seen. Have heard of.
High School Musical 2 Never heard of, never seen.
Rock of Love This one has me mystified. Alcatraz has built some honeymoon cabins? A fundraiser concert for third world hunger?
NCIS No idea what this is.
House A lot of folks I know like this. I still don't know what it is.
Lost Saw the pilot a few years back. Then I moved to Florida and any further recollection of this show is...lost :)
Hannah Montana I have no idea. Is this the 2000's answer to the "Blossom" of the 90s?
Smallville The opposite of Megalopolis? Never seen.
Before you feel sorry for me and write me off as a culturally-deficient freak (which I may be! :)), remember...
I haven't known what I'm missing!
The only reason I know what tapas is is because I sometimes read foodie blogs. But because I haven't been TOLD what I should think is the latest and greatest thing to read/drink/eat/watch/listen to/buy/believe I also have an interest in learning to cook some dishes that are Moroccan, Mexican, Native American, fermented, Middle Eastern, Indian, raw, juiced, local, heirloom and open pollinated, unprocessed, and without packaging. I want to learn to cook flatbreads and grind my own grain for bread I knead myself. And to make my own butter.
And these are some of the things on my Wish List...which I may or may not get someday, but if I do it'll be because they're something that'll be thought out and be a nice "fit" for our family over the longer-term, and not end up in a yard sale six months later, or thrown away.....
1. Chickens
2. A few hand garden tools
3. Tons and tons of poop ...for tons and tons of compost!
4. A worm bin and worms
5. A top bar beehive
6. A whole ginormous plot of heirloom tomatoes
7. Red clover sown everywhere nothing else is growing
8. Bee plants, tucked in everywhere
9. A canner and pressure canner
10. Sheep
11. A Welsh cob
12. A farm dog or dogs
13. Herbs for our health
14. Homemade soap
15. A clothesline of clean laundry
16. Some canvas and paints, to get back into painting
17. Lots of visits from friends to cook for and enjoy!
18. Two milk cows
19. Some beef cattle
20. Did I mention chickens?? :) :)
oh and
21. LAND, any amount small or large, that allows us to have chickens, cow, and bees.
and possibly, if miracles ever occurred
22. have children with this husband I adore; yes, even at this age :)
(That's up to God. I havent been able to have any more children since my daughter was born two decades ago)
Anyway, we've gained by not being told what we're missing.
What we NOW think we're missing has changed to what better represents our own individuality, need, and contents us best. We desire skills, time together, and the lasso tightening to draw all our efforts home rather than dispersing us.
Maybe be not being told what we're missing, we now know that what we have is sufficient, and we are happy keeping it that simple. Sufficiency is a vital and living thing...not deprivation or poverty mentality. Change is constant, and we need to change many things. Now we can think more clearly about what those should continue being, without the distraction and constant interruption. We can be a vital community member, connected to each other in many ways, and still nurture a quietness of mind a little bit freer of marketing/advertising overload. Things become clearer, and we can ponder solutions and not be so wearied by the frenetic. And we can think for ourselves, because we should. We don't have to rely on a steady diet of being told statistics of how everyone else thinks, buys, and lives.
OK, this has run long...too long!
I am missing a couple hours of sleep on this, my day off...so I'm off to collect 'em while I can! There's a whole To Do list for the busy, busy afternoon...
I have really been enjoying reading so many of your blog posts recently...SO enjoyable! I appreciate the other bloggers and readers "out here" so much...thank you!
You see, I'd had the cutest of small cottages for a house in Tennessee, with walls painted in warm ochres and buttermilk shades, large vintage poster prints, bookcases with books everywhere, and open cabinets in the kitchen with neat stacks of dishware, a comfy armchair, fireplace, and a tiny dooryard garden brimming with perennials and regular hummingbird visitors. A red front door and trailing vines up the brick walls...an elderberry bush entwined with a white lilac were right outside the dining room picture window just next to the birdfeeder and its flat platform tray that had a constant entourage of mourning doves pecking for seed.
And my dog, Shadow. The best dog I ever had...ever. The most intuitive and loving and gentle part-black lab mix Heinz 57 dog, whom I still miss to THIS DAY. He would ring the string of camel bells that hung from the inside doorknob of the front door when he needed to go outside. He would sleep in the hall between my bedroom and my daughter's bedroom doors at night, our protectors. I miss Shadow!!
Shadow was one of the hardest parts of the move, the other being leaving the one place I'd lived the longest...for 14 years. After the hurricane, the ONLY place we could find to rent did not allow any animals. We appealed to the landlords for an exception, but they wouldn't budge. And the shelters in Florida were so overburdened with animals at that point that finding a temporary adoptive family for a Tennessee dog was impossible in our situation. I had to leave my dog to an adoptive family in my Tennessee town. I won't even go on further about that...it was a hard decision, and I'm still sad.
I'm not sad I joined my husband here...where he is is my home. The rental unit we found was the most run-down place I'd ever lived, but Jack did a lot to get it in order before the big move...you should have seen it before. It was a tiny, squat square of concrete blocks, painted over some decade past but not since, and the exterior looked like someone had sneezed on it...it was dingy greyish-white with huge smears of pinkish and greyish mold streaking the sides, especially anywhere the roof water ran down. The interior was not much better. The roof and fascia were infested with termites. The front windows and door were those moveable strips of glass that open outwards, but couldnt because the hardware was stripped, but still managed to leak any cool interior air right to the outside. They were a safety hazard, too...very easy to break into. The back door was a few strides from the front door, and was an ill-fitting sliding glass door, again, with broken track and easy-to-break-into latch. The kitchen cabinets and bathroom were indescribable, except to say that the only thing I've seen worse so far were the outhouses in Romanian campgrounds in 1985. These at least flushed :)
Well, Jack got in there and bleached everything, and painted many coats of fresh white paint. He repaired doors simply so they'd close, or the holes someone had put their fist through would now be filled and sanded flat and then painted. The fronts of the kitchen cabinets were so rotted, the laminate was blistered loose and hanging in strips. The insides of the cabinets were murky, sticky, filthy, and rotting. The stove had one eye that worked and the oven was burned out and had loose wiring hanging from the inside. There was a tiny sink, just enough room to put our table and sit 2 or 3 people if you didnt scoot your chair out too much, and two tiny bedrooms.
We did do the best we knew how to with it. Off came the cabinet door laminate, everything got a coat of white paint (or two or three), including all the interiors of the cabinets, and everything was fumigated. The police were out every night to the neighbor across the street who aired her romantic grievances publicly with a loud and repetitive vocabulary usually starting with the letter F, standing in her driveway throwing out the latest boyfriend. There was a pit bull chained in an empty lot directly across from us. Our front door had no doorknob and had to be pulled shut and locked each time with a key just to keep it closed.
This was our honeymoon suite :) heehee
We knew it would be temporary, and we lived there about a year.
During that time, we opted for no TV...after all, where would we put it?? The only few square feet where equipment would fit housed our computer and the paperwork for our small home business.
Living there was good for us. It taught us a lot about scaling down our possessions, and using what is most necessary. It also taught me how much I adore having a place to do laundry in my own house...now. And having a stove that works, and an oven that works, and trees to look at from the windows that DO close and a door that DOES have a doorknob :)
All that to say that an unexpected thing happened related to the TV. We kept our TV because we enjoy watching movies. But during that first year, we had no TV service because we kept thinking of that place as temporary and didn't want to get cable service hooked up until we moved elsewhere. And we couldnt get reception without cable service. Then we moved a year later to a much nicer, very clean and spacious rental (yay!), and we had become used to going without any TV reception. We opted to forgo it a bit longer, and kept using the TV just for a monitor to watch DVDs and videos now and then. That lasted a year.
Then we moved here and again, the same thing...we just don't like seeing ourselves being nickled and dimed in so many areas of our budget, and TV was one of those nickle and dime parts of our budget. So we've been without TV reception for four years now, and have seen no programs on either standard TV or cable at ALL. We have found we can check out DVDs for free from the library and get a lot of the awesome PBS documentaries and dramas as well as every sort of movie, how-to video, or musical production that way. They even have some television series...some are old re-runs and some are contemporary...all without commercials.
We haven't tried Netflix yet, simply because we haven't exhausted all the good stuff we can check out for free at the library here. We are not non-TV watchers, if you count the TV as a monitor only rather than getting regular reception. But when we want to watch something, it's deliberate...we put something in when we want to watch that specific thing.
What I didn't realize was that I'm not being brainwashed to buy products, to think of myself as "deserving" of this and that consumer retail item, to eat fast food or restaurant food, to compare my body to those of airbrushed supermodels, to buy certain brands of trendy toys/foods/healthcare items/gadgets, and I don't have any idea what the cutting edge is in fashion or home decor.
When we want the news, we listen to radio and look for ourselves at any newspaper in the world on the internet.
We miss the constant barrage of these things...though I'd never have thought of them as such:
1. fear-mongering
2. manipulation of the news facts
3. vulnerability to trends...be it economic, fashion, healthcare, travel, consuming
4. being told to buy buy buy certain products
5. being told we're deprived if we don't buy those things
The constant stimulation to buy things came SO often through the TV! And now that it's missing, I marvel that I'm so much more resistant when I do hear the advertisements...after all, it's so constant on things such as the TV that we often tune them out but don't recognize how automatically those repetitious product-hawkers replay in our heads...the catchy jingles and slogas and visual images DO effectively advertise....EVERYTHING.
I'm very very sobered by what's happening in the world. We are taking action in small ways, and sometimes bigger ways, for our own family in response to those. But there's a big BIG difference in now and THEN
I realize that the constant barrage we used to have, mostly through the TV but also from other places, produces a REACTION rather than a thoughtful responsive action. There is a difference.
It just dawned on me today that we don't know what we're missing, and that's why we don't feel like simplifying, reducing, becoming wiser in the ways we work or spend or buy or create or interact or recreate...any of these things...are something extraordinarily "abnormal." We turned off the noise. Now we can think. Even if we don't think MORE than we used to, we're not distracted by all the "noise" of advertising, of suggestion. We have underestimated just how effective that noise was. When it was turned off, we didnt lose our ability to unwind by snuggling up on the couch with a good movie...we lost the voices telling us we were discontent and needed something better or something more, or told us WHAT something we should consider.
I think the constant barrage of all that noise, not only from advertisers on TV but also the frenetic pace of the corporate world and its set up of disconnects, is an overload. When in any area it is quieted for a length of time, things sort of settle into a peacefulness (not complacency) that comes as a sense of relief. Even with all the other demands and deadlines, removing one or two major contributors of that constant advertising or other "urgency" can bring some balance.
I realized today I have no idea what the trendy toys are...you know, the ones everyone HAS to have for holidays or birthdays or because the updated one just came out. I have NO idea what is even on TV! I can't really be an informed small-talker in conversation when it comes to these things...I never saw a single episode (or sometimes even HEARD of) most of the TV programs that are on now. For example, I Googled favorite TV programs, and here's the list of the ones they consider the most popular:
One Tree Hill Don't know this one.
America's Next Top Model Never seen, but surely it's self-explanatory.
Dancing with the Stars Same here.
Gossip Girl Never heard of. Went through enough dramas like this when my daughter was in junior high...no appeal to me now, ha!
Big Brother 9 George Orwell? Haven't heard of this one.
American Idol This was around before we went no-TV-reception. I sometimes watch youtube clips.
Biggest Loser I'm aware of what this one is. Wish I could be on it! Not sure I'd want a million people watching me get on a scale at ANY weight, though :)
Grey's Anatomy Never seen. Have heard of.
High School Musical 2 Never heard of, never seen.
Rock of Love This one has me mystified. Alcatraz has built some honeymoon cabins? A fundraiser concert for third world hunger?
NCIS No idea what this is.
House A lot of folks I know like this. I still don't know what it is.
Lost Saw the pilot a few years back. Then I moved to Florida and any further recollection of this show is...lost :)
Hannah Montana I have no idea. Is this the 2000's answer to the "Blossom" of the 90s?
Smallville The opposite of Megalopolis? Never seen.
Before you feel sorry for me and write me off as a culturally-deficient freak (which I may be! :)), remember...
I haven't known what I'm missing!
The only reason I know what tapas is is because I sometimes read foodie blogs. But because I haven't been TOLD what I should think is the latest and greatest thing to read/drink/eat/watch/listen to/buy/believe I also have an interest in learning to cook some dishes that are Moroccan, Mexican, Native American, fermented, Middle Eastern, Indian, raw, juiced, local, heirloom and open pollinated, unprocessed, and without packaging. I want to learn to cook flatbreads and grind my own grain for bread I knead myself. And to make my own butter.
