Laborday weekend

So I had a big list of things I wanted to do this weekend and I took Friday off to take my wife to DES Moines for her orthodontist appt. But I didn't get a lot of the other stuff done. I did get the large picnic table painted, which looks very nice. And I'll probably get the other one painted too. We found new shoes for Dex and Rach and I. I got some nice addidas trail runners, need to start running next. I did get one sort of work out in about 20 min in the spinning bike and a few yoga stretches. Now I just need to get to where it about a 4 or 5 day a week habit. I also got the blades off of the chipper shredder to be sharpened, that will be nice for our garden composting efforts. For now the walk that I just took with my family and now the relaxation of laying in the hammock with Eli watching the clouds roll over are more fullfilling.

Changes

So I have some changes on a couple of fronts in my life. First my wife has been reading about how all the fake stuff we eat is having adverse effects on our lives so we are slowly shifting our diet over to a more natural, organic, whole food diet. Not that we were eating total crap before but we are making more of an effort now and putting out money more into organic stuff. As well as enlarging our own garden and trying to get better at growing and storing our own goodies. Second I'm getting some help for my depression issues, it seems to be helping I'm a bit more able to focus and more motivated to just do the things that i need to do. Enough of the constant irrational battle in my mind over my self worth and ability to do things right. Thirdly, with the oil spill in the gulf and BP's lack of a serious response to protect the environment, and the total corruption in the middle east with oil money being used to buy weapons and terrorize their own people and try to kill us. I think it's silly not to reexamine our relationship with the internal combustion engine. I have decided to Leave my van in the garage as much as possible. I'm walking to work form now on and will only be driving it for trips that require us too haul everyone or lots of stuff.

Fostering my growing depression

How ironic that I make a mobile post on depression as a lay in my hammock on a hoiday weekend.

Anyway as anyone who's battled depression will know it doesn't really go away when times are perticularly good. The inner battle with ones self rages on about every detail big and small. And on this wonderfully blue sky day I lay here lamenting many of the things I've said and done over the last month or so. I saw all this coming and did nothing. It takes a lot to get help with these things. Starting at least six months ago I new my self worth was going down the shiter. I also noticed that most of my interests were no longer interesting. And my taste in music had shifted, normally I'm pretty open to most types now it's a little hard to find something I want to hear even in my own collection. I generally like a lot of the talk radio on NPR but I'm getting more and more finnicky about the topics there as well. Then there is my growing irritability, oh boy! This is a heavy hitter for the folks closest to me and is really their first indication
that something is wrong with me. The smallest thing can set me off. While I don't take it out on anyone my over reaction is embarassing to say the least and in the subject of much further self depravation later on. So ya I guess you could say I take it out mostly on myself in the form of being mad at myself. Feels as if I am saying all the wrong things out loud an can't seem to bring myself to say the things that I need to say at the right time.

Blog from email

Ya! I think I have several ways to make this work now.

Sent from my iPhone

Just trying this out I suppose email to blog is the better way to go.

Just how far down the rabbit hole are you willing to go?

So, it has come to my attention that many, many, many, of us middle class working Americans are pretty unhappy with the way we are living our lives. Both in the jobs we have and do and in our family and home lives. I think we all fall into one of two categories. Either we want more, more, more, money, stuff, travel, house, cars... Or we are in the growing group that takes a step back, and thinks why? Why are we busting our asses in this way for all this relatively unnecessary stuff. I say relatively because, well it is, everything is relative, I think?

Now, If you could give it all up and be absolutely debt free do you think you would? And if so, what would you then need in order to sustain a reasonable, possibly happier, existence?

In my own case this leads to an unending string of questions about what you really need, what you can really do and how alienated from the rest of society you will be with each step you take away from rat race that is the norm today.

What prompts this post? I get a frantic email from my mother earlier this week about how everything sucks and we're so insane for busting our butts, chasing all these wants and needs never getting ahead never having enough. Then her proposal, that one or the other of our families sell their house and move in with the other. Pooling our resources to eliminate debt and thus reduce monetary needs of both families. So the wheels begin to turn. While that idea alone, selling one house, would produce enough money to likely pay off most of the debt for both families. And significantly reduce monetary needs. When I start to think about reducing monetary needs I think how do I eliminate trips to the store, And I'm not talking about taking a truck to town once a month and loading up. I'm talking about grown your own food, sustainable garden or small farm. That is a lot of work right? So what's wrong with spending your time working to grow you own, rather that bustling off to a job you hate everyday to earn a little money and then taking that money to the store to buy basically inferior quality foods? Sure not to bad. you could maybe even manage to stay working in the job you hate and still grow quite a bit of food at home for your family. You're going to need some money anyway right? Right! You still have property taxes, which in our town will be considerable at roughly $200/mo. Utilities, lets say $300/mo. City Water at likely $80 for the hole clan. Then you have what ever groceries that you couldn't raise, fuel and registration for vehicles, clothing, health insurance and medical bills. You get the idea, you're still going to need quite a bit of money, even without your mortgage and car payments.

