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.

Little House on the Prairie

One of my favorite shows growing up was Little House on the Prairie. I have a daughter who is so similar to me that it is amazing. I just knew she would love the show also so we finally got the first disc from Netflix and everyone in my family loved it. We found that we really could identify with the show too, after all we are a little house on the prairie. Actually I'm not sure if our house is bigger or if theirs if bigger. However we have electricity and running water. I have to say I love the comforts of our modern age.

Freezing

Every day when we wake up our water if frozen. It takes about 2 hours to get our water running. We have done what we can to try to fix the problem, but it is so cold that the measures we have taken aren't good enough, so we still have to thaw our water lines every day. We are really hoping to get our wood stove into our cabin this weekend so that we have heat in our home more often. We originally thought we could use propane heaters, but we can't leave them on all the time and it is really expensive as we have to refill our tanks a couple of times a week. Hopefully we can get the parts we need for our stove to install it.