a couple days catch up...

Mr. Stinky (the spotted skunk) is now making our 6am morning meeting a daily event. I gave him some peanut butter a few mornings ago and we are apparently "best friends" now. I don't mind, he/she is adorable.

The teenager situation is resolved and, as is usually the case, things are better. It needed to come to a head, so to speak. It did and wow! What a relief. The tension level in the household has dropped dramatically. Yay!

Holly (my oldest at 27) was selected to build a habitat home, construction to begin in April.
Now she has the opportunity to buy a previously built habitat home in an established community here. It is really like a dream! The community philosophy, common groungs, garden, greenspace, and common house are so beautiful. She and the girls will be able to have peaceful open outdoors right in the center of town. The best of both worlds. Without construction noise for the next 3+ years. I hope it all works out for them. So wonderful if it does!

I have been browsing through websites that offer advice about getting through the next few years of recession/depression/economic downturn. I have discovered that we are in a pretty good situation with our land (able to grow food & raise meat animals), being off-grid (not dependent on the machine for heat & power), tiny bit of mortgage, no credit card debt, no car payments. We have survival skills (hunting, fishing, gardening, cooking, food preservation, building). We have books about living off the land. We have almost all that we need to get through a tough period, if we need to.

I would like to thank my grandfather for the fact that we have the land to take care of our family. He explained to me when I was young how important it was to always have enough ground to feed you family if you need to. I believed him and have always wanted what we have now. And we worked toward it because of his sage advice. Thank you, grandpa lee.



And I thank my grandma for the skills I bring to the table-gardening, cooking, food preservation, sewing, knitting, mothering. She was/is a much, MUCH harder worker than I am, but she patiently taught me most of the life skills that I use daily to manage this household. Thank you, grandma maralyn.

And I am thankful for my talented and hardworking husband, who possesses skills and abilities that I lack. Together we make a great team, with plenty of strapping children to help out when we need it. AND he makes the best french pressed, hand delivered coffee ever. Served with love-my favorite <3

I've been very blessed.

Another beautiful day.