The cost of raising a child

According to the Washington Associated Press: 

A child born in 2013 will cost a middle-income American family an average of $245,340 until he or she reaches the age of 18, with families living in the Northeast taking on a greater burden, according to a report out Monday. And that doesn't include college — or expenses if a child lives at home after age 17.

Those costs that are included — food, housing, childcare and education — rose 1.8 percent over the previous year, the Agriculture Department's new "Expenditures on Children and Families" report said. As in the past, families in the urban Northeast will spend more than families in the urban South and rural parts of the U.S., or roughly $282,480.

I find this report completely ridiculous. First off these numbers include housing and I can tell you right now that a lot of people who don't even have children have homes and most of those homes have more than one bedroom in them. To be fair I think that housing should not be included in these figures because families with and without children all have to have homes and the size of the homes seems consistent with peoples personalities and not the size of their family. 

Second, more and more families are becoming extremely frugal. This means that clothing can cost a lot but there have never been more thrift stores available than there are today and most children aren't made fun of for wearing thrift store purchase instead savvy mom are creating children who are excited to show their awesome thrift store finds to their friends. 

Third, childcare is an expense that a lot of families bear, but a lot of families don't pay for child care. Having children might mean child care expenses, but that is usually a personal decision. I think that these expenses shouldn't automatically be included in the cost of raising a child because a family can choose not to pay for childcare expenses. I think the numbers that should be included are those that are essential costs and not optional for most families.

Fourth, education does cost (sometimes a lot) but the variation in costs here would make it very difficult to tabulate.

Fifth, food is a cost but adding an additional meal to a menu of homemade food is a very small cost. Yes a person could spend a lot of money raising a child, and I know people who do, but it doesn't have to cost a lot. 

It has been my experience that the majority of costs are transportation (vehicles and gasoline) and insurance. With increasing government laws more children means larger cars and additional insurance. 

Before we get too set on the numbers provided by the Associated Press I think we need to look at our own personal preferences and decide what having a child will cost to us based on our personalities and personal choices. 

Progress

As we walked along our dirt courtyard my husband responded, it just seems like we are back where we started last year. I wondered what made him feel that way, and yet I knew. Progress is such a powerful emotion. It is so powerful that we have an emotional response both when we make progress and when we don't make progress. We have come a very long way since we started our homestead a little over a year ago, but not being able to make progress on it at this time is emotional. I had this same discussion with my friend who I love and respect very much. We talked about how emotionally difficult it was to feel success with your finances if you are just living paycheck to paycheck even if you are in a better situation than you have been. She had managed to eliminate their credit card debt but was still living paycheck to paycheck, so it didn't feel different even though it was different.

So how do we fight this? How do we feel progress so we can feel the success that comes with progress and the joy that comes with it? I have two ideas. First, we must have gratitude and often. We need to search often for those things that we are grateful and we must than our Father in Heaven for them often.
Second we need to have areas in our lives that we do see progress. Part of the difficulty comes from tasks that we do where progress isn't possible. For example a sink full of dirty dishes comes and goes daily. A pile of laundry might disappear only to reappear in an hours time. For this reason goal setting is not only smart but it is essential to our happiness. We need to set goals for ourselves and work on them. Another dear friend recently announces that she was going back to school. She wasn't sure that it would change very much in her life but she was taking the step nonetheless. However, that is a step towards accomplishment and progress. That step is vitally important to her sense of progress that produces such powerful emotions.  Our goals however don't need to be big (although big is good) small goals can help us feel the same sense of power if we set and accomplish goals. Even though my friend who had paid off her credit cards was struggling there was a sense of progress she was able to feel when they were paid off. Its just hat we have to keep having moments when we win. We need to be always working forward. That is what our Father in Heaven wants. He doesn't want us to stay where we are, he wants us to be moving forward. It is important that in prayer we counsel with our Heavenly Father and ask how we can move forward. Ask for his help in setting our goals. I say this because it is also dangerous ( and way to easy) to do a lot of things that are not important and of little worth, so as we work toward that sense of accomplishment that is so powerful we must also do so carefully. We don't want to get the bigger home if it means in the process we picked up an extra job and now have to miss going to church to pay for it. We need to stretch ourselves and move forward, but we also need to make sure that we do so with wisdom and prudence.

Stepping Stones

Sometimes we get stepping stones that help us to cross a steam that blocks our path. I don't exactly know how we are going to survive financially over the next few years. My husband has not been able to find a job here yet, but we have had some stepping stones that have helped us at this time while we are working to get through this current obstacle and I am so very grateful for all the stones that have appeared before us to help us cross this stream.