And these are some of the things on my Wish List...which I may or may not get someday, but if I do it'll be because they're something that'll be thought out and be a nice "fit" for our family over the longer-term, and not end up in a yard sale six months later, or thrown away.....
1. Chickens
2. A few hand garden tools
3. Tons and tons of poop ...for tons and tons of compost!
4. A worm bin and worms
5. A top bar beehive
6. A whole ginormous plot of heirloom tomatoes
7. Red clover sown everywhere nothing else is growing
8. Bee plants, tucked in everywhere
9. A canner and pressure canner
10. Sheep
11. A Welsh cob
12. A farm dog or dogs
13. Herbs for our health
14. Homemade soap
15. A clothesline of clean laundry
16. Some canvas and paints, to get back into painting
17. Lots of visits from friends to cook for and enjoy!
18. Two milk cows
19. Some beef cattle
20. Did I mention chickens?? :) :)
oh and
21. LAND, any amount small or large, that allows us to have chickens, cow, and bees.
and possibly, if miracles ever occurred
22. have children with this husband I adore; yes, even at this age :)
(That's up to God. I havent been able to have any more children since my daughter was born two decades ago)
Anyway, we've gained by not being told what we're missing.
What we NOW think we're missing has changed to what better represents our own individuality, need, and contents us best. We desire skills, time together, and the lasso tightening to draw all our efforts home rather than dispersing us.
Maybe be not being told what we're missing, we now know that what we have is sufficient, and we are happy keeping it that simple. Sufficiency is a vital and living thing...not deprivation or poverty mentality. Change is constant, and we need to change many things. Now we can think more clearly about what those should continue being, without the distraction and constant interruption. We can be a vital community member, connected to each other in many ways, and still nurture a quietness of mind a little bit freer of marketing/advertising overload. Things become clearer, and we can ponder solutions and not be so wearied by the frenetic. And we can think for ourselves, because we should. We don't have to rely on a steady diet of being told statistics of how everyone else thinks, buys, and lives.
OK, this has run long...too long!
I am missing a couple hours of sleep on this, my day off...so I'm off to collect 'em while I can! There's a whole To Do list for the busy, busy afternoon...
I have really been enjoying reading so many of your blog posts recently...SO enjoyable! I appreciate the other bloggers and readers "out here" so much...thank you!
Monday, March 31, 2008
On Teamwork, Joy for my Daughter, and What We Want to BE When We Grow Up
It's all been a whirlwind. I can't believe a whole week came and went...
A huge dream has been realized. This is a major turning point for our family, all three of us.
Today, my daughter, who is 19, had her first interview for a job as a LPN.
A LPN!!!!! It's official!!!!!!!!!!
On Monday, she took her state exam...HUGE...she took two courses just to prep for the exam. We all held our breaths. We prayed. We allowed unlimited computer access, bought prep books,blah blah blah, and the big day finally came.
We sweated collective bullets while awaiting the results...two whole days of not knowing!
I got the call from R while I was on the road at work. She sounded sad.
She is a HUGE faker....I'm glad she was faking!!! She learned she passed!!!
Woooohooooo!!!!!
It sounds bad to say it's one of MY dreams come true, but being the poster child for having bypassed completing a college education or trade myself during the years when I put a husband through graduate school and had/raised a baby, after 13 years of which life pulled a wrenching switcheroo of divorce and subsequent boinging me right into the job scene unprepared(minus experience and letters behind my name)....well, I just wanted my daughter to have some help with direction WHILE she figures out the many things she MOST wants to do.
I'd never had much help on the parental front with things requiring direction. Oh to have had some wise advice and some direction during my early years, as I had set off into life. Life's been full of a lot of lessons :)
I'm so beyond the point of expecting to find enough money to pay the bills by doing "my dream" (I have so many dreams! none of which are moneymakers in and of themselves), and my own reality has been that had I utilized some varied opportunities as I went along, I'd have a lot more choice about doing a job I enjoyed more. I now believe we can have multiple and changing talents and careers all throughout the years, none of which has to be the sole bearer of the title "what I know I want to BE."
I wanted to breed horses. To be a writer, a poet. To speak foreign languages. To create beautiful artwork, paintings, pottery, sculpture. To have horses to ride every day of my life. To live where you don't see your neighbors' houses, out in the wild, or a cottage in a glen or a rocky hillside. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to paint the world with meadows of wildflowers. To have bison and wild horses roaming nearby. I wanted to marry a farmer. I wanted to be a professor holed up in a room full of dusty books, overflowing paperwork, writing papers and giving brilliant lectures. To teach creative writing. To inspire students to think for themselves, outside the box. To innovate, find solutions creatively. To be a home decorator. I wanted to be a biblical scholar. I wanted to start an orphanage. To be a counselor. To be a midwife. A naturopath. I wanted to design buildings. I wanted to have a really large family, complete with adopted children, some possibly with handicaps and international backgrounds. I wanted to go into Romanian or other orphanages and turn things around, see miracles happen with a lot of elbow grease and love. To make sandwiches weekly for the homeless. To be an investigative journalist on the front lines of a war or reporter covering abuses and genocides...to stir action. To go to Jerusalem and pray at the wall. I wanted to live self-sufficiently, back to the land. To build a log cabin by hand, drink from a stream, not have a car and only get around by horseback.
LOL...ok I'll stop there...
I've not necessarily stopped wanting these unrelated things. But I've not had a boring life. And I did plan for the above, at various points in life, but the course of life has been different than expected.
My wants narrowed down very boldly a few years ago to something very basic:
I wanted to be able to survive. A few years ago, I found myself on the brink of being months from being homeless and losing custody of my daughter for the sole reason of being unable to afford a roof over our heads and food to eat.
That'll put a whole new spin on the What To Do When I Grow Up subject. So when R neared the end of high school, and a fantastic opportunity presented itself, I saw it as a gift...and really really amazing gift from God. That is how I see my present marriage, and the fact my husband is more than a stepdad...he's a team leader forgeing forward FOR and WITH us all. Without his strength and agreement and decision-making, this would have been an opportunity missed.
Rachel had a big opportunity three years ago...
When you have a daughter who gets really excited about science, nature, how things work, and challenging academics AND when that daughter gets an opportunity through a high school program to simultaneously enroll in a health sciences program geared towards nursing...she has an opportunity to have a skill FOR FREE and schooling FOR FREE while still in high school that, by the time graduation arrives, puts her mere months (8 to be exact) from being a full fledged nurse.
Some would frown on my urging her to try this. Had she been left to just decide for herself without some persuasion, she'd have done what I'd have done at her same age, given the initial impulse...probably have decided that I didn't know what I wanted to "be when I grew up" and therefore have passed it by because I wasn't sure I wanted to do all that. Maybe later.
As "later" to myself and her stepfather loomed, and we have (lets just say) limited means as far as being able to send her to college, we saw an opportunity for her to have a HUGE skill she might very well thrive in.
We sat her down at that time (it was just before her junior year) and basically presented the pros and cons for at least trying the program. She had to face her immediate future, and wrestle with the realities of what getting to college would require. My years of prepping her for going to college after high school were still in mind...it was her expectation, not just ours. But divorce and financial setback had narrowed the monetary scope of choices. It's hard to have that conversation with a 16 year old. She considered the program, and we all discussed it over the course of a month or so.
As that school year approached, and she had a deadline to decide on her classes, she was undecided, still thinking she had to KNOW what she REALLY wanted to do...when she grew up. I told her that my thinking on that had changed over the years, myself, and I see life now as a palette for all SORTS of things to do (and when did I grow up? that year eludes me...lol)...and asked her the question "What do you have better to do in the meantime?" Really, at that point, she was not particularly passionate about any particular thing, and doing the program wouldn't bump her from some other activity or opportunity. So I basically DARED her to try it....for 2 weeks. We toured the school, went to the meet-n-greet, met the teachers, talked to former students.
R looked a little apprehensive at the outset. These former students all had something in common...they were very self-assured. VERY self-assured.
Then R spoke with a girl who was still in her senior year of high school, and was attending the trade school, too. That girl had not known what she really wanted to "do," either. But her home situation was such that her mom was having a hard time, her home life wasn't good, and she really needed to have a skill for life that was all too real ...and to be able to be independent quickly once out of high school. She said the program was the best thing she'd ever done. She was not a poster child of over-achievement...she was gritty and "normal" ...and my daughter really listened to her at that point.
So, it was atttempted. The first couple of days' reviews were lukewarm. The "how did it go" question was met with a shrug and not much else. But after day 2, she became more and more lively about her classes. Getting up for a 5 o'clock bus was no picnic, nor was keeping some honors classes in the afternoon AFTER health science classes...she was bused by the public school system an hour's drive BACK to high school every day, so that's 3 bus rides a day. And she had to keep all her other grades up, which she did.
We were partners with her, too. She didn't have her drivers license at that time, so guess who got up to take her to that 5 o'clock bus? Yep, moi...and I'm not famous for being a morning person. I'm not patting us on the back, since R did the work and saw this through...a big committment. But it's been family teamwork, and that part feels GOOD :)
All that to say that R gained an amazing amount of confidence. At the outset, when she had weighed the pros and cons of trying out the program, she had expressed her strong doubts. Some of them were doubts about whether she could handle cleaning up after people who are ill. And doing things such as adult diaper changes, cleaning up bedpans, etc. I can't say that anyone, if faced with such realities, makes those things at the top of their lists of dream jobs.
Anyway, she tried the program for the agreed-upon 2 weeks, and decided to stay in...SHE decided, not us. And she stuck it out. And then delighted in regaling us with nursing details at the dinner table...lol! She gained a lot of maturity as she gained skills and knowledge, and it wasn't long before she thought nothing of the concerns she'd been a bit dubious about beforehand.
It WAS a LOT of work. It had times of difficulty now and then as she'd have to get her head around some math or a skill that needed more practice. She kept getting up those early mornings, and it became a special time for us together as we waited for that bus in the wee hours. We always started her day with a prayer together, both of us half asleep. Then she'd get on the bus (to fall asleep during the hour drive), and I'd get ready to head to work myself. J pinch-hit on days when his different schedule would allow. He's a trouper, too!
R really excelled. At the end of the first year in health sciences through the vocational program, she took the state CNA exam.
WHAM. The "A" student didn't pass. This test was supposed to be a piece of cake. She had missed the easiest of all skills tests...weighing someone. She knew ALL the hardest skills, performed them perfectly, did great on the written. But according to the book, she was supposed to TALK the patient through stepping up onto the scale and helping them step down...TALK them through it. Weighing someone!!!
She was crushed. And humbled.
And honestly, it was a lesson...to take even the small things seriously and not for granted.
She passed it on the second try.
She entered the LPN phase of the course the next fall, all along keeping up with her high school grades and some honors classes. She had a few bumps along the way, as reminders that not everything comes easy, but thankfully, she's a natural. She's developed an interest in health beyond the doctor's office, and is interested in herbs and natural foods. She's taking great care of her own health and fitness. She found things she loved and didn't love about nursing. In short, she's a natural, and she has a useful and wonderful skill...yay!!!!! She may choose to NEVER do this again in her whole life...but IF she DOES do it, she is a terrific nurse. She may choose to go forward and become an RN, or to specialize in some particular area. She really enjoyed assisting in surgery, and is looking into that as a specialty. How NICE to be 19 and have some tangible options (I'm so grateful to God!!)
She loves photography, and we want her to have the experience of college.
God has been so good to us...the three of us. He provided other opportunities in the form of scholarships, and now college IS a present reality. Wow, I'm SO SO grateful, as a mother. Humbled and GRATEFUL...
R is on her very first job interview for nursing....TODAY...as I type!
I hope she has only good as she steps out in this next new phase.
We've tried to be the best team possible with her the last few years. J has worked hard to fund her gasoline and scrubs and book fees, etc...a weekly expense as the portion of classes AFTER high school were no longer free. Clinicals had to be driven to, and daily classes...all an hour away. And gas ain't cheap!
