Moving Towards

I thought I would explain the plan. People doubt the plan, but I have assumed that it was from misunderstandings. So, I am laying it out step-by-step, and if people still doubt the plan, I am up for suggestions on what we might be overlooking.

Dan is in Bible college currently. He will graduate either Spring of 2011 or 2012, depending on some scheduling issues. Whichever year doesn't effect the plan so much, but it is taken into consideration for the time frame.

So, here is the plan. I will say that we have earned more money for this plan through the blog than through savings. For that I am thankful. If it were not for blog income, the plan would take longer.

Step 1) Buy a mobile home. We have no idea where we are going to end up and how often we'll be moving after, so a mobile home is the way to go for us. At first, we will rent a lot for it in a park. The money we save on rent can be used to pay utilities that aren't covered and to put towards the next step.

Step 2) Fix up the mobile home. I have grandiose plans for a layout that will suit an expanding family. We will change the layout and fix up anything else in need of work. I will start posting my layout ideas when my Touring Tuesdays are done.

Step 3 and 4) Buy land or make home energy efficient. Which we do first depends on whether Dan has a pastorate yet and which will reap savings faster. Not all lots within our price range will be hook-up ready for water, and we may end up building our own well. Thus, if we are looking at land that isn't ready for us, we will want our home to have solar panels for heat and electricity.

Step 5) Build a chicken coop. This will be our first venture into livestock, but not our last. Where we go from there is hard to write on paper, as there will be so many variables in the type of land we have, and how much, but we will continue one step at a time.

All the while...

I will be working on homesteading by increasing our garden and renewable food sources. I will also be researching, researching, researching the next step.

How much, how long?

This is not a short term goal, but I imagine we could be on step five in ten years, and probably going back to step two as we go. Right now, we're putting the blog money aside to start step one. Once Dan is through with school, we will be putting the money that was for his tuition toward these goals, one at a time.

This is MY Blog

Last week, I turned off comment moderation in hopes that my trolls would simply get it out of their system. Little did I know, the source of their hate was deep. Although I am not the cause of their hatred and misery, for some reason, it feels good for them to take it out on me.

For a while, it was okay. I could see my fractions of pennies adding up as everyone threw in their own two cents. But, it has gone too far. For the second day in a row, this blog has been no fun. Once again, my husband and I are discussing what it will take for us to shut it down.

In hopes to avoid shutting it down, I have reinstated comment moderation. Here are some rules.

No anonymous comments. You can type your name in the Name/URL box. If you don't have a URL, use mine, or just type in google. Better yet, throw in your swagbucks referral code. But anonymous comments will not be moderated. They will be deleted.

Be productive. Didn't your mother teach you that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all? Well, if you have criticism, make it productive. Make a suggestion, or include a link or a reference.

Get a life. I know this may be counterproductive to my blog income, but people who are spending their time calculating calories and trying to measure my stuff may be able to find something better to do... in their own life.

Join sybermoms. Yes, sybermoms, I have finally written about you. If you can't be nice, productive or intelligent, join sybermoms for mindless chatter with like-minded people.

Lay off my husband. None of you know him, but he's a great guy, great enough for me to want to spend every day of my life with. No insults about my husband will be published.

Stay on topic. I wrote posts about what I find interesting or noteworthy. If you're interested in something else, start your own blog.

Touring Tuesday Overview

I am kicking off a new short series, Touring Tuesdays. I always love snooping around the homes of other bloggers who put up pics of their homes, so I thought you would enjoy the same.

Our apartment is small, roughly 450 square feet. I think we use the space well, but you can judge for yourselves. This week I am posting one picture of each room. In coming weeks as I go through one room per week, I will post at least four pics of each room, one from each corner of the room. I will add additional if more are needed to get the whole idea.

I decided to be honest about how my apartment looks. I sweep every day, but I only mop as needed. I vacuum as needed as well. I leave my dishes in the drainer and toys on the floor to be played with. I almost never make the big bed because there is usually someone snuggling in it. This is a lived in home, not a museum, and that's how we like it.

