Interruptions

Before we had children, we were able to come and go as we pleased, eat out when we felt like it, go on random vacations, etc.  Times changed and we welcomed four kids in four and half years.  Originally, there were supposed to be only two.  Once we figured THAT ONE out, we (more like me, Amy) quickly called the urologist and set up that dreaded "V word" for Alex.  I thought it would be a great Christmas gift, which is why I chose Christmas Eve to do it (insert evil laugh).  Alex didn't see the humor in it.  Oh well, more than nine years later, we have not had any more pleasant surprises and I like to praise that urologist for his incredible work.  Alex feels sort of differently and no longer enjoys frozen peas in quite the same way.

After those babies started rolling out, the real work began.  The easy part was the nine months in the womb.  The incredibly hard part was the moment they entered the world.  It was constant maintenance...feed them, rock them, put them down for naps, feed them again, play with them, feed them again, etc. And that's just one baby.  Juggling was never my forte and it took a long time for me to figure out how to juggle four kids without "dropping the ball."  Fast forward about three years, and I had finally found my groove.  I had also found the biggest source of my frustration...interruptions.

For 27 years, I didn't have any interruptions.  I pretty much did as I pleased and most of the time, all that I planned worked out in my favor.  I loved it.  It wasn't until Life thought I needed a good kick in the butt to bring me down to a different reality. At that time, Timmy was three.  We were feeling the brunt of the recession coming to an end and we needed to cut our debt.  For months, we tried to figure out how to get out of the hole we were in.  Ironically, we couldn't even afford for me to go back to work because our children were so close in age, we would've had three in daycare and one in public school.  We knew that public school was not really a route we wanted to take with our kids and looked at other options.  And that's when we decided to sell our house, buy some land, live in a RV and go after our pipedream of owning our own homestead.

Reality: Living in an RV with four kids is a test of your sanity.  I wish we could've afforded internet at the time, because I would have started this blog then.  Boy, there were some stories to tell.  RV living was the biggest interruption in our lives, aside from adding to our family (although "interruptions" has a negative connotation, this is not the case in this blog).  For three years,  we grew and developed ourselves into the people we wanted to be.  We lived in a campground for 15 months and learned who and what we didn't want to be.  The rest of the time, we lived on the land we bought.  It was pure bliss to realize the dream we were chasing was now a reality.  We did accomplish so many things, but the biggest reality was that humility is the key to being a homesteader.  That was the hardest thing to accomplish for me.  Alex and the kids were already there.  I was not.

Talking about homesteading and actually being a homesteader are two very different things.  Some of the very first things that I learned on my journey to homesteading: store all your belongings in plastic containers with lids, ashes do wonders to cover the smell of a composting toilet, never empty the black water of an RV when the tubing is frozen, shallow wells don't hold much water, frozen chunks of ice shooting out of a water hose make dangerous weapons, and hay bales are great insulators for your RV.  Of course, washing your clothes in frigid water by hand and constantly scrubbing the black mold inside of the RV are other great ways to help you attain some humility in life.

By the time we bought our house, I was finally ready to expand our homestead.  We added more chickens, ducks, turkeys, a couple extra dogs, and hogs.  It felt real.  It was hard and extremely rewarding at the same time.  You see, it was the interruptions in our lives that brought us to where we are today.  Had we not held those four incredibly beautiful children in our arms the moment they were born, and not fallen completely head over heels in love with them, there is no way we would be homesteaders.  We wouldn't be the people we are.  

We would not have grown.  Those who like to grow their own food know the key to healthy plants is
nutrients, water, and sunlight.  If those three elements are not present, then the plant will die.  Alex and I like to think of our "interruptions" in life as the nutrients, water, and sunlight that grew us into healthier "plants."