That would be a joyous reality.
If the summer garden doesn't quite reset us before we start running out of some of our staples that we can't live without, we'll have to dip into our unspent allowance total. If you recall our original "ground rules" post from December 2014, we built in a $20.00 per month emergency allowance kitty that we could dip into if we found ourselves in dire straits. This total would then roll over from month to month. Thus far, we have only used $5.00 from the allowance fund from when we had house guests a while back. We spent that five dollars on breakfast sausage that we never actually ate ourselves---the guests ate it, so I still don't know if it "counts" against our total. However, it's money that we didn't intend on spending. It is what it is.
We have reached the point in our challenge when we are actually NOTICING a real "dent" in our home food stores. This was the whole point of the challenge to begin with. We had put up so much food in our freezer, cupboards, and canning jars, that we weren't actively using as much as we were putting up. We were still buying things at the store, and still going to restaurants, etc.
To put it bluntly, we were being stupid.
This challenge has taught us to be a little less stupid. We've learned that we may "want" something else for dinner (the answer almost always being cheeseburgers), but we had exactly what we needed for dinner on hand (the answer almost never being cheeseburgers)...and for the record, in the past three months, we've each had one cheeseburger. It's tragic and triumphant--all in the same odd way.
We've learned to make good, hearty meals from whatever we have on hand at all times. Not once, have we sought outside of our home stores to make a meal in the past 66 days.
It's been tough.
We may get to a point in our challenge where we're consuming venison, marinara, pickles and canned peaches and pears multiple times each week, as we have a great deal of those things left.
I swear, we'll never go hungry if we have a good tomato crop each year. I put up so many tomatoes, it's ridiculous. Try it sometime.
I still love him.
This past week alone, I've made a bunch of bread items from scratch-- sandwich bread, flatbread for homemade Gordita tacos, pizza dough, and cast iron skillet buttermilk biscuits. All of these recipes can be found at the "bread link" under my recipes tab, if you feel so inclined to make your own. All of them are not difficult by any means, but they will take time. That's where I think I lose most people when they ask about my challenge.
Time.
We live in a world where "busy" is glorified. We don't feel productive or worthwhile unless we are constantly stressed out, pushed to our max, sleep-deprived, and irritable 24/7. The rat race has consumed too many of us, and I want nothing of it. I am not impressed by people who must carry Starbucks cups wherever they go to prove to the world that they are sufficiently caffeinated with overpriced coffee. I don't want to have to schedule natural life occurrences such as play dates, sit-down dinners, or a day of the week to smooch my husband, because I'm just too busy to do those things on my own.No sir, I want no part of that life.
I want to work hard when I am scheduled to do so, leave my work on my desk when it is time to leave, and live life hard when I am able.
This is the reality of a few friends of ours, but for the vast majority of people that we know, it is not. There are a few of our close friends that rarely make a meal at home anymore--instead, they drive through somewhere for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If that's your thing, great, but just the mere thought of that sort of lifestyle--at least for me--makes me sad.
I'll leave it at that. I don't want to sound overly pious or holier-than-thou when it comes to our meals. I really, really, don't. I do want folks to become a little more cognizant of what they are consuming, though. We're as guilty as the next for bringing home take out when there was a freezer full of food to make at home, but we're making a conscious effort to quit doing that altogether.
It's difficult to quit the rat race.
Mentally, my life is pretty simple. Year round, I want to live a Godly life, love and spend time with my family, and be outside. That's it. Nothing more, and I don't pretend to want anything else. In the winter, the outside part means: snowshoeing, ice fishing, small game hunting, and cutting firewood. In the spring, the outside part means: starting garden seeds, morel hunting, steelhead fishing, turkey hunting, and wanting to learn how to sugar maple and birch trees (all in due time). In the summer, the outside part means: trout, salmon, perch, walleye, and bluegill fishing, gardening, canning, hiking, canoeing, photography and backpacking. In the fall, the outside part means: hunting, putting the garden to rest for the year, and finishing the bulk of our home food preservation.
I don't have time for the rat race. I'm just too busy.
How can you make your life just a little more simple today?
--SH