How to Avoid the Temptation of "Waiting for GODOT"

“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”

― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

For the better part of the last two decades, I have been waiting for the collapse.  In fact, back in those early days, I was pretty sure that my daughters would never need to learn to drive a car, because cars would not be obsolete by the time they reached their teen years.  When I started my first blog, my youngest was not even school-aged, yet.  When I published my first book, she was 10. 

She is an adult, now, and not only has she learned to drive, but she's also an auto mechanic and she recently purchased her second sports car.  Cars are still very much a part of our American lifestyle - much to my dismay.

In 2020, it happened, and I felt like I'd been holding my breath, waiting for that proverbial "other shoe" to drop.  A pandemic.  Shortages of food and supplies.  Extreme weather events.  Job losses and business closures.  All we needed was an EMP and for the grid to go down.  

As a prepper, I thought I was watching what I had been predicting, and I was waiting for when my freezer died, and I needed to pressure can all of the beef and chicken over a fire out in the yard.  

The folks in the prepper world didn't make things any easier, either.  Headlines that warn us about the "coming collapse" (which J.H. Kunstler predicted would be a very long, SLOW process sixteen years ago), resource shortages, and civil unrest keep us on that edge of worry.  

Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure I've been guilty of sounding the clarion call on an occasion or ... many.  My book, Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs, is exactly that type of tome - a warning about what's on the horizon, and a call to action - Do This and This and That to "get ready."

The problem is that I have been getting ready for so long, it wore me out.  I know, for me, during the Pandemic was particularly anxiety inducing to the point that I was rendered impuissant.  I found that I had no motivation to do much of anything for most of the year, and I spent the better part of the first ten months just trying to make it through the day until I could make dinner, have a glass of wine, and go to bed - where I lay awake with worry into the wee hours. 

There were things I could have been doing.  There are always projects, but I just couldn't get past myself for long enough to do any of them.  

The turning point, for me, came when a very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, and I realized that I was pissed off that the end of the world hadn't happened yet, and that we were still muddling through our typical American Life, only with so many (and often ridiculous) fear-based restrictions and reactions to what was happening in the greater world.  

I am reminded of Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, which is a perfect example of how we had been living for way too long.  We're waiting and waiting and waiting.

And for me, especially that year, that waiting was very much like Vladimir and Estragon.  I was just waiting.  Not doing.

And that's not who I am.  

Even my book is about actively doing SOMETHING.  It's twenty-one days of doing stuff to your home and to your life and to your psyche so that when the SHTF, you will be prepared for the worst in all ways there are to prepare.

I submit, though, that the worst is not an EMP, but the paralysis of apathy that gripped us during the Pandemic, and really, in a lot of ways, still has its bony fingers around our necks.  

So, when my very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, I had to take stock, and I realized that I was, indeed, angry, because I was waiting ... waiting ....

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, when he is waiting for the "Man in Black" to reach the top:  I hate waiting.

But usually, when I wait, I am doing something.  In the doctor's waiting room, I was reading.  When my daughters were young, we would play games, like I Spy.  But we didn't just sit idly and quietly waiting.  We did something to pass the time.

And I realized that what I needed to do was to stop waiting and start doing.

I started a list of 100 Things I Can Do to Stop Waiting.

Some of them are regular activities - like household tasks (sweeping and cleaning the bathrooms) to keep me busy.  

Some of them are ongoing - like knitting and repairing clothes. 

A few of the things on the list are one-time projects - like rebuilding the deck off the back of my house, which I have already done, with the help of my daughter, who owns her own power tools ... and knows how to use them.  

The danger in waiting, as I discovered first hand, is the apathy that comes along with it.  After so much time, we just stop caring, and as a prepper - nay, as a person - not caring is a terrible way to live and is a sure way to not survive in the face of extreme circumstances.

If, like me, you found that you have been waiting, I encourage you to start your own list, and instead of idly waiting for something to happen: 

1. Paint a room.
2. Find a favorite vlogger (I like Do It on a Dime) and get some inspiration for small space, low-cost, dollar store storage solutions for your bathroom ... and then, do them.
3. Darn socks.
4. Make lunch bags out of feed sacks. 
5. Write a short story.
6. Build a shelf for your kitchen counter to increase storage.
7. Plan and plant a garden.
8. Make a braided rug.
9. Knit some squares.
10. Make a blanket from knit squares.
11. Read a book.
12. Write an article about something that's important to you.
13. Submit your article to a newspaper or magazine for publication.
14. Bake some cookies
15. Make sauerkraut

Or 85 other things that are much better than sitting for hours scrolling through FB, and just getting angrier and angrier with each swipe.

Godot may still come.  We may still have some massive TEOTWAWKI event, and it may even happen sooner than we know.  If I've learned anything in my decades as a blogger and a prepper, it's that there is always that looming catastrophic event that will plunge us into deep, dark, despair.  The challenge is to not give into that despair and allow it to make us impotent, but rather to design our lives so that there's  something to do that will also do something for us.  

As I near my sixth decade on this earth, my goal will be to stop waiting, and embrace doing something to improve my life, and those who share it.

Life's Chapters

Full disclosure:  I drive a sports car.  

I know.  Boo!  

It's a 2025 Acura Integra, S-type, 6-speed manual transmission in cerulean blue.  She sparkles and purrs.  Her name is Zippy.  

I've never named a car before.  In fact, until I had Zippy, I never really thought much about cars as being more than a thing that got me from Point A to Point B.  I didn't like driving.  I didn't even like being in a car, and if I could walk there, I would.  Cars were (are??) a necessary evil for how we live in these modern times - what James Howard Kunstler has called "the greatest misallocation of resources, ever." 

I don't disagree that continuing to invest in our car-centric lifestyle is a bad idea, but there comes a time in one's life when one has fought the good fight as long as one can, and then, something has to give.

I guess this is what some celebrities call "selling out."  

Maybe. 

The part that's the misallocation against which Kunstler rails is the lifestyle that requires cars - homes built out on the fringes of communities and far away from work and shopping.  That's where I live.  In the 'burbs, on the outskirts of a seasonal community.  We have about 7000 year round residents, and mass transportation, like most things in my town, caters to the seasonal people.  

For instance, we have a train stop, and yes, I did commute to work by train for as long as I could.  From July until October, I rode the train to work in the morning and Deus Ex Machina picked me up in the evenings on his way home from work.  Then, for the winter, I had to make other arrangements, but I eagerly awaited the spring, when I could resume my train commute.  

When the next season rolled around, Amtrak changed the schedule so that the train was stopping in my town an hour earlier than it had the year before.  Riding the train would no longer work for me without making a lot of adjustments, and not just my schedule, but also Deus Ex Machina's schedule.  

And that's what happens, I think, for a lot of people, like me, who want to be able to make choices other than what's common; what's normal.  I think more people would really enjoy riding the train to work rather than driving a car, but for most of us, it just doesn't work.  It's not just inconvenient.  It requires an entire reorganizing of one's life.

Other people realized the convenience of the car life.  It's how we got to where we are.  My grandparents figured out they could live five miles, ten miles, thirty-two miles away from where they worked, and with a car, get there in a matter of minutes.  They figured out that they could access these far away places for work, and still make it home at the end of the day with enough daylight left to barbeque burgers on the grill in the summer.  They could escape the cramped, dangerous, dirty life in the cities and move to the 'burbs where their children could play on real grass and maybe enjoy a summer climbing trees. They just needed a car. 

And if they have a car, like Zippy, all the better!

It sounds like I'm making excuses for myself, and maybe I am, or maybe I'm just learning a few things the older I get.

I used to have some very rigid ideals for my lifestyle.  I was cutting edge, living on the fringe, being eco-friendly, cultivating a sustainable lifestyle.  

No processed foods.  Everything was local, sustainably grown and harvested, and/or organic.   

No paper towels.  

Line dry our laundry.  

Buy only second-hand clothes. 

And on and on stretched the list of things we didn't have and most importantly, didn't want. 

We didn't have air conditioning at home (I still hate air conditioning).

We didn't have cable TV (still don't), nor a television set to watch it on if we had had cable. 

It was a lifestyle that I was willing and able to maintain back in those days when I was home full-time and my daughters were young.

Then, they grew up, and I realized that my future financial security had been neglected for decades, and if I were ever going to be able to live that lifestyle that I so craved (the self-sufficient, world-by-hand), I would probably need to have some money stored away in a nest-egg somewhere.  

