The Big White Farmhouse

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I knew it would happen eventually.  I’ve been burning that proverbial candle at both ends for awhile now and I finally hit the wall mid-week.  Thankfully, a two-day forced rest helped immensely and I was able to rally enough to celebrate birthdays by the weekend.

All that to say, I had planned to write about my thoughts from an article I read titled, “What Pope John Paul II can teach us about moving beyond fear” this week.  Being sick, that never came to fruition but I hope you’ll still read it and find encouragement like I did.

I plead with you–never, ever give up on hope, never doubt, never tire, and never become discouraged. Be not afraid. – JPII

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ celebrating birthdays!  I have two children whose birthdays are five days apart and they wanted to celebrate together.  My husband and I took them on a “shopping spree” to a few stores and they found a handful of great treasures.  We finished up with lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings and then had cheesecake at home.  A great day.

+ continued diligence with my Weather the Storm Challenge.  I felt a little discouraged as this work feels somewhat inconsequential, but I know it’s building the virtues of perseverance and patience…so we keep going!  This week, I:

• used the weekly grocery store ad to buy peaches, applesauce and shampoo on sale
• purchased five canned goods to put back for winter (diced tomatoes – also on sale)
• made cinnamon applesauce muffins using some of that applesauce above
• sold eggs to friends
• started air drying about a third of our laundry loads (which should save a tiny bit on our electricity bill)
• used a spatula to get the last bit of peanut butter out of the jar
• made english muffin bread twice
• picked tomatoes from my dying plants to throw to the chickens
• accepted two packs of fresh slider buns from my son’s work (delicious and free!)
• made more chicken broth, using up the last of the celery/carrots/onion in the fridge
• purchased next year’s birthday wrapping paper on clearance

+ selling fifteen unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: six books, five pieces of clothing and four dyslexia workbooks.  After shipping and fees, I made $149.31!

Reading //

• “Screen Sober” from Meredith Hinds at Still Today // “That said, ‘it is lawful to amuse yourself…’ but what are the limits? Discerning that means contemplating the difference between ‘doing the thing’ and ‘caring for it.’ And a helpful question to me in that line of thought is: are the stories I’m watching getting in the way of the stories I want to live?“
• Finding The Seam: How Small Farmers Can Thrive from Lenny Wells at Front Porch Republic // “But one can still be a farmer and care for the land without relying solely on the business of farming to support a family. In fact, most of them do. As of 2022, around 84% of farm households have off-farm income. Some would call what I’ve described above as a hobby farmer. I don’t. The fact of the matter is that if the average person wants to farm nowadays, they need an off-farm income.”
• The Hungry Years: A Narrative History of the Great Depression in America by T.H. Watkins // Really interesting so far.  One quote:

If the politicians and the pundits felt confused, others felt betrayed.  Perhaps the most fully deceived were those hostages to a middle-class dream gone bad – salesmen, promoters, businessmen, brokers, boosters, middle-management executives, Rotarians, Lions, Toastmasters.  They had all played by the rules, had joined enthusiastically in the great game of consumerism and limitless potential.  Now there was nothing to sell, nothing to boost, nothing to dream on.  “The kind of readjustment they are called upon to make is heroic,” Episcopal Bishop John Paul Jones observed in the pages of the Survey Graphic in 1933.  “Vast multitudes of them have lost financial security forever.  In bewilderment and bitterness they will seek a sign of hope, and no sign will be given.  Some will give up and end it all, but a great majority will go on living some kind of broken and frustrated lives.” (p.54)

New Additions to The List // 

• The Overstory by Richard Powers

Watching/Listening //

• How to Declutter your ENTIRE Home in 30 Days! from Clutterbug // Thinking about jumping in on this challenge soon.
• I tried “Swedish Death Cleaning” and it CHANGED EVERYTHING! from That Awkward Mom

Loving //

• this homeopathic cold medicine // My go-to when I’m going downhill.
• this Vitamin C tea // A new product in my wellness arsenal – I liked it a lot!
• the Megan Follows version of Anne of Green Gables // I bought this for my daughter and she loves it as much as I do.  SO good.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

Our home looks like a construction site right now.  As time allows, we’ve been working as a family to remove the wall texture in the living room and it’s been quite the project!  Furniture has been crammed into the middle of the room, lamps and artwork are hanging out in other spaces and watch your step!  Step stools and trash bags and putty knives of all sizes are everywhere.  We’ve done this kind of slow and steady work with the farm and even though we’re living in organized chaos, it is so fun and satisfying to have the same experience inside.