He's walked her through getting her first back account, balancing her first checkbook, trying to establish a small and modest credit history, giving her some pointers here and there. He's been big on her safety, and after some really awful murders and abductions not far from here, she takes her home and car safety lessons from him a lot more seriously. He got her a cell phone for emergencies when on the road. We loaned her our vehicle for the commutes. He warned her about traffic tickets and was there to reiterate that same conversation after she had gotten a couple..and had to pay them herself. He's taught her about budgeting...she kept EVERY receipt for EVERYthing before he would reimburse her expenses, to teach her to be aware of the real value of spending and budgeting and help her to SEE it rather than just be handed money. He allowed her to manage her small amount he gave her..and to mismanage it and to learn the lessons in miniature, so she wouldn't be unfamiliar with those realities in upcoming years. He taxied her to appointments and to the employment office recently.
And he OFTEN met with teenage attitude during many of these conversations and lessons...but that has diminished a lot as R's urge for independence has met with real life situations, and she sees the benefit of them now.
We had held our collective breath as her program drew to a close. Graduation from the program never guaranteed her passing her state exam. Now that she has passed, it's been difficult for us to realize it's over...the big HUGE team effort that's been going on DAILY for the last 3 years.
On to the next step, eh? :) Life's an adventure!
I had a long cry last night. This has occupied all our lives so much the past years, and so has the push to get things wrapped up for us financially and get moved to some land. So many stops and starts.
MUCH to celebrate along the way. MUCH for which to be grateful!!
I'm having that pre-empty nest ache in my heart. I have no intention of standing in the way of my daughter's path forward, out into her life that will be her own story to write. I pray God figures into it, always at the center, and that she'll be safe...and very very happy.
R's ability to go get a job now will free us up in a lot of ways to retire the rest of our debts more quickly. J hopes to be out of debt by this time next year...I am praying that there will be none left by the end of THIS one.
My job is more to my liking now. I've been given a permanent assignment, and was allowed a lot of input as to my schedule. And s ometimes I get to drive the company vehicle home, which helps alleviate the gas costs of that long commute. My whole work day or night involves driving the company vehicle, and guess what I do for the county? Code enforcement, namely finding regular watering violations. I know that sounds ludicrous to some, but we do have a drought here (even with the spring rains, overall the water table is very low), and we also have luxury communities where folks simply don't care that their irrigation systems dump streams of water into the sewers long past their lawns' abilities to retain any more moisture...we're talking about HOURS of watering, any day of the week.
I drive by those homes, with their amazing tropical plants, and smile a wry smile when I see the silhouette of herds of deer munching down on manicured lawns and sculpted raised beds. All that "perfection" of landscaping, and the deer still have a buffet...lol. I see opossums, raccoons, rabbits, owls...and more deer...nightly, and smell the night flowers and feel the warm breeze. I do have to say that I'll be able to stick with this job for a prolonged period because I get to be close to where I want to be the most...outside the box (for me, the corporate world feels the most like a box, but that's me; others often enjoy it). Ideas crowd my head, but the setting is peaceful enough to allow for thoughts to drift and just to ENJOY the moment, oftentimes. And so, I'm grateful! This is my job to help us get out of debt so we can get our hands down in our OWN dirt somewhere...and it's looking closer.
It can't get here fast enough...that's how I feel so often. That's "what I want to do when I grow up."
But maybe the "growing up" part is the journey in getting there.
My daughter is growing up too fast. She's taking some new big steps. But she doesn't see herself as a Grownup.
I'll be 42 next weekend.
I wonder if I'm grown up yet :)
A huge dream has been realized. This is a major turning point for our family, all three of us.
Today, my daughter, who is 19, had her first interview for a job as a LPN.
A LPN!!!!! It's official!!!!!!!!!!
On Monday, she took her state exam...HUGE...she took two courses just to prep for the exam. We all held our breaths. We prayed. We allowed unlimited computer access, bought prep books,blah blah blah, and the big day finally came.
We sweated collective bullets while awaiting the results...two whole days of not knowing!
I got the call from R while I was on the road at work. She sounded sad.
She is a HUGE faker....I'm glad she was faking!!! She learned she passed!!!
Woooohooooo!!!!!
It sounds bad to say it's one of MY dreams come true, but being the poster child for having bypassed completing a college education or trade myself during the years when I put a husband through graduate school and had/raised a baby, after 13 years of which life pulled a wrenching switcheroo of divorce and subsequent boinging me right into the job scene unprepared(minus experience and letters behind my name)....well, I just wanted my daughter to have some help with direction WHILE she figures out the many things she MOST wants to do.
I'd never had much help on the parental front with things requiring direction. Oh to have had some wise advice and some direction during my early years, as I had set off into life. Life's been full of a lot of lessons :)
I'm so beyond the point of expecting to find enough money to pay the bills by doing "my dream" (I have so many dreams! none of which are moneymakers in and of themselves), and my own reality has been that had I utilized some varied opportunities as I went along, I'd have a lot more choice about doing a job I enjoyed more. I now believe we can have multiple and changing talents and careers all throughout the years, none of which has to be the sole bearer of the title "what I know I want to BE."
I wanted to breed horses. To be a writer, a poet. To speak foreign languages. To create beautiful artwork, paintings, pottery, sculpture. To have horses to ride every day of my life. To live where you don't see your neighbors' houses, out in the wild, or a cottage in a glen or a rocky hillside. I wanted to travel the world. I wanted to paint the world with meadows of wildflowers. To have bison and wild horses roaming nearby. I wanted to marry a farmer. I wanted to be a professor holed up in a room full of dusty books, overflowing paperwork, writing papers and giving brilliant lectures. To teach creative writing. To inspire students to think for themselves, outside the box. To innovate, find solutions creatively. To be a home decorator. I wanted to be a biblical scholar. I wanted to start an orphanage. To be a counselor. To be a midwife. A naturopath. I wanted to design buildings. I wanted to have a really large family, complete with adopted children, some possibly with handicaps and international backgrounds. I wanted to go into Romanian or other orphanages and turn things around, see miracles happen with a lot of elbow grease and love. To make sandwiches weekly for the homeless. To be an investigative journalist on the front lines of a war or reporter covering abuses and genocides...to stir action. To go to Jerusalem and pray at the wall. I wanted to live self-sufficiently, back to the land. To build a log cabin by hand, drink from a stream, not have a car and only get around by horseback.
LOL...ok I'll stop there...
I've not necessarily stopped wanting these unrelated things. But I've not had a boring life. And I did plan for the above, at various points in life, but the course of life has been different than expected.
My wants narrowed down very boldly a few years ago to something very basic:
I wanted to be able to survive. A few years ago, I found myself on the brink of being months from being homeless and losing custody of my daughter for the sole reason of being unable to afford a roof over our heads and food to eat.
That'll put a whole new spin on the What To Do When I Grow Up subject. So when R neared the end of high school, and a fantastic opportunity presented itself, I saw it as a gift...and really really amazing gift from God. That is how I see my present marriage, and the fact my husband is more than a stepdad...he's a team leader forgeing forward FOR and WITH us all. Without his strength and agreement and decision-making, this would have been an opportunity missed.
Rachel had a big opportunity three years ago...
When you have a daughter who gets really excited about science, nature, how things work, and challenging academics AND when that daughter gets an opportunity through a high school program to simultaneously enroll in a health sciences program geared towards nursing...she has an opportunity to have a skill FOR FREE and schooling FOR FREE while still in high school that, by the time graduation arrives, puts her mere months (8 to be exact) from being a full fledged nurse.
Some would frown on my urging her to try this. Had she been left to just decide for herself without some persuasion, she'd have done what I'd have done at her same age, given the initial impulse...probably have decided that I didn't know what I wanted to "be when I grew up" and therefore have passed it by because I wasn't sure I wanted to do all that. Maybe later.
As "later" to myself and her stepfather loomed, and we have (lets just say) limited means as far as being able to send her to college, we saw an opportunity for her to have a HUGE skill she might very well thrive in.
We sat her down at that time (it was just before her junior year) and basically presented the pros and cons for at least trying the program. She had to face her immediate future, and wrestle with the realities of what getting to college would require. My years of prepping her for going to college after high school were still in mind...it was her expectation, not just ours. But divorce and financial setback had narrowed the monetary scope of choices. It's hard to have that conversation with a 16 year old. She considered the program, and we all discussed it over the course of a month or so.
As that school year approached, and she had a deadline to decide on her classes, she was undecided, still thinking she had to KNOW what she REALLY wanted to do...when she grew up. I told her that my thinking on that had changed over the years, myself, and I see life now as a palette for all SORTS of things to do (and when did I grow up? that year eludes me...lol)...and asked her the question "What do you have better to do in the meantime?" Really, at that point, she was not particularly passionate about any particular thing, and doing the program wouldn't bump her from some other activity or opportunity. So I basically DARED her to try it....for 2 weeks. We toured the school, went to the meet-n-greet, met the teachers, talked to former students.
R looked a little apprehensive at the outset. These former students all had something in common...they were very self-assured. VERY self-assured.
Then R spoke with a girl who was still in her senior year of high school, and was attending the trade school, too. That girl had not known what she really wanted to "do," either. But her home situation was such that her mom was having a hard time, her home life wasn't good, and she really needed to have a skill for life that was all too real ...and to be able to be independent quickly once out of high school. She said the program was the best thing she'd ever done. She was not a poster child of over-achievement...she was gritty and "normal" ...and my daughter really listened to her at that point.
So, it was atttempted. The first couple of days' reviews were lukewarm. The "how did it go" question was met with a shrug and not much else. But after day 2, she became more and more lively about her classes. Getting up for a 5 o'clock bus was no picnic, nor was keeping some honors classes in the afternoon AFTER health science classes...she was bused by the public school system an hour's drive BACK to high school every day, so that's 3 bus rides a day. And she had to keep all her other grades up, which she did.
We were partners with her, too. She didn't have her drivers license at that time, so guess who got up to take her to that 5 o'clock bus? Yep, moi...and I'm not famous for being a morning person. I'm not patting us on the back, since R did the work and saw this through...a big committment. But it's been family teamwork, and that part feels GOOD :)
All that to say that R gained an amazing amount of confidence. At the outset, when she had weighed the pros and cons of trying out the program, she had expressed her strong doubts. Some of them were doubts about whether she could handle cleaning up after people who are ill. And doing things such as adult diaper changes, cleaning up bedpans, etc. I can't say that anyone, if faced with such realities, makes those things at the top of their lists of dream jobs.
Anyway, she tried the program for the agreed-upon 2 weeks, and decided to stay in...SHE decided, not us. And she stuck it out. And then delighted in regaling us with nursing details at the dinner table...lol! She gained a lot of maturity as she gained skills and knowledge, and it wasn't long before she thought nothing of the concerns she'd been a bit dubious about beforehand.
It WAS a LOT of work. It had times of difficulty now and then as she'd have to get her head around some math or a skill that needed more practice. She kept getting up those early mornings, and it became a special time for us together as we waited for that bus in the wee hours. We always started her day with a prayer together, both of us half asleep. Then she'd get on the bus (to fall asleep during the hour drive), and I'd get ready to head to work myself. J pinch-hit on days when his different schedule would allow. He's a trouper, too!
R really excelled. At the end of the first year in health sciences through the vocational program, she took the state CNA exam.
WHAM. The "A" student didn't pass. This test was supposed to be a piece of cake. She had missed the easiest of all skills tests...weighing someone. She knew ALL the hardest skills, performed them perfectly, did great on the written. But according to the book, she was supposed to TALK the patient through stepping up onto the scale and helping them step down...TALK them through it. Weighing someone!!!
She was crushed. And humbled.
And honestly, it was a lesson...to take even the small things seriously and not for granted.
She passed it on the second try.
She entered the LPN phase of the course the next fall, all along keeping up with her high school grades and some honors classes. She had a few bumps along the way, as reminders that not everything comes easy, but thankfully, she's a natural. She's developed an interest in health beyond the doctor's office, and is interested in herbs and natural foods. She's taking great care of her own health and fitness. She found things she loved and didn't love about nursing. In short, she's a natural, and she has a useful and wonderful skill...yay!!!!! She may choose to NEVER do this again in her whole life...but IF she DOES do it, she is a terrific nurse. She may choose to go forward and become an RN, or to specialize in some particular area. She really enjoyed assisting in surgery, and is looking into that as a specialty. How NICE to be 19 and have some tangible options (I'm so grateful to God!!)
She loves photography, and we want her to have the experience of college.
God has been so good to us...the three of us. He provided other opportunities in the form of scholarships, and now college IS a present reality. Wow, I'm SO SO grateful, as a mother. Humbled and GRATEFUL...
R is on her very first job interview for nursing....TODAY...as I type!
I hope she has only good as she steps out in this next new phase.