Storms

I have almost always looked at trials as blessings and opportunities for growth and learning, but recently I have realized how very much I love some trials. Oh they can be so difficult, but that is where I find my strength and my weaknesses. I don't want more trials right now, but I appreciate how much I learn from them. In fact, if I was asked to go into a store and shop for my trials I would probably pick the easiest trials they had and the fewest I could get away with. I guess it is good that I am not in control because the amount of growth I would have would also be small and not very much. I am grateful I don't get to pick my trials, but I am more grateful that I have the Atonement, the Holy Ghost, and the knowledge of the gospel to help get me through our trials.

Faith

Yesterday our property was flooded something terrible and today we had to leave for the day. Both days we had to milk our goats outside since our milk stand isn't built in our tiny shed yet. Honestly I don't know when it will be built. However yesterday, today and many other days over the past 3 weeks I have prayed that we would have decent enough weather in the evening when it was time to milk the goats. Every day we have been blessed to have decent enough weather at milking time, and I am so very grateful for a loving Heavenly Father who has blessed us with a break in the storm clouds when we needed it.

Green Onions

I recently went to a presentation where the speaker told us that she regrew her green onions after using them. The next time I was in the store I saw green onions on sale and I grabbed some. Actually we love green onions and use them all the time, but I don't regrow them. So last time I cut off just the green part and put the whit part in jars and regrew them. I don't actually know how many times I can regrow them, but I will probably do it again just to find out. One online person suggested that just water will cause them to lose their flavor eventually. I might try that out to see if I feel the same way. They suggested hydroponics. I love hydroponics but I don't currently have a system or a place to put one. I might have to try to put together a small system sometime just to grow more things for my family to eat year round. The biggest obstacle is space and money! Ha, isn't that always the case. Well I really like the idea that I can keep growing food that we eat without starting from scratch every time.

Choices

The other day my father commented that the homesteading life my family has chosen is a hard life. I have been thinking about his comment since he made it. It is just a little before 9 am. I have been working for 3 hours on my outside chores and now it is time to start my inside chores. I am taking a short break before starting the inside jobs, and I am thinking about what my father said. My life is a lot more demanding for sure. I have goats to milk twice a day. I dry all my clothes on the clothesline instead of just throwing them in the dryer. Living in a tiny house means going to the storage shed several times a day for items that don't fit inside the house. However, the life we are living right now is also rewarding. We do a lot of things that benefit our family. My children play outside for hours on end and have imaginations that make me envious.
Although it is more difficult, we love it. I am grateful for the opportunity to be here living on this homestead with my beautiful family.

Everything is connected

Last Sunday I spent the morning doing dishes and a few other chores around the house. Then I took some time to talk to my kids. I told them about an experience I had years ago that involved some very wise counsel. My husband and I were looking at how we could become more financially savvy. Well the person that we were talking to recommended a book (that I consequently read and have loved ever since). The book is The Four Laws of Debt Free Prosperity. It has since been renamed The Four Laws of Financial Prosperity, but I actually love the original name better. However that is not the point. He also counseled us to keep our home clean and organized as well as our office space (mostly talking about my husbands work spaces) for at least one month. . Well we read and loved the book but struggled to keep our spaces clean and organized for any length of time, let alone the suggested month. So fast forward many years and now I am cleaning my home on Sunday morning. I sat my kids down and told them about the challenge we had been issued years earlier. I also told them that we had never managed to accomplish the second half of the challenge and that we were not doing very well to be cleaning our home on Sunday morning when we should be doing all we can to show reverence and respect to the Lord's Day and not be doing chores and the like. We determined as a family to do better and to try to take the next month to accomplish the second half of the challenge to keep our home clean. I truly believe that everything is connected and that was the point of the challenge. If we cannot keep our lives in order and balance in one area it spills over into the other areas. We are only one week into our challenge and the first few days were spent cleaning up the house but this Saturday before bed we cleaned the house in preparation for Sunday and we will only have to pick up after ourselves tomorrow. This week we won't be cleaning up Saturday's messes on Sunday.

While we are working on getting out of debt as a family I truly believe that we also have to work on other areas of our lives if we really wish to be successful.

Everything is Connected

Just Keep Swimming

Dori has great advice in the movie Finding Nemo. When things seem extremely difficult, just keep going. There is so very little that I can do about our financial situation. My husband is still looking for a job, and in the meantime he is working at a summer camp full time which gives us a small income but prevents him from looking for a full time job for after camp. However, I find great comfort in the small steps I can take to help our situation, and today we made progress in two areas.

