I'm back!

I went away from the lights of Fourteenth Street
and into my personal haze
But now that I'm back at the lights of Fourteenth Street
Tomorrow will be brighter than the good old days!


-"Hello, Dolly"

This week I have undergone a revelation of sorts. It started the morning after election night, when my US House of Representatives candidate, who had had a comfortable lead when I went to bed with 13% of precincts reporting, was upset by his challenger, whose doctrine is unmistakably Tea Party and religious right. That, with the news that our gubernatorial race is on hold while a recount is conducted, even though "my" candidate is ahead by over eight thousand votes, sent me into a haze of depression and anxiety about the future of our nation and the general ignorance of people. I aired my frustrations on Facebook, and received some comments that lifted me up and may have changed my life. I re-posted them on Sand Creek Almanac.

The gist of the comments was that the government will never make the changes necessary to move our nation where it needs to be. Those changes will have to be made at the local level. In order to overcome diminishing oil supplies, climate change, and a food system that is contributing to diseases of humans and the environment, people need to look at their own lives. Is our lifestyle sustainable economically, environmentally, and socially? Although the economic crisis seems to be over, what can we do to prepare for more instability in the future?

It will take nothing short of a revolution. And I believe that peaceful revolution can take place, one household at a time. And my renewed purpose in life is to make sure my own household is doing what it can to live a joyful life while preparing for a sustainable future. Living simply, acting deliberately, striving towards a practice of domestic permaculture (where have I heard that before?) And I will share that story here on this blog.


One of my excuses for not blogging has been, of course, time. But I've had another revelation over the last six weeks. My daughter and I are in a school/community theater production of "Hello, Dolly". I never thought I'd have the time to rehearse for 3-4 hours, five evenings a week. But I've managed to do it, and I'm having fun meeting some arts-oriented people in the community. So what am I going to do with all that time after November 21st, our last show? I have made a commitment to myself: I am not going to go back into my evening "personal haze". If I have the time and energy to do theater in the evening, I have the time and energy to play music. And write. And learn! It would be a shame to waste that time on trivial things. Life is too precious to waste even a moment, especially when that moment can be the essential one of discovery.

I'm not making any promises as to posting frequency. But my goal is to make this blog into a vital part of the discussion on sustainability. Whether it reaches only a few people, or hundreds, my hope is that my experiences and experiments can encourage people to take the path of living more simply, acting more deliberately. I'll begin tomorrow by sharing a recipe I came up with this morning that incorporates homegrown food, including some November-harvested kale.

Bread making, again, and other stuff I'm trying to do

I gave the bread machine a long hiatus, because I was somehow not finding enough time to even throw together the ingredients and let the machine do the work. But lately I've been thinking just ow hard it is to find good bread, something that has mostly organic ingredients and doesn't come in a plastic wrapper. Ugh, I've come to hate the ubiquitous plastic wrapping that our modern food must have. If I could eliminate the plastic wrapper, and all the energy it takes to ship a loaf of bread to my grocery store...I think it would make a difference.

Last night The Hermit was saying how he missed good homemade bread. So this morning, after the kids got on the bus at the ungodly hour of 6:30 AM, but they wanted to, and they woke up on their own, I put the stuff for a caraway rye in the bread machine. It didn't take too long, and it would be even quicker if I made up a dry mix, put it in jars, and just had to add the eggs and oil and water.

The loaf is almost gone as of this evening. All of the kids had PBJ sandwiches with it, and The Hermit and I got a taste with butter.

In other things, the next homemade item I want to try is salad dressings. I have all but sworn off Kraft and other major commercial brands, due to the amount of soy oil and corn syrup, and I'm thinking: I could probably make something better than the bottled variety, with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar, and fresh organic spices. I could store dressing in pint jars in the refrigerator, without buying and having to rinse and recycle new bottles.

It's one step at a time, this life I want to live.

living simply, acting deliberately

So what's a full-time modern career woman fisheries biologist like myself doing writing about being a homemaker?

I have given a lot of thought lately to my lifestyle. I am straddling the line between two worlds: the work-to-live lifestyle, which some would call Babylon, and my dream Utopia of a self-sufficient homestead, driven by spirit. While I don't think I will completely ever make the leap from the former to the latter, I've gone further towards the latter than I ever imagined.

Lately, however, walking the line has seemed a bit overwhelming. I have come to the realization that the double-income, suburban family is an impossible pursuit; divorce rates and alienated children attest to this. Heck, my husband is fortunate enough to work from home and spend a lot of time tending things here, in exchange for a few evening and weekend obligations, but still, how does one come home from work at 5:30, prepare a satisfying meal, wash the dishes, tend to the childrens' needs, and the needs of the marriage? Impossible, I tell you.

While I cannot yet shed the yoke of the full time job (health benefits are pretty hard to beat), I am striving for ways to make this life work much in the way I want it to. Specifically, I want to:

1. Maintain a peaceful household. That is, one in which I (or others) don't break down into fits of raised voices and violence.

2. Maintain an inviting household. I want my children to come home to fresh cookies and the smell of bread baking, and a stew cooking on the wood stove. I want the home to be comfortable, uncluttered, and homey.

3. Be as self-sufficient as possible. Yeah, I'm even thinking spinning and knitting wool socks. In my spare time, of course. When I'm done playing my homemade music for the night and drinking my home brewed beer. I want it all, dammit!

4. Live a joyful life. I'm fairly good at seeing the joy in day-to-day life, and I'm hoping to make myself more contagious.

5. Follow the Spirit-led path. I have some obstacles regarding Christianity that I can't seem to get over, but nevertheless I want to know that my actions are guided from above, from some God that is still speaking to us.

I really desire to be a homemaker. That commitment has not come quickly or easily; I have failed at one poorly-timed experiment in giving up the working life. Oh, right, make that two experiments. But now more than ever I feel that when I pull out of the driveway and make my 30 mile commute to work, I am missing out on the more important part of life.

So this blog will be my musings on trying to live more deliberately, to move to a more homemaking lifestyle, to pack as much living as I can into the hours I have. I do have another blog, but it seems to have taken on a life of its own and I want this one to be more focused on homemaking, and spiritual, issues, things that don't always blend seamlessly into my current blog.

My accomplishments for the day: I took the day off work, because The Hermit was on a business trip and I just could not deal with getting everyone to daycare and school and babysitting two puppies at work and doing chores after work. I met the older two kids at the end of the driveway after school because it was raining and somewhat cold, and I didn't want them to have to walk the distance to the house. I cooked spaghetti for dinner, with mostly home or locally grown ingredients. I gave my son a guitar lesson and helped my daughter with her piano practice. And, I took some time for myself and played some good music. :)