All In

There was a pretty good breakthrough here today.  I swallowed all my pride and fear and anxiety and nervousness and everything else and actually told the hubbster about this homesteading mission I'm on. 

The scariest part was that I started by really tearing into our marriage.  It's a very long story, and probably not all that interesting, but the short version is that I have been flat-out miserable for nearly all of our marriage.  I already kind of covered that in a previous post though.  I really laid out all my I-hate-my-life things.  I actually used the terms "lawyer or undertaker" in a sentence about how I viewed an improved future.  Yikes, right? 

But really, I should say I hated my life.  Past tense.  I honestly feel like I am starting to find my purpose.  I've been working through a guide on how to create your very own homestead, no matter what situation you find yourself in.  I'm not linking because I'm still feeling all private and like to hide, but if you search for custom homestead, it'll pop up.  I actually wrote a mission statement.  I've been assigned "write a mission statement" a few times in the past either at work or school, and I always DREADED those tasks.  I felt so completely dorky, I never really meant it and just wrote down whatever sounded the most impressive, and they never did anything (probably because I didn't mean it... funny how that works)  This time though, it just kind of flowed out of me.  My mission statement:

To use my skills and abilities to provide for my family.  To find my purpose and usefulness in life through basic, simple, old-fashioned ways. 

Allow me to clarify a bit; by "old-fashioned" I mean tried and true through eons of humanity.  I don't mean stodgy old fuddy duddy backwards thinking.  And also, deep in my heart, my strongest interests in life are the basic and simple ways.  Always have been.  Well, except for the Sync in my car.  I love that shit.  But my car also has a manual transmission, so I'm kind of a walking talking contradiction. 

Anyway, I told my man that for the first time in nearly a decade, I'm having a fantasy for the future that he is actually in.  I've always been a dreamer, and I've always fantasized about the future.  In some ways, I think that has worked against me because I'm not very good at living in the "now", but I am working towards using it as an advantage to enjoy life now in ways that prepare me for what may come.  Ooooooh and by "prepare me for what may come", I mean for whatever lifestyle I'll be in when we move away from this god-forsaken hellhole.  I don't mean that I'm becoming a doomsday prepper.  Just wanted to clarify that.  Again.  I feel very strongly about not becoming one of them.  Once again, see that previous post I linked above.  Anyway, since I got married all my fantasies have involved me finding myself single again.  Or have involved backwards time travel.  I am very excited to have one where he and I are both still alive, still married, and still living under the same roof.  (there was one fantasy that involved still being married but having separate houses... in separate towns)

I explained to him a bit about what homesteading means to me.  I briefly touched on some sweeping generalizations of my goals.  I paraphrased my mission statement (didn't have the binder with me at the time and didn't want to get out from under the cozy blanket).  And I explained to him how my goals worked towards our future and how I'm keeping this flexible because even though we have our dream (and it's mostly a shared dream, thankfully) we also know that things can change and who knows where we'll end up in the next dozen years.  I told him that some of these things I'll want to do on my own, and some I know he won't care to participate in.  But other times if he wants to join in I'd appreciate the help and there will be some times that I'll want to do something that is just beyond me and I will need his assistance.  And ultimately, I truly want him in my dream and in my future. 

And lastly, I also shared with him how I see our potential to work together as a team.  We both have our strengths.  I am a dreamer, always have been.  I can visualize things, I can make plans, I can create a glorious world inside my head.  Implementing the plans is where I come up short.  He is a doer, a go-getter.  He'll jump headfirst into a project and be half done before I even get my shoes on.  His shortcoming is that the headfirst jumping is usually also before he has any idea of what he should be doing and he can't visualize anything.  If we both can manage to put aside our collective pride, and acknowledge each others strengths and our own weaknesses, I think we have the potential to do absolutely anything we set our minds to. 

And he's all in.  He is happy that I'm finding a way to feel my purpose in life and he says he will support me and help whenever I want or need it and also stay out of my way when I'm feeling independent.  He says he will work on listening to me when I have ideas and suggestions, and I will make an effort to actually do what I say I will in a punctual manner. 

I'm happy, he's happy.  The dog is oblivious, but that's normal.  He's on my bed, snoring. 

A little nutty

The amazon gods appeared today. Not really, my local rural postal carrier appeared today bringing me a box from the amazon gods. I got a box of soap nuts! I know I wasn't supposed to start homesteading laundry until December but I may start early.

Although as I think about it, I will wait one more week. Gonna do laundry normally next week, then wash both sets of bedding and maybe even the pupper's blanket with soap nuts to clean out the washer like the soap nuts package says to do. Then soap nuts laundry week after next. Oh yeah and this week also gonna do a bit of pit scrubbing. Gonna give the soap nuts the best chance they can get.

Still not sure about this deodorant. On one hand, I don't seem any sweatier than usual. (Sweatier? I think I'm making up words) But I'm not sure about the odor control. But maybe I should shower more often.