First,  we managed to plant a rhubarb plant which I hope will some day give my kids the option to just walk outside and pluck off a stem for a treat once in a while. We also planted some mint that I am sure we will be using for years to come (if it can survive the bad weather and the animals), and we planted fennel and dill to feed to the goats. Those also won't be ready for use for some time, but we are planning for long term and not just for immediate survival.

Second, I also managed to turn some blueberries that were given to us into some jam to add to our food storage.

As we work towards our debt free goals it is important that we plan not only for the short term successes, but also for the long term successes.

I don't just want to have goats that we can get milk from, but I want to have plants growing on my property that the goats can eat for food and their health. I want to use our property in such a way that we can live off it and not just live on it. Today someone said that patience in the key and remarked that patience enables us to go from cabin to castle. I loved that comment. Although I don't ever really want to live in a castle I am sure that my cabin will begin to feel like a castle as I patiently and prayerfully plan out and work on our property.  I hope that someday our property won't just be a blessing our us but to others as well.

What do you do in the summertime, when all the world is green?

One of my goals is to fill all of the empty jars that I have with food. Another one of my goals is to work on my food storage.   It was exciting to be able to work on both of those goals today. 

We spent the day canning. Actually if you count how many jars of food we added to our food storage it doesn't look like we were that productive, but I know that those few jars amount to hours of work. I am excited about the food that we added to our storage even if it isn't a whole lot.

We added 5 quarts of apple pie filling (it would be more except that we don't have any more ultra gel). We then cooked a batch of apple curry chutney and a batch of sweet pickle relish. We use a lot of homemade relish as a family, so I try to make some at least twice a year. I was sad that I only got 2 pints and 2 half pints made up today, but I was glad to put more on the shelf for the family to eat. One of the exciting things about today was that it was the first time I made chutney. It is exciting when I made something new. I have never actually had chutney before, but my husband says that he likes it, and I had some apples, so I made him some apple chutney. 

Update On Goats

After longer refrigeration the goat milk no longer tastes like powdered milk and just tastes delicious. Love the goats. I hope to breed one of the goats this fall so that we can increase our heard size.
LOL, that is funny I don't know how 3 goats is a heard, but I hope that soon we will have a lot more goats.

Goats

We finally got our goats. We got two milkers and we are learning the how to milk them. I was told that their milk would taste good. Well honestly, it tastes just like powdered milk to me so I don't know how that will work for some of the more picky milk drinkers in the family. However, a lot of my kids have grown up with powdered milk, and one of my kids actually loves it so for him (who actually loves to drink a lot of milk) this will be a big win. I have decided that since these are my goats, I am just going to learn to love their milk, and I will have to adjust to the difference in taste. I am sure given time it will happen; besides, we have had a lot of bad cows milk from the store over the years, and so I am willing to work with my beautiful new goats. We have a lot to do here on our homestead still, but we are a lot closer to being more self-reliant all the time.

There are a lot of little things that we need to get to properly take care of our goats, and we will slowly get all those things taken care of.

It feels good to be another step closer to our homesteading goals. 

Friends

Today I was reminded by two very dear friends that I am not in this alone. I know that I have a wonderful family who is always there to support me, and I KNOW that I have a loving Heavenly Father who is also there to support me, but it was nice to be reminded that I have some wonderful friends who are there cheering me on and doing all they can to help me. I am so very grateful for my friends. 

Thank you Sarah and Julie!

My Garden

Seeds vs Starts & Perennials vs Annuals

I really want to have a beautiful productive garden. There are so many wonderful things about having a garden that are amazing. To begin with you can grow the food you eat instead of relying money to purchase your food. In my efforts to become ever more self-reliant I am trying to make my homestead as productive as possible. However I have to admit I do not have a very green thumb, in fact I rather think that my thumb tends towards black far too often. For this reason, I like to use starts instead of seeds. Last year we grew a whole tray of seeds and when we moved, in one night, they were all dead from extreme weather. I really should try again, but it is so nice to walk down to the store and purchase a handful of plants that are already months into their growth. However for a self-reliant approach I need to learn to not only successfully grow from seeds, but I need to learn to harvest my own seeds for the next season.

