Homesteading life, a concept that is romantic in thought, harder to commit to.

I was raised as a bit of a wanderer. My family moved 42 times before I was married. That tends to make one of two kinds of people, wanderers or stick in the muds. I am a stick in the mud. It also makes for people who have difficulty making lasting relationships. We moved so often that making new relationships came easy but making continuous long lasting relationships is much harder and doesn't come easy to me. When I was a child I once said to me mom, "you don't have any friends, when I am grown I am going to have lots of friends." In the end I don't, I don't know if it is that I don't know how, or don't have time to make the long term connections. I have had a few dear friends in my life and cherish them. I am completely devastated when they end or fall off. I have good family relationships with most of my seven sisters, and maybe that is why I don't have alot of outside friends. I had more female relationships than most to begin with. I do know that there are lots of times when I long for a close girlfriend relationship. Mokie is my newest close friend and maybe that is God's will, I don't know.

I am the kind of person that if I like something I will always like it. I don't feel the need to throw out something in my home to bring in the next fad decorating item. I didn't compile my life's philosophies with out lots of thought and contemplation. I don't do things with out alot of forethought. I do sometimes appear to fly by the seat of my pants, but if it doesn't fit into my overall philosophy it is not something I will jump into even when pressed to do so. When my older children were small I was very young and only glimpsed at the person I would become. I decided to try and make good changes in their eating habits. I decided we would no longer eat white bread in our home. My children were not in compliance at all. It took between one month and three for Poppie and the three of them to come on line with me. One year later they were horrified at the prospect of eating white bread, so I knew that the concept worked. I tried to make other changes but tried to do it, by the do as I say and not as I do theory.  So when I say I got a second chance to raise my girls differently it is not that I didn't do a good job with the older ones, it that I did the best I could with the knowledge that I had at the time. So know as a mother of a 30 year old and a new mother I have lots of live changes I want to make.

Number one; live the life you want to pass on. I hear alot of people in this society, as a whole, that want to life a more homestead style life. Well like anything else it is a lifestyle and not just a theory. I wanted to live more that style of life with my family, as much as a person can on one acre of ground; and belief me I do more with one acre than lots of people do with a whole lot more. I began, with the thought process of,  it takes 12 times on a plate for a child to recognise some foods as normal and part of their diet. I began by putting the food I wanted them to eat on the plate. They didn't always like it the first time but the more it was there the more it was just part of the meal and eventually they ate it and didn't always even realize it. It was just part of our lifestyle. I developed that idea into a way of life for us. We don't drink pop at our house, they can order at the restaurant but after 3 or so months they didn't even want it when they ordered it and just stopped ordering it. We changed from the brown bread to homemade breads where we control what's in the bread. We grind our own burger. We then started growing our own, pork, chicken, goat, and eggs. We grow our on garden, about a 1/5 of an acre. We made baby steps in most respects but we practice what we preach. I don't abide excuses for why something, we know is not good for us, should be an everyday food. We do have foods that are special occasion foods, like a rootbeer float once in awhile, but even if the rootbeer is in the house they don't want it as a drink on it's own. I never disallowed any one food, say like sugar, if you take something away completely it becomes a craving. I have done enough dieting, and have read every diet book that came down the pike, enough to know deprivation is a bad pit fall. I do not allow sugar on cereal and when my girls see some one do that they just about get sick at the sight. Both of them, of their own volition take a bite of two of frosting on a cake and then cut it off and eat the cake. No sugar would have meant they craved it, low sugar means they choose not to have it. I am all about choice once you have learned to live in the style the family chooses.

I think one of the things I have a problem with is, people who say, "I tried that with my family they wouldn't get on board', you either didn't really want the lifestyle in the first place or you didn't stay with it tell it clicked. It is about the same as saying; my three year old eats a whole pizza for breakfast and I just don't understand why he weighs a 100lbs. Yes, you do know why, you could make the change, you like the pop, the white bread and didn't really want to make the change yourself, you thought it would be a good idea, but wanted to live a, do as I say and not as I do, lifestyle. I have been there.  Homesteading or back to basics is not for everybody but the effort to getting to the lifestyle is worth the work and effort. Not for the weak of spirit, so when your child says, Mom, 'I am allergic to peas'.  You say "Mokie, you are not allergic to peas, you just don't like them, yet" ....... tomorrow.