We've tried to be the best team possible with her the last few years. J has worked hard to fund her gasoline and scrubs and book fees, etc...a weekly expense as the portion of classes AFTER high school were no longer free. Clinicals had to be driven to, and daily classes...all an hour away. And gas ain't cheap!
He's walked her through getting her first back account, balancing her first checkbook, trying to establish a small and modest credit history, giving her some pointers here and there. He's been big on her safety, and after some really awful murders and abductions not far from here, she takes her home and car safety lessons from him a lot more seriously. He got her a cell phone for emergencies when on the road. We loaned her our vehicle for the commutes. He warned her about traffic tickets and was there to reiterate that same conversation after she had gotten a couple..and had to pay them herself. He's taught her about budgeting...she kept EVERY receipt for EVERYthing before he would reimburse her expenses, to teach her to be aware of the real value of spending and budgeting and help her to SEE it rather than just be handed money. He allowed her to manage her small amount he gave her..and to mismanage it and to learn the lessons in miniature, so she wouldn't be unfamiliar with those realities in upcoming years. He taxied her to appointments and to the employment office recently.
And he OFTEN met with teenage attitude during many of these conversations and lessons...but that has diminished a lot as R's urge for independence has met with real life situations, and she sees the benefit of them now.
We had held our collective breath as her program drew to a close. Graduation from the program never guaranteed her passing her state exam. Now that she has passed, it's been difficult for us to realize it's over...the big HUGE team effort that's been going on DAILY for the last 3 years.
On to the next step, eh? :) Life's an adventure!
I had a long cry last night. This has occupied all our lives so much the past years, and so has the push to get things wrapped up for us financially and get moved to some land. So many stops and starts.
MUCH to celebrate along the way. MUCH for which to be grateful!!
I'm having that pre-empty nest ache in my heart. I have no intention of standing in the way of my daughter's path forward, out into her life that will be her own story to write. I pray God figures into it, always at the center, and that she'll be safe...and very very happy.
R's ability to go get a job now will free us up in a lot of ways to retire the rest of our debts more quickly. J hopes to be out of debt by this time next year...I am praying that there will be none left by the end of THIS one.
My job is more to my liking now. I've been given a permanent assignment, and was allowed a lot of input as to my schedule. And s ometimes I get to drive the company vehicle home, which helps alleviate the gas costs of that long commute. My whole work day or night involves driving the company vehicle, and guess what I do for the county? Code enforcement, namely finding regular watering violations. I know that sounds ludicrous to some, but we do have a drought here (even with the spring rains, overall the water table is very low), and we also have luxury communities where folks simply don't care that their irrigation systems dump streams of water into the sewers long past their lawns' abilities to retain any more moisture...we're talking about HOURS of watering, any day of the week.
I drive by those homes, with their amazing tropical plants, and smile a wry smile when I see the silhouette of herds of deer munching down on manicured lawns and sculpted raised beds. All that "perfection" of landscaping, and the deer still have a buffet...lol. I see opossums, raccoons, rabbits, owls...and more deer...nightly, and smell the night flowers and feel the warm breeze. I do have to say that I'll be able to stick with this job for a prolonged period because I get to be close to where I want to be the most...outside the box (for me, the corporate world feels the most like a box, but that's me; others often enjoy it). Ideas crowd my head, but the setting is peaceful enough to allow for thoughts to drift and just to ENJOY the moment, oftentimes. And so, I'm grateful! This is my job to help us get out of debt so we can get our hands down in our OWN dirt somewhere...and it's looking closer.
It can't get here fast enough...that's how I feel so often. That's "what I want to do when I grow up."
But maybe the "growing up" part is the journey in getting there.
My daughter is growing up too fast. She's taking some new big steps. But she doesn't see herself as a Grownup.
I'll be 42 next weekend.
I wonder if I'm grown up yet :)
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
A Total Revamp of Direction in a Mere 24 Hours
This post may sound suspiciously like it has nothing to do with homesteading, but it does...eventually. But first -- a scary little retro trip around the inside of my head. Y'know...the place songs you can't forget lurk...
You know your life is going to take a dramatic turn in a different direction when you can't get this radio refrain out of your head for the past four straight days:
Poor Andy Gibb. (My husband just asked me who Andy Gibb was, no joke. Forgive him, Bee Gees). No, Andy didn't sing this, but for some reason this song catapults me to post-1980s sorrow for him over his breakup with Victoria Principal. Which happened HOW many decades ago??
Oh the silly pop culture concerns we had. My best friend of that era and I had simultaneous crushes on the Hardy Boy TV stars ...my guy was Parker Stevenson and hers was Shaun Cassidy.
You know your life is going to take a dramatic turn in a different direction when you can't get this radio refrain out of your head for the past four straight days:
Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I'm only falling apart
There's nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart Once upon a time there was
light in my life But now there's only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total
eclipse of the heart ...
Poor Andy Gibb. (My husband just asked me who Andy Gibb was, no joke. Forgive him, Bee Gees). No, Andy didn't sing this, but for some reason this song catapults me to post-1980s sorrow for him over his breakup with Victoria Principal. Which happened HOW many decades ago??
Oh the silly pop culture concerns we had. My best friend of that era and I had simultaneous crushes on the Hardy Boy TV stars ...my guy was Parker Stevenson and hers was Shaun Cassidy.
Oh the imaginary dates we had with that pair. We would decide who went where with whom and what the most romantic settings would be, and if we'd doubledate, just us and Parker and Shaun. We decided these weighty matters while listening to Karen's Captain and Tenielle records...yeah, please don't do the math there (I think we were what, 12 at the time, and there was no such thing as dating till you were at least 16)
This was made all the more interesting by the fact that my parents raised us with NO radio-listening or record-buying of pop music at ALL. Zero. Zilch. But exposure did happen on a limited scale, which probably heightens its impact at that impressionable age. I can hum the songs from back then, because I heard the radio now and then with my friends in other settings, but I know NO words.
Except for a few refrains. Such as Total Eclipse of the Heart. And when I hear them now on the OLDIES (ahem) station, they're harder to make go away than a crowd of bad relatives.
There are as of yet no total eclipses of the heart going on around here (and no plans for those, either!), and yet BAM, there in the middle of the day, for NO reason, like a bad commercial jingle comes the turn around bright eyyyyyyyyyyyes, turn around BRIGHTTT eye-eye-eyes...
But in a foreshadowing of life imitating (bad) lyrics, there has been a turn around. No word yet on how bright anyone's eyes are, though.
-----------------------------------------------
This isn't a bad thing :) It has to do with what happened last night.
I've mentioned here a few times that we're researching biblical verses related to country living, agriculture, debts, and animal care. We're finding some very interesting things.
One of the things we've been chewing on is how to emulate many of the principles in our lives, as Jews, even though we don't live in Israel. Many of the commands that directly impact homesteader-sorts of ownership, gardening, and husbandry are preceded in the text by the phrase "when you come into the Land the Lord your God has given you." It's written in all the instructions Jews keep while living in Israel, since in the verses, God says it's a land set apart and which must be cared for in specific ways to maintain its being set apart for His uses. That's my quickie explanation to precede describing just what changed for us last night.
Some of the commandments are preceded by the "when you come into the Land" phrase, and others aren't. The 10 commandments aren't. You don't murder, no matter where you live in the world. You keep the 7th day as a day of rest wherever you live. But others are specific to the land of Israel, at least as we understand the simplicity of their construction.
One such commandment has to do with "7 weeks of 7 years," or a rest for the land every seven years, counted the same way as a week is counted...the first 6 days as days of work, and the 7th as a day of complete rest from any labor. Counting this way makes every 7th year of the Jewish calendar a year in which the Bible specifies that all growing of crops and vines ceases, including pruning and harvesting. It's considered by God to be a complete rest for the land, specifically the land of Israel. It doesn't mention anything about anywhere else, and most scholars agree it's an instruction specific to Israel.
The very VERY cool thing is that God promised that the Israelites who will keep that command will receive 3 times the normal harvest in the 6th year...enough for that year, the following year of fields resting fallow, and enough for seed and food for the year beyond that during which things are replanted. How COOL is thatt??? God is so incredible!
We looked it up on the Hebrew calendar, and discovered that year of rest for the fields and vineyards, THAT year, is NOW. It started last fall, the way the biblical months are counted, and ends this coming fall. Of THIS YEAR ....NOW. Eeeeeeps.
In the Land of Israel, that is.
Which sort of means we're officially off the hook, in a literal way. We're free anywhere else to do otherwise in that respect.
So, I had visions of tomato plants. I had counted them, planted them, and harvested them all in my imagination, as the summer approaches here.
There's nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart
Arrrrggggghhhhhhh!!! Told you! I can't get it out of my head!
ANYway, we talked about a lot of things related to this, and read in Leviticus 25 about the 7th year sabbath and crops and such. As you know, our plans are to expand Bucketville into a fertile orchard-in-waiting till we can move and plant them as more mature specimens. And to fill the many, many wonderful buckets with other lovelies, such as Paul Robeson, Black Krim, and Black Prince tomatoes (the list is miles long in my head).
The conversation turned to something important to both of us: to keep alive in our hearts the desire to live in Israel, and to keep the love of Israel alive in our hearts while we live anyplace else...for ourselves and our children. It's a different expression than a lot of people have, and it's certainly just our own way of walking it out. It's NOT incumbent on Jews to do anyplace but Israel. And we're just fleshing this out as we go...just making it clear that there's no directive anywhere for our doing things quite this way. BUT...we want to "stay in practice" since we are on this as a learning journey. We want to learn to make this way of life our habit, even in exile as such.
So it won't look like anyone else's conviction, and that's fine by us :) But we prayed about it, and decided to sleep on it for the night...the decision of whether to STOP doing any planting this year, anymore buying, and (gulp) any tomato plants. (waving bye to Paul Robeson...)
Well, we did sleep on it, and this morning found us both energized and my wonderful hubby has a firm mind that we ought to carefully try to observe this command, as if we were in the Land, even though we're not required to. With all we want to do, keeping the WAY God set things up as central in importance is truly the foundation upon which we hope to build. No, we're not shooting for "brownie points" here...that's not the way we see this relationship and covenant with our Maker. We do, though, want to LEARN how to be more honoring of His ways, and want PRACTICE. We want to make things habits. For ourselves. To pass along. To be familiar with since many of the practices are very foreign to our surrounding culture.
One thing that sets apart my husband, to me, is a rare heart that CARES about pleasing God, and cares about learning more and attempting to put His ways into practice. I'm ALL ABOUT being a team in that respect, so YAY, what more could I ask for?? He thinks we ought to hold off on any planting (other than what we've already planted), well, so do I!
So look for some upcoming posts on our revamped plan.
We went to lunch today to have a date together (when we can!), and many things were discussed. The most exciting was the prospect of preparing our house to SELL. Whenever it is a better market or the opportunity presents itself. There are OH SO many projects we can be doing in the meantime, while NOT planting this year. Many many skills we need in other areas to develop till they become habits, a learning curve to continue along prior to being on our future land. Getting the house ready to SELL gives me chills of excitement...that's something very tangible TOWARD a nearer time frame to DO THIS :) :) How VERY much we want to be out of here and THERE (wherever there is)
More about what we're going to be redirecting and doing. We'll be making lists, and crossing things off (likely in lists with strikethroughs!) and getting ready to move, yayyy!
We'll also be filling ALL those buckets with soil...just not plants, and in the fall of this year, after the year of rest ends, we'll celebrate by planting a lot more trees in them. That's always good to do in the fall :) (And it should REALLY confound the neighbors NOW, since they'll just be pots of dirt, sitting there...lol
Till then we'll be crossing off other projects and working hard to bring down our debt, towards its eventual payoff.
There, I've typed nearly an entire post without You-Know-What-Song interrupting me.
I just reminisced a few minutes with my husband, to assure him Parker Stevenson is but a memory (lol). And then, oh then...
I remembered...
THEM
I will no longer turn on the oldies station at work. I do not want to know what changes the memory of Sonny and Cher foreshadows.