Second, I want to grow as many things in my garden as I can that are Perennials so that I don't have to repurchase plants and every year they can continue to contribute to our food supply. For this reason I want to plant things like rhubarb, berries (in all their varieties), trees that produce food (fruits and nuts), and edible flowers and plants that are perennials.
I have always thought of dandelions as weeds, but here where I don't have any grass, I would like to see dandelions growing so that I can harvest their leaves for salads and use the for medicinal uses. I have so much that I would like to do and I have a very limited budget so for this reason also I need to carefully purchase plants that will be the best use for our property.

 So far the only perennial that I have in my garden is cumfrey. I hope that by the end of this season I will have my rhubarb planted along with some bushes (perhaps currants and gooseberries).

Also we will be getting goats soon and I need to make sure that I don't plant my garden in such a way that one day of the goats out and all of my hard work is eaten away.
 

Cloth Diapers

We recently switched to cloth diapers to save money. I am super grateful to a friend of mine who was able to give me some cloth diapers to add to the ones that I already had to make it so that I could switch to cloth diapers without an additional expense. I think that one of the reasons that it doesn't bother me to use (wash and take car of) cloth diapers is because every time I use them I am reminded that I didn't have to spend any money to use them. Of course I do have to pay for the laundry soap, but I have to wash other clothes anyways so that is a given expense. I hope to continue to find ways to cut and eliminate expenses here on our homestead.

Determined to get out of debt!!!

An article caught my eye and I just had to read it. The article was titled, "The Top 5 reasons why your broke." I laughed and thought, okay, why do you think I am broke?  Apparently 76% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. 55% of women and 45% of men do not have at least 3 months worth of emergency savings. In addition to this sad reality these are the answers they gave for why I (and many other people) am broke.
Their answer:
1. Employment and earnings
2. Prices
3. Lifestyle and overspending - 52% of Americans spend more than they earn. Yikes!!!
4. Student Loans
5. Credit and Debt
Okay at this point I have to admit that they got me on 2 of these, but we are improving and moving in a good direction.
Don't despair! All of us can get out of debt and create an emergency savings! I haven't given up and neither should you!

A friend of mine told me the following story. I don't actually know the person involved but it could be anyone really. She said a family determined that they would get out of debt and live debt free. They made radical decisions including hanging their clothes on a clothesline to save on their power bill. (Not such a radical decision for me because we do that). Anyways their neighbors observed their new standard of living and began leaving bags of clothes on their doorstep and giving them other charity because they were worried about how poor they must be if they had to live that way. When the given time came for the family to move they paid for their new home with cash. My friend noted that it is very likely that many of the people who were giving the donations were probably still in debt and feeling sorry for the family unaware of how the sacrifices made by the family gave them the opportunity to be debt free and living out of bondage. 

So feel free to join me on my debt free roller coaster as our family works as hard as we can to become debt free.

Weather

I don't know if this is the first time I have experienced this weather or if I am just more keenly aware of the weather because of our new lifestyle. I spend a lot more time outside working, and I depend on the weather for our existence here. We use the solar power for energy and cooking and we use the clothesline for our laundry. I always seem to know when it is windy and just how windy it is. A little windy is good because the clothes are less stiff. Really windy means the clothes will soon me on the ground in the dirt. Over cast means we have less power for the day and we have to conserve our power. Hot and sunny means -well hot- but that we have lots of power for the day. Today is hot and windy, but not super windy. However we still are getting some micro burst now and then.
However it is rare that a day goes by that we don't get micro bursts. I am however thankful for our home and for my family. I recently spent 8 hours in the hospital alone and I came home with a sense of gratitude. I am so very thankful for my husband and for my children. My heart goes out to families that have been torn apart for any reason and to those who do not have a family. Not too long ago I was able to hear a speaker talk about the loneliness she felt as her last child was preparing to leave home. To battle this she became a teacher helping others develop their personal strength and through that increased her circle of friends and influence. We need to love and be loved. We need families. I am also grateful for my friends and for my many church families that I have had through the years who have helped me during times of struggle.

Inspiration

About two years ago a friend of my introduced me to a blog that helped me a lot.
http://theprudenthomemakerblog.blogspot.com/
Her weekly frugal accomplishments were inspiring and helped me to become creative in ways that I could save money. Since then we moved off grid and have done a lot more thrift store shopping. Our lives have changed so much, but it is so rewarding to be able to save money and to do more with less. Unfortunately I still do not have her green thumb, but I am hoping that this year is my year to actually grow food and herbs that our family can use.

Setting Goals

We bought a 36 acres that had a couple of buildings on it but no home. To make this piece of land into something we could live on with our family has taken a series of small projects. For weeks I would wake up and work morning until evening going from one project to another. When the school year started I still had projects to work on, but teaching the kids became a priority and the progress slowed down.

