24 years ago...

24 years ago, probably on a lark, God decided I could be entrusted with the raising of another soul. If you'd seen my yuppie, over-scheduled life, you would have asked, what were you thinking, Supreme Being?

 Thankfully, it worked out. My son not only turned into a wonderful, caring, intelligent adult, but made me a far better person than I might have otherwise have been.  

It turned out I was better at the care and feeding of small human beings than I (and maybe anyone else) had thought possible. Happy birthday, son!

23 from 55

This morning I was enjoying my morning ritual of coffee in front of the fire when, after thinking of my dad for a moment, I briefly did some mental calculations and realized that by the time Dad was my age (55), he'd already been dead for five months. 

Not that you continue aging after your death, but you get the point.  I realized I had outlived the lifespan of one of my parents. (Mom's alive and kicking at 85, so I guess that's the next milestone to beat.)

My dad has been gone now for 32 years, which is more years than I was old when he died (I was 23). The significant thing about that is that as of the time of this writing, he's been out of my life for far longer than he was ever in it. 

With that kind of time and distance comes a certain acceptance of how things went down, which in turn allows you to pick up the whole tragic situation like a long-carried talisman, turning it over and examining exactly how it was made and what exactly it's made of. 

With some people in our lives, especially our parents, it's only with the passage of time that we can really understand what their life has meant to ours -- how it shaped, conformed or deformed it, and how that's played out over the decades. And you sure as hell can't learn or know that at 23.

That's because 23 is far too young to lose a parent, even though on paper it looks OK because legally you're an adult. It's too young to lose a parent even if that parent was not a particularly good one. But in our society, adulthood is probably more accurately measured in terms of life experiences rather than our actual years, so as the saying goes, at 23, you ain't seen nothin' yet, kiddo.

The other thing that makes it complicated is that my dad died in no small part due to his own actions. He was an intelligent, complex and depressed man, a diabetic who became an alcoholic (basicially an engraved invitation to Mr. Death to come on in). He was also a chain smoker, and it was that which got him in the end. A cough that had been with him so long it was how I used to locate him in a crowd or in the grocery store turned out to be a harbinger of lung cancer. It was diagnosed in the summer of 1983, and the doctors gave him six months to a year to live. 

They offered him chemo; he tried it once and gave up, saying it made him feel too sick to want to live that way. And then he spent his last few months visiting the bars he so loved, laying on the sofa, and telling me he had nothing to live for and therefore had no regrets about dying. 

At 23 I may not have had a lot of life experience, but by the time 24 rolled around, I was mentally 40.

But of course I was not, really. And in the years after my father's early departure, I made one impulsive, stupid life choice after another. Sometimes a death close to you kick starts your survival instinct, and sometimes the ways in which that instinct plays out looks like a years-long manic episode, filled with partying, traveling, screwing around and making/breaking vows to everything and everyone, including yourself. 

Of course I wasn't completely dysfunctional; I'd finished my college degree and had a career, an apartment, and paid all my bills on time. But my personal life is where the chaos was, and that's what part looks certifiably insane when viewed from the rear-view mirror of the calm present.

Somewhere around age 30, or seven years after my father's death, I settled down and had my son. And straightening up and flying right became more than about fixing me; it was about being fixed for somebody else, someone who totally depended on me. Having a child was a good enough reason for me to want to live well and live long.

And now here I am at roughly the age my own father died, with a son roughly the age I was when I was left fatherless. Seeing him at that age has made me more forgiving of myself for The Crazy Years, because 23 is just too young to be on your own completely, no matter how you think you feel about your parents and what you think you know about life. I see that in my son in a way I was never able to see it in myself at the time.

I'm more forgiving of my father, too, but still sad that he didn't stick around long enough to see how it all turned out. Perhaps I'll never know all the reasons why he gave up. But likewise, he'll also never know all the reasons I won't, or experience all the wonderful things he could have lived to see, but chose not to.

 At 55 years old, I feel like I've just started the third act of a four-act play. So much can still be started, be seen, and be felt. There's just so much more to life than what my father couldn't see when he was my age. 

That is, more than anything else, the talisman I've kept with me, even in the crazy years, but especially now. The secret is this: sometimes you live on not only because of the value you see in yourself and in the world around you, but most importantly, in the value others see in you.

Your heart beats for more than just you. 

How to Cure a Head Cold

Well, I think I may be coming down with a head cold. The first fall cold virus seems to always start making its way around town about the same time as school gets started. I am not sure why it works that way, but it's true. In September, the summer colds depart for warmer climes, and the real-McCoy colds set in.

But I haven't had a really full-on cold for three years. Yes, three full years! And the reason I haven't been sick for that long is because I basically take care of myself in the opposite way from how I grew up.