GLORIOUS IMAGES OF THE BEST FORGOTTEN EIGHTIES SUBCULTURES from these pages:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQtNK7JmdektCJQrIIyPJiuxt-wepiHw2hkYmRMxUig1zOrxaC6INt0WIAE_2aToemffzE1c4CH_kAMIAbv98Ln-Mkx3NL6AgPLJtsF4Xm-vQEB4SESg3ENssCsnr8-N2Dld5CkzslJU/s320/hardyboys.jpg&imgrefurl=http://fashionsreality.blogspot.com/2007/02/cruise-and-stiller-hardy-boys.html&h=307&w=271&sz=22&hl=en&start=27&tbnid=GIJlks7u4bxTQM:&tbnh=117&tbnw=103&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dhardy%2Bboys%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/9/9a/300px-Toni-Tennille-%26-the-Captain-56sq-555.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.answers.com/topic/toni-tennille&h=300&w=300&sz=22&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=0PK0lVIKpgmRZM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=116&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dcaptain%2Band%2Btennille%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/S/sonny_lookf.jpg&imgrefurl=http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/S/sonny_look.html&h=400&w=400&sz=54&hl=en&start=2&tbnid=Lms5J5YozNVMsM:&tbnh=124&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsonny%2Band%2Bcher%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
When Life Hands You Buckets...
...you take one wonderful husband, and he pries the lids off
...examines the mess he's about to clean up...
...gets his own assembly-line system going for washing them out...
...examines the mess he's about to clean up...
...gets his own assembly-line system going for washing them out...
...and does it all again...happily...44 more times, whew! That is one determined farmer-in-training. And definately the nicest and most wonderful guy I know (even without buckets).
Total bucket count now is 64 designated for plants (including the ones we've already potted), 4 for hauling things (and for making compost tea later), and 3 that are full of all the leftover paint (totaling 15 gallons of interior paint that surely will get used for something). Cool!!
Know what this means?? It means that we DO anticipate there being some tomato plants this year, oh happy day!! Paul Robeson, Black Krim, Black Prince...oh, I hardly can contain myself!
I love my husband more than I thought possible, and the sight of messy buckets and his happy smile while working to gain us some pots for more plants makes me happier than if he were all scrubbed up and wearing a nice suit. THIS is happiness to me. I want 100 more years of being able to see J intent on his projects...our projects, and me right there with him doing the same.
Bucketville keeps growing!
This is not all of them. No, a lot of them won't fit into the picture...
But I'm sure the neighbors are impressed by now with our mess yard decor, green with apoplexy jealousy. I know they are preoccupied by the thought of just how they, too, can turn us into the code enforcement officers grow strange and unusual plants in old paint buckets, and are rushing out to a construction site and begging, yay even bribing someone, to for gosh sake stop the insanity for some 5 gallon buckets. It's all the rage!
(And now I return from my happy little land of make-believe...at least long enough to go do those dishes from dinner that are piled up in the sink...)
Sunday, March 16, 2008
A Year Later: Thank you, Path to Freedom! Thank you, homesteading bloggers!
First Birthday Cake by Mary Mo, from this sitePath to Freedom was the very first homesteading website I ever read online, long about a year ago. And as you can see on my sidebar, the addiction and the list of greats has only grown!
Those first exposures coincided with our first posts here detailing our slow but deliberate journey towards a better life...a life deliberately chosen, worked for, researched, experimented with, goofed up at times, and learned from. (Yes, I know that sentence is an atrocious array of dangling participles, gah)
I realized today that my first Blog-O-Versary has come and gone...it's been over a year, Yay!!
We're "green" alright...green as in new to almost everything. But look, we've been trying for a year, and it's been GOOD :) We've learned a lot of things NOT to do, many things that work for us, learned the value of waiting (not the most patient in that department, I must say), of teamwork towards goals.
We've paid off debts! We've begun seriously collecting for our Someday Orchard, have gone from store-bought milk to REAL milk from grassfed Jerseys, are learning to deydrate fruits and vegetables, have tried new recipes, narrowed down a bunch of house plans to a fairly clear set now, have spent countless days and weeks looking for land, and have met wonderful online and in-person friends on their own wonderful journeys.
It's inspired us to turn to the wisdom of our forbears for traditional ways of being good stewards of the earth and our time. It's inspired many transitions in how we view and value our health and our eating. It's wrought an appreciation for the way God made things to live in balance, and an awareness of just where our food comes from...how it gets from pasture or garden to table, if done naturally.
It's also made us aware of the imbalance that has snowballed in our society, from which it is difficult to extricate oneself without some really deliberate effort and hopefully a sense of humor, as these efforts are viewed by many around us as being kooky.
We've voraciously read related books, magazines, and blogs. We've turned back to the Bible, also, for ancient guidance in areas related to animal care and agriculture. We've kept our minds open to innovations. We've tried figuring out ways to adapt a slower-food-and-life mindset to today's "requirements" of cars, commuting, and travel. We've done without a TV, and cleared our minds.
We've begun valuing each other's strengths and weaknesses...our humanity... and truly appreciating that fragile and wonderful relationship called Family. We've begun finding alternatives to the things on which we've become dependent...cleaning supplies, entertainment, groceries from supermarkets, clothing and cheap import products warehoused for consumers --and all from China. Overthrowing the dependence on those things in our own family's life has been something of a revolution...and we, the renegades. The America we love has (sadly!) embraced an appetite for a culture of Junk Consumerism that rivals heroin addiction...more is never enough, and never satisfies....and eventually destroys real life. But this is so prevalent, that we've experienced some outright hostility at the suggestion that there is a better way, a way as individulistic as whomever will try it in areas of consumerism and health.
One thing we don't want to presume to ever be...experts. We don't like holier-than-thou folks who stump for their way being THE way, with self-righteous dictates. We LOVE the diversity we see with what we blanket-term "homesteaders," and we're neither righteous liberals nor righteous conservatives, whatever either of those labels mean. We're individualists, and appreciate that in others.
So on this website, you'll not find us denigrating those who stretch a box of store-bought macaroni and cheese to make affordable casseroles, even if our own path is documented here as taking us a completely different direction. First of all, we've been there and we may "stay there" in different ways. In other ways, we're pursuing what works for us, and many of those areas need improvement and diligence. We won't judge what's on your plate, and ask you not to judge what's on ours :) There is so much to share and learn, and what we most value is folks who think for themselves...as my husband tells me often, he loves an opinionated woman (he says that while looking at me, usually after I've expressed a strong opinion..ha!) We both love opinionated and original people!
Areas we're trying to improve right now, besides debt retirement, focus greatly on cutting the apron strings of dependency on the WalMarts of the world, the stupormarkets (oops! ;-)), and in getting healthier. And in trimming our monetary dependency WAY WAY back, till we're eventually as self-sufficient as possible.
Our world concerns are born here in our own backyard on a small scale. It is hard for me to visualize battling for less oil dependency if I am having to commute two hours roundtrip daily just for us to make the house note. Solution? Get rid of the house note? It has to be done wisely...and so we have a plan and are trying. And that plan happens to include keeping the commuting job till we get debts paid off..and so, for the moment, the gasoline guzzling continues. See the dilemmas of waiting while goals are being chipped away at? We live with it by being easy on ourselves and congratulating ourselves for small victories, and this is our attitude towards others as well.
I thank anyone who comes here to share thoughts on the process and on any interest related to bettering ourselves or the world around us. The sharing, the ideas, the continuing conversations...they are FUN!
What a wonderful community to be a part of! We LOVE this community, we LOVE you guys!
Happy Blog-O-Versary to this haphazard journal of our past year's efforts, and a BIG THANK YOU to those of you who are such an inspiration to us! If you're on our sidebar blogroll list, you're a fantastic bunch from whom we've learned! Each of you is someone we respect and admire as our teacher and friend.
A very special thanks to Path to Freedom, who recently included us on their Fellow Travelers list. Their Little Homestead in the City journal is their updated site with even more details, how-tos, and updates to lose yourself in. Thank you, Dervaeses! This is a wonderful honor, and really caps off our first year with a bang....fellow travelers with the first site to inspire us on this journey just a year ago, and with so many other homesteading bloggers we're honored to know and learn from. What joy!
Those first exposures coincided with our first posts here detailing our slow but deliberate journey towards a better life...a life deliberately chosen, worked for, researched, experimented with, goofed up at times, and learned from. (Yes, I know that sentence is an atrocious array of dangling participles, gah)
I realized today that my first Blog-O-Versary has come and gone...it's been over a year, Yay!!
We're "green" alright...green as in new to almost everything. But look, we've been trying for a year, and it's been GOOD :) We've learned a lot of things NOT to do, many things that work for us, learned the value of waiting (not the most patient in that department, I must say), of teamwork towards goals.
We've paid off debts! We've begun seriously collecting for our Someday Orchard, have gone from store-bought milk to REAL milk from grassfed Jerseys, are learning to deydrate fruits and vegetables, have tried new recipes, narrowed down a bunch of house plans to a fairly clear set now, have spent countless days and weeks looking for land, and have met wonderful online and in-person friends on their own wonderful journeys.
It's inspired us to turn to the wisdom of our forbears for traditional ways of being good stewards of the earth and our time. It's inspired many transitions in how we view and value our health and our eating. It's wrought an appreciation for the way God made things to live in balance, and an awareness of just where our food comes from...how it gets from pasture or garden to table, if done naturally.
It's also made us aware of the imbalance that has snowballed in our society, from which it is difficult to extricate oneself without some really deliberate effort and hopefully a sense of humor, as these efforts are viewed by many around us as being kooky.
We've voraciously read related books, magazines, and blogs. We've turned back to the Bible, also, for ancient guidance in areas related to animal care and agriculture. We've kept our minds open to innovations. We've tried figuring out ways to adapt a slower-food-and-life mindset to today's "requirements" of cars, commuting, and travel. We've done without a TV, and cleared our minds.
We've begun valuing each other's strengths and weaknesses...our humanity... and truly appreciating that fragile and wonderful relationship called Family. We've begun finding alternatives to the things on which we've become dependent...cleaning supplies, entertainment, groceries from supermarkets, clothing and cheap import products warehoused for consumers --and all from China. Overthrowing the dependence on those things in our own family's life has been something of a revolution...and we, the renegades. The America we love has (sadly!) embraced an appetite for a culture of Junk Consumerism that rivals heroin addiction...more is never enough, and never satisfies....and eventually destroys real life. But this is so prevalent, that we've experienced some outright hostility at the suggestion that there is a better way, a way as individulistic as whomever will try it in areas of consumerism and health.
One thing we don't want to presume to ever be...experts. We don't like holier-than-thou folks who stump for their way being THE way, with self-righteous dictates. We LOVE the diversity we see with what we blanket-term "homesteaders," and we're neither righteous liberals nor righteous conservatives, whatever either of those labels mean. We're individualists, and appreciate that in others.
So on this website, you'll not find us denigrating those who stretch a box of store-bought macaroni and cheese to make affordable casseroles, even if our own path is documented here as taking us a completely different direction. First of all, we've been there and we may "stay there" in different ways. In other ways, we're pursuing what works for us, and many of those areas need improvement and diligence. We won't judge what's on your plate, and ask you not to judge what's on ours :) There is so much to share and learn, and what we most value is folks who think for themselves...as my husband tells me often, he loves an opinionated woman (he says that while looking at me, usually after I've expressed a strong opinion..ha!) We both love opinionated and original people!
Areas we're trying to improve right now, besides debt retirement, focus greatly on cutting the apron strings of dependency on the WalMarts of the world, the stupormarkets (oops! ;-)), and in getting healthier. And in trimming our monetary dependency WAY WAY back, till we're eventually as self-sufficient as possible.
Our world concerns are born here in our own backyard on a small scale. It is hard for me to visualize battling for less oil dependency if I am having to commute two hours roundtrip daily just for us to make the house note. Solution? Get rid of the house note? It has to be done wisely...and so we have a plan and are trying. And that plan happens to include keeping the commuting job till we get debts paid off..and so, for the moment, the gasoline guzzling continues. See the dilemmas of waiting while goals are being chipped away at? We live with it by being easy on ourselves and congratulating ourselves for small victories, and this is our attitude towards others as well.
I thank anyone who comes here to share thoughts on the process and on any interest related to bettering ourselves or the world around us. The sharing, the ideas, the continuing conversations...they are FUN!
What a wonderful community to be a part of! We LOVE this community, we LOVE you guys!
Happy Blog-O-Versary to this haphazard journal of our past year's efforts, and a BIG THANK YOU to those of you who are such an inspiration to us! If you're on our sidebar blogroll list, you're a fantastic bunch from whom we've learned! Each of you is someone we respect and admire as our teacher and friend.
A very special thanks to Path to Freedom, who recently included us on their Fellow Travelers list. Their Little Homestead in the City journal is their updated site with even more details, how-tos, and updates to lose yourself in. Thank you, Dervaeses! This is a wonderful honor, and really caps off our first year with a bang....fellow travelers with the first site to inspire us on this journey just a year ago, and with so many other homesteading bloggers we're honored to know and learn from. What joy!
