Well, we finally made it to the most difficult election day that I have ever known. I just do not understand how we got to this point. I have been feeling sad and for the first time in many years I have considered not voting but my husband and I dragged ourselves to the polls.
We prayed and made a final decision which I will not post, just know that we did not like our choices and I hope whoever wins will step up and be more than we expect them to be at this time.
So how can I turn this around and make something positive about it? Well we have decided that the only thing we can do is do the best we can at the things we can control. We cannot worry about what others are doing or allow these kinds of things change what we are doing.
In our household It is my responsibility to save money by conserving. I am retired now and so I work at finding ways to save by not spending and living a simple and frugal life we continuously find ways to slow the flow so we cut our bills. I have talked about that in other posts.
By cooking from scratch we save money. We try and not buy junk food and in our family when I was growing up when we went to our Grandmother's house if we wanted a snack we were offered a cold biscuits. I keep cold biscuits in this pot shown above.
This morning while I am writing this post I have chicken simmering on the stove. We will have chicken, potatoes and cabbage for lunch/dinner.
More of my home responsibility is to grow food with the help of my husband but I try to do what I can when he is not home. Here are garlic in a large pot. I have three pots and another ground plot planted. Also have several pots of onions and herbs.
This is our new garden plot that we have worked hard at lately and are not finished with. There will be a gate and fencing here in the front part. We have turnips, cabbages and radishes planted in the wire cages so the squirrels don't get to them. In the plots we have garlic, onion, carrots on the left and clover on the right that is starting to come up for ground cover. In the spring we will plant peppers and cucumbers in these places. We are going to put up a trellis and I will take photos when we do that.
We are not gardening for a hobby and we don't have a lot of land to do a big garden, we are trying to use our space to grow real food, something healthy that we know how it was grown. We are trying to live more like the past.
Yesterday I made slaw dogs for lunch. I wanted something different so we bought a package of 8 hotdogs without nitrates and I made eight hot dog buns and slaw.
With my basic dough recipe I make all kinds of things with it. It is all how you shape your dough. You can do this too because you have control of the dough and what you want to do with it.
How the slaw dogs look.
Another thing I can control is saving electricity by hanging the laundry to dry in the sunshine.
Keeping a eye on our pantry stock is another good way to save. If we let our pantry go and don't have the things we need to cook then that is where people end up going out to eat which can be very expensive. We save money by spending money on real food.
Our permaculture such as our citrus trees, pecan, blueberry and raspberry bushes helps our food budget. Once we have these things in place it gets better each year as the bushes and trees grow.
Living a simple life can make us money if we take the time to work it out.
Back when our children were born we did not have the things we have today. We really did not need much to make us happy. We do not need a lot of the things we have today.
I took my son home from the hospital and washed his diapers by hand because we did not have a washer and I hung them on the clothesline to dry.
We did not have computers, cell phones, we did not have a tv or a telephone and we were happy and really did not need these things.
I think many of us have been spoiled to having what we want and not what we need. There is a big difference in wanting and needing.
I stayed home with our children until they entered school then I worked a job with less pay to get off from work when they got out of school. When you don't have the things of today we can do this easier. It was not easy but it was probably easier than today because people have a lot more expenses than we did back then. We still do not need all these things that cost so much, it is truly only a convenience, these things that cost so much are really not something "Needed".
What is needed is food, clothing and shelter.
Take the anxiety of this voting day and turn it around to the things we can control. Our homes are where we can do the things that make sense.
We do not need to be angry because it does no good, we the people of any country need to bring back manners and respect to one another and live "like" the past with the good things of today.
Grandma Donna