A couple of weeks ago I was talking to a group of moms and the question was: What do you want to work on this next month to reduce the stress in your home. I decided to make my meal preparation earlier in the day my goal. To work towards that goal I actually started canning food again. This has enabled me to take prepared and cooked foods off the shelf to feed to my family as needed.

This also forced me to face another project that I had not yet gotten to. Because we live in a tiny house storage for food is almost non-existent. We want to have a garden and keep the foods we grow, but where do we keep them. This weekend we were able to build a shelf unit for our food. We currently only have three buildings here. One is our tiny house, the other is where we have the washer, fridge, and freezer and the last one we have insulted and finished most of and we use it for storage and study. Unfortunately we haven't actually gotten to the "study" part of it very well. My goal is to have my books in there and have a space the kids can study but that is a project for another day. I have however managed to frame in a closet area for clothes for the kids and as of this weekend for our food storage. I am super excited that we were able to build shelves for our food. 

Setting small goals has been super an essential part of creating our homestead, and I am grateful that we continue to be blessed.

Taking Care of Our Planet

Today our science lesson was on our environment. As my son and I talked about what we can do for our environment it was so exciting for me to talk with him about what our family does for our earth. For years I have hated putting so much into our landfills. Now we recycle, compost, shop when ever possible at thrift stores to reuse good clothes, we use solar energy and we use the run off of our washer to water plants. We throw as little as possible in an actual trash for a landfill. We try to reuse wood, screws, metal and just about anything that we can when we build things on our property. One of the reasons that we moved here was so that we could be better to our planet and I had forgotten how important that was to me and how much I had done to get us there until today's science lesson. The reminder was nice!

Little House on the Prairie

Today we were watching Little House on the Prairie again and Mr. Ingalls was discouraged that a tornado wiped out his crops. It seems that every time things start to work out for their family something bad happens and takes away their ability to get ahead. I really understood that. After almost 20 years of marriage sometimes I feel like we just don't ever seem to make progress. I have a lot of friends who seem to make great choices and have good jobs and savings. We have no job and a pile of debt from student loans and we really don't even have a real house. However we love our little house that we are building and even though like Charles Ingalls (my favorite character) I can get discourage that trials keep coming, I am also so grateful for the blessings that seem to come faster than the trials. I guess I have to admit that I am thankful for the trials that help me see the blessings. I do hope, however, that my husband can find a job soon that he loves here so that we can continue to get out of debt and build our home.

Homestead Family

It has been almost a year since we have joined the Homestead family. As I study history with my children I realize that our modern day homesteading is not the same as it was in the past where people lived on their land for a predetermined amount of time in order to own the land, and yet I understand that as we live on our land we start to build a bond with our land that helps us to own it in a different sense of the word. We don't know what the future holds for us but the past year has been a year of changes and learning.

When I read the scriptures I feel comfort as I read about the tender mercies of the Lord and as I recognize them in my life. In the Book of Mormon there is a group of people who are following Alma. They have determined to apply the Atonement in their lives and do all they can to keep the commandments of the Lord. However their circumstances become difficult as another group of people find and enslave them. The people however plead with the Lord for help and although their trials are not immediately removed their burdens are made lighter and they are able to bear them.

This is how I feel about my life right now. My husband lost his job at the beginning of the year, and although he has not been able to find full time employment our burdens have been made light and we have felt the constant comfort of the Lord. When our funds run out we are able to find another solution and keep going. I know that Heavenly Father knows us by name and loves us and is helping us through this time. Like the people who followed Alma we do not know how long this particular trial will last but we do know that our Heavenly Father hears our prayers and is lightening our burdens so that we can bear them and continue on.

I am thankful for our homestead and I am thankful that we can feel some independence as we live here off grid. We were able to install our fireplace and now we have the ability to keep our home warm without purchasing propane. We can wash our clothes and hang them on the clothesline to dry. We use our solar energy to run everything except our propane stove and water heater. We have a long way to go to be living off our land, but we have so much that I am super grateful.

A Tough Day

Today has been a tough day. When I began my prayer I was not even sure what to pray for because I was struggling so much. I want whatever the Lord wants for me, and I also want to do all I can to care for and comfort my family while that privilege is still mine. However, even when I am optimistic, the stress of what will we do can be hard. So I finally decided that when we struggle perhaps the best thing we can pray for is the patience to make it through the tough days.

I am so grateful for my testimony in a Loving Heavenly Father that enables me to have comfort when things are difficult.