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Land Hunt Laundry List...and the State Fair!
Tomorrow I take this computer in for a tune-up, so the blogroll update will have to wait a few days more...
We're off for a week!!!! J and I actually got the same days off, so we're taking off...off to the county where we are hoping to finalizing something sometime regarding getting land. I am always really energized when we can get away for a change of scenery. One of those days will be spent driving a different direction and trying to have a day at the state fair...hooray!!
The State Fair is one of my favorite things in the world, ever since the days in my early childhood, when I lived in Memphis, and my parents would take me to the Mid South Fair. Every year we went, and I still remember it from a child's-eye view. The lights of the midway, the music, the aromas of kiosk food, having to decide among candied apples, salt water taffy, cotton candy (in pink or blue), corn on the cob, or frozen chocolate dipped bananas...all of it added up to a childhood sensory nirvana. There were the cattle, the goats, the poultry, the rabbits...and the pony ride! (anything to do with horses had me mesmerized). And there always was the Budweiser Clydesdale team, especially massive when you're a kid of only 5 or 6. There were the 4H exibits, the canned goods, the science projects, the spinning engines and turbines. There was bunting and cinderblock. There were miles of people and miles of parked cars and miles for the bathrooms.
The Memphis fair was in the fall, usually just corresponding with a dip in the temperatures. Mom would manage to get my sister and me to sit still on a stool long enough for a woman in a booth to snip our silhouettes out of black paper on white, to give as holiday gifts for the grandparents later in the year. When the day was over, we'd collapse on the cold naugahyde seats of the old Chevy-2 and sleep all the way back home.
I'd never been back to a fair, any fair, until last year we went to a nearby county fair. It was SO much fun! When J proposed we get away and sneak off to the State Fair this year, I began counting the days. Now, one day left!!
We'll do a lot of footwork on the other days elsewhere...things that can't get done from a distance and require going to county departments and asking questions and gathering specific information. Hopefully we'll get some more pictures along the way, too. All related to the properties we're trying to get. Oh, how we're trying to get something finalized!
Just getting out of town feels like movement, and a vacation. The hotel has a breakfast bar and if I want to sleep in one day and just be a lump and watch cable shows on TV, that's a novelty, since we don't get any TV reception here. Mostly, I hope we get to tromp around on some properties and commune with the wildlife and get worn out, and then recharge and do it some more. I SO love being in the country. Land, fair, hotel, no dishes to wash...oh yeah, I can handle it :) So woohoo, here we go!!
The computer will be on vacation at the repair shop in the meantime. I should be back here in 7 to 10 days, replete with corn on the cob, fair and land photos, and a bunch of forms and county this-and-that to read over. I hope everyone has a great week!
I'm jazzed!!
We're off for a week!!!! J and I actually got the same days off, so we're taking off...off to the county where we are hoping to finalizing something sometime regarding getting land. I am always really energized when we can get away for a change of scenery. One of those days will be spent driving a different direction and trying to have a day at the state fair...hooray!!
The State Fair is one of my favorite things in the world, ever since the days in my early childhood, when I lived in Memphis, and my parents would take me to the Mid South Fair. Every year we went, and I still remember it from a child's-eye view. The lights of the midway, the music, the aromas of kiosk food, having to decide among candied apples, salt water taffy, cotton candy (in pink or blue), corn on the cob, or frozen chocolate dipped bananas...all of it added up to a childhood sensory nirvana. There were the cattle, the goats, the poultry, the rabbits...and the pony ride! (anything to do with horses had me mesmerized). And there always was the Budweiser Clydesdale team, especially massive when you're a kid of only 5 or 6. There were the 4H exibits, the canned goods, the science projects, the spinning engines and turbines. There was bunting and cinderblock. There were miles of people and miles of parked cars and miles for the bathrooms.
The Memphis fair was in the fall, usually just corresponding with a dip in the temperatures. Mom would manage to get my sister and me to sit still on a stool long enough for a woman in a booth to snip our silhouettes out of black paper on white, to give as holiday gifts for the grandparents later in the year. When the day was over, we'd collapse on the cold naugahyde seats of the old Chevy-2 and sleep all the way back home.
I'd never been back to a fair, any fair, until last year we went to a nearby county fair. It was SO much fun! When J proposed we get away and sneak off to the State Fair this year, I began counting the days. Now, one day left!!
We'll do a lot of footwork on the other days elsewhere...things that can't get done from a distance and require going to county departments and asking questions and gathering specific information. Hopefully we'll get some more pictures along the way, too. All related to the properties we're trying to get. Oh, how we're trying to get something finalized!
Just getting out of town feels like movement, and a vacation. The hotel has a breakfast bar and if I want to sleep in one day and just be a lump and watch cable shows on TV, that's a novelty, since we don't get any TV reception here. Mostly, I hope we get to tromp around on some properties and commune with the wildlife and get worn out, and then recharge and do it some more. I SO love being in the country. Land, fair, hotel, no dishes to wash...oh yeah, I can handle it :) So woohoo, here we go!!
The computer will be on vacation at the repair shop in the meantime. I should be back here in 7 to 10 days, replete with corn on the cob, fair and land photos, and a bunch of forms and county this-and-that to read over. I hope everyone has a great week!
I'm jazzed!!
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
It Ain't Over till...
it's over? Or till the Fat Lady sings?
If I thought that last one would work, I'd be doing my very best Mrs. Miller rendition!
Don't you HATE having to exercise CAUTION in being soooooooo sooooooo SOOOOOO close to seeing something wonderful, something that has occupied your dreams and prayers and much much work, begin to near completion??
I won't spill, but I'll hint...
The land-acquiring process for us (and all our various confines of money and such), has gone something like this:
Drive, dig, research, more driving, days and days and weekends of driving, dig dig dig, eliminate the impossibilities, get a little down in the dumps, shake off the dumps, get inspired, repeat entire process several times, window of opportunity, hopefulness!, more research, more eliminations, countless conversations, interruptions, more interruptions, will this ever happen?, possibility!!, N-E-G-O-T-I-A-T-E, and
SPLASH!!! Big dash of cold water as this particular ALMOST HAPPENED doesnt.
But we're resilient, ever vigilant, completely dogged and determined. We pray. We keep on keeping on because...well because the alternative is to live a life less in sync with our life goals. We rack it all up to God's perfect timing, which it is. All the Not Yets are hard to be thankful for, for at least the first few moments after they don't work out.
There have been a LOT of those, but the anticipation builds and so does the excitement...if, after all that process, there might be a couple of possibilities that HAVENT fallen through yet.
The more the suspense builds, the more we're invested in hoping that the dream will soon be concrete. Hope swells! And dread...of it falling through again...well, that's what tempers my ability to leap to big whoops of joy just now...I just can't till...um...the Fat Lady Sings.
I hope she's warming up. I don't even care what she sounds like.
But if you hear a loud and unusual noise coming from this part of the world, and wonder if it's a sign of the Last Days, it's likely just ME...in the event that ONE OF THESE THINGS works out!!! Me, not having to be cryptic, and careful, and reticent about REALLY SEEING THIS HAPPEN, FOR REAL!!! Me, at the top of my lungs, being unrestrained and LOUDLY thankful, for all the world to hear, and not necessarily singing in tune!
And until then, I do the necessary homework involved...
and
hope
and
sit
on my fingers
figuratively
counting the minutes till we Know For Sure
or days
or weeks
and so on
till it's time to know something and I can run wild like a screaming heathen and tell the whole world.
And till then the Fat Lady waits. And hums :)
Plus, when the day comes that it's actually "over," it'll really just have begun, eh? :)
If I thought that last one would work, I'd be doing my very best Mrs. Miller rendition!
Don't you HATE having to exercise CAUTION in being soooooooo sooooooo SOOOOOO close to seeing something wonderful, something that has occupied your dreams and prayers and much much work, begin to near completion??
I won't spill, but I'll hint...
The land-acquiring process for us (and all our various confines of money and such), has gone something like this:
Drive, dig, research, more driving, days and days and weekends of driving, dig dig dig, eliminate the impossibilities, get a little down in the dumps, shake off the dumps, get inspired, repeat entire process several times, window of opportunity, hopefulness!, more research, more eliminations, countless conversations, interruptions, more interruptions, will this ever happen?, possibility!!, N-E-G-O-T-I-A-T-E, and
SPLASH!!! Big dash of cold water as this particular ALMOST HAPPENED doesnt.
But we're resilient, ever vigilant, completely dogged and determined. We pray. We keep on keeping on because...well because the alternative is to live a life less in sync with our life goals. We rack it all up to God's perfect timing, which it is. All the Not Yets are hard to be thankful for, for at least the first few moments after they don't work out.
There have been a LOT of those, but the anticipation builds and so does the excitement...if, after all that process, there might be a couple of possibilities that HAVENT fallen through yet.
The more the suspense builds, the more we're invested in hoping that the dream will soon be concrete. Hope swells! And dread...of it falling through again...well, that's what tempers my ability to leap to big whoops of joy just now...I just can't till...um...the Fat Lady Sings.
I hope she's warming up. I don't even care what she sounds like.
But if you hear a loud and unusual noise coming from this part of the world, and wonder if it's a sign of the Last Days, it's likely just ME...in the event that ONE OF THESE THINGS works out!!! Me, not having to be cryptic, and careful, and reticent about REALLY SEEING THIS HAPPEN, FOR REAL!!! Me, at the top of my lungs, being unrestrained and LOUDLY thankful, for all the world to hear, and not necessarily singing in tune!
And until then, I do the necessary homework involved...
and
hope
and
sit
on my fingers
figuratively
counting the minutes till we Know For Sure
or days
or weeks
and so on
till it's time to know something and I can run wild like a screaming heathen and tell the whole world.
And till then the Fat Lady waits. And hums :)
Plus, when the day comes that it's actually "over," it'll really just have begun, eh? :)
Sunday, January 13, 2008
On Productivity
I like to feel like I'm making headway in some real areas, or I begin feeling restless. It seems like the recap of 2007 was a series of major adjustments. And boy, did it ever fly by! It also involved major events in the lives of those close to me, namely my daughter. I love being invested in her life, and that has come into play in a much more concentrated way now that she nears the completion of her LPN program. How very much hope, expectancy, scheduling, and finances have gone into our team effort of her arrival at this point.
I'm trying very much to back off and allow her to make her own decisions, mistakes, and express her personality without my input so much, or at least my censure. Since she lives at home, and since we are pretty comfortable with the structure of our relationships and how our household runs, R's becoming a woman comes with its testing of our personal comfort zones...some of which are the better for a shake-up and others that are the product of wisdom she, as yet, finds confining. She's itching for independence while still needing to be here at home for economic reasons. We are seeing this as a transition stage for her...and for us.
We weathered the "age 18" phase, where suddenly she felt she was given a magic pass to have no expectations placed on her altogether while still living here. I'm chuckling as I remember HOW many times that phrase was used "but I'm 18 now! you can't tell me what to do any more." Well, the "ones what pays the car insurance and hold the car title, pays the mortgage and bills and all the food" continue to have the highest voting share ;-) After a couple of Expectation Shakedowns, a general peace ensued. But the three of us are expectant of a change happening in the next two months, and we're all pretty excited about the transition.
For those following events from early last year when I first started this blog, I may have mentioned the grueling schedule we all teamed up to help with for the past three years. During R's last two years of high school, she was bused (bussed?) an hour away every school day to her nursing program classes, and then midday, bused back to her high school where she took her regular classes, many of the honors classes. Because she and I moved here only three years ago, upon my marriage to J, the relocation itself had been quite a life change. That was right after the series of hurricanes had devastated this area. MUCH happened during that time.
For R, she had to make a new start in a completely new environment, late in high school, and find new friends here locally. And because of a glitch in her credit transfers, she had to take a second semester of Latin 2 which was not offered at THIS school...so she took it online. And it was QUITE difficult and intensive.
So, that said, at one given point, when she was not yet old enough to drive, one of US would get her to the bus stop by (ugh) 5:15 AM, wait with her till it arrived, and go back home to catch a few minutes more sleep before the alarm went off. But R got herself up and her own breakfast, was ready on time, traveled on the bus for an hour to nursing classes, listened to lectures and such, at her lunch on the bus back to school, took her afternoon classes there, caught the bus that stopped near the house, and then did homework. And took dance classes. And talked on the phone. And managed to have her first official boyfriend. All at the same time.