Also, this post really is a bit nutty. I may or may not be drunk. In-laws are visiting. Teetotalling Jesus-freaks. They left me unattended for a bit. I had fruit loop milk. That shit is delicious. Now I'm trying to both pretend I'm sober and refrain from cursing at the TV. It's not going well. I have to stay on their good side though because they're the current owners of my Little Farm in the North. *sigh*

My Life in a Mason Jar

I'm seriously tempted to change the name of this blog.  Do you have any idea how many mason jars are floating around my life right now?  Let's analyze:

I just counted 181 jars of varying sizes full of food in my canning cabinet (no I didn't count them for giggles, I was doing an inventory) (I might have gone a bit overboard... we're never going to get through all that salsa...) (and that's not counting the 4 sitting on my kitchen counter to be used soon and the half dozen open jars in the fridge) (I like parentheses)
I use freezer-jam jars to make homemade yogurt, usually 6 jars at a time
I have two more freezer-jam jars in my shower to dilute the baking soda and apple cider vinegar to wash my hair
I have a half pint jar downstairs and a jelly jar upstairs containing my homemade deodorant
There is a pint jar with holes poked in one lid (covered with another lid to keep it fresh and from stinking up the place) in the spice cabinet holding hubby's rib rub

Also I don't currently have any of these jars but have in the past: homemade semi-instant oatmeal mix, chai tea mix, beef jerky, bits and bobs in the garage (actually there might still be some of those, I haven't looked) (although most of those aren't actually mason jars, somehow my hubby got a massive collection of baby food jars, I'm not quite sure how that happened since he has never procreated nor has he lived in the same state as a baby relative) and probably other things I am not thinking of right now.  There's another jar somewhere with more holes poked in the lid that I've used to hatch out butterflies and moths.  Entomology nerd.

And I want more!!!  I found these adorable little soap pump lids that go on mason jars for next to your bathroom sinks and whatnot.  And there will probably be other ideas as time goes on.  The more homemade things I make, the more I shove things in mason jars.  December's homesteading project is laundry, I have soap nuts sitting in my amazon cart just waiting for me to decide what else to put in there and punch in my gift card number and hit the free super saver shipping button.  I hear that soap nuts work best in hot water but I'm lazy and my water heater sucks so I'll probably be making them into soap nut liquid detergent which I'm sure will also go into a mason jar.

Also saw a cute idea for making candles in mason jars.  Safety first - make sure they won't break or damage whatever they're sitting on.  But it looked like a good idea!

Anyway, I should go be productive.  Just wanted to babble about my love for the simple mason jar. 

We put the "fun" in dysfunctional, only not really

I was with the fam last weekend, and we have TONS of family drama cropping up.  I'm not going into that here, not the time or place, and I really don't have anything to say anyway.  However, the interesting thing is that I had a little time to chat with my brother and this is at least the third time where he has mentioned something from our dysfunctional childhood that I had COMPLETELY BLOCKED.  Kinda makes me wonder how many other repressed memories I have tucked away in the grey matter.  And the most recent one was all about how the family has always hidden things from older generations.  And this has gone on for generations.

I've said for quite a while that for as different as we are, my brother and I cope with... whatever... in rather similar ways.  Both are self-destructive.  He drinks, I eat.  He's an alcoholic, I'm fat. 

And I'd repressed just how much the family hides things from others.  And I hide my eating.  Anything "bad", anything that's more than what is necessary, I desperately try to hide it.  Creamy cheesy fattening naughty foods, I eat when the hubbster is out of town.  Or in my car.  Or whatever.  Bags of candy hidden in my desk.  All that jazz.  But anything I eat in private shows up on my body in public.  How can I break the cycle of, well, dysfunction?

No, really, someone tell me.  Cuz I don't have a clue.  I keep thinking that recognizing all this will help.  And maybe it is, because I think I'm less bad than before.  I've managed to mostly maintain my weight (at least stick right around the same size) for like 4 years now, which is nothing short of a miracle.  I've never stayed the same weight for more than 2 years in my entire life.  Ever.  Always going up or down.  Mostly up.  Some down.  But the downs are always followed by more ups.  And never staying the same, at least not for very long.

But I hope someday I'll figure out how to use this information to my advantage and actually get to a healthy weight.  One thing's for sure, I've figured out a million ways that don't work! 

Speaking of homesteading

Guess where I am this weekend?  Hubby and I are playing farmer!



But it just made me want my homestead even more.  *sigh* 

It was sort of an accident

This was never a serious plan.  I didn't wake up one day and go "yanno what?  I should prepare for the apocalypse"  I didn't read horror stories of the end-of-days being upon us.  I never worried about preparing for the worst. 

And quite frankly, I've said for years that if a major disaster happens, I want to be sitting my fat butt right on the epicenter.  I want to be the first to go.  I don't have the drive or ambition to rebuild society.  I really don't care to learn how to build shelter in the wilderness and fight off the crazy people and all that jazz.  I want to die early if a major catastrophic event happens.

