A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step... HEY!! STOP RUNNING!!!!

Ok, so that was supposed to be poetic and deep.  But let's face it, if you have kids, someone is always running ahead.  Sometimes it's even you (but not usually)!  Several months ago, while sitting in our living room, My hubby and I decided we wanted to change our lives.  We wanted to be able to feed our daughters healthy food that wasn't poisoned for profit.  We wanted elbow room and fresh air to breathe.  We wanted to fall off the map and never owe another penny to another person ever again (well, except Uncle Sam.  He's always the exception)!  After the laughter died down, we looked at each other and realized, we really did want this.  Our eyes sparkled with excitement, twinkled with possibility, filled up with tears at the thought of scrubbing kids clothes out on a washboard.  

First things first, Hubby is a city boy.  He grew up in Milwaukee, WI.  He can wear a Speedo in a meat locker and be fine, but he's never plowed a field.  I am from Cali.  Southern Cali.  Yeah... I can lay on the beach and sunburn.  But we're both kind of health nuts...  but that whole mind-body connection (with out the crystals).  The idea of how much healthier our lives would be away from all the clutter, the noise, the pollution, the greed and hate and envy, the little girls in mini skirts and stripper heels (WTH?!?).... being away from the poison that seeps into our very being was too magnificent a dream too ignore.  To un-process ourselves.

We had a restaurant once.  We loved it.  Even then we had the philosophy that the best food was the freshest and healthiest food.  Shop local and organic, make everything from scratch, use simple ingredients that have benefits beyond the palate. We based our restaurant on this belief.  We made everything from scratch.  The soups, the breads, the salad dressings, the sauces, even our meat was prepared completely in house.  Great idea...  wrong demographic.  People in the south eat red hot dogs deep fried with chili and coleslaw.  Nothing wrong with it if that's your thing.  Definitely not ours.  But even still, to this day we still get compliments on the food we served.  My cupcakes could still sell out in about 10 mins at certain places.  And our Carving Board Club would end wars!  We tried to stay open.  To keep our heads above the rising tide of bull shipmets.  We got a raw, shady deal and still we tried to stay open.  Not to let the restaurant, our dream die.  The restaurant did, but our dream didn't.  And our dream was reborn that day on the couch.  It had grown and blossomed and we knew, one Google Search (or 200) at a time, trial and error, and old fashioned grit and determination we would achieve this dream.  We sat right there and drew up house plans.  No internet (too broke) or else we would have been on there for weeks.   Our dream had become bigger and greater than we had imagined.  Our dream became our inevitable reality and we all knew we'd move heaven and earth to reach it this time.

Then one day reality struck. I was working as a server at a local pizza chain and he had been unemployed for going on 2 years.  We were barely keeping power on and a roof over our head.  Processed foods became staples in our once pure home, they were the ones on sale 10 meals for a dollar.  And we were all suffering because of it.  Psoriasis flares, asthma recurrences, heart burn, exhaustion, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes.  In 2 years.  We had to do something.  But we couldn't pick our kids up, buy some land, build a house, become self sufficient and fall off the map when we owed more than all of our worldly possessions were worth.  Never mind we know about as much of off grid living as your typical 4th grader (our oldest is in 4th grade, we keep up with her.  :P).  Well, Hubby's better at it then I am, a lot better, kind of a genius really...  But I didn't want to look bad and he's not the one typing.  Lol.  We decided one step at a time.  Baby steps.  Little teeny tiny newborn ballerina tip toes of steps if we had to.  First was to go back to more fresh ingredients.  More fruits and veggies.  More organic and whole grain.  We'd eat less food, but they would be nutritionally denser and there for fill us up longer with less.  And it worked.  And almost immediately, our health started to improve.

This is the same time we all sat down and decided that Hubby would go back over the road driving a truck.  He drove when we were first together and it ate our family apart.  But we are stronger and closer now, and we didn't see any other option to achieve our dream.  We'd get things caught up, clothe and shoe everyone, and then go back to living as frugal as we were before... and then some.  He left out (</3) and we waited.  After 2 months of mind blowing tedium and insanity, he finally got to come come.  That's when we got household internet for the first time in 2 1/2 years.  And I immediately started Googling any and all information I could imagine for off the grid living.  Somewhere crazed with wilderness......  Holy Fried Fish Sticks Batman!  There's a LOT one would need to know.  I'm not an idiot, by any means.  I'm actually pretty smart (though I'm sure years on end of Dora has turned parts of my brain to mush).  I figured there would be a LOT of information.  I just didn't think so much of it would be good information.  Exactly how many tabs can I open before my computer has a stroke and can i book mark all of them?  And where am I supposed to find Arrow Root Powder.........?  What is Arrow Root Powder!?

*deep cleansing breath*
ohm...................
One step at a time.

Before all else, I had to prepare my family and myself.  There would be DT's and illness, and misery, and whiny fits over cauliflower and black eyed peas.  And I can't get them to pick up their laundry after they shower, let alone help me tend fields!  And I want to start providing for ourselves to some degree before we leave.  I also want them to have time to learn of and about the world around them once we get there.  Isn't that the point of off the grid?  Living that isolated and yet connected is a wealth of knowledge unbeknownst to most.  But I want the kids to have friends and socialize in town, not be the weirdo hippie rednecks that hide in the mountains.  That just sounds like a bad script to the Deliverance sequel.  Do I home school?  I want to, but can I...  once again, can't pick up laundry with out constant reminders and nagging (sometimes for days).  I think I'm going to educate them?!?! And what are the rules?  This state rooster blocked me when it came to home schooling.  The girls were never supposed to go to public school.  What's the right thing now?  

*can'tbreathecan'tbreathecan'tbreathe*  

I wanted to curl into a ball and quit already and we hadn't even looked at property.  So I did what all moms do when they do what they have to do.  I pulled up my big girl panties. I sucked it up, grabbed a pen and I made a list.  I'm a list type of gal.  I made a list prioritizing my steps.  And I decided that I could not implement the next step until the previous step was already in motion *omigawdtheselfcontrol*.  And I am going to try to implement one new thing everyday that is teaching us and moving us toward that big dream.  We will have successes and horrible gnarly epic fails.  We will laugh and cry, both uncontrollably at the same time no doubt.  At least once or twice.  And I want you to take this journey with me.  To learn with, laugh at, chronicle by, think on, live vicariously through.  So you too can see that it really is worth it to Dream Big.  So today, here is my list for the first few steps I want for my family....

1. Start un-processing our diet, eating healthier, making better decisions about what we put into our bodies.

2. Homemade all natural home and hygiene products.  Clean and care with out destroying.

3. Start a responsibility chart.  Make helping the reward.

4. Plant a garden.  Real Eats!

We started step 1 as soon as possible.  But I still admit to processed foods, boxed crimes against humanity served up with $.10 for your school.  But hopefully, with one step at a time, we will be completely un-processed, at least in our home, sooner rather than later.  I would love for someone to do this with us.  To un-process their lives.  Try my new thing with me, each day.  Or if you see me fail...  you can Google a better thing and tell me about it.  Support.  Yeah!  For support.  It's not at all because then I won't look quite so crazy then...    

Thank you for following our Journey.  You better hang on!  It's going to be a wild ride!