We felt this was a heinous amount of work for a daughter to be put under, but frankly, she seemed to thrive more with more challenges than with too much time on her hands...she is easily bored. She really began to thrive in her nursing classes. And during those two years, we two parents flew her regularly to her Dad's (my ex) out-of-state for visits, paid for all her fees, went to orientations, filled out scholarship and school paperwork, ran the Parent Taxi, and logged 50 hours of passenger seat time as she fufilled her driving practice hours necessary to get her drivers license. The first time out, we were all together, and she was still very nervous about braking. She braked in slow motion, trying not to jerk the car. We all had a very memorable moment (NOW we laugh, THEN we didnt!) when we were all in the car together and she was practice driving through the narrow streets of the neighborhood we lived in at that time...there is enough room for a full-sized car on the streets, so if anyone oncoming passes you in their vehicle, both vehicles have to hug the sides of the street. Which is ok...if no one else is on the side of the street. Long story short, R nearly creamed an older Russian lady who was getting her mail out of her mailbox. The noise inside our vehicle as she approached, and another car approached was "R, stop the car....R...Stop the Car.......R, oh my gosh just STOP THE CARRRR.....(then at yelling pitch) PUT ON THE BRAKE NOWWWWW!!!!!" It was like one of those slo mo dreams where you just can't seem to speed things up fast enough. ..lol!
We survived the driving lessons, and the boyfriend, and the phases. And for three years it's all been building to this point...the completion of her LPN program. Yes, she'll go on to more schooling now in college...her courses are college level now. But she'll have done this major thing, and I'm so PROUD of her! She's so proud she did this, too...that's what makes it enjoyable for me. She loves caring for people, and she is good, and is learning a lot.
Why have I posted this here among the homesteading stuff? Well, it's the chronicle of our lives, and our lives have had this as a major focus daily for these years. As we've wanted to relocate and find our land and build and put in our gardens and transition away from where we are, we've had to balance the timing of everything with the committment of helping R complete this goal...or she may never have had the chance to again. It has required a sizeable financial committment, too, weekly. Daily she has used my vehicle for her commute, now that she's not in school and can't have accesss to the bus. We're nowhere near a regular public bus route, and our city is a considerable drive to anywhere else. Gasoline has skyrocketed, meals are bought on location while she is doing her clinicals at the area hospitals, etc. And her bio dad (my ex) contributes nothing as far as financial support. So essentially, my job right now pays for R.
I have no complaints! I'm grateful! Here's what's about to change...
As of a few weeks from now, R will get a job and begin taking over most or all of her budget needs. She will sit for the state exam...and we're certainly praying she will pass on the first try! She will shoulder the responsibility of applying for her grants and such, unless she asks for and needs our help, and will sign up for her own classes in college needed as prereqs to the R.N. program she wants to take there.
Those may not seem like major changes to others, but in our world, it gives momentum and some more breathing room to our move elsewhere...namely to land. Where we were not free to immediately relocate before, now we're free. And though she might choose to live with us as long as she needs (we're always available), her scholarship will transfer to any state or private school in our state. We're not tied to this location any more! :) :) Also, we can now make faster progress in our continuing attempt to pay off our debts. We can see the progress so far, but what has seemed like a crawl will feel like a leap, soon!
I'm not looking forward to the eventual empty nest...fear creeps into my heart whenever I think about it. But I love seeing R becoming the woman she is, and I know in the right time, that will be my comfort seeing her off into her life. I'm a little beset with fears lately, namely because with the hours I'm working at night, I'm seeing less of R and less of my husband. Two days out of the week, he and I don't see each other at all, though we talk on the phone. I hadn't thought of myself as so attached, but I guess I'm getting old and set in my ways :) I really value the time I have with each of them so much right now. I long to be productive in the things we peruse and dream of regarding gardening and such...the seed catalogues tease me, and the McMurray Hatchery catalog has my favorite chicken breeds well-dogeared. We have made another stab of progress at the red tape process necessary in pursuing the particular acreage we're hoping will be ours, and we await news on a second under negotiation. So many have fallen through at this point, but the work we're doing right now has the possibility of ensuring permanence if we can push through to the end. Negotiating, I suppose, is not just an art, but it's work. I can't give details yet, but as soon as I can announce anything, you'll hear it here first!
Anyway, much is changing, yet I'm not feeling productive. I'm feeling jet lagged from working nights part of the week and trying to be up days the other days of the week to keep meals and housework and such on an even keel for everyone. But mostly I'm dragging around, which makes me feel somewhat blah and out of sorts, and wonder if I'm losing steam in general. But my conclusion, for now, is that this, too, shall pass and change is a constant, and 2008 has many new things ahead.
I hope to have some better perspective soon. I'm loathe to start new projects when my tail end's dragging...I simply am craving time with my family.
Hopefully, J and I will get a really big perk soon....a vacation!! We've never had a honeymoon, and during everyone else's holidays this past fall and winter of 2007, we worked straight through, especially since so many other employees quit at the last minute. I think we'll try in a month or two to have a couple days together, just us two, somewhere a few hours away. My brain needs it. I need some juice for all the wonderful things ahead :)
Here are some things I'm hoping to be teaching myself in the "Meantime" part of this waiting process, since we arent putting in a garden till we have land:
1. Soapmaking, including experimentation with soapberries/soapnuts
2. Making homemade bath salts from a recipe I saw in one of the recent homesteading magazines
3. Making and using my own household cleaning products, for ease, eliminating chemicals, eliminating dependency on buying them from the store, and to experiment and find what works best for us
4. Making a clothesline and line drying most of our clothing
5. Making our own homemade wine vinegars
6. Making our own homemade yogurt
7. Making handmade paper with original designs
8. Getting back to artwork
9. Compiling list of edible landscaping plants, unusual and edible fruits, and plants that thrive in our Zone that have multiple uses
10. Compiling list of the vegetables we're most attracted to growing for our Zone, and their companion plants and flowers, and a general idea of proximities, such as which DONT do well near each other, so we can plot these things easier when we get our acreage
11. Canning on a very small scale, such as pickles, with a hot water bath canner
12. Shredding all our junk mail and used paper and storing in bags till we can use it for bedding or in compost, or for incorporating into handmade papers
13. Cleaning and organizing all areas of our house and storage
14. Eliminating ALL unnecessary possessions we have stored...the stuff that just collects and could be sold or donated
15. Incorporating new recipes into my regular cooking...I'm in a rut.
16. Trying a few simple Indian and Mediterranean recipes
17. Making our own alfalfa and other edible sprouts to eat regularly
18. Walking every day and cutting out most of our white flours and sugars, substituting the healthier ones
19. This should be first on the list, but reading the Bible daily and learning Hebrew.
20. Getting enough rest and enough time with family. Laughing more and being irritable less! :)
I will say the one thing I have been doing more of is catching up with long-distance friends I haven't spoken with in a long time. I'm receiving calls on a regular basis as some life events happen to those I love, and I'm trying to be a good friend-across-the-miles when sometimes the only way I can do that is just to listen. Hey, THAT I can do :)
Ah well, enough ramble for tonight...better get to bed so tomorrow I can be...um...productive ;-)
I'm trying very much to back off and allow her to make her own decisions, mistakes, and express her personality without my input so much, or at least my censure. Since she lives at home, and since we are pretty comfortable with the structure of our relationships and how our household runs, R's becoming a woman comes with its testing of our personal comfort zones...some of which are the better for a shake-up and others that are the product of wisdom she, as yet, finds confining. She's itching for independence while still needing to be here at home for economic reasons. We are seeing this as a transition stage for her...and for us.
We weathered the "age 18" phase, where suddenly she felt she was given a magic pass to have no expectations placed on her altogether while still living here. I'm chuckling as I remember HOW many times that phrase was used "but I'm 18 now! you can't tell me what to do any more." Well, the "ones what pays the car insurance and hold the car title, pays the mortgage and bills and all the food" continue to have the highest voting share ;-) After a couple of Expectation Shakedowns, a general peace ensued. But the three of us are expectant of a change happening in the next two months, and we're all pretty excited about the transition.
For those following events from early last year when I first started this blog, I may have mentioned the grueling schedule we all teamed up to help with for the past three years. During R's last two years of high school, she was bused (bussed?) an hour away every school day to her nursing program classes, and then midday, bused back to her high school where she took her regular classes, many of the honors classes. Because she and I moved here only three years ago, upon my marriage to J, the relocation itself had been quite a life change. That was right after the series of hurricanes had devastated this area. MUCH happened during that time.
For R, she had to make a new start in a completely new environment, late in high school, and find new friends here locally. And because of a glitch in her credit transfers, she had to take a second semester of Latin 2 which was not offered at THIS school...so she took it online. And it was QUITE difficult and intensive.
So, that said, at one given point, when she was not yet old enough to drive, one of US would get her to the bus stop by (ugh) 5:15 AM, wait with her till it arrived, and go back home to catch a few minutes more sleep before the alarm went off. But R got herself up and her own breakfast, was ready on time, traveled on the bus for an hour to nursing classes, listened to lectures and such, at her lunch on the bus back to school, took her afternoon classes there, caught the bus that stopped near the house, and then did homework. And took dance classes. And talked on the phone. And managed to have her first official boyfriend. All at the same time.
We felt this was a heinous amount of work for a daughter to be put under, but frankly, she seemed to thrive more with more challenges than with too much time on her hands...she is easily bored. She really began to thrive in her nursing classes. And during those two years, we two parents flew her regularly to her Dad's (my ex) out-of-state for visits, paid for all her fees, went to orientations, filled out scholarship and school paperwork, ran the Parent Taxi, and logged 50 hours of passenger seat time as she fufilled her driving practice hours necessary to get her drivers license. The first time out, we were all together, and she was still very nervous about braking. She braked in slow motion, trying not to jerk the car. We all had a very memorable moment (NOW we laugh, THEN we didnt!) when we were all in the car together and she was practice driving through the narrow streets of the neighborhood we lived in at that time...there is enough room for a full-sized car on the streets, so if anyone oncoming passes you in their vehicle, both vehicles have to hug the sides of the street. Which is ok...if no one else is on the side of the street. Long story short, R nearly creamed an older Russian lady who was getting her mail out of her mailbox. The noise inside our vehicle as she approached, and another car approached was "R, stop the car....R...Stop the Car.......R, oh my gosh just STOP THE CARRRR.....(then at yelling pitch) PUT ON THE BRAKE NOWWWWW!!!!!" It was like one of those slo mo dreams where you just can't seem to speed things up fast enough. ..lol!
We survived the driving lessons, and the boyfriend, and the phases. And for three years it's all been building to this point...the completion of her LPN program. Yes, she'll go on to more schooling now in college...her courses are college level now. But she'll have done this major thing, and I'm so PROUD of her! She's so proud she did this, too...that's what makes it enjoyable for me. She loves caring for people, and she is good, and is learning a lot.
Why have I posted this here among the homesteading stuff? Well, it's the chronicle of our lives, and our lives have had this as a major focus daily for these years. As we've wanted to relocate and find our land and build and put in our gardens and transition away from where we are, we've had to balance the timing of everything with the committment of helping R complete this goal...or she may never have had the chance to again. It has required a sizeable financial committment, too, weekly. Daily she has used my vehicle for her commute, now that she's not in school and can't have accesss to the bus. We're nowhere near a regular public bus route, and our city is a considerable drive to anywhere else. Gasoline has skyrocketed, meals are bought on location while she is doing her clinicals at the area hospitals, etc. And her bio dad (my ex) contributes nothing as far as financial support. So essentially, my job right now pays for R.
I have no complaints! I'm grateful! Here's what's about to change...
As of a few weeks from now, R will get a job and begin taking over most or all of her budget needs. She will sit for the state exam...and we're certainly praying she will pass on the first try! She will shoulder the responsibility of applying for her grants and such, unless she asks for and needs our help, and will sign up for her own classes in college needed as prereqs to the R.N. program she wants to take there.
Those may not seem like major changes to others, but in our world, it gives momentum and some more breathing room to our move elsewhere...namely to land. Where we were not free to immediately relocate before, now we're free. And though she might choose to live with us as long as she needs (we're always available), her scholarship will transfer to any state or private school in our state. We're not tied to this location any more! :) :) Also, we can now make faster progress in our continuing attempt to pay off our debts. We can see the progress so far, but what has seemed like a crawl will feel like a leap, soon!