Deus Ex Machina has both an employer sponsored pension and a 401K, but there was a moment, when it was clear that I probably needed a nest egg of some sort. 

I'd spent decades figuring out how to live with less money (not no money, though), how to do things by hand, how to reuse, make do, and do without, and I was successfully practicing those lessons.  I lived by the credo: "Don't dwell on limitations.  Imagine possibilities!", and I did!  I imagined many of those possibilities into reality.  We actually did live the lifestyle that I wrote about on my blog, Surviving the Suburbs and, to a lesser degree, in my book, but only because the book imagines a future without modern amenities, which we still have access to.  

When I didn't also have to spend 8 to 10 hours every day, five days a week, 50 weeks per year at a job away from home, it was easy and possible, but at some point, I had to stop imagining what was possible and lean into what was practical.

Owning a sports car isn't practical, but letting go of the notion that I've failed in my life's purpose, because I allowed myself to enjoy the fact that we have a fancy-smancy car that's fun to drive is, practical. And it's also practical to have a reliable car to get me to and from the job that I now have that will allow me to imagine a future full of possibilities. 

I also bought a washer/dryer combo last year, and I use my dishwasher every couple of days (which probably saves on energy, because we use few enough dishes with just three of us, that I don't need to run it every day, and I also have it set on the one-hour cycle, which uses less energy). 

This weekend, Deus Ex Machina and I will be in search of a new coffee maker.  If you know me at all, you know I've been a bit of snob when it comes to making coffee.  I'm all about the French Press.  It's more eco-friendly, and arguably makes a better cup of coffee.

I'm a coffee drinker, and I won't apologize for that.  Study after study has shown that drinking coffee has overall positive health benefits. 

I was never worried about coffee before, considering it a delightful and healthy part of my diet, but my most recent blood tests showed a significant increase in my LDL Cholesterol levels - so much so that my PCP is talking about medication.  I haven't reached the point, yet, where I'm willing to compromise my stance on pharmaceuticals.  Medications aren't sports cars or really cool all-in-one washing machines that make my life easier and more fun. 

It's possible that my PCP is wrong and/or that the tests weren't totally accurate.  She's been wrong about other stuff related to my body, and I am looking for a second opinion, but also ...

The French Press doesn't use paper filters, and, according to Dr. Google, the unfiltered oil in pressed coffee contains compounds (cafestol/kahweol) that can increase LDL "bad" cholesterol.  My easy Google search suggests the possibility that my LDL cholesterol was so high on the blood test, because, while I was "fasting" (no food, black coffee only), I did have a couple of cups of coffee prepared in a French Press before the test.  

My PCP doesn't know about French Press coffee.  She didn't ask.  She wasn't interested in exploring why my cholesterol levels punched through the roof.  She just said, "Let's talk about Statins."  

Deus Ex Machina, apparently, has the same problem, and to compound our questioning the accuracy of the test, our LDL number was the same number.  I'm thinking that seems a little ... unlikely.

So, we'll be looking for a new coffee maker.  One that uses a paper filter.

There are days when I lament the loss of the life I wanted, and days when I think that this way of life I'm currently steeped in is a preparation for the life I will have when I (finally) retire, but mostly, I just know that life changes.  

And these days, while I'm still (always) excited about possibilities, I'm more inclined to lean into practicalities.

If you have a favorite coffee maker that uses a paper filter (we'll be buying unbleached, preferably from recycled materials :)), let me know.  I'd love some recommendations.

Inquiring Minds ...

This is a serious question, and I really am asking for opinions.

• What is your reaction to seeing someone purchase an expensive, luxury (think lobster or organic asparagus) food item using nutritional benefits like SNAP or WIC? 

• What is your reaction to seeing someone living in a luxury apartment complex for the winter and then traveling to their "summer home" in a million suburban home near Boston? 

• Do we have the right or responsibility to decide for others how to spend the money they have at their disposal?

Why or Why not?

=====================================

My question stems from a couple of interactions I've had recently, namely:

• an instagram thread in which the OP lambasted an individual featured in an NPR interview for purchasiing a $2000 custom advent calendar.  In this OP's opinion, someone who has that kind of money to spend should purchase a cheaper calendar and then give some portion remaining to the charitable organization of his/her choice.
• an individual who said someone using WIC benefits should not buy the more expensive raspberries, but rather the larger, less expensive container of strawberries.  Both items are approved with their benefits. 

The per capita income for the United States in just under $40,000, which is around $15,000 less than the per capita income for a person living in Southern Maine (York County, specifically).

Maine has the oldest population in the country with a median age of 44.9 years.  The poverty rate in S. Maine is 4.9% and most of those are senior citizens.  

I also work across the street from a luxury hotel where the rooms go for over $500/night with a two night minimum stay.  People who stay there for the weekend are spending more than some people in my community see in a month.

The instagrammer would, obviously, feel like that was excessive.  In her opinion (at least based on her commentary on Threads), no one has the right to purchase luxury items for themselves when people (like her) live in a converted shed with no kitchen, or worse, sleep on the park bench outside the City Hall entrance (which I've seen).

But there are plenty of people on the flip-sde of that argument, too.

There are plenty of people who might consider the instagrammer entitled, because she has some item that they feel is a luxury item, which she purchased using public money, which she received after an arduous application process.

Or even if she doesn't use her limited funds to buy a new pair of Birkenstocks (which are a great investment, but look out for that price tag!), if she's receiving any public aid, there will definitely be a long line of people who will scrutinize every purchase she makes and often will find her guilty of the same thing of which she has accused the calendar purchaser - making selfish decisions she is not entitled to make.  If we don't have enough, we shouldn't have nice things, but if we have too much, we should give our excess to those who don't have enough.  

Personally, I could not care less what other people spend their money on - even when that money originates in the public coffers.  I don't care.  

Honestly, I don't care.  

I don't even care if the money they're spending is a $5 bill I put in their hands as I walked by with my cup of coffee.  I don't care. 

And if they, like Jeff Bezos or Bill Gates, own three homes and a yacht that has more rooms than my house, great.  More power to 'em.

If it were MY money, I would make different choices, but it's not, and so I not only don't care, I can't, because it's not my place to tell other people what to do with what they have. 

What do you think?  Let's chat about it.

Physical Well-Being

I have been blessed with relatively good health.  

I won't say I'm lucky.  I make very conscious choices about diet, exercise, and lifestyle habits, and those choices have contributed to my overall well-being.

But as I've gotten older, I've noticed that some things don't work like they used to. 

For instance, there are some quirky aches and pains that I didn't really notice before, like my right hip suddenly started hurting - like all of the time.  So much so that it was affecting my sleep.  

I did what most people do, after ignoring it until I couldn't anymore, I went to see a medical professional.  Based on nothing more than I said it hurts and I am, now, a woman of an age, I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis.   I was advised to take over-the-counter pain meds (you know, aspirin, acetaminophen, and ibuprofen - but not all at once), and the plan was to continue to evaluate it, and if it got worse, we could discuss my options, which were: medication and surgery. 

I mean, seriously?  Are those REALLY the only two options?  Take a drug or get cut open??

I'm not really interested in either of those two treatment options, but neither do I wish to be in pain all of the time or to start depending on OTCs for pain management.  I guess I don't want to manage the pain. 

I don't want to just quit feeling pain.  What I really is to understand it.  I mean, of course, I don't want to be up all night because my hip hurts, but addressing just the pain without knowing WHY there's pain is sort of like, putting a bucket under a leak to keep the floor dry without trying to figure out why the floor is getting wet to begin with.  

So, I started doing some reading.

Did you know that decreases in estrogen can cause joint pain?   As a woman becomes of an age, childbearing hormones start to decrease.  It happens.  It's inevitable, and many women, as a result, end up with joint pain, and almost always, they are told there's not really anything to be done except - medication or surgery.

But that's not all I discovered.  You know what else can cause joint pain?  Increased levels of cortisol.  Cortisol is also known as the "stress hormone."  

But, wait, there's more.  You know what else can be a symptom of decreased estrogen and increased cortisol levels?  Weight gain!

You know what else can cause joint pain?  Increased weight gain!

So, here I am, becoming a woman of an age and finding that the body that I thought I knew was changing into something completely alien.  It's the biological equivalent to TEOTWAIKI - the end of the world as I knew it.  My body was becoming something completely foreign to me.  

