Finding My Why
In the Beginning
Starting off my first blog post the same way the Bible starts off isn’t a copyright issue, right? And if it is, does Moses come after me? Or does God pull a burning bush scenario to tell me Himself? But I digress.
This is my beginning. I have toyed with the idea of starting to homestead for a while, and have made some tiny movements already. I have a couple packets of seeds on my kitchen table. I have a rabbit hutch outside my house waiting to be turned into a quail cage. I have watched a few hundred youtube videos of people doing the very things I want to undertake. And while this is all well and good, I know that unless I have a strong reason for starting, then it will be too easy to quit when the going gets rough. So it is only fitting to make this first post about my why: my family.
Sounds hokey, I know. Everyone says “I do it for my kids” or “my family is the reason I stopped smoking.” But I firmly believe that clichés are clichés for a reason. My two babies have long lives ahead of them, and I am in charge of making sure that they learn what healthy choices look like. I am in charge of maintaining my own health to be sure that I will be there for first dates, for graduations, for a couple more of my own kids, and eventually for my grandkids. And while my husband is ultimately in charge of his own choices, I am the one who shops, cooks, and prepares the food, and I am the one who is always researching what we could do differently to support the health of our family. It’s actually exciting! There’s something beautiful in homemaking, an art slowly curated and nurtured over hundreds of years, only to be lost in the busy lives we lead now. Where mom and dad both have to work to pay the bills. Where daycare costs an absurd amount, only for your babies to be raised by people who could never love them the way you love them. I’m not looking foward to the sacrifices that will probably come along the way: living with one car, only eating salad in the summer when it’s in season, learning to butcher quail without hurling. But I am looking foward to what that means in the long run: raising my children myself, feeding my family - body and soul - with good food and good values, and actively pursuing joy and contentment in the simple. And this blog is where I will document my highs, my lows, my successes and my adjustments. Here is where it all begins.