So none of the things I do now are born of a deep-seated desire to be a survivalist.  It was more just because I was a bored housewife.  I spent a few years as a single woman in her own home with a career and all that jazz.  Well, rental home, but home nonetheless.  I had to do everything, and I mostly had to do it all Monday through Thursday because I'd spend all weekend every weekend 4 hours away at my then-boyfriend's house.  But after a few years, the boyfriend became the husband, I gave up my job and my home and moved into his house.  And in a lot of ways it all went downhill from there.  Don't get me wrong, I love my husband and in the long run I am better for having him.  But in my day-to-day life, bleh.  I had no job, no friends, no sense of belonging, nothing to do, no independence, nothing.

So I started searching for things to do that interest me.  I like to bake.  Hubby likes the smell of baking bread.  Put one and one together, and I started baking all our own bread.  Sandwich bread, hamburger and hot dog buns, dinner rolls and breadsticks.  I can do it all!

Other things have come even more strangely.  When I had been searching for bread recipes or other meal recipes (I love to cook) I had seen instructions for making your own yogurt.  I ignored them at the time, as they were for plain unsweetened yogurt and we always ate the sweet fruit-flavored stuff.   And, really, yogurt's supposed to be good for you, right?  So, why bother.  But then one day as I was enjoying a cup of sweet fruity yogurt, I actually read the label.  It had BOTH Nutrasweet AND high fructose corn syrup.  The fuck?  That seems a bit much.  So I headed back to the googles and researched homemade yogurt some more.  Guess what?  Totally easy.  And, thanks to the GOBS of home-canned jams and fruits in my basement, my plain unsweetened homemade yogurt gets delicious with the addition of homemade natural jams and fruits. 

It wasn't any sort of "omg we must eat natural" or "organic is best" or "down with corporations" or "save the earth" or any of that crap.  It was more just "why not?" 

I'd been canning for years, I started that before I ever got married.  At first I just did a couple things, salsa and jalapeño jelly mostly.  After the wedding, the hubby was reminiscing about the canned cherries his grandma used to put up.  So I started doing cherries.  And the apple tree on my parents' farm had a good year, so I canned applesauce.  Still only did things that you could do in a boiling water canner.  I had a pressure canner, but I never used it.  We moved to our new home and there is a wild blackberry patch, so I started canning wild blackberry jam too.  Still just boiling water canning.

This year in addition to the bread and yogurt, I decided to broaden my canning skills.  I got my pressure gauge tested on my canner, I read my Ball Blue Book and a lot of websites.  I found recipes for things we actually eat.  No sense in making a bunch of stuff no one around here likes.  And as of right now, my canning cabinet is full of salsa, jalapeño jelly, strawberry rhubarb jam, blackberry jam, cherries, cherry preserves, maraschino cherries, strawberry jam, key lime marmalade, blueberry jam, peach preserves, maraschino cherry jelly, blackberry lemonade concentrate, pink lemonade concentrate, chicken, ham and beans, corned beef hash mix, pumpkin, chicken broth, apple pie filling, applesauce, apple butter, and probably a few other things I'm forgetting. 

When I told my mom about the adventures with apples recently, she made the comment that "wow if anything happens, you two will be able to eat for a long time!"  That's when I realized that I stumbled into semi-preparedness by accident.  I'm still not any sort of "I'm going to survive the apocalypse" person, but I have a hobby that I have a lot of fun with, and it provides us with a basic necessity. 

Did you miss me?

I love how blogspot lets you keep your site even if you only post a dozen times in a year.  Nice.

So... is it time for an update?  Let's go through my old posts and see where I am now. 

Still invisible.  I'm about 10 lbs down from my highest point, although that's 7 lbs higher than I had gotten to in the last year or so.  Struggling.  I've gotten away from the podcasts, and maybe that's part of the problem.  I've forgotten about Persistence, Patience and Practice.  Also not exercising regularly, although I have been working on finding workouts I don't mind.  More on all this later.

I have made progress on lunch though.  Lots of paninis and shit made up ahead of time and wrapped up and stowed in the freezer.  One goes into the toaster oven, and I have a good lunch that isn't a pathetic sad affair at home or a lonely expensive affair out.

And I've actually made progress on those Springtime Fantasies too!  No, I haven't started gardening (and we're coming up on November, so I'm probably not going to start any time soon) and I still don't look so good in a sundress (although, oddly, the hubbster seems to think I do.  weird)  I have canned so much I'm just about out of empty jars though!  I experimented with pressure canning this year.  And.....

I discovered "homesteading".

This is going to be a huge post (and well past my bedtime) if I go into all of it right now.  But I have learned that homesteading doesn't have to be off-grid self-sustaining Little House on the Prairie homestead.  Make your own homestead.  And I'm in LOVE with the idea!  So many things.  I'll be back soon with details.