It was like this crazy little hamster-wheel.  At the same time that my body started losing estrogen, my stress levels increased due to some lifestyle changes, and I started putting on weight like I had never done before.  All of a sudden, I didn't even recognize myself, and everything hurt. 

With zero thanks or credit to my doctors, things have changed.  

Adding some supplements to help stabilize my hormone fluctuations and starting a regular exercise program made all the difference - no drugs and no surgery. 

The one thing, though, that I feel very strongly has made a huge difference, for me, is beginning a Yoga practice, that includes Yin Yoga.  

If you don't know what Yin Yoga is, I recommend you take a look, especially if you're someone who is getting up there in age.  

Thrifting My Own House

Eight years ago, I closed up my home-based business, gave away my desk, bought a pull-out sofa bed, and turned my home office into a den/guest room for when my adult children visit from out of state. 

I don't miss my home-business, and I love that we have this place in our home where our family can be comfortable and feel welcome. 

The only problem has been that over the eight years since I closed up my business, I have found that I've spent some time working remotely for other people, and so, while I never missed the home office, I did miss having a specific place, at  home, where I could do my job. 

In addition to the contract work I am doing these days for Relay Publishing, I also work from home at least one day per week for my full-time employer, and so having a place - other than my kitchen table - to do my work has been something I've been trying to set up for a while now.

Deus Ex Machina and I have discussed a number of different options.  

The first option was to purchase a laptop sofa desk, which I did.  It looks something like this one.

My laptop fits on the table, but if wanted to use a mouse (which I needed for at least one of the jobs I did as a freelancer during COVID) or take notes, the desk wasn't big enough.

I started looking at all sorts of other options from a rolltop desk to adding a hinged shelf to one of our book shelves for a DIY secretary desk.  Nothing really seemed to be the right answer.  All of the choices would require that we move things around, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but we would also need to giveaway or sell some of the pieces of furniture we have, because there wasn't really room for more. 

Then, we started working on a different room.  We painted the ceiling black and found the perfect new-to-us sofa on FB Marketplace - and they delivered!   The new couch was twice the size of our old loveseat, and the room, suddenly, became much smaller.

Compound that with the fact that we have a lot of shoes, and no place to really put them, which was a problem, because the larger couch takes up more floor space, which means, we were tripping on all of the shoes.  

I decided to give away the beautiful, solid wood Spanish Colonial armoire we'd purchased over two decades previously.  It was actually one of the first pieces of furniture that we bought, and it's definitely one of the nicer pieces we own.  

But it's really large and bulky, and it just didn't fit the space anymore, and I couldn't imagine where else in our house it might go.  So, I listed it on my local Buy Nothing group.  

I received an almost immediate response. 

And then, I spent several days reaching out to giftee to reschedule, when he no-showed, yet again, until finally, he said he wasn't interested afterall.  "It won't fit in my car."  

Umm ... ?  The measurements were in the original post.  Whatever.

As it turns out, the guy did me a huge favor.  Out of curiosity, I looked it up, and new, this cabinet retails for over $1000.  

But that's not why, I ultimately, decided to keep it.

As I mentioned, I've been looking for a desk so that I can set up a home office, because I work from home at least one day a week, but I don't want a regular desk, because we wanted something that would close up and keep the work stuff contained, especially when family visits.

I bought shoe cubbies, and I raided my tool cabinet for some hooks for coats.  We have a new entry way. 

After we shuffled some furniture around, relocated a piece or two to other rooms, and cleaned out a filing cabinet we hadn't opened in five years (and which still had receipts and invoices from my closed business dating back a decade and a half), Deus Ex Machina and Precious moved the armoire into the den/guest room.  

I'll add some lighting, install a pull out shelf for the desk, and get a bar-height office chair, and I'll be all set.  

My new "desk" cost nothing.

And I didn't have to giveaway one of the prettiest piece of furniture we own.

I'll add some lighting, install a pull out shelf for the desk, and get a bar-height office chair, and I'll be all set.  

My new "desk" cost nothing.

And I didn't have to giveaway one of the prettiest piece of furniture we own.

Ode to a Crock Pot

Working the 9:00 to 5:00 grind.

No time to cook a meal. No money to buy one.

But I found that magic machine.

Cold, raw food goes in.

And eight hours later

Hot dinner on the table.

Easy BBQ Ribs

Ingredients:

1 package of ribs

Enouth BBQ sauce to cover

1.  Pour enough BBQ sauce to coat the bottom of the crock.

2.  Add ribs.

3.  Top ribs with more sauce, enough to mostly cover.

4.  Add 1/4c water.

5.  Rotate ribs in sauce to evenly coat.

6.  Put lid on crock.

7.  Set to low.

8.  Cook 6 to 8 hours until meat falls off bone.

Serve with choice of sides.  We like it with cole slaw, potatoes, steamed green beans, drunken apples, and/or a green salad.

Prepping the Space

Several years ago a friend started a remodeling project.  The plan was to gut the kitchen and completely rebuild it to make it more age-friendly.

I've thought a lot about that over the last few years, when I became a woman of an age,  I'm not getting younger, and there may come a time when living in my house - the way it is right now - might be difficult for me.

But there's more than that, actually.  I'm not as worried about needing to be able to navigate through my house with a wheelchair, but I would like that living in my home be as low-cost as possible.

I've mentioned before that my goal has always been to be off-grid - to be producing our own supply of electricity or gas, or whatever it is that we're going to use as fuel.  We don't have a solar array or a windmill or a methane digester.  We don't have any way of producing our own fuel.  So, instead, for us the focus has been on reducing our usage.

I was looking at my Facebook memories the other day and one popped up from thirteen years ago.  We were really working hard to get our electric bill down to the absolute minimum we could manage.  At that time we were using 300KWh per month.  Depending on the source, the average Maine household uses around 900KWh per month.  Back in the day we were pretty far below average.  

A series of crazy things happened, including the need to replace our waterheater, and we thought the best option was to replace the on-demand propane heater that had gone belly-up with an on-demand electric waterheater. 

We had no idea. 

Our electric bill doubled. 

I was bummed.  

Fast forward a few years, and we decided to (finally) get rid of the old furnace, which we hadn't used in a decade.  We installed a heat pump as a secondary (the real world considers it our primary) heat source.  It also cools, just FYI.  Then, last year, we installed a heat pump waterheater to replace the on demand electric unit that used so much electricity.  This past summer we purchased a washer/dryer combo.   The heat pump technology in the combo units uses a lot less electricity than our traditional machines.  In fact, according to one source, the all-in-one washer/dryer uses 28% less electricity that the two machines use.  The combo unit also uses less water.  So, it's a win all the way around, for me.   

I'm not sorry, or embarrased, or apologetic, for jumping back on the modern appliance bandwagon.  I got a lot of flack when I got rid of my dryer.  I'll probably get a lot of hate for bringing that appliance back into my house.  What-evs.  

For me, it's about the numbers, and the numbers say that the all-in-one is more cost-efficient for electricity usage than even just my washing machine.  Even without adding in the cost of running a traditional dryer, the washing machine I had before, combined with my air dried clothes drying option used MORE electricity that the single unit that does both.  The new unit uses less water and less electricity than just my washer alone, and I no longer have musty smelling clothes, because I washed a load and then, it either rained or I just didn't have time to get it on the clothesline.  I can put a load of laundry in the washer before I leave for work or in the evening before we go to bed, and when I get home, or the next morning before work, I take the clean and dry clothes out of the machine (no forgetting to switch the loads, either!), fold them, and put another load into the machine.

The only downside is that all of the laundry is washed, which means I've realized how many clothes I actually have.  

ThredUp is a great place to buy gently used designer clothes at discount store prices.  I'm not embarrased that I have a really nice wardrobe, either.  Just sayin'.  

The other day our average electridal usage for the month was right around 500KWh.  

It's more than we were using at our lowest, but less than Maine's average, which is less than the national average.  It's the one thing I enjoy being below average on.

We also painted the ceiling black and installed some really cool lights.  

Big Little Sister says the room has a micro-brew feel.  I like it.  I'm also working on finding the furniture I want for the space.  I found a great couch that I think will really look awesome in the space. 

My next project is setting up a (new) home office.  I worked from home for 20 years when my kids were young.  When I took an outside job, my home office went away and the room became a den/guest room with a pull-out couch.  

