Beginning The Journey

Ivan has been talking for the last few years, how he would like to get off the grid and move to the mountains.  Recently he has been talking about it more seriously, even coming home with magazines telling the guts and glory stories of homesteading. I have to admit that some of the stories and information on off the grid living inspire some romantic notions.  Like sitting by the fire in the evening spinning wool or quilting and chatting quietly together as Ivan works on some wood working project and Sarah makes another Christmas gnarled.  The boys are away to college and we talk together and make plans for their next visit.  Sound really nice, I can even hear the tea kettle whistling on the wood cook stove, the oil lamps leaving a soft warm glow around the cozy room the aroma of today's fresh baked bread still lingering in the house .  

I didn't have to watch "Frontier House" to know behind that romantic vision is a harsh reality of hard work and the struggles to meet the challenges of a different kind of lifestyle.  Can I embarrass it?  Can I except all the changes that will have to be made to make that kind of lifestyle work?  What will some of those changes have to be?

Is this what God wants for our family?

A new place to live

If it is bare land what will it take to get it ready to live on?

Finances

decluttering my life - What busyness do I need to let go of

decluttering my home - What can I live with out

What can I do to help supplement our income?

What skills do I need to learn to make homesteading work for us?

knowing how to stock the pantry

Need to lean to grow more of our food

 I almost feel like one of those pioneer women starting to pack her house, prepairing to head out on an uncertion adventure that her husband had signed the family up for.  What should she take what should she leave behind?  How would she need to adjust to fit into the new life away from civilization?  Unlike my pioneer sisters of the 1800's, skills that many of them had for supplying their families needs have been lost to modern conveniences.  How did they take care of their sick with no doctor near by.  How did they preserve their food to keep their pantry's supplied over the long winters.  Did they do anything to help supplement their families income?  These are some of the things that I will need to begin to explore. 

 As I contemplate my move to a simpler lifestyle and our future homestead I, like my pioneer sisters must consider what are the essentials that I will need in my new home, what skills do I need to acquire what should I take with me what should I leave behind?

  

The American Dream:  a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S.

 

The American Dream; has really become the American Night Mare.  Perhaps we have carried this idea to the extreme thinking "Things = Happiness so we buy that we can not afford and we  borrow money with interest that we still can't afford.  We work more so we can pay the money back spending less time with our families and more time taking care of our things so we don't lose them.  All our "stuff that we have gathered around us has put many of us so deep in debt we can't see away out.

 As a wife, my husbands help mate, what can I do to begin to change things at home, so that we can get away from being enslaved by debt and all the busyness that steals from the impotent things in life?         

Well Diary those are just a few of the things that have been running around in my head. I feel like I am standing at a cross road in my life as I look at my two choices I wonder what lays around the bend in the paths.  Should I take the one that has been well traveled the way that looks clearly marked or should I venture out on the trail that seems less traveled and its path not so clearly marked?  Which will it be? 

Maybe, canceling our cable will be a good place to start.