Faith, Hope, and Charity

When I first began to study the scriptures I would read that Faith Hope and Charity were related. I understood a little about Faith and Charity, but I didn't even understand what Hope was. I knew what it was to hope for something, but what did that have to do with Faith and Charity. Over the past few years I have began to understand that Hope is one of the most precious gifts that we have been given and that the scriptures help us to have Hope. What exactly than is Hope. Well Hope is exactly that Hope that after all we have done ( the good and the bad) that the Atonement will work not just for someone else, but that the Atonement will work for us. Hope is the gift that despite our mistakes, our transgressions, and our sins that we can apply the atoning blood of our Savior to our lives. Hope is never giving up on those we love and Hope is never giving up on yourself.


Charity is the pure love of Christ. Hope says that Christ's love applies to each and every one of us.

Faith is the belief that we lived before we came here as spirits, that this life is for us to learn, and that after this life we can live with our Father in Heaven who loves us with our families and friends we also love. Hope is never giving up on our Faith because we Hope that as we are going through this life and learning that we can apply the Atonement to our lives.

Isaiah 5:25

25 Therefore is the anger of the Lord kindled against his people, and he hath stretched forth his hand against them, and hath smitten them: and the hills did tremble, and their carcases were torn in the midst of the streets. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still.

Hope is believing that when we sin there is a Father in Heaven waiting for us to turn to Him and He is ready to help us and He loves us.

I don't want to make bad choices, but like most everyone who is subject to an earthly body even the best of intentions sometimes get pulled apart by the smallest things when I am overloaded with stress or I am really tired or hungry or perhaps I am struggling with something that someone said to me that was cruel. I have off days and sometimes off weeks, but I hope and pray that I will never give up on myself because I know that through all my mistakes I have a Father in Heaven who loves me and is waiting with His hand stretched out still.

Homeschool and Homesteading

Our homeschool experience like so many other experiences in our life and like the experiences of so many other homeschool families in an evolving process. Sometimes we find something that we really like and enjoy doing and other times we put time and money into something that is just a complete bust. I have to say that one of the things that has cost us a bit of money and is a very real part of our homeschool experience is our homestead, however it has not been a bust. Our experiences on our homestead have been very rewarding and we have learned and lot and we continue to learn a lot every week. I am so grateful for the experiences we have here.

Sometimes I have to remind myself of the great blessings we have had here (like some mornings when we have to unfreeze the water pipes).  However, I don't have to do it too often because we love our experiences here.

In the Doctrine and Covenants in Section 88 verse 118 we read: "And as all have not ^afaith, seek ye diligently and ^bteach one another words of ^cwisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best ^dbooks words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith."

Here on our homestead we have been learning and teaching each other, and I am so grateful for all we have been able to do together as a family. We have moved large piles of rocks and a lot of dirt. We have pulled out fence posts and burned tumbleweeds. We have built walls in our cabin and built and rebuilt shelves. We installed tiles and we have hung, textured, and painted drywall. We installed windows and dug trenches. We raised chickens and pigs. And through it all we have learned and grown together as a family while we learn. We saw hearts soften and miracles as we purchased this land, and so with confidence that our Father in Heaven was watching over us we moved here to begin our Homesteading Homeschool experience 8 months ago.

Unemployed Again

It has been 9 years since we have faced unemployment. We saw this one coming, but we were unable to find a new job before the ax fell. In addition, we now have our homestead that we have been working on that we don't want to abandon. We are hopeful that we will be able to find a job that will pay our bills and allow us to keep our homestead. We continue to move forward, and when I feel discouraged I just remeind myself (usually out loud because that works better) that faith and fear cannot co-exist.

I am so extremely grateful for a Father in Heaven who I know loves me. I hope and pray that I live worthy to receive answers to my prayers. I hope and pray that my husband and I can find a solution to our current employment problem. I know that living on our homestead has drastically reduced our cost of living and moving elsewhere will increase our cost of living. This is especially true if we still have the payments on our cabin and our property in addtion to an home where we find work. We understand that a lot of people live seperate lives when they have to get a new job. I really don't want to have to go with that option. Although it might seem okay at first, I know that the stress on our family would be really hard. And yet many families are left with no other option. A friend of ours was living without his dear wife as she was taking care of her grandchildren while their daughter went back to school and work following the death of her husband. Tough trials like this seem to be the norm instead of the exception as an increasing and steady pace.

I am grateful for the scritptures and for Temples because these things help me to feel comfort during my times of trials.