Now, I'm finding that I need a home office again, but we still need the guest room/den.  So, I'm lookinig at options.

Believe it or not, all of those things are part of the prepping mindset. 

The new appliances reduce our overall usage so that we can, one day, install an off-grid system to produce what we need to keep things powered.  

The home office will allow us to move our work back into our home, perhaps. 

The remodeling things, like painting the ceiling, just make home feel more fun and cozy, and really, that's important, too.  Home should be a place where one wishes to spend one's time. 

A friend remodeled her house to add an ADU - accessory dwelling unit.  Apparently, Maine law allows ADUs as a property owner's right.  I've been thinking a lot about it recently, as my kids have gotten older and are looking at their housing options.  

Buying a home is a costly venture when one is young.  

Owning a home can become more difficult as one ages, especially, if the home is sized for a large family.

I've been thinking a lot about these ADUs, and looking at my house and wondering how I could break it into smaller units - one for Deus Ex Machina and me and one for one of my children and her faimly.  At some point, our house may become too much for Deus Ex Machina and me to take care, and if we have already invested in the ADU, it will make the management of the house easier, because we'll have a younger person there to help with the silly stuff, like painting a ceiling and planting the garden.

But even if one of our children doesn't want to live in the unit, it wouldn't be a waste, because we could rent it.  Then, we have an income in our later years that will allow us to pay the property tax, and maybe go to a movie occasionally.

When I was younger, I was prepping for the end of the world as we know it.  As I get older, I realize that I'm still prepping for the same thing, because as I get older, the world as I know it, changes.  

Every new beginning is another new beginning's end.  Two points if you know the reference ... :).

  

Once a Prepper ...

I often think fondly of those days, almost two decades ago, when there were so many of us here, on blogger or wordpress, in those pre-Facebook and Instagram days, when we spent time drafting out our thoughts and ideas and actions.  We were "influencers" before that was a word.

The Crunchy Chicken.  Sharon Astyk.  John Michael Greer.  James Howard Kunstler.  Dmitry Orlov.  The Dervaes.  Miranda.  Daisy (who is still writing and sharing and prepping at The Organic Prepper).

I JUST learned that Jules Dervaes, Jr. passed away in 2016.  I mean, just now. Just this minute.  He's been gone almost 10 years.  It feels like the end of something ... and I missed it.  RIP, Jules.

Those people - all of those above and many more - had such a profound impact on what I was doing, what I was building as a future for myself and my family here in the suburbs of southern, coastal Maine.

In a lot of ways, those were pretty amazing and intense days, and I am so incredibly grateful for all I learned during that time.  My children had such a different experience than I had as a kid.  It's not a good thing or a bad thing.  It's just a thing.  Sometimes they tell me stories of experiences they have with other people where they will share some knowledge they gleaned from living the way we lived, and that person with whom they are interacting will ask, incredulously, "Why ...?  How do you know that?"  In a snarkier moment, they'll respond with, "Why DON'T you know that?"  

There's a saying about apples and trees.  We all know where they get that snark.

My life is very different now that my kids are grown.  Precious is the only one of my large brood who is still living at home, but she's a grown-ass adult with a full-time job and an active social life.  It's very, very different from days of yore when my children were the center of my attention and everything I did revolved around what they needed in that moment and the prepping I was doing in the hopes of having a more comfortable future.

There was a lot of living in the future.  As a prepper, that's what we're doing, but not.  Not "living" in the future, but every day is spent preparing for tomorrow.  

There were so many things that needed to be done NOW: splitting and stacking wood; planting, tending, and harvesting the garden; tending the animals; butchering; canning; preserving; cooking; eating; sewing; crafting ....  It was very much about doing what had to be done today, because today is the only day that it can be done.  Tomorrow it will be too late.  Everything had a time, and it had to be done in its time.  Chicks arrive in the spring.  Strawberring ripen in the summer.  Apples are picked in the fall. 

I spent most days just doing what had to be done to get ready for the next thing.  There isn't a lot time to be worrying about what's gonna happen next week, when you're dealing with what's for breakfast today.  And having so much to focus on every day doesn't leave a lot of time to worry about what happened three weeks or three years or three decades ago. 

In those days, my dream was to be a full-time surbuban homesteader - to be off-grid on my quarter acre, producing our own electricity, growing or raising most of our own food, being debt-free, and working at something to earn a little cash to be able to pay the property tax, and maybe go see a movie, occasionally.  My goal was to get everything ready and in place so that someday both Deus Ex Machina and I could be home full-time and just be doing things we loved to do, or just needed to do for survival purposes (like stacking wood.  Nobody loves to stack wood, and if they say differently, they're lying).

I still fantacize about being a full-time homesteader, and I think, when I retire, I'll go back to it.  Maybe even start a home goods or craft-centric side-job as a way to generate a little bit of an income stream.  

The other day, Deus Ex Machina and I were working wood (yes, we still heat, primarily with our woodstove), and I found three little birch logs.  I held them up to show Deus Ex Machina, and quipped, "I could wrap some twine around these and sell them for $15 at the Farmer's Market." 

I'm not going to make a living just selling birch log decor, but I have a few other skills I could use.  I still have my trusty sewing machine.  There's probably some fun, little thing that I could stitch together - like an apron.  People still use those, right?

Maybe I could start a gluten-free micro-bakery in my home kitchen and sell muffins and cookies at the Farmer's Market.  There's probably a niche for that sort of thing.  

For now, though, I'm working full-time, and I like my job.  It's a desk job, but if one has to do a desk job, it doesn't get much better than working in a theater.  

I guess we are, sort of, still doing some mindful prepping, but we're prepping differently.  We're prepping for a future in which we are still active.  So, we're going to the gym and doing a weekly full-body workout with weights.  I practice Yoga, taking classes three days a week.  We're watching our diet more closely, both for health reasons, and because I'm trying to lose a few extra pounds I seem to have decided to store.  When I became a "woman of an age", I found that I needed to relearn how to live in this body.  Eating chocolate after dinner when dinner is after 7:00pm means my body wants to hold onto all that chocolate goodness.  Did you know that chocolate is really heavy?  Ask my scale.

I'm learning to adjust to the new me.

I got a tattoo on my forearm a few years ago.  It says, "Kein tag aber heute."  

Recently, I was told that spending too much time dwelling on the past creates depression and thinking too much about the future creates anxiety.  I laughed in recognition of those roller-coaster emotions.  I know, I know, I keep saying "Do what you can with what you have where you are," and then, I spend all my time analyzing what I did and worrying about how it will impact me later.

So, I'm working on remembering - Kein tag aber heute -  No Day But Today.  And for those who aren't theater folk, it's a line from the musical, Rent with the message being that we can't change the past and tomorrow isn't a given, and the only time we have to really enjoy life is right this minute. 

Deus Ex Machina and I celebrated 30 years this year with a renewal of our vows in the place where we first said them.  

We aren't who we were 30 years ago.  Every couple who has been together as long as Deus Ex Machina and I have been will say the same thing - it's been a long, hard road, blah,blah, blah.  The fact is that we're still on that road, after 30 years, and that's pretty incredible.  Most days, we even still like each other enough to hold hands and laugh at each other's silly jokes.  

We raised meat birds this year, and bought a cow share and a pig share.  We still have our laying hens and share a lot of eggs with friends during the summer.  The rabbits have been gone for a while now.  

I planted a garden, as I have for the past twenty-five years.  We harvested a bunch of tomatoes, lettuce, and broccoli.  The cucumbers were a failure, as was my cardboard box potato experiment.  The Brussels sprouts may get big enough to leave for harvest later, if it doesn't snow anytime soon (I think we might have JUST had our first frost this past week).  The chipmunks ate the blueberries.  The birds ate the  grapes.  The squirrels ate the apples.  I don't know what ate all the raspberries, but it certainly wasn't me. 

In short, I'm not doing a lot of prepping - like I used to do, but we did get a membership at a regional warehouse store (by the way, we have a Costco - not a fan!) that carries a surprising number of local-to-me products, and I'm doing some stocking up on fresh and frozen things I can buy there.  

Life is still pretty good.  I'm not living the dream, but there's probably still time.

For now, Kein Tag aber Heute.  No day but today, and that's okay.  

Helping Hands

For those of you who know me and have known me for a while, you know that some years ago, I dragged my teenaged daughters into the local food pantry one afternoon where we inquired about volunteering. 

