Quiet Life Homestead

Wednesday Happenings & Thoughts

Charlie's going to be teaching at a woman's prison today.  It seems there are a lot of prisons who do leatherworking and these gals want to learn how to emboss leather.  He's taught many classes in the past, but this will be the first with a, pardon the pun, captive audience!

I got my Old Schoolhouse magazine yesterday and while flipping through it, noticed Tandy Leather has an ad (see pg 111).  Its about time they put one in there, we (the homeschooling wives of managers) have been telling them for quite a while that they needed to.  The ad sends you to their website which has a nice little history and also school subject breakdown on leather and leatherworking.  There's also a link for a free e-book, but we couldn't get that to work yesterday.  I keep trying to get Charlie to submit an article to TOS on leatherworking.  We'll see......

We didn't get much rain again yesterday, but they're teasing us today with promises of some.  At least it shouldn't get past 75.  I'm really enjoying the mild weather and am dreading when it gets hot.  As we don't have our a/c hooked up yet, we're not quite ready.

I don't know if I mentioned this yesterday or not, but I requested Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover from the library a few weeks back.  I was able to pick it up yesterday and have already read two chapters.  I'm wanting to read this fairly quickly so Charlie has a chance to read it before its due to return.  I still haven't listened to the cottage industry messages, but think they will fit in nicely with what I'm learning in the book.

I'm almost finished writing my May goals and will post them once I feel they are completed.  Hopefully they aren't too lofty, but I don't think that they are out of reach.  If I don't get some things completed, at least I can get them started, right?

I read Grandma Rosie's entry about the tainted food and am praying even harder for our land.  I want to be able to grow our own food, I don't want to wonder if this is tainted, or is that.  I don't want to expose my family to the possibility of terrorism with the food supply (gokings13 - I totally agree with you!).  One the three television shows we watch is Jericho.  I know it isn't real, but does give a glimpse of what life could be like in the event of a nuclear attack.  How much different would it be if our food was poisoned?  Would we be all nice and civil, or would there be chaos?!  I don't know if you keep up with the news, but a little reported story spoke of Saudia Arabia (I think it was them) catching a group of people who were going to blow up oil refineries.  We came very close to having gas be $5+ a gallon.  That might sound bad, but still survivable until you think about the larger context.  More people would carpool if they are able - that's a good thing.  But would you drive those 5-10 (or even more) miles to go to the mall?  How about dinner at a restaurant?  The people who drive semis (or the companies they work for) would have to increase their fees because of the higher price for gas, which in turn raises the cost of whatever they are transporting.  Its a whole trickle down effect, or snowball.  Some will be able to get their employers to give them raises for the cost of living.  We're on "starvation wages" right now, we can't get an increase in pay.  I'm not trying to scare anyone, I just want all to know that we do need to be diligent and be prepared.  I'm going over to Deanna's blog to check out some of those preparedness links..........

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{ 09:04, Wednesday, May 2, 2007 } { Posted by HandsNHearts }

It is about the same mentality of thinking as with the Y2k talk years ago. Sure, not everyone thought it would affect them, but if you think about the many (too many) inter-connected areas of our lives, it was a very real possibility. There isn't much that would not be touched in one way or many ways by only one area of our lives going down.
Look at how we live now. If a storm hits, we lose power. In that power loss, we lose food from freezers at home and in stores; we lose water and for a time, it's quality when returned; we lose wages, which in turn trickles over to a hundred other areas of our lives...we get behind on bills or have to rob Peter to pay Paul for a while. Gas prices go up, food costs rise because of added expense to deliver, but not may jobs are going to pay more to the workers...they are paying more on the other ends already.
Everything connects to something else and by making one little wave in the system, we can really take apart a lot of things. The terrorists watching us know this. Stupid isn't one of their traits. If they send something into our food supply, even in a round about way, they know it will take down much of our country. Our water supplies are open to anyone who wants to get at us in a quick, efficient manner. Really, if you think about it, our power grid isn't where we might be most vulnerable...we are a selfish, greedy society. Take our freedom of driving and spending and we'd go down in pretty short order.
Deanna

***** I couldn't have said it any better myself!

Edited by Keeblur on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 10:51