When I was younger the true dysfunctionality of my family was never more apparent than when someone was sick. If you were moderately sick, you were told you were fine, to "stop over-dramatizing," and that it was OK to go to school or work. So of course you did that, and you got sicker. Now, once you got sicker, you were told that you were still fine and so you kept going, until you could not breathe, had a 103 degree fever, and had to go to the emergency room. At this point it was considered OK to declare yourself "a little under the weather."

Side note: My father actually walked around with lung cancer for a couple of years before getting seen at the doc, at which point he was terminal and it was too late to do anything for him. He kept telling himself it was "just a little cough." 

Anyway, as I matured (a questionable claim, I know) I decided I was going to do things differently. Isn't that just the best thing about growing up -- that we can decide to change the rules and make better choices for ourselves? So my rules for being sick are somewhat the opposite than what my family and/or society advocates.

As a note, I am not a doctor, but I am a 55 year-old woman who taught classrooms full of sick children (because their parents did not want or were not able to stay home from work with them) and once saw my family through a documented bout with H1N1 yet did NOT catch it myself. So that kind of makes me an expert, right? Here are my anti-virus rules:

1.  If you think you are getting sick, stay home the first day you feel it. Sometimes your body is fighting something and it just needs a little more rest in order to rally its defenses. You could get up tomorrow and actually be fine. So yes, stay home, even though you are not officially dying. We Americans hail from a lot of Puritan stock, and the Puritans did not indulge themselves in this way (which is probably why half of them died their first winter in Plymouth). Take naps, watch TV or read, and stay hydrated. No exercising, no cooking, no yardwork, no career-work. At this point you're probably contagious anyway, so why spread things around? (Unless you want to show up before business hours, head for that annoying coworker's desk and wipe your hands all over their their stapler, phone, mouse and keyboard. That is OK.)

2.  Place your toothbrushes in near-boiling water or put them in hydrogen peroxide every time you brush. Use a clean brush every time you brush your teeth while you think you are sick. I keep about three toothbrushes handy so I only have to sterilize them once a day. I saw a study once that said this alone can cut a cold's time in half -- from nine days to about three, and I can personally testify to the truth that. Why put all that virus load back into your mouth via a dirty toothbrush two or more times a day? It just makes no sense if you think about it.

3. I know there are many studies that say echinacea is not effective, but my vote is that it is -- as long as you have it handy so you can start dosing yourself at the first sign of illness. Once a cold has taken hold, it's pretty useless. But right at the start....yes. It works.

4. Know that even though you may knock out 90 percent of the virus within a day or so, it will lurk in your system for up to a month, ready to jump back into activation if you go through a prolonged period of stress, alcohol consumption or lack of sleep. So everything in moderation for awhile. It's worth it.

5. This next bullet is about prevention. I am the Howard Hughes of the winery -- germaphobic to a tee. When someone is ill and I find out about it, I spray door handles, telephones, and even the ill person themselves with Lysol. Year-round, I use hand sanitizer on such a regular basis I should buy stock in whatever company makes Purell.  Most of us encounter sick people every day we're out in public and never know it. (The same people who send their kids to school sick also go to work sick, which is another reason why western civilization is doomed.) I use hand sanitizer after leaving each store I visit, especially if I've touched doors or money, and always after handling things like restaurant menus...you touch the menu, then pick up some fries with your fingers and voila! Instant contamination. I also sanitize after shaking hands with people. Just be discreet or you will offend when they see you squirt Purell all over yourself after touching their grubby mitts.

Oh, and I never touch my eyes, nose or mouth with my hands either. I'll scratch my face with the arms of my sunglasses or my sleeve before I'll use my hands. 

Anyway, today is a "do illness differently than your parents did," kind of day so I'm back to the sofa now and will post more later, once this virus abates. Stay safe out there and watch out for cold viruses as well as all the non hand washers of the world. They're both out there, I'm telling ya.

At least I do have some nice spots to indulge my malaise in.

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

Dancer, writer, artist.

So I was reading yesterday that actress Scarlett Johannsen will be tackling the role of Zelda Fitzgerald when F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, "The Beautiful and The Damned" comes to life in the movies soon.

I've always felt a certain huge, protective instinct where Zelda is concerned because she is a fairly close relative of mine (she is a cousin, as many times removed as our generations are) and I've always felt she got the short end of the stick where her marriage and career were concerned. Oh yes, and also where her mental health was concerned. Many people know her as "crazy Zelda," the woman who "tormented" F. Scott Fitzgerald through his most productive years. And this is simply not the case.

Zelda was a writer, an artist and a dancer in her own right and dealt not only with issues of depression, but also the unspeakable anger at having her work stolen by her husband, who regularly plagiarized her journals for fodder in his own writing. As a strong woman living in the early part of the 20th century, there was also a societally-ingrained, gender-based handicap which denied her the ability to live her own life on her own terms, due to the rampant sexism of the age. 