Doing the renovation ourselves brings me back to 2008ish and that period of the Great Recession.  I was a newly married, young mother of very young children.  As a family just starting out on one income, we didn’t have much money and I was so inspired by the surge of DIY projects and money-saving ideas on the internet.  Sadly, as the economy recovered, a rise in fast consumerism occurred and those do-it-yourself tutorials seemed to fade out of popularity.  And what a shame!  There’s something about doing diligent work yourself, learning new skills and trying new things, that just can’t be compared!  And that feeling of pride in a job well done?  Priceless.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ continuing on with the Weather the Storm Challenge.  (As a reminder, the goals of this challenge are to reduce debt, add to our food storage and save money.)  The biggest change I’m seeing may not be the vast amounts of money I’m saving (I wish!) but the confidence it is creating.  I’m constantly thinking of new things to try, new ways to stretch what we have.  It’s intoxicating and exciting!  Anyway, this week, I:

• used the weekly grocery store ad to buy grapes, tuna, and panko on sale
• used a coupon to try a new tikka masala sauce kit for free! (I saved $5.50)
• purchased five canned goods to put back for winter (mixed vegetables for chicken pot pies)
• sold eggs and chicken to friends
• made beef bone broth for the first time
• froze that broth into Souper Cubes (to stockpile for beef stew and french onion soup)
• found a sweatshirt for my son in the hand-me-down bins
• used up a free laundry detergent sample
• made english muffin bread
• learned from my son how to cut up a whole chicken into parts (he works at a farm and is a pro)
• made chicken broth from those carcasses (I’m on a roll!)
• listed a few items on ebay/Poshmark/Pango

+ selling eleven unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: seven books, one textbook and three pieces of clothing.  After shipping and fees, I made $91.35!

Reading //

• How Many People do we Need in Our Lives? from Edwin Leap at Life and Limb // “We all need connection. We need our own clans. Our own groups. Our own churches or synagogues, mosques or temples. We need deep relationship. These things can go a long way towards helping and comforting the lonely. They can make hard times better, hopelessness hopeful. They can protect against danger, hunger, disease and abuse by simply showing up and standing by those who are frail and powerless.”
• No, you cannot have it all from Jim Dalrymple at Nuclear Meltdown // “…you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be a self-centered individualist right up until the moment you need people. By that time the trade-off is made, the deal is done.”
• The Mother’s Gauntlet from Lane Scott at The American Mind // “One might object to the idea that homemaking requires an almost superhuman amount of self-governance. After all, isn’t it mostly about keeping the kids alive, fed, and your home kind of running on a basic level? That can’t be that hard. Yet it is precisely because the standards imposed externally are so low that the job can be so unsatisfying. The stay-at-home mom unconsciously applies her own standard, above and outside of the rest of society. Despite any protestations to the contrary, she knows her job demands more than subsistence. Her household has set aside the life of an entire adult, and all the income and aspirations she could have chased, so that she can raise the children. That sacrifice demands a thriving family, not a family that simply survives. The stakes are unbelievably high.”  Interesting thoughts here.
• Forming Human Persons in a Digital Age from Shannon Donald at Nota Bene // “I sometimes wish I could roll back the clock and do things differently. I like to think I would have kept digital technology out of my children’s lives for much longer, and that I would have endeavored sooner to break free from my own digital chains. But we can only ever learn and move forward, striving to become a little more human every day.”
• ‘Art Will Touch Lives’: An Aging Farmer Adds a New Dimension to his Ministry from Max Heine at Front Porch Republic // What a fascinating person.
• the comments under Grandma Donna’s The Bumpy Budget post // I sometimes feel like I have more in common with older retirees than I do my own generation.  They tend to avoid debt and are more content to live within their means without all of the unnecessary luxuries.  To read about their struggles in this economy both buoys me (we’re not alone!) and leaves me so, so sad.  God help us all.

New Additions to The List // 

• Coming Up for Air by George Orwell
• Goodbye to All That by Robert Graves
• None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

Watching/Listening //

• Millennial Stone Cleaner // I’ve been enjoying this Youtube channel.  This is the first video in a series where he restores and conserves an abandoned cemetery in Des Moines.

Loving //

• You Can Draw in 30 Days // My daughter is going through this book in school and really likes it.
• these “Save By Numbers” savings challenges // I just printed out the Donut Sloth.  If I can complete it, I’ll have saved $2,778!

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission of any sale made at no extra cost to you.