I'm not looking forward to the eventual empty nest...fear creeps into my heart whenever I think about it. But I love seeing R becoming the woman she is, and I know in the right time, that will be my comfort seeing her off into her life. I'm a little beset with fears lately, namely because with the hours I'm working at night, I'm seeing less of R and less of my husband. Two days out of the week, he and I don't see each other at all, though we talk on the phone. I hadn't thought of myself as so attached, but I guess I'm getting old and set in my ways :) I really value the time I have with each of them so much right now. I long to be productive in the things we peruse and dream of regarding gardening and such...the seed catalogues tease me, and the McMurray Hatchery catalog has my favorite chicken breeds well-dogeared. We have made another stab of progress at the red tape process necessary in pursuing the particular acreage we're hoping will be ours, and we await news on a second under negotiation. So many have fallen through at this point, but the work we're doing right now has the possibility of ensuring permanence if we can push through to the end. Negotiating, I suppose, is not just an art, but it's work. I can't give details yet, but as soon as I can announce anything, you'll hear it here first!
Anyway, much is changing, yet I'm not feeling productive. I'm feeling jet lagged from working nights part of the week and trying to be up days the other days of the week to keep meals and housework and such on an even keel for everyone. But mostly I'm dragging around, which makes me feel somewhat blah and out of sorts, and wonder if I'm losing steam in general. But my conclusion, for now, is that this, too, shall pass and change is a constant, and 2008 has many new things ahead.
I hope to have some better perspective soon. I'm loathe to start new projects when my tail end's dragging...I simply am craving time with my family.
Hopefully, J and I will get a really big perk soon....a vacation!! We've never had a honeymoon, and during everyone else's holidays this past fall and winter of 2007, we worked straight through, especially since so many other employees quit at the last minute. I think we'll try in a month or two to have a couple days together, just us two, somewhere a few hours away. My brain needs it. I need some juice for all the wonderful things ahead :)
Here are some things I'm hoping to be teaching myself in the "Meantime" part of this waiting process, since we arent putting in a garden till we have land:
1. Soapmaking, including experimentation with soapberries/soapnuts
2. Making homemade bath salts from a recipe I saw in one of the recent homesteading magazines
3. Making and using my own household cleaning products, for ease, eliminating chemicals, eliminating dependency on buying them from the store, and to experiment and find what works best for us
4. Making a clothesline and line drying most of our clothing
5. Making our own homemade wine vinegars
6. Making our own homemade yogurt
7. Making handmade paper with original designs
8. Getting back to artwork
9. Compiling list of edible landscaping plants, unusual and edible fruits, and plants that thrive in our Zone that have multiple uses
10. Compiling list of the vegetables we're most attracted to growing for our Zone, and their companion plants and flowers, and a general idea of proximities, such as which DONT do well near each other, so we can plot these things easier when we get our acreage
11. Canning on a very small scale, such as pickles, with a hot water bath canner
12. Shredding all our junk mail and used paper and storing in bags till we can use it for bedding or in compost, or for incorporating into handmade papers
13. Cleaning and organizing all areas of our house and storage
14. Eliminating ALL unnecessary possessions we have stored...the stuff that just collects and could be sold or donated
15. Incorporating new recipes into my regular cooking...I'm in a rut.
16. Trying a few simple Indian and Mediterranean recipes
17. Making our own alfalfa and other edible sprouts to eat regularly
18. Walking every day and cutting out most of our white flours and sugars, substituting the healthier ones
19. This should be first on the list, but reading the Bible daily and learning Hebrew.
20. Getting enough rest and enough time with family. Laughing more and being irritable less! :)
I will say the one thing I have been doing more of is catching up with long-distance friends I haven't spoken with in a long time. I'm receiving calls on a regular basis as some life events happen to those I love, and I'm trying to be a good friend-across-the-miles when sometimes the only way I can do that is just to listen. Hey, THAT I can do :)
Ah well, enough ramble for tonight...better get to bed so tomorrow I can be...um...productive ;-)
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Monday's Adventure: Top Tropicals
Wow! The stars were aligned or something, but J and I had the same days off for a change, woo hoo!
Monday was our big chance for a day trip, so we looked up a place we've recently been wanting to find...a nursery specializing in trees and exotic plants hardy to our area, especially fruiting plants and fragrance plants. We're not looking for something delicate, but rather something that will both weather the extreme heat and some of the vagaries of the winter thermometer (though this year has so far been quite warm).
Another reason we wanted to find this place is because of the happy coincidence of its being within driving distance, and their carrying a tree we've been very curious about, the Moringa tree. It's a tree I saw mentioned in various articles online related to permaculture and the use of trees as fodder for livestock during times of drought. I'm really excited to know that trees can be used as feed during lean times...the branches and greenery of willows, poplars, and many other trees and shrubs...even holly. Moringa is a tree that seems to have traditional uses for nearly every part of the tree. It thrives despite adverse weather and environmental conditions, can be used as fodder, its many parts used medicinally or as food for humans, and its flowers stir-fried to impart a mushroom taste. Interesting! Our web search for a US supplier turned up this nursery I just mentioned, Top Tropicals, less than a day's drive for us!
Getting there was fun. They refer to their location as the "Tropical Boonies," which is just what is was :) The directions include instructions that read "you can try to Google this location, but the directions are WRONG, so ignore them," and "make a left hand turn at the unnamed dirt road just past the RV park on the right." My kind of adventure!
Then you follow the signs...
Monday was our big chance for a day trip, so we looked up a place we've recently been wanting to find...a nursery specializing in trees and exotic plants hardy to our area, especially fruiting plants and fragrance plants. We're not looking for something delicate, but rather something that will both weather the extreme heat and some of the vagaries of the winter thermometer (though this year has so far been quite warm).
Another reason we wanted to find this place is because of the happy coincidence of its being within driving distance, and their carrying a tree we've been very curious about, the Moringa tree. It's a tree I saw mentioned in various articles online related to permaculture and the use of trees as fodder for livestock during times of drought. I'm really excited to know that trees can be used as feed during lean times...the branches and greenery of willows, poplars, and many other trees and shrubs...even holly. Moringa is a tree that seems to have traditional uses for nearly every part of the tree. It thrives despite adverse weather and environmental conditions, can be used as fodder, its many parts used medicinally or as food for humans, and its flowers stir-fried to impart a mushroom taste. Interesting! Our web search for a US supplier turned up this nursery I just mentioned, Top Tropicals, less than a day's drive for us!
Getting there was fun. They refer to their location as the "Tropical Boonies," which is just what is was :) The directions include instructions that read "you can try to Google this location, but the directions are WRONG, so ignore them," and "make a left hand turn at the unnamed dirt road just past the RV park on the right." My kind of adventure!
Then you follow the signs...
This was the first of several signs. And it was a dirt road. Miles and miles and miles. And every so often another sign similar to this one.
Till you get to this sign. Don't be fooled by the illusion of other addresses being pointed to. It's still out in the boonies. It's a very very bad picture. Which is what happens when you're taking it through the windshield of a moving vehicle, pointing right into the noon glare of the sun. Sign on right points to further promises of finding the place. More dirt road to come...
Aha! Another bad shot, but we found the place!
We were met by one of the owners, Mike, and had the FUN of getting to amble around the place as much as we wanted, wandering among the fruiting, flowering, and fragrant plants. (To read Mike's and his wife Tatiana's story, click here.) Not that we actually knew what most things were...there were many plants with which we're unfamiliar. We'll have to research the web site info, since most of them are described well in the online catalog of plants in stock. There is also a wish list for plants not in stock, and the catalog list is much more comprehensive than even the many plants currently on site. Many seeds can also be ordered via their website.
I was really drawn to the fragrance shrubs and trees, ones I've only ever heard of in books, but never seen. There were the Ylang Ylang, the Frangipani, Joy perfume tree, Orchid trees, all sorts of Jasmines, and many I've never heard of...with exquisite frangrances I wish could be adequately described. Oh, heavenly, even with the dip in temps to the 60s! It seems these folks purchased this 20 acres in the past couple years, and have really put a lot of work into the place in a short amount of time. Pics on their site show it nearly a marsh, with standing water in a lot of places, before they put in their two ponds. They've planted fruiting and fragrance plants all around and hope to be getting a harvest next year. They also put down a lot of mulch and compost to improve the sandy soil. Now there is a wonderful diversity of growth everywhere, and we were so delighted to notice bees humming among even the low grass and the weed growth, which has flowers of its own. It just did my heart good...it's been so long since I've seen that many bees working such a big area. A joy!
They had an amazing selection of mangoes and harder-to-find trees...too many to list all of them since it takes up four or five full pages, but just to give you an idea, we saw quinces, loquats, lychees, lemons, limes, kumquats, sapodillas, tamarinds, natal plums, barbados cherries, persimmons, strawberry trees, breadfruit, guavas, figs, durians, papayas, chirimoya, and my husband's absolute favorite, mamey (pronounced mah-MAY). Here is his VERY happy face upon discovering THOSE...
We even saw coffee plants, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla...such fun!
We tried to exercise some self-restraint, which wasn't easy to do, and attempted to limit ourselves to two plants...one obviously the moringa. They had several of those in stock, so we snagged one, and J wanted to get a mango, so we got the Carrie variety, after asking Mike for a recommendation. Of course ALL the varieties of mangoes were tempting, and making a selection was difficult, but Mike said the Carrie variety is such that it will never be carried in a supermarket...it simply is too full of nectar and too juicy to survive shipping and handling. In fact, they are best picked straight from the tree, because if they fall to the ground, they are so full of juice that they burst open. And they taste out-of-this world, or so he said. We were convinced. A Carrie made its way home with us, along with a Moringa. Now we have them huddled next to the three papayas J has potted in the backyard.
Here are the papayas and the moringa. The papayas have the pointed leaves and the moringa has the more delicate looking leaves and the white flowers on a very slender stem.
Here is a close-up of the maringa blooms. The sturdy green pole thingy is what I have it staked to.
Here are the leaves of the moringa, and the stem, which will one day be a sturdy trunk...I hope! We were told it will look wimpy till we get it into the ground permanently, at which time it will flourish and be really lush and fast-growing.
Here's the Carrie Mango. I hope it survives our amateurish beginning attempts long enough to get planted on LAND that we HAVE...hopefully sooner than later.
Update on that score...we have the good fortune, or rather blessing, of having narrowed our search target down from a region to a county and now to a specific area. I can't elaborate on how we're attempting to acquire acreage there, or give any more details just now, but they will be forthcoming if we're successful. We're much farther along than we've ever been! One transaction is in the legal process of being investigated (for no loose ends, etc) and another is in negotiation, depending upon the owner's being amenable to terms we're negotiating. Ah, the waiting part... EVERY day we do something related to the land. EVERY day we add to our computer file of things we have questions about and need to look up, or have looked up but need to keep investigating. EVERY day we have more conversations. I can't every day get online just now, since the computer is sustaining two of us with many time demands jobwise and one lovesick teenager whose boyfriend is stationed in the military beyond phone distance. This blog has been sadly neglected, but I do try to dash here in the event there is anything important in our process to detail.
I've now had going on three days with my husband due to the irregularity of our schedules. It's like being on a honeymoon, especially since we never had a honeymoon :) With the weather turning cooler (finally!), it's been spring-like and sunny and we've had SUCH fun being together. It's definately the shot in the arm I needed! I've been homesick for this man :)
I discovered the nausea I'd been experiencing for weeks was due to a medication, and after discontinuing it two days ago, I feel like my old self...yay! It was eating a hole in my stomach. No more! My blood sugar was also not in balance, something I have to be careful about, so that's being addressed now, too. The more physical work and organic veggies we can have at hand, the better it is for us both. We LONG to be at that point in our land journey. It's getting closer than farther, that's the consolation. And every month we keep plugging away at the jobs is another month closer to being debt-free. Anything we do on the land will be done without debt. One change we hope is about to happen is the transition for our daughter in her nursing career. Hopefully, within only 3 or 4 months she will have her LPN license. We're certainly praying all goes well with that, too! (Praying hard!) It will release us as her primary monetary support so that she can partially support herself while still availing herself of home and food here while she pursues further schooling...and a job! She is looking forward to being employed and having the ability to manage her own expenses as much as possible, and I see it as a good and gradual transition. Which will free up more resources for us, too!
Well, that's the scoop for now. Over and out till there's something else to report. I'll do a post about fodder trees soon, hopefully. I think it's an under-utilized resource in the US farming community, most likely.
Hope all are well! :)
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