So what if you take it a step further? Move away from town. Likely far away from town to get your taxes down to a manageable level. And Off the utility company's grid that is costing you so much. Now you'll have your own well or other source of water so that cost is gone too. You've eliminated or significantly reduced the costs of nearly everything in your life. But now you are going to be responsible for providing it all and keeping it working. But if you can do it, wouldn't that be great? No more JOB. OK, so you may still need some money for the stuff you just can't manage to make or grown for yourself. And are you going to buy health and life insurance? Hmm?

Just to recap this is how far down the rabbit hole I'm looking at this point.
We've sold our houses, moved far away on a larger piece of undeveloped land. And since we have no utilities we are going to build our own house. Likely an earth bermed(mostly underground) house, that is most energy efficient since you barely have to heat or cool it due to constant temp of the earth around it. Or possibly a straw bale home that is very cheap to build and very well insulated. We are responsible for powering that home so it will be built with efficiency in mind every step of the way. Powered,with solar, small wind or hydro. This means batteries and inverters and a backup generator. But it's all ours, no monthly bills, they don't own us anymore. Taxes will be very low out in the boonies on,"undeveloped land", they don't own us either. We will now have to raise/grow most of our own food that is fine there will be at least four adults and 3 to 5 children around to help with chores and gardening duties. I'm talking two or three beef steers each year maybe a couple hogs a year, chickens probably at least 12 layers and several more for meat, a few sheep for wool, maybe on dairy cow or a couple of milking goats for milk. All animals will be free ranged organically on the best grasses we can manage on our land. In the garden we will raise copious amounts of tomatoes, potatoes, green beans, peas, carrots, squash, pumpkins, peppers, and sweet corn. There will also be fruit trees; Apple, pear, cherry, peach. Grape vines, Someone is going to make his own wine or start a home brewery lol. Some one in the family will also become proficient at sewing for mending and making clothes, remember our income will be nil. Money will be very unnecessary for the most part. Lets account for what well be needing monetarily now: We'll still need some money for fuel and maintenance on a small tractor for the farm and a vehicle for that, once in a long while, trip to town for supplies that we just couldn't make, grow or do without. We'll also still have some kind of property taxes although they will be very small on our "undeveloped land". Then there is the question of insurance. In the case of life insurance I'm not sure of its utility if we are living with out debt? It's a large cost if we are not going to get any use out of it and what use is money if we are using very little of it. Health insurance on the other hand is an even larger cost but we put ourselves at great financial risk if we go without it and have an illness or accident in the family. I haven't done the math but this alone could break he hole deal. It seems likely that at least one person will have to work off the farm as source of insurance and small amount of income.

This all seems a little Walton's or Little house on the prairie to me but appealing in so many ways.

What are the chances that I would get out there and every thing set up and then the grass would look all to green back on the other side of the fence working in a boring job in town with fancy houses and cars running here and there for everything? Oh... Suck... It's a lot to think about.

Ready for more questions? So, What is the government going to have to say about all this? Ya I have no idea. But how are they going to tax a bunch of people that aren't making much money? I'm sure they are going to have something to say about it. Is there a tax form to convert each chicken and tomato into a dollar value so that they can then tax you on it?

Social Networking for families?

So I'm perusing face-book the other day and see that a good friend of mine has a link to family link, I click it and see this great list with pictures of many if not all of his extended family. I think wow that's nice. So I join and start adding family members and of course it starts suggesting possible relatives, My family begin receiving confirmation requests and on and on. Tonight I started building my family tree, and yes it is a handy little way to keep track and stay in-touch with distant relatives. But I'm also stuck wondering whats wrong with us that we find a social networking site useful for keeping up with relatives. These used to be the people we new best and saw on a weekly basis at great grandma's for Sunday dinner. The people that you could count on most for help with everything from moving to buying a car or house or help with house repairs. Anymore I have to admit that I don't even do a good job of keeping up with the relatives that live right here in the same town with me. I have cousins living in the same county that I haven't seen in 5 years, shoot I might have seen them and not recognized them at that rate. And count on them for help? pfff! It's like pulling teeth to get a little help with simple repairs from my own father. Not that I'm complaining we don't really work well together any way. Love my dad but we're too much alike, all perfectionist, to work together. Sad to say the only one that can really count on is my brother but we don't exactly get along he has a hot temper but we really do work well together. There's an epiphany for you! Of all the my friend and relatives my brother is about the only one I can count on for help, especially with any work, even though we don't really get along all that well.

What does it all mean? Social networking for families? Counting the most on the person you don't get along with?