The painting above is a little blurry and the exact details are unclear (is that a woman?  is she in a cemetery?), but I felt the emotions evoked deep in my soul this week.  It’s that “fall on your face in front of Our Lord” exhaustion where you’ve clawed your way to the weekend!  Anyway, it is done, we survived and God’s mercies are new every morning.

I’ve been slowly reading The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah and this piece of advice seemed timely for me:

The silence of everyday life is an indispensable condition for living with others.  Without the capacity for silence, man is incapable of hearing, loving, and understanding the people around him.  Charity is born of silence.  It proceeds from a silent heart that is able to hear, to listen, and to welcome.  Silence is a condition for otherness and a necessity if one is to understand himself.  Without silence, there is neither rest nor serenity nor interior life.  Silence is friendship and love, interior harmony and peace.  Silence and peace have one and the same heartbeat. (p.32-33)

Here’s to finding little pockets of silence in the midst of this loud and messy life.

Hoping to document the abundance around me all year long!

Around here, abundance looks like…

+ working together (multiple times) to get a silly pig back into her paddock.  I swear…with every turn of the season, pigs always decide to get a wild hair and run amok around the property!

+ learning a tip for keeping sweaters looking great.  I wish I had saved the Youtube video, but the woman basically shared how any sweater made with acrylic or nylon or polyester will quickly look worn out.  She said your best bet would be to look for 100% cotton or wool because they hold their shape longer and are less likely to pill or show wash wear.  Two of the three sweaters that I just purchased on ThredUp were 100% cotton, so I’m anxious to see if this tip holds true this winter.

+ completing more small tasks for the Weather the Storm Challenge and feeling more motivated than ever.  When we were getting gas one afternoon, we overheard the gas station owner warn that we could see another $1-$1.50/gal increase by the end of the year.  This would be pretty devastating financially for us (as we live in the country and my husband has quite a work commute) so I’m already thinking of ways to get ahead now in case the owner’s prediction comes true.  This week, I:

• used the weekly grocery store ad to buy peaches, blueberries and russet potatoes on sale
• purchased five canned goods to put back for winter (diced tomatoes and soup)
• sold eggs to friends
• counted up and wrapped change to deposit at the bank
• fixed a small crack in my dustpan with duct tape
• listed a few items on ebay/Poshmark/Pango
• cooked two whole birds for dinner and then used the carcasses to make broth
• froze that broth into Souper Cubes (creating a stockpile for winter soups and stews!)
• added food scraps and toilet paper rolls to the compost pile
• turned off the A/C and opened the windows

+ getting paint on the back hallway walls.  After a ridiculous amount of research, I decided to go with Benjamin Moore’s Simply White for the trim and Ballet White for the walls.  I had them color matched at Home Depot and spent most of Saturday getting to work.  The walls themselves aren’t perfect and I already know I need to re-sand a few places and repaint, but…progress!

+ selling seven unneeded items for the Car Loan Payoff Plan: seven books.  After shipping and fees, I made $15.84.  A slow week.

Reading //

• How to begin a letter-writing habit from Shannon Hood at Of Permanent Things // “We are drowning in electronic communication–much of it is meaningless, and very little of it is of lasting value. None of it is tangible. I write letters because they embody all of the best aspects of communication. Letters are meaningful, intimate, private, tangible, and worth holding on to.”
• It Pays To Be Cheap from Addison Del Mastro at The Deleted Scenes // Food for thought and the comments are great too.
• The Prophets of Technocracy from Dr. Ben Reinhard at Hearth and Field // “I suspect that the difficulties encountered by educators can be replicated, with small modifications, in every profession and every state of life: rejecting, as far as we are able, the empty glamours of the technocratic age, asks more of us than we might suppose. It does not mean returning simply to the status quo ante of 2019, or 2010, or 1993, but a radical re-examination of what it means to be fully human. In pursuit of this, every moment, every action, every thought clawed back from the reign of the Machines is something to celebrate; every moment yielded to them should be an occasion of regret, if not outright repentance.”

New Additions to The List // 

• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales by Oliver Sacks

Watching/Listening //

• Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos from Frontline PBS // An eerie documentary to watch as I read The Every by Dave Eggers.
• Lectures 1-3 of George Orwell: A Sage for All Seasons on The Great Courses // Did you know George Orwell is actually a pseudonym?

Loving //

• D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths // I’m reading this with my little boys and we are all really enjoying the crazy stories.
• this english muffin bread recipe // Makes two loaves and holds up to sandwich making.  I always omit the sugar and you can’t taste a difference.

P.S. Something seems to be wrong with my posts being delivered to email inboxes.  I’m looking into the situation and may have to find a new program.  So sorry for the inconvenience.