After a few months of showing up weekly to help with food distribution, I was asked to serve on the Board of Directors, and over the following two years, we would continue to be very active at the Pantry, including organizing fundraisers in collaboration with a local restaurant; picking up food donations from local grocery stores and the day-old bread store; and assisting with setting up a satellite pantry at our local library.

The food pantry was a very important part of my life in those days, and it was with a great deal of reluctance and regret that I ultimately had to resign my position when life got too busy and something had to go. 

Food insecurity is still one of those topics that's at the top of my list of egregious characteristics of the modern world.  We have infinite knowledge at our fingertips and an abundance that is unprecedented in human experience.  The world produces enough food to feed the entire world population, and that starvation still exists and there are people in this world who don't know where they will get their next meal has more to do with greed and waste than it has to do with actual scarcity. 

And here in the US, if things don't move forward, like, today, there will be people here in my community who may find themselves hungrier.

But there's this video, and it gives me hope - at least in my local community.

What he says stuck with me:  None of us can help everyone, but all of us can help someone. 

It's the story of the little girl and the 10000 starfish.  She can't save them all, but she can save some of them, and that's worth doing.

I have a membership at a regional wholesale club, and for the next little while, I will be purchasing an extra case of something each time I go to share at my food pantry. 

If you were food insecure, what would you want that something to be? Asking for a friend ... :)

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

― Benjamin Franklin

More than ever, this quote is relevant.  

Over the last year few years, my life has changed - a lot.  

• My children grew up.  
• I took a job outside of the home. 
• I left said job.  
• I survived a Pandemic.  
• I wrote a novel.  
• I took another job outside the home.
• I realized I'm getting old ... fast.
• I left my part-time job to take a full-time position at the job I left during the Pandemic.
• I just bought a washer/dryer combo.  I haven't had a clothes dryer in so many years ... I don't remember when it left my house. 

I am working full-time outside of my home for the first time in over two and a half decades.  

It's been really hard, and we've sacrificed a lot.

• We didn't go strawberry picking last summer.
• We didn't go apple picking last fall.
• I didn't can anything last year.
• We didn't tap trees this year.

Instead, we're relying on stocking up what we can buy.

But I guess we still have the knowledge of those things we learned to do while I was at home, working from home, and being a full-time Mom/housewife/caregiver. 

I miss those days, for sure.

But in the end, needing money for when I retire won and so I have a job.    

Life is sad.  

English Muffins

I've been thinking a lot about life back when ... 

... when I was actively trying to homestead, just a decade ago.  FB regularly reminds of things I was doing to make our lives more self-sufficient.  One of my recent memories reminded me of the year that my goal was to can 200 jars of *something*.  I wasn't too terribly picky about what went into the jars.  What I mean is that my goal wasn't:

x jars of pickles
x jars of applesauce
x jars of soup stock

The goal was to have 200 jars of home-canned food with the logic being that 200 jars would give us one jar of something preserved per day for the winter.  During the summer, we have the garden and stuff we can forage, but without some preserved food, if we lose access to our on-demand supply of groceries, we'd be very hungry.  One jar a day would keep us fed, if not full.  

That said, not all jars of food are created equal.  That day when the jar was pickles, divided five ways, would be a much hungrier day than the day when it was canned chicken.

Of course, THAT said, the ultimate goal was also to have 200 jars of home-canned goodness AND a pantry stocked with dried goods, like rice, pasta, and baking supplies.

I thought a lot about that time recently, when I had occasion to visit my ancestral home deep in a hollow in the hills of southeastern Kentucky mining country.  I spent some time with my uncle, who is still homesteading the old homestead, and I brought home six quart jars of his home-canned tomato sauce, a bowlful of Chinese chestnuts we collected from the path under his chestnut tree, and a huge clump of Hen of the Woods (maitake) my uncle and I foraged from his woods.

I didn't can any tomatoes this year.  In fact, I didn't even process any tomatoes for the winter.  I only grew grape tomatoes this year, and we ate them almost as quickly as I could get them off the vines, which were incredibly generous, but rather than preserve my harvest, like I should have done, I gifted a good portion of my harvest to a local friend.

Looking at those jars of tomato sauce from my uncle and thinking about my very poor preparations this year had me kind of nostalgic for the way my life used to be ... before I started working a job outside the home ... when my JOB was the home.  

In those days, most of what I fed my family was homemade in my kitchen, including the bread stuff.

I haven't made a lot of bread recently.

I missed it.

So, today, I did. 

There's a loaf of applesauce bread cooling on the back of the stove, and these English Muffins will go into a lightly greased pan to fry until golden brown, as soon as they've had a second rise.  

Then, instead of running to the store for breads, I can make Deus Ex Machina his daily breakfast sandwich for the rest of the week, with a couple of muffins leftover for both of us to have sandwich before music class on Saturday.

Making homemade bread is time-consuming.

It's, kind of, funny that my kids grew up and moved on, no longer needing me to facilitate their education or chauffeur them hither and yon, and some how I wound up with less time to do all of those things that I used to just do, because that's what we did.  

Don't get me wrong.  I still cook, from scratch, more nights than not.  Eating out is very expensive, and we're saving up for retirement :), but also, as a loved one recently observed - when one learns to cook, especially if using fresh, local, in-season ingredients, the food just tastes better.  No offense to all of those restauranteurs out there, but the food I prepare at home is better.  It's always exactly what I want, exactly the way I want it, and I know what's in it, which means there's no chance of getting contaminated with ingredients that can make Deus Ex Machina's body hurt.  

I still have my garden, and my chickens, I still make my own soap ... but I just don't spend as much time or energy doing the homesteading things I used to do - like canning. 

The first thing I learned to can, back when I first started down this path, was applesauce.  There's a bushel of apples in my kitchen, picked when my son and daughter-in-law visited at the end of September, which will end up sauced and dehydrated.  I figure, perhaps, going back to my beginning might get me back to where I was before I veered off the trail, when I started working outside the home five years ago.

With the way things are going in the world, kick-starting my prepper life is probably not a bad idea.

And home canned applesauce with pork chops from our pig share and oven roasted potatoes, just tastes better than anything mass produced and sold at the grocery store.

What about you?  As life ebbs and flows, do you find yourself falling off of and climbing back onto your self-sufficiency path?  Do current events have you revisiting all of your homesteading efforts?

Finding Solutions to a Unsolvable Problem

This morning, I woke up, as usual, at 4:30 am.  I got out of bed, did my morning hygiene routine, let the old tom out (he's the only of the three kitties who own me that likes to go outside), started the coffee water to boiling, prepped the French press for a new pot, and plugged in the iron.  Then, I fed the cats and dogs (after tom came back inside), added the now boiled water to the French press, and ironed Deus Ex Machina's work clothes.

At some point during that routine, I started thinking about Medieval life (my brain works in mysterious ways - I don't question), and I thought how I would love if some English peasant were able to time travel to now, and I could host him/her in my home. I wonder what he/she would say about my house.

It's modest by modern standards.  The average house size nationwide is just over 2000 sq ft and in my state is 1680 sq ft.  Mine is smaller by almost 200 sq ft than the state average, but it's adequate for my needs (and some days more than I can manage to keep clean (!)).  

The average dwelling in the Middle Ages was between 600 and 1500 sq ft.  So, I guess my house isn't so big and luxurious by Medieval standards.

But I do have an actual roof (as opposed to a thatched roof), indoor plumbing (including hot and cold water on tap), glass windows (that let in the light but keep out the critters and the weather, and help to keep the temperature more comfortable), and plush, comfortable furniture throughout.  Not to mention electricity for cooking, refrigeration, and lighting.  

I wonder what someone from the Middle Ages would make of my house.  I think the biggest surprise, for them, would be to note that my house is "mine!"  It's not "owned" by a Lord (unless we count the mortgage that is owned by the bank ... hmm??!).

Of course, then, I sat down to have coffee with Deus Ex Machina (which would probably be a luxury for a Medieval peasant, especially with the teaspoon of sugar per cup I add) and read the news, and there were two back-to-back articles.

The first was dealing with the growing issue of homelessness - worldwide - but especially here in the US.  As of 2022, there were over half a million people who are defined as being homeless in the US, and per the article I read, the number is growing.  The article cited the main reason for homelessness was a lack of "affordable" housing.  That is, in most places, the cost of renting a place to live exceeds the ability for a too large portion of our population to pay for housing.  