Tollerance and Patience

I consider myself to be quite open as far a religion, philosophy and culture go. I was raised as a Lutheran, like a typical Lutheran(i think), in my 30's I really don't participate in my church as much as I should. My wife has a magnet on our refrigerator with a picture of Jesus and a caption that says "quit using Jesus as a excuse for being a narrow minded bigoted asshole" which is to say that we have a real problem with some Christians that seem to think that they have a patent on salvation and have the one and only "true way". I mean isn't there something in the bible about "judge not lest the be judged". In my absence from our church life I find myself looking at and noticing the similarities of all the worlds major religions. I personally like to study many Buddhist teachings. It goes well and is not exclusive of my christian upbringing. I see Buddhism as kind of an every man's believe only what you see to be the truth on your search for truth kind of religion. I really believe that all of the major religions are good and those that follow and interpret those religions teaching honestly are good and "saved" people. I don't look down upon or disbelieve the goodness of Native Americans, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, or any number of other religions.

So when my nephew comes out of nowhere with a statement about Buddha being a fat false God. It kind of threw me for a loop. I didn't say much at the time. I really just wondered where an 11 year old learned such a thing. So I haven't figured out yet whether it came from my sister or one of the teachers at the church studying the ten commandments. I don't know whether to say anything at all. I mean he's really just learning all the things that I learned at his age being raised in the church. He'll turn out okay too right? The other part of me wants to force him to research a few other religions before passing judgment on Buddhists for worshiping false idols. I mean Buddha was not a God and did not seek to be "worshiped" in that way. He taught people to search for there own truth inside themselves, and believe only what they find to be true. I don't see it as worship of a "false god" or in conflict with my Christian beliefs at all. Well I just needed to get that off my chest I'm sure the discussion could go on and on so more on that in the future.

Ready to Drop out

OK, so I'm pretty well laid up today due to some muscle spasms in my back and neck. Probably due to my awesome lifestyle of going to work and standing mostly in one spot, on concrete, for about 10 hrs per day, and then going home and vegging for the rest of the day.

Anyway being in pain always gets me thinking about better ways to live this life.

U know, the rat race herd of sheople[combination sheep + people] that most of us participate in.

What a waste it all seems if you sit for a minute and think about it. Why the heck is this way the norm? Why do we all fall in line trekking off in our cars every morning to go to jobs, running here and there for god knows what. A lot of us go into debt to get: our houses, our cars, our education? Then we spend the rest of our lives as slaves to the lenders. We spend all our energy working for rich people or companies to get some money to pay off our debts to other rich people or companies (banks).

And a lot of us have to spend our time making money at jobs that are horrible for us and that we hate.

Why not just stay out of debt. Most of us leave high school with little or no debt. Work at something and learn how to live. Why not spend our time working for ourselves, our own food, shelter, transportation, other needs.(Needs, another topic, what are real needs? will discuss this further in the future i promise.) I mean why do I spend 40 plus hrs at work working for money to pay for stuff when i could be working to provide the stuff that i need more directly. If I need food, why not spend a good portion of the day gardening and raising animals that provide food? If I need shelter and heat for the shelter why not spend another significant part of my time building energy efficient shelter and come up with a sustainable way to heat and power that shelter?

In times like these all I can think about is how great it would be to have a simple life where my responsibilities didn't really include money and debt. I wake up and do chores taking care of a few animals perhaps milk a cow or goat. Gather some eggs from the free range chickens. Feed the animals and the dog that watches over my small herd. Plant and weed the gardens that grow enough food to last my family the whole year long. Gather some wood that keeps my very efficient house warm on the coldest days. My whole day would be spent living and learning with my wife and children, working/providing for real needs as opposed to money. which doesn't rank very high on the list of needs if you have no debt and can provide every thing else for yourself. As you can see my work and responsibilities would be many and varied and infinitely more satisfying.

At least that is what I spend a good portion of my time dreaming about these days.

Days like these, I'm ready say the hell with it.
1. Sell the house and get out of debt.
2. Save up some money and supplies.
3. Find a cheap piece of rural land somewhere.
4. Buy it and put a cheap shelter down and or start building practical efficient home.
5. Get animals, chickens for eggs a cow or goats for milk
6. Live! Meals are cooked from scratch, food is gathered or harvested, The land is paid for the house is built and powered off the grid cheaply.

I mean really! Am I wrong? Am I missing something? Please tell me!

New year

Some of you may know that I spent a rather large portion of time and money at ISU studying in the health and human performance field. I did not matriculate from that program but it is none the less a theme in my life. And in the face of a new year I find myself focused again on that skill set mostly to affect my own degrading physical fitness. That is to say life changes have managed to put several ten's of pounds back on my body and i need to do something about it. So I've placed our spinning bike in the living room where it will sit and remind me that i need to do more moving and less sitting and standing in one place. We'll see how that works : )