Maybe I need to clairify my previous post on the old hippie comment.  I didn't mean that we are seeking the values of the hippie movement.  I just meant that the hippie movement was a counter culture movement that went against what main stream America expected us to be.  The hippie's chose to free themselves from the constraints and expectations of middle class America.  Choosing instead their own paths.  We as a group of homesteaders are chosing a different path from what main stream America embraces today. 

Our society encourages us to become consumers and not producers, followers and not leaders, people who are taught what to think and how to live by the media, ie..television, hollywood, and mainstream liberal media organizations.  We as a society are expected to accept their advertising and liberal opinions as the gospel.  But we are chosing instead to think for ourselves, be producers of our own goods and food instead of relying on the government and big business to provide for us. 

Many of us are rejecting the notion that only schools can education our children, chosing instead to education them ourselves.  We are rejecting the notions that we must all live in cookie cutter houses in suburbia, with manicured lawns, flash"y" cars and a need to keep up with the latest fashions or fads.  We aren't seeking after consumer goods that are pushed down our throats by big business  We are refusing to believe that happiness and sucess comes through having more, or bigger and better...ie., through spending, seeking and keeping up with the Joneses. 

My view of a hippie has less to do with the 60's movement that involved free love and drugs, but more to do with an attitude that we don't have to keep the status quo, and live like everyone else is living. That we don't have to change with the times, the old ways can still be good ways.   We don't have to embrace the ideals and lifestyles that are shown us in the media, but rather we can chose our own paths, our own way of making a life.  As long as that way doesn't go against God's principles for living.  Because many of us are seeking the right path that God has ordained. 

Many of us grew up with the idea that we needed to be a two income household, so that we could provide more for our families.  But some of us realize that we as women can't really have it all, that was a lie perputuated upon us so that we would earn more, pay more taxes to the big government and spend more money making more big business rich.  Some of us discovered that while attempting to have it all, something had to suffer, usually our kids, and families, and marriages...And we discovered that we could survive on one income and that the family unit could function in the way God imagined. 

To me an old hippie is one that still embraces his/her convictions and beliefs even though the modern world wants him/her to believe that those ideas are outdated and ignorant.  An old hippie is someone who still lives the way they believe is right in the face of opposition and ridicule.  One that feels out of places in this crazy world we are in now.  Someone who has lived and learned and sees value in the small miracles of life and the world that God created.  Not someone to go off on tangents, in the way they think or believe, not swayed by popular opinion or public opinion. Someone that has seen enough of life come and go, to realize that it is all temperal and vain.  Knowing you must have an inner compass and an inner thermostat, not relying on the thoughts and opinion of others.

So when I posted about being an old hippie, I just meant that we as homesteaders and homeschoolers are creating a new counter culture that is going against what we are told is the normal way of living in our modern society.  We are finding our own way, chosing to think for ourselves and letting our hearts guide us down that path.  So with that in mind, again I post this link to "Old Hippie."  (You will have to pause my playlist on the side bar so you can hear this.)

For some reason this song by the Bellamy Brothers has been going over and over in my head.  When I think of the lifestyle that many of us are seeking, I think about a group of people that's forming a counter culture.  

We are seeking a different path.  A path that goes against what modern America seems to have become.

 Although I don't agree with all that this song is about, it makes me think about seeking our own path and searching for the way things were and how they should be again.

Here is a link to a good version I found on you tube, if you are interested in hearing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nhxc1ZysPXA

I haven't learned to post the video to my blog yet, so you will have to follow the link.  Sorry.  I also have it on my play list if you want to click on it there.  It is the Bellamy Brother singing it there. 

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Garfield. I use to have a couple of stuffed Garfield's that I kept in my car when I was young and single.

Anyway, I have always found his humor to be...well humorous!

Anyway, with all the heaviness of the world we live in, it doesn't hurt to occasionally find humor in things.

In fact, laughter doeth good like a medicine. Someone wise once said that and I would have to agree with him.

I have this cut out and put on my fridge and I laugh at it daily. Yea, I suppose I am easily amused, but it is so much the way I feel as of late! You know I am almost 42!

I found this one on a friend's mom's blog that also loves Garfield.

I know I always seem to be coming late to the party, but have you seen this...

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/news/monsanto_movie080307