Bedroom

Bathroom

Boys' Room

Living Room

Kitchen

If you have questions, ask and I'll try to highlight it on the individual room post or in a Storage Solutions Saturday post.

(I brightened each of these pictures. Our apartment gets good light with three large south-facing windows, but it didn't come through in the pics and the darkness made it hard to see.)

Hot Chocolate, Baking Powder, and Spaghetti Squash

Hot Chocolate

For us in Maine, winter means hot chocolate. I admit, when we were first married, I bought the powdered hot chocolate mix that you add to hot water. Never again...

Heat on stove or in microwave

1 cup milk

Add

1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon stevia (or 2 tablespoons sugar)

I haven't done a price comparison of this to store bought. Store bought might be cheaper, but this is far yummier and made from real ingredients, so we'll go with this.

Baking Powder

In a quest to clear my home of all genetically modified foods, I discovered my baking powder has cornstarch as it's leading ingredient. I remembered the Tightwad Gazettehad discussed baking powder alternatives. Amy Dacyczyn's baking soda and cream of tartar recipe will save a fraction of a penny each time you use it, as well as being a natural, non-GMO alternative.

The formula is a little tricky, but it works perfectly. I made this chart that I taped to my old box of baking powder, which now holds my cream of tarter. For each part of baking powder called for, use 1/4 part baking soda and 1/2 part cream of tartar.

Spaghetti Squash

Spaghetti squash is my version of fast food. Dan has been home for more meals while he is on Christmas vacation from school. To save me some time in the kitchen, I have turned to spaghetti squash, which is cheap right now.

I cut the squash into quarters and use one quarter in the place of pasta in recipes. It cost roughly the same as my pasta recipe, depending on how large the squash is. It saves me about fifteen minutes of hands on prep time in making and fermenting dough, rolling it out and cutting it. I just boil the squash for 20 minutes, peel off the skin, and mix it in with the rest of my dish.

I get most of my produce from a local market that gets shipments from Boston to Maine three times a week, sorry locavores. I have no idea where they came from before they got to Boston. I don't imagine they are grown there. This small market has the best produce prices I have ever seen, and it almost always beats my 10% discount on Walmart produce. They are the reason for my $1 per pound produce rule, because they have an amazing variety of produce that fits into that category.

Free Books

I recently discovered the Thomas Nelson Book Review Program from the blog Proverbs 31 Woman in Training.

It's a pretty simple program for bloggers. You pick out a book to review from their site. They send you that book for free. You write a review on your blog and link it to their site. Repeat.

Knowing that my book reviews may not be extremely interesting to all of my regular readers, I am only going to post them on Sunday, which has traditionally been my day off. I expect I will do about one per month, maybe two, depending on how fast they ship. By putting the review on Sunday, I will not be displacing my regular content.

Now that I'm with BlogHer, I am a little more limited about my reviewing capacity, but their rules state:

"You may also accept for free and review any product(s) with a retail value of under $40 (U.S.) as long as you properly disclose that you were given the product."

So, I am disclosing that I will review these free books, and am recommending that if you are interested in free books, you might want to check out this program, even if you're with BlogHer.

Tool Dwelling

This is my living room wall. It has pictures hanging on the left, a pretty scarf hanging on the right next to an old wrench on pegboard. On the bottom are storage solutions that will be discussed in future posts. Today's focus is on our tools:

When the scarf is moved, you see our tools. We have them lined up with the sharpest tools toward the top, going down to the less sharp tools toward the bottom. The bottom is blocked off from the kids, but we still didn't want the screwdrivers within their reach.

We also have an electric saw on the wall in our bedroom. It has a special hook and we couldn't hide it neatly behind the cloth.

Our tools are pretty basic at this point, with an electric drill and electric saw. Everything else is a hand tool, including a wrench set, screwdrivers and a hand saw. The plastic bait container in the middle is a catch-all for various pieces of hardware.

We had a toolbox, but we found this is a way to make our tools more easily accessible. This way we don't have to pull out half of our stuff to get to what we are looking for. I don't mind the look of pegboard on our living room wall, but if I did, I could paint it any color, or even turn it into a fun mural.