In his book, Tell Them Who I Am, anthropologist, Elliot Liebow attempted to shed some light on the homeless issue among a group of women who lived in a homeless shelter.  His book was published in 1993.  Thirty years ago.  

What have we done as a society, to understand and fix the issue in the last thirty years?  Of course, according to this source, homelessness was an issue for the English pauper, too, with 20% of their population being homeless.  So, what have we done, EVER, as a culture, to stem the tide of those living without a proverbial pot-to-piss-in?

If the growing homelessness trend is any indication, the answer is not much.

The second article was about a lawsuit filed by property owners in New York City to lift the "draconian" laws that often favor the tenants over the landlords.  There are almost as many homeless people living in NYC as there are people living in Portland, Maine.  If those landlords are successful, how many more tens of thousands of people will be forced out of their apartments and end up sleeping in a tent (if they're lucky enough to have a tent) in Central Park (until someone comes along and forces them out)?

In a neighboring city, those wishing to build housing units (including hotels) are required to include a certain number of "affordable" housing units or they can opt to pay a fee.  The city is flush with old buildings that were once working factories, and many entrepreneurial minded individuals have bought the old mill buildings with the intention of creating high-end apartments (condos) and luxury hotels.  Too many are opting to pay the fee rather than include affordable housing units in their plans. 

I am all for rehabbing old buildings, for sure.  I just wish there could be a happy medium between revitalizing a depressed, old mill town and pricing the long-term residents out of their homes.  I wish the pendulum could stop in the middle.  

I have always been keenly aware of the homeless issue.  There was a time in my life that, by definition, I was homeless, but I was exceedingly fortunate to have a place to stay that was safe and stable.  That is to say, I have never had to sleep "rough", I have never had to live in my car, and I have never needed to take refuge in a homeless shelter.

I have been blessed in my life, and I am grateful, every day, for the abundance I have been gifted.

Working in a place where the public is not just welcome, but encouraged, I have become more intuned to the homeless issue.  Everyone knows there are homeless people in big cities, like Manhattan, Los Angeles, and Portland, Maine, but who could even imagine that in my little resort town, there are people who sleep under awnings and on park benches, and spend their days in the cool, quiet of the public library for a lack of anywhere else to go?  

It's heartbreaking.  

I don't know how to fix the issue.  I don't even know who to call when I am asked for help, because in too many places, like my town, there are very limited resources and services for the homeless population.  

I guess all that to say, as a society, we need a better way of doing something than just throwing money at it, and I don't know what the answer is (I suspect there is no one-size-fits-all solution), but I'm open to suggestions.

What can we do, as individuals?

Vivacious Vittles - a Workshop

 When I started working part-time at the library, one of the things my boss wanted me to do was to organize some classes for our community with a focus on sustainability.  She knows all about my books, my blog and my lifestyle choices, and so she was super excited about the prospect of having me do *something*.

At the beginning of June, I started a four week series called "Vivacious Vittles" in which participants learned to grow food in containers.  Small containers, actually.

I live in a resort town.  The average-sized lot is less than a 10th of an acre with many folks having even less land than that.  There are a lot of condos, where there is no land, and if they're lucky, residents might have a balcony or a front porch, where they can have a few pots of flowers or the like.

We also have a larger than average elderly population.  For whatever reason, this town is a haven for retired folks, and there are a number of 55+ communities.  As a demographic, people who live in 55+ communities are often on a fixed income, which means that being able to grow a little food is a good thing, even if it's just some lettuce in a bowl and some beans in hanging planter.

And that's exactly what we did. 

The first class was planting lettuce in bowls. Yes, actual bowls.  I found some serving bowls in bright colors at the dollar store.  For the class, the participants poked drainage holes, then filled the bowls with soil. They were each given two bowls.  In one bowl, they planted lettuce starts and in the second bowl they planted seeds.

The second class was hanging planters with beans and peas.  We planted pea plants, because it was late in the season and added scarlet runner beans around the edges.  By the time the beans are flowering,  they will have harvested and eaten the peas.  

The third class was growing sprouts in a jar.  

The last class was planting herbs in a self-watering planter made from an old wine bottle.

Everyone had a lot of fun, and everyone took home both their plants and the knowledge that growing food doesn't have to require a piece of land or even a yard.  They can do a lot with just a few containers and a sunny spot. 

Summer Homestead Happenings - in pictures

I love my summer garden.  

I am a terrible photographer, and my phone camera isn't great.  The picture doesn't do it justice. 

**********************************************************

 Firewood was delivered.  Three cords.

With the help of our lovely assistants ... 

We got it all stacked.  It was a long day, but well worth all of the effort.  I love the way it looks, and this "fence" makes our yard feel so much more private.  

Ode to an Old Cookbook

I may not have shared here, but over a year or so ago, I was hired as a library assistant at my local library.  It's been quite a lot of fun, and I find that I very much love the atmosphere in the library.  It's a good job, but it keeps me busy.  Not a bad or a good thing.  Just a thing.

One of the things I love very much about my job is being around all of the books, and I'm not being facetious.  What I mean is that I am finding books to love that I didn't know existed, and that's thrilling. The happiest times are when a patron returns a book with the comment, "This one was great!"

Such was the case last week, when a lovely woman handed me her stack of returns, pulled out the book on the bottom, and said, "This was a great cookbook!" 

I flipped through the pages to the index and asked, "Did you make anything in it?" 

She said, "I copied the recipes.  Oh, and I made the pumpkin custard."

I nodded.

She turned and wandered off into the stacks to find more treasures, and I started looking at the recipes.  I decided in that moment, looking through that amazing cookbook, that I really love old cookbooks.  

This one, in particular, was very cool, because the ingredients are simple, whole, and accessible.   Many of the recipes call for ingredients that I have, on hand, as a rule.

Just flipping through the book, on page 192, is a recipe for Cranberry Crunch.  The ingredients are: 

1 c quick cooking oats ... CHECK

1/2 c flour ... (gluten-free flour, CHECK)

1 c brown sugar ... (sub raw sugar, CHECK)

1/2 c butter ... CHECK

2 c whole berry cranberry sauce ... umm .... 

I have all of the ingredients, as listed, except the last one, and for that one, it would take about 15 minutes for me to make it on my stove, because I have whole, frozen cranberries, which I can: 

1.  Dump in a pan.

2.  Add 1 c water and 1 c sugar

3.  Bring to a boil.

4.  Cook until berries split.

And DONE!

One bag of berries is around a pint, which is around two cups.

Dessert, and I don't have to make a trip to the grocery store.  Easy-peasy.

What I was thinking as I was reading through the cookbook is that nothing in the book is terribly difficult to make.  It's very unlike that Meditteranean cookbook I purchased recently that calls for all sorts of fancy ingredients and long prep times.  I mean, I've made what I thought was Ratatouille, but according to the fancy Meditteranean cookbook, what I was making was something different.  At best, mine is a roasted vegetable dish (very tasty, but not what I thought it was).  True Ratatouille is a stew, and it's an all day cooking event that should be prepared in a clay cooking vessel, if one wants to be authentic.

If those are the sorts of dishes we are expected to make, it's no wonder no one wants to learn to cook.  It's no wonder that so many of us turn to the experts and/or purchase processed/pre-made foods rather than delve into the wild world of home cooking.

Enter the Mystic Seaport cookbook, with its easy recipes using simple ingredients where the prep time is about 15 minutes and the cook time is 45 minutes (during which one can be doing something else), et voila, dinner!

I read an article today ... well, part of an article, because there was just too much doom and gloom in it to keep slogging through.

I know, right?!  Too much doom and gloom for ME, means it must have been pretty dreary, right?

I won't share a link, but the gist of it is that there are going to be a lot of people, this spring, who will be edging closer to that "hunger cliff" (the words the article used).  The article was about the cutting of nutritional supplement funds (or SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), which is going to mean that people who are already food insecure are going to be that much more food insecure in a few weeks.  This summer is likely to be brutal. 

When I was a graduate student, I was a very poor mother of two, and one summer, I applied for and received food stamps.  While applying for the assistance and using them at the grocery store was humiliating and soul-crushing (unnecessarily, so - just sayin'), having $300 to spend all at once on groceries was amazing!  I felt RICH!  Ironically. 

