Homeschooling went longer than usual. I sleepily open the fridge to make dinner only to notice that I never thawed any meat out that morning. Do I panic? I grew up walking to the grocery store in the suburbs. Picking up a meal or missing ingredient was never a big ordeal. Now that I'm a country girl, I am forced to designate one day a week to drive half and hour to town. "Running to the store," is not a part of my daily routine. Surprisingly, I don't panic. Yes, a few years ago I would have. I would have stressed out until my husband walked through the door and mumbled something about going out for pizza. Yet this time, I calmly take a step back and figure something out.
HOW DO WE BREAK THE CYCLE OF DEPENDENCE?
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| Photo Credit: Morguefile |
How am I able to stay calm? How am I able to not be dependent on the grocery store and pre-packaged foods or meals when in a bind?
Well, it certainly didn't come easy. When times get tough and the stress is through the roof, it is easy to sit back and let others do the work for you. It's so much easier to run through the drive thru of Little Ceasars than it is to make a pizza of your own.
Or Is It?
I once watched a television special where a famous chef sent a family member to a fast food joint to pick up some food. Meanwhile, he stayed at home and taught the mom and daughter
how to make a quick, easy and healthy meal. Unknown to the family, his point was to prove that the women could make the meal quicker than the family members could go and get the food. When the dad and son arrived home, the girls had a meal ready at the table for them to enjoy.
IT'S ALL ABOUT TRAINING YOUR MIND
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| Photo Credit: Morguefile |
I learned quickly to force myself to be creative when times were tough. The days when the morning sickness was at it's worst and the emotions were running wild, I still had to suck it up and make a meal for my family. When we had only two pennies to rub together I would enter the ingredients that I had in the pantry into the Pinterest search bar and let other people's creativity carry me through that night.
When the going would get tough, I would try my hardest to not give in, but learn.
We can't do it all. Many have gone before us and have little nuggets of wisdom that we can glean from What we need to realize is that we don't need to pretend we have it all together. If we want to take that first step towards self-sufficency, we need to get off our high horse and...
BE WILLING TO LEARN
Once we come to grips with the fact that we need to humble ourselves and learn from those who have gone ahead of us then we are ready to embark on something great. If we think we have it all figured out and aren't willing to take the advice from those who have succeeded or from those who have made mistakes then we will cause ourselves more stress than needed and maybe even dig ourselves into a hole, we never can seem to get out of.
Remember, learning takes time. Just because we want to homestead doesn't mean we need to go completley off grid, growing all our own veggies for the year our first year and baking everything from food produced soley on our farm. Yes, we want to get there someday but it's not going to happen overnight. We have to take one step at a time or we might get overwhelemed and give up. Kind of like my kids trying to tackle cleaning their messy rooms.
Start small. Learn a skill. Master it. And use it. Then move on to a new skill. Slowly, you'll get there and you'll feel a sense of accomplishment when you do! Feel like you've tried and failed? Keep trying. Farming, homesteading and the like, especially if you weren't raised in it requires a new mindset and determination. With practice, you'll get there. One day you'll look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you truly do live on a homestead!
This is the first (of hopefully many) loaves of bread we made with grain that we milled ourselves!
What is Your Biggest Challenge In Starting A Homestead?
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