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.