One Step Forward, Two Steps Back – Homesteading With Suzanne

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I was on a roll.  I was saving money.  Going green.  Preparing my garden with the compost I had so lovingly saved.  I was perfecting my bread making, keeping granola on hand for hungry mouths, instituting cooking days, and cutting my grocery bill in half.  I was cultivating confidence (and growing pride) by the yard full.

We found out we were expecting the newest Parker and I knew we’d fold this upcoming baby into the routine just as I had done with the first four.  I’d begun to ask about and look into cloth diapering.  Baby food would take on a whole new look now.  It was going to be great!

And then I got sick. Nothing to worry about, just run of the mill, first trimester-can’t-get-off-the-couch sick.  Why didn’t I plan for this?  Why didn’t I see it coming, you gently ask?  Well, the answer is not a popular one.  I wasn’t really sick with the first four pregnancies.  I had a little nausea a couple of times, but mostly just breezed through it.  I know, don’t hate me, I can’t help it.  And I was always thankful for it, I knew others and I knew how it could be.  So I was always grateful.

But it caught up with me.  I paid for it this time around.  Still am, on some days.  My house came crashing in around me.  And I was completely unprepared.  I couldn’t plan meals, shop for meals, cook meals, much less actually eat the meals.  I couldn’t keep laundry done, sweep the floor, or even manage to teach my children.  So, naturally, when my sewing machine came to a slow pitiful stop in need of oil, I couldn’t manage to figure out how to fix it.  I couldn’t imagine preparing a whole fryer for boiling.  I couldn’t prepare a garden.  I wasn’t brewing coffee anymore or chopping any fresh vegetables, so I quit even trying to upkeep my compost.  In fact, the only thing I kept up of my new ways was my laundry detergent making (it’s that easy – and I’ll share how I do it next time).

But one of the hardest parts of this for me has been the mental battle that came with this. I beat myself up over it.  Feared that all my progress had been for naught, that I had let y’all down – two measly updates in.  As we filled our cabinets and fridge with frozen, packaged, instant foods again I knew I had failed.  And let’s not even talk about school work.  Lapbooks came to a screeching halt.  And finally even our ridiculous attempt at worksheets stopped.  Who was I kidding?  What was I thinking?  What were we going to do?  (I tend to be a little on the dramatic fatalistic side when it comes to myself.)

What DID we do?  We ate out.  A lot.  We ate instant foods.  We watched tv.  I laid on the couch and cried.  Really, it wasn’t a pretty picture.

But now, as I’m rounding the corner into my second trimester, the fog is lifting.  About an inch at a time, but enough so that I feel hope.  I’m back to cooking a real meal or two a week.  My sweet husband put the few items we bought for the garden into the ground and even used my compost!  Just yesterday I added new compost fodder to the container.  Worksheet schoolwork is back in swing (but I’m saving those lapbooks for when I feel like superwoman again).  And my house doesn’t look so much like a disaster area.

As I sat wallowing in my “I’m a failure” self-pity and bemoaning the fact that since I am a failure I have nothing to tell you guys, I had a revelation.  That is just what I would tell y’all.  That sometimes when starting something new there will be bumps in the road. Heck, there will even be times you just pull over on the side of that road and do nothing.  But the desire that drove you to start in the first place will bring you back to where you left off.  It’s okay to do the dance your own way.  And for me, right now, that homesteading dance is one step forward and two steps back.  At least I’m starting somewhere.  Again.

Suzanne is wife to one and mama to four, with a new one expected in October. The little ones are 2 boys ages 7 and 6, a girl who’s 3, and a 2 year old boy who’s not knee-high to a grasshopper yet. She eclecticly unschools with lapbooks the Charlotte Mason way. In other words, she doesn’t have the slightest clue what she’s doing, but does it anyway. She lives in a world where there are few absolutes. The dishes don’t stay cleaned, the laundry doesn’t stay put away, the children don’t remember what she told them yesterday. But in their chaotic lives they have found joy. And they’d love to share that with you. So, come on over, kick a path through the toys, have a seat on the couch and grab a cup of strong coffee. Just be ready to hone your skills of “interrupted conversation”! And be sure to stop by her personal blog at JoyfulChaos.