Blessings From Home

Happy New Year!

Wishing everyone a happy and blessed new year for 2009!

We all stayed up late ringing in the new year and were all fast asleep by around 15 after. Some party people we are. I intended to start my new year on the right foot by waking before everyone else and getting my day started off right, in God's word, but alas it didn't happen. I still woke up early but not before my oldest daughter. So I put my Bible reading off until later on in the evening, and started breakfast. We had banana muffins with peanut butter and milk. yum!

Today should be a quiet day at home. I've got some black eyed peas cooking in the crockpot, and we'll have some macaroni and cheese, spinach greens, and some cornbread with that.

I spent most of my evening last night pondering the coming year. I have so many hopes and prayers for 2009. More than I ever did before. We accomplished so much in 2008 that I know we can do so much more this year.

A few of my hopes and prayers are...

~Grow more spiritually. I've been half hearted at best in my spiritual life, and shamefully say that it's the first thing to be put on the back burner, as is evidenced in even this mornings events. I would like to be more involved in church. We attend, but not as often as we should. I let my husband's lack of involvement here become too much of an excuse, as in I just don't think I can get all 4 of my young children out the door all by myself. That must stop. I know that if I am persistant in not only going regularly but praying for a change in heart on my husband's behalf, that God will make a way.

~Of course there is always trying to be healthier. I don't ever plan to diet, I just try to make better choices in what I eat and drink, and how I cook. The main thing I need to get back to here is cooking from scratch and eating less junk.

~Financially, we are okay. We stay on top of our bills, but we have no savings. This year with our income tax, we're paying off our van, which will leave us with only a student loan and our mortgage. I would like to use the money from that to not only put away into savings but also to stock up on food and supplies. I'm working on a menu book for our family that will list our basic breakfast and lunches and all of the ingredients for those, and a rotating dinner menu. That way I can stock up on what we eat regularly, as well as spend less time shopping, and in turn spend less money. We'll also be doing other things to help us cut back on spending. I already make my own cleaners and laundry soap, but would like to take the next step and begin making our own soap, and bath and medicinal needs. My husband is also helping me put up a clothesline. We'll also be cutting back on all of our utilities and hopefully getting rid of cable with husband's blessing finally.

~We've pretty much already made the transition to using cloth in just about all areas..baby, personal needs, and napkins, but I give in easily to temptation of disposable being easier when I'm too tired to mess with cloth.

~We are finally starting a garden this year. I have decided to do a square foot garden and start only with a 4x4 foot bed. Which will give me 16 square feet to plant in. A nice start I think. I will also do a container garden of strawberries, and a few containers for herbs. I plan on spending as much time as I can learning more about gardening this year.

~One thing I have been striving for, but have come short is making the full transition to wearing dresses only for my girls and I. I have realized that I will have to make most of our clothes, because it is becoming increasingly difficult to find any dresses that are modest enough even in secondhand shops, much less department stores. I would like to put together a pattern book of basic patterns that we can use. I would like to find one or two styles for each of us that I can make instead of changing the pattern each time.

~I will make all of our gifts this year. I started doing that for Christmas this year, but I let hurt feelings get in my way, and put them aside and spent entirely too much money on gift people probably didn't need.

~When I can't make things I will strive to only buy secondhand.  

~My homekeeping skills can definately use some work. I can honestly say I have gotten so much better about keeping house over the past year, but there's always room for improvement. I am going to be putting together my home management binder again to make it work a bit better for me since we've had so many changes in the last year. I will be putting a HMB also for my older children since their responsibilities have grown so much.

~I am going to be making the switch to more of a Charlotte Mason style of learning with my children. And would like to do more hands on learning with them. I'm doing this for a couple of reasons, one, I think it will be better for all of us, and two, it's another way we can save money.

There's so much more that I could list, but these are the main points I have in mind. Just like about everyone here, I just want a simpler life. I don't ever intend to go off grid, at least not any time soon. I probably won't get to live in a house in the country any time soon either, but while I'm here, I can make the best of what I've got, and simplify our lives as much as I can. Things like making things from scratch, sewing things for my family, growing our own food, spending less, and just plain old doing things for ourselves is my way of homesteading and living simpler. I pray that everyone here has a blessed new year and that you too strive to achieve your goals of living simpler!

Blessings, sara

Wearing Dresses

{ 08:23, Wednesday, January 7, 2009 } { Posted by Mama }

Hi Sara,
I too have toyed with the idea of only wearing dresses for my daughter and me, but I so so much "man's " work on hte farm it turns out to be impractical and I still haven't found the time tosew anything and as you said you must so that due to the styles available. And I am cold natured! Let me know your solutions to hese problems and how they turn out! God's Blessings to you! Mama