Learning Contentment

All I can think about is getting some land and becoming self-sufficient. I read blogs like New Life On A Homestead and Aspiring Homemaker and long for the ability to create my own homestead paradise with my family. I spend hours daydreaming about getting chickens, spending all day gardening "as if my life depended on it," planting a small orchard or berry patch, having a pantry full of homemade preserves......In fact, I waste so much time thinking about living a simpler life, that I rarely get around do learning/doing what I can with what I've got!

On top of a rough, non-fairytale beginning of a marriage and becoming a mother, I've been going through SO much spiritual and emotional growth the past few years. I can't keep up with anything. Ups and downs. Trying to figure out what God wants us to do. Becoming totally disconnected with every one and thing. Our modern lives are just too fast paced and too meaningless. (I've been reading Ecclesiacties.) Everything is taken for granted. It's insanely overwhelming when you are trying to get back to basics. Undoing however many years of bad habits and easy living is some hard work. Especially when that life keeps calling you back. Oh, and especially when you start trying to boss God around. That's one thing I'm good at.

I also have a nesting problem. Due to circumstances out of anyone's control, we're still waiting to move to our house (the one my dad bought across the street to rent to us.) We've basically been renting out half of my dad's house. Roomates? It's a great set up and I am very thankful for such a good relationship with my generous father, but it's not my nest. I can't decorate and paint and rearrange. I can't get cozy. My husband isn't the man of his house. The end of this phase is soon to come, I know, but that is where a lot of my constant daydreaming comes in. I've settled in here as much as I can. I'm ready for a permanant home.

Why was I blogging again? Oh, right. Contentment. I sit here getting upset because I found this amazing deal of a house with acreage, in a great location, & perfect for our dream lifestyle, but it'd be stupid to buy it. Even if we had the money for a down payment, I really believe it wouldn't work out. God is trying to teach me something with our current living situation and our future (hopefully) rental.  This house across the street (we call it 311)...it has the largest yard in the neighborhood. We can garden our little hearts out. If the Dervaes family can grow/raise almost all of food in their backyard AND sell the excess on their front porch, so can we. We can't have have chickens or goats, but we've got to start small anyway! They've been homesteading for 20 years!

Anyway, I just needed a place to set my head straight. I'm sure my family gets tired of me whining about chickens and self-sustainability.