The moment I knew we were doing the right thing was one week I wasn’t able to make the milk pick up time and we had to fill in with store-bought organic milk. My youngest got hives, we all had very loose stools, my husband had a repeat of indigestion and IBS and felt horrible till the next raw milk delivery. We ended up drinking water and threw out the store milk.

Too many children are going through puberty way too young, have mental problems, learning problems, are on Rx meds, and are obese. Our diet is directly to blame and I, and this is just my personal opinion, would rather have healthy organic kids than have a fat bank account.

Am I bragging? No. Just stating a fact we have come to know. We live on one income and find it hard each month, but we do it. We don’t have doctor visits, so we save money on co-pays there. No more meds means no more pharmacy trips. My medicine cabinet doesn’t have a single cough syrup in it, we use “really-raw” honey and hot tea. No tylenol, we use cool wet rags and warm baths to trigger our bodies’ natural healing responses. Big savings there…

Bio-Kleen is a favorite product. I use their concentrate and make my own mixes which do way better than vinegar and water. 1 T makes a quart. $4 for a 16 oz. bottle ($6 for a 32 oz. bottle of the sauce) of the concentrate. It lasted me 8 months. That was for cleaning 2 bathrooms, floors, rugs, toilets, upholstry, kitchen, and glass for a family of 6. Wow! How much do you spend each month on cleaning products?

It is possible to relearn what has been lost. Making your own stock with soup bones is not hard, especially if you have a crock-pot. Culture your own milk to make cream cheese, sour milk, kefir and yogurt. Soak your grains and flours 24 hours in yogurt or kefir before using them. Buy your flour in 25# bags and keep in the freezer so they don’t go rancid, or better yet if you have the space and means, grind your own. Buying organic foods in bulk oftentimes preserves our health so we may be more effective servants to those around us. Healthy kids means they do better in school and have a better chance to become successful and smart in adulthood.

It angers me that moms are made to decide wholesome food vs. cheap processed “white” food. Why has it gotten this bad? We should all have the right to chemical free food grown with respect for God’s land. Let’s work together to demand those victory gardens of the past, keep a few chickens in our backyard and start a co-op for trips to the local farmers. If you know one friend who has a plot of land to be used for a garden, chickens, a goat for milk, a sheep for meat etc., offer to help get them started and in return you’ll be able to reap a portion of the harvest.

Have you heard of Zebu’s? They are the “miniature-Brahma” sacred cow of India and are a great source of meat for the small farmer here. They are growing in popularity in Texas and allow you to get that all-coveted ag exemption! Pick one thing and go for it. It’s less difficult that way and much more rewarding.

Constantly looking for better things is what drives us as moms. Do I settle? Only when it comes to something insignificant. I drive a 7 year old car. Could I go out and buy a brand new one? Sure. Buy why when I would have a $800 car payment? I’m alright with it. It’s just the outside appearance. What I want is a healthy interior. For me and my family.

Finally, do what you can. Start small and build. Learning is good. Just because our parents did it one way doesn’t mean we have to as well. “Gettin” above your raisin’ isn’t a bad thing, that’s what we want for our kids. Pick one thing you can change and go for it. And always remember, for better or for worse, YES our God is there. But He helps those who help themselves. He has and will continue to provide and we thank Him everyday.

(BTW:I LOVE your emergency food plan! Very good to have just in case. I wouldn’t feed that to my family for an extended period of time but it’s good to have that in my back pocket.)

I know we are in a recession, because my business has been booming. I write resumes and I simply can’t keep up with the demand, as I am a mom and also have a small part time job at a local Non-profit. Even if I could work 80 hours a week, I could not keep up.

Also love your commentary on Bush. In my opinion he’s simply the most ineffective and damaging president we’ve ever had.

~Jessica

I’ve been kind of out of the loop here since i haven’t been online much lately. But i think you are so on target about the recession. My finace talks about this in the same way, feels it’s a direct backlash from greed. “Need not greed” is his favorite saying and how he lives. When you were describing earlier your experience with the notebooks in the dollar store this reminded me of this. He might mention something he saw when shopping that he’d liked but didn’t buy it even though it wasn’t all that much. “‘Well why not?’ is what i used to say “it wasn’t even that much”. And he’d say, “Well, because i didn’t ~need~ it”. Your experience with the notebooks finally helped pop on the little lightbulb there : )

Also the way you are learning to still stay within what is needed rather than go beyond that, even when your fiances have gotten better, has been a real lesson too. I remember before my partner hurt his arm and was working last summer in Alaska, we had money from that and used it to stock up on some things. But what was strange was that, along with the relief of not struggling then with money so much then, there was this strange stress there too….a pressure i felt inside that “now that the money is here i SHOULD be doing all you can for myself, getting all the new supplements etc couldn’t get before, if it might work for helping with fill in the blank, then i just “must” try it”. I didn’t go that far, his arm getting hurt cut it all short, but i could see that that little greed monster was definitely coming out. I think it’s the background in psychology, we were taught as the key focus that you must do “all you can for yourself” with what you have (along with you that whole misguided “you should dredge up all that’s wrong with life ands vent vent vent”, but that’s a whole other thing!). When that’s the sort of thing you have buried in the back of your head, poverty is almost a relief, because it gives you “’permission” finally to not be greedy. But i love how you have gone beyond that, and are finding a way to not be greedy even when you do have abundance.

I’m realizing this need not greed thing isn’t only about things either. When we ask someone to do something for example, that too can come from either real need or just greed. For instance if i’m looking at a sink full of dishes and my injury is flared up then etc, asking for help there really would come from a place of need. But asking for that same help just because I know the help would be given if asked and it would feel nice, when i don’t actually ~need~ that help then, that’s more greed. I hate it so much when folks belittle or take lightly another’s true needs and vulnerabilities and so my focus has been there a lot. But the other side of that “need not greed”, that taking care not to slip into greed, is feeling more and more key too. Not that someone offering to give you something you don’t need is wrong if they want to give it, just that we shouldn’t forget that need/greed line in what we ask for or expect in life. And as a culture we’ve definitely lost that line, making the recession not a surprise at all. Had to laugh at your “woodshed’ image, but you know, i think you’re right! We forget that when it comes down to it we are just children really. Anyway, this need vs greed stuff has just really been hitting home lately.

Something else has been too. A bit back we were talking about how our bodies are designed to “store up” in order to nourish. I think its more than storing up to feed children, i think as women we instinctively store up to nourish period, whether we have children or not, that its this primal sort of thing that just instinctively happens. I’ve been finding lately when i overeat that asking “what am i longing to nourish” really helps, trying to discern what is needing your mothering. I know it may sound weird, but I’m finding when i do that then the overeating seems to calm more, so just thought id share that for what its worth.

With the egg thing (and food in general), prices are definitely up over here in the northwest too. I haven’t been doing the shopping up here in Washington since I’ve been here the past couple months ( my finace is closer here and does it) but when i lived in Portland before i noticed that before i could buy eggs (and dairy too) at the dollar store, but then suddenly you couldn’t get either there anymore because they had shot up so much. The difference was so stark that they even had to have a sign in the aisle where the eggs and dairy used to be, explaining why!

Anyway, sorry for the looong comment here, I guess that’s what happens when you are offline a long time and come back for a bit….

Peaceful Week : ) Wendy

Glad to have found you again Maggie. (even if you don’t *know* me)

Barb