I don't know what other people buy with their food supplement funds, but I bought the biggest bag of flour I could find and yeast, and I made my own bread.  In fact, I bought a lot of stuff I didn't normally get to buy.  My typical weekly/monthly food budget was usually a lot less, and I had never had that much money for groceries all at the same time.

I've done calculations before, comparing the price of ingredients to the price of prepared foods, and what I have always found - always - is that the ingredients, overall, cost less.  True, one can purchase two loaves of bread for the cost of 5lbs of flour, but that 5lbs of flour will make a heck of a lot more than just two loaves of bread.

There are 18 cups of flour in a 5lb bag.  One loaf of bread takes four cups of flour.  That's four loaves of bread, plus two more cups of flour for other stuff, for the price of two loaves of bread.  I mean ... why buy bread with all of the preservatives and additives?

Additionally, if one spends all of one's money on bread, one is limited to eating bread.  With whole ingredients, like flour, the possibilities are exponentially increased.  If I have flour (and a few other ingredients), for instance, I can make sandwich bread, biscuits, English muffins, bagels, cookies, cakes, pancakes, waffles, pie crust, and pizza crust.  With a couple of eggs and water, I can make pasta.  Flour, butter, sugar, salt, and water makes crackers.  Melt some butter in a pan, add some flour for a roux, add water or milk, and I have gravy, which is both filling and comforting ... especially over bread. 

There was an article recently about changing one's mindset regarding food.  The gist was that a bread and water diet can be toast and tea - with a different mindset.   Doesn't toast and tea sound so much more ... delicious!  

What I hear from people about why buy the prepared food instead of the ingredient is that cooking takes a lot of time, and ... well, that's not entirely true.  Sure, a ready-made cake from the bakery (that costs $20) is much faster than baking a cake at home, but if one is baking that cake from a boxed cake mix, is there really a time savings?  If I'm using a box cake mix, I still have to mix it with eggs, oil, and water, pour it into a prepared pan, and bake it.  It doesn't take any more effort or time to dump some flour, salt, and baking soda/powder into a bowl than it does to open the cardboard box and the plastic bag the cake mix comes in.  

And if I have flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, I can make a lot more than *just* a cake.

I guess most of the people who read here already know and agree with what I'm saying, but it is not a bad idea to remind us why we do what we do.  

We cook from scratch, using whole ingredients, because we know that cooking is a skill.  It's not about what or how we eat, or even about what or how we prepare it.  It's about resiliency.  If I already have an "I can make that" mind-set, then even if I find myself with a smaller grocery budget (or with a food sensitivity that requires I change my entire diet), I can still eat, and eat well, and spend a lot less money buying the food I want.  

Does anyone remember that amazing scene at the end of part one of Gone with the Wind, where Scarlet O'Hara is standing in the ruins of her garden with the sunsetting behind her.  She is clutching a measly carrot - the only thing she could wrest from the parched and trodden earth.  She holds this pitiful little root to the sky and declares, "As God is my witness, I will never go hungry again!"

Not to iconize Scarlet - she was not a good person - but her determination is admirable, and while we may not want to model her conniving behaviors, we can be just as determined and resilient, and yes, we can declare that we will never go hungry .... 

Not by manipulation and treachery, but by changing our mindset to one of abundance in the face of scarcity.

And by thumbing through an old cookbook. 

 

Five Ways to Prep for Retirement that Don't Include a Bank Account

 I read an article this morning about a potential bank “bail-in.” The gist is that if the economy starts to really take a tumble and one of the big four banks (JP Morgan, Citigroup, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) goes down, the likelihood that the government will start drawing money out of personal, individual accounts is … well, likely. Again according to the article, FDIC bankers talked openly about a bail-in as a strategic option. As the article points out, it's happened, or almost happened, elsewhere (Greece, Portugal, and Cyprus), and it could happen here. Anything can happen, right?

Chances are pretty good that the banks won't take all of the money we've entrusted in their care, but they could take a portion of it, to which they are not entitled, via a government tax.

I have been a stay-at-home mom with a part-time income for over two decades. As such, I haven't had an employer-based retirement fund, nor have I started my own retirement fund. Frankly, until recently, I always thought I still had time. Then, my youngest child reached adulthood, and suddenly, I am keenly aware that I am not getting any younger. Oops!

Last year sometime, I started looking at my options for a retirement fund. At my age, there is not much of a chance that I will be able to save enough money to keep me anywhere close to my current level of spending, which means I can either keep working until I die, or I can find ways to not need so much money.

At that time, Deus Ex Machina and I set up a spreadsheet so that we could look at some numbers. If we invested 6% of my income in an IRA at current interest rates, I would have about a year's worth of salary saved when I reached retirement age. I might be to pay cash for a used car … or if costs keep going they way they are, a dozen eggs.

If I waited another ten years to start withdrawing the money, and I only took out enough each month to cover my (current) property tax, it would only last 8 years after I started withdrawing money. Looking at those numbers is incredibly depressing. Money sure doesn't grow as fast as it spends.

Like me there is a disturbing number of individuals who don't have any personal savings. Almost one-fifth of our senior population depends solely on the federal social security system for financial support. It's usually not enough, and many seniors, these days, are taking low-wage jobs just to make ends meet.

Experts are full of great advice on how and how much we should be saving toward retirement. According to the second article, if one earns an annual salary of $74,000, one would need to have saved $1.3 million for retirement, which works out to over $900/month or $11,000 per year in savings, starting very young. At my age, $900/month wouldn't be anywhere near a million dollars. For us, putting that kind of money into a savings account and still keeping a roof over our heads and food in our mouths has just never been possible.

Experts advise us to start saving for retirement earlier rather than later.

Yeah … well, that ship sailed without us.

The fact is that it becomes even more difficult to START saving the older one gets, and when one is my age, if one doesn't already have some savings, whatever one is able to save from this point forward isn't going to go very far anyway. Sometimes any little bit doesn't really help. What's that saying, rob Peter to pay Paul? That's how starting to save at my age can feel.

Instead of putting $900 a month into an account, where the money may not be secure, I could, right now, be investing in my future in very real ways that will make my future more secure and more comfortable.

Here are five ways Preppers (or anyone) could be investing that don't involve putting our hard-earned dollars into a savings account.

1. Pay off mortgage

In her provocative tome, Possum Living, Dolly Freed describes the low-income lifestyle she and her father enjoyed when she was a teenager, which they called “possum living.” In 1975, the poverty threshold for a non-farm family of four was $5,500. Dolly and her father lived on a paltry $700 per year. I read her book. It doesn't sound like they were suffering. At very least the up-beat tone of the book belies any notion that their lack of income was detrimental to their physical or psychological health. In fact, Dolly and her father were both, if the book is to be believed, physically fit and very happy.

In the first chapter, Dolly admits that the only reason she and her father were able to cultivate and maintain their lifestyle was that they owned their home. They didn't rent, and they didn't have a mortgage.

Based on that book, alone, the best thing one can do, if hoping to live well in retirement, is to make sure that one has a cost-free place to live.

Numerous articles discuss the issues with senior poverty. Social security is less than what a person can make working a full-time minimum wage job. If that's true, a senior citizen who only has social security will be subsisting on about $1200 per month. If one has to pay rent or a mortgage out of that amount of money, it might not actually be possible to subsist on only that. As such, paying off the house and living rent/mortgage free would be a huge step in the right direction.

I may have to still pay property taxes, but at the moment, the property tax on my house is one-fifth of my mortgage payment. Renting a comparable property would cost fifteen times what my property tax is. Renting a one-bedroom condo (with no yard) would be six times the cost of my property tax.

In short, I am much better off owning my home, and the extra bonus is that if I find myself short of cash, I have enough house that I could get a roommate to help defray the costs.

I could invest in a retirement savings, or I could pay off my house. The latter is, in my opinion, a much better choice.

The best thing I can do for Old Wendy is to make sure that she has a place to live that doesn't cost her an arm and a leg.

2. Reduce the cost of utilities/invest in an alt energy system

Going hand-in-hand with paying off the mortgage is reducing/eliminating one's other bills.

Here at Chez Brown, we are already doing without cable television. The fact is that the library has all of the video entertainment I could possibly want, including a streaming service, and it's FREE!

We have worked for years to reduce out electricity usage, and at one point, had our bill down to around $50/month, half of which was the “delivery fee” for CMP to maintain the lines that brought electricity to our house. Unfortunately, over the past three or so years, our usage and cost per watt has increased quite a lot, and we're looking at alternatives.

What we have to ask ourselves is, what do we really need electricity for? As I'm writing this, the electricity is out due to a huge windstorm. I have a laptop, that's running on battery power right now, and when I get ready to upload this article to the internet, I will use my cellphone hot spot. The amount of electricity I need to power my lap top and my phone could be easily generated by a single solar panel. Our (hopefully very near future) alternative energy equipment will be sized according to what we absolutely need, appliance-wise.

We can also control how much water we use, and while the water company has been increasing our rates for a lot of years, there are things we can do. In the spring (after the thaw), summer, and fall, we can use our rain barrels for watering the gardens and the animals. And there are dozens of ways to use less water, like taking faster showers and turning off the faucet.

Reducing our overall footprint with regard to electricity usage and water usage will be valuable to Old Wendy. The less one has to pay for those basic things, the less money one needs to live comfortably.

So, instead of spending $100/month on a retirement account, one could put those funds toward setting up an alternative energy system, and then, live without paying an electric bill for the rest of one's natural life. It would take half as much time to save up the cash to pay for an alternative energy system as it would to save enough to pay off my taxes for eight years after I retire.

3. Learn to grow food/forage

One of the biggest problems that I hear for the elderly is having enough food, and that's especially true

with today's sky-rocketing food prices. I read an article in which the author recommended that the elderly utilize food pantries. I don't disagree, exactly. The service the food pantries provide is invaluable to a lot of people. The problem is that relying on a food pantry for all of one's dietary needs is foolhardy. Food pantries aren't designed to be an alternative to the grocery store. The function of a food pantry is to provide a supplemental food source for low-income individuals AND to keep edible food out of the garbage. It isn't meant to be a substitute for grocery shopping or other sources of food acquisition.

What can be a much better supplemental food source, though, is a garden. There is a misconception that one needs a large piece of land, and that simply is not true. In fact, there are plenty of examples of people growing food in very small spaces.

Having a garden is a hedge against bad times, and I'm finally figuring a few things out. Potatoes grow really well in bags. Actual seed potatoes are much better than trying to reuse those grocery store potatoes that grow long and spindly in the cabinets. Diatomaceous Earth is awesome. I never plant enough garlic. Raised beds, straw bale gardens and container gardening are the best methods for my small space, and I should stop trying all of the other techniques I've tried and failed at.

Which actually works to my point. Those methods of growing are easier and yield more for me, but they are also easier for older people. Raised beds and straw bale gardens don't require all of the bending, stooping, and tending that a traditional garden with rows requires.

But also, having a garden is a very cheap way to supplement one's food supply. When I was volunteering at the pantry, we had a couple of elderly clients who also had a plot at our local community garden. We didn't see those patrons for most of the summer, because they were able to grow what they needed to supplement their diets. With a slightly bigger plot and the ability to preserve some of their harvest, those patrons might not have needed to use the pantry at all.

One 4'x4' garden bed can feed one adult two vegetables per day for the growing season. That's the statistic I've heard over and over again. I have much more space than just two 4'x4' garden beds, which means that, depending on the crops I choose, I could grow enough vegetables to feed Deus Ex Machina and myself for three-quarters of the year. If we keep raising chickens and rabbits and it's just the two of us, I could raise enough protein (between meat and eggs) for the whole year. If we forage the wild apples and berries we find and add them to the grapes, apples, blueberries, and raspberries we have growing on our property, we have plenty of fruit. If we include maple syrup, we have completely rounded out our diet and the only thing we aren't raising is dairy and grains.

The only reason we aren't more food self-sufficient right now is that there isn't enough time to properly grow and tend the garden, because we work, but since we already have the infrastructure in place and the knowledge, when we do retire and have more time to spend in the garden, we could be supplying nearly everything we need to have a calorie-rich, healthy, organic diet.

4. Cultivate self-sufficiency skills

Deus Ex Machina is fond of saying one either has time or money, but rarely both. Money allows us to pay someone else to do the things we would/could do for ourselves, if we had the time. In retirement, the one thing most people have is time, but it's best to begin learning those skills before they become a necessity.

Skills like: cooking from scratch, canning/preserving, butchering animals, darning socks, mending/making clothes, changing a bicycle tire (and riding a bicycle, if that's not something one learned as a child), sharpening a knife, cutting one's hair, cooking without electricity or gas, building a fire, turning tree sap into syrup, making soap, tincturing herbs for medicine, fermenting vegetables (for preservation and healthier food), making cheese and yogurt from milk (to prevent spoilage and waste), and doing small home repairs (like painting the house, changing filters, repairing a faucet, patching a

hole in the wall).

None of the above skills require great physical strength or are particularly difficult to do, but knowing how to do them, and more importantly, doing them, could save a great deal of money.

For instance, we all know that cooking at home costs far less than eating out, but cooking from whole ingredients rather than buying the prepared foods from the freezer section, also saves a ton of money. If it's just the two of us, and I still cook like I do now, one day of cooking will give us three or four meals. The leftovers can be packaged and put into the freezer or, depending on the food, put into jars and pressure canned for meals at some much later date. Get stocked up enough, and we wouldn't even have to go to the grocery store, except for the odd item here or there. Retailers count on consumers spending more than they intended at the store. It's built into the store design for everything from the lighting, music, and temperature, to the way the food is displayed. They want you to impulsively purchase that package of cookies or potato chips. Not going to the store saves money just from eliminating impulse buys. I've already discovered that from using online grocery services like Misfits and Boxed.com.

5. Stay Physically Fit

A few years ago I was having a conversation with a friend. I said, “If my house is paid for and I don't have any debt, and I am growing my own food and making my own electricity, what do I need money for?” She said, without hesitation, medical expenses.

As someone who hasn't had very many medical issues, I wouldn't have thought of that one, but the general notion in our culture seems to be that age is equal to poor health. In fact, an estimated 75% of people in my age bracket are taking prescription medications. I guess I'm in the minority among half-centenarians. But I approach health differently, I guess.

A while ago, I went to the doctor for my annual physical, which included a blood test, nothing in the results worried him, except my iron levels. He recommended a stool test, and I asked him why. Low iron, he said, might indicate internal bleeding. I scoffed. I have had low iron/anemia since … well, since I can remember. It's not new. If it's caused by bleeding, then, I've been suffering from internal hemorrhaging my whole life. Seems like there would have been other symptoms, if that were the case. I declined the stool test.

The two things that did worry me, at that time, but didn't phase my doctor were my blood sugar levels, which looked high to me, and my weight, which was a bit more than I had thought. I was surprised by how much I had gained. I knew that I was getting heavier, but since I don't own a scale, I pretended not to notice that my pants were a bit snugger than they had been and that my aching knees were my age catching up with me.

When I got those results, the first thing I did was to reduce the amount of sugar I ate. I didn't cut back on food. I didn't count calories or go on a diet. I just, simply, reduced the amount sugar. No soft drinks (we bought a soda stream for seltzer water). No sweetened tea. No iced coffee with a sugar sludge at the bottom.

The second thing I did was to start getting more exercise. It started with walking in the mornings. Just around the neighborhood with Deus Ex Machina and our dogs. Then, Deus Ex Machina and I started doing 10 minutes of Yoga five days a week. In nice weather, we have a number of regular activities: walking (with the dogs, but our old pupper can only handle about two miles); biking; kayaking; and hiking. Deus Ex Machina likes mountains that are at least 1000 ft of elevation gain. He likes to go higher. I like less elevation gain, but a longer trail. I like to walk. We also take dance classes and Qi Gong. When we added these activities to our lifestyle, I lost 10 lbs and two pants sizes.

None of the above is medical advice. It is simply what I did when I was confronted with medical issues. I could have done nothing, continued to gain weight, continued to enjoy sugary drinks and snacks, tested positive for diabetes and been prescribed a diabetes medication. Maybe none of my changes will stop me from developing diabetes, but if it does, I've saved future Wendy thousands of dollars in medication expenses. Not spending my social security money on medication is cash in my pocket, and not needing medications, means that I can survive on less cash.

All of the above ways of preparing for retirement are cumulative, like interest ... only better.  Once .one starts doing them, the savings start to pile up, both the savings in actual dollars, but also the savings in stress and worry from not having an adequate bank account.