I first came to understand that I was related to Zelda when I got compared to her regularly when I was younger, especially in my wilder days. The "Zelda gene" was something that was of some concern to my family. When I danced (in full formal wear) into the fountains at the Music Center after a classical music concert in Los Angeles I was called Zelda. When I led the conga line into the swimming pool at a friend's wedding, I was called Zelda. When I climbed out a bathroom window at a fancy restaurant in Las Vegas and walked into the desert after getting an unexpected marriage proposal from a man I did not want to marry, I was called Zelda. So I guess it made sense that I felt like she was almost a secret sister of mine, genetically similar, creative, untamed and the wild child my father's family line somehow tends to produce on a semi-regular basis. Zelda was the one for her generation. I was for mine.

Unhappily married.

But Zelda was also diagnosed as a schizophrenic and sent into numerous, tortuous treatments that made whatever condition she really suffered from even worse. When ancestry tools first became available, I started researching both her maternal and paternal family, concerned that there really was a schizophrenic (and not just a wild child) gene in our family. 

Upon further research I learned that there was a history of mental health issues on her mother's side of the family, not her father's (through which we are related), and that today Zelda might be more accurately diagnosed as bi-polar or possibly just unhappily married and artistically frustrated to the point of clinical depression and suicidal tendencies. Think Vincent Van Gogh or Sylvia Plath, not Charles Manson.

And so I find myself in some ways wondering if Zelda's life might have turned out as happily as my own if she'd simply had a better (or no) husband, gotten treatment or just wised up early on about the hazards of binge drinking, and lived her life not quite so in the limelight. Perhaps she would have established her own limelight as a dancer, a novelist, a poet or an artist, on her own terms.

The one thing I know is that Zelda is one of us, my paternal tribe, and therefore I hope for everyone's sake that Ms. Johannsen portrays her not just as the quintessential, two dimensional drunken southern belle stereotype actresses usually tap into when portraying her, but instead attempts to portray her as the artist, -- the offbeat, smart, creative, courageous and wild thinker she was. 

I would hope for no less, if it was me and my life up there on that screen.

"Great Smoky Mountains" by Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

Dig In

Item of Holiday Death #1

So most of us who are the designated cooks for our family have requests we must honor during this season of food -- time-honored recipes we've served to our family as long as we've had one -- and sometimes before. 

I have a Heath Bar/chocolate chip cookie bar recipe that I've been making since the 1980s (college for me, which means I ate them at least once and chased them down with tequila) that I must make at least once during the season if I want to stay in everyone's good graces.

 The other food item that is more or less demanded of me is Yorkshire puddings at Christmas Dinner or Thanksgiving, which means from November - January 1, my kitchen menu features hearty portions of 1) sweets, 2) processed candy, and 3) lard. It's like the homestead kitchen I'm so proud of temporarily relocates to a trailer park somewhere and all I need is a bag of Doritos and Velveeta on the counter to make the transition complete.

It just always seems like it sends the wrong message to those I love most. It's like, "I love you yet I will nonetheless try and kill you with unhealthy food over these next few weeks." But in my defense, I only acquiesce to these requests at this time of year. The other 11 months of the year  I tend to make quinoa and flax-inspired food which makes Big Ag and the kids go "blech." Victory for me. Eat bland and enjoy the healthy blood values now, people. December's comin'.

#2

Because I make these two items, everyone loves me more during the holidays, no question. And I'm -- obviously -- willing to buy their love with deliciously bad food. If I lived in the trailer park, I'd no doubt be the most loved 500-pound woman there. Loved by my 700-pound family, that is.

Anyway, I found the cookie bar recipe where all cookie bar recipes are all invented -- some trashy women's magazine -- long before I became a convert to the natural foods movement. The Yorkshire puddings are a carryover tradition from my godmother's house. They are unhealthy but at least contain all natural ingredients -- bacon fat, flour and milk.  And they both have historical significance to those I love, and so I will continue making them for as long as they request them, even though I feel guilty about it.

So the cookie bars are done, I have all the ingredients on hand for Yorkshires tomorrow, and all we need are the Doritos and Velveeta to really knock everyone's trans-fat, salt and sugar intake out of the park. 

Merry Christmas from Yours Truly, known better by my other name this time of year, which is The Angel of Dietary Death.  

Star Wars Premiere

This is my tribe, consisting of both family and friends, after seven hours of standing in line for the "Star Wars" premiere last Thursday. (Big Ag, not pictured, is inside buying himself some popcorn in advance) You know you're with the right group of people when you can do something like this and have it turn into serious quality time. You don't need a Caribbean or Alaskan cruise or trip to Hawaii to bring the family together if you have the right kind of family.

In my universe, "Star Wars" is all you need, plus maybe some pizzas delivered and Cards Against Humanity to help pass the time and increase the laughter factor, already usually off the charts with this group. We set up our lawn chairs, set up our food and drink, and settled in for the long wait in the morning, and then saw the 7 pm premiere with the absolute best seats possible (although we were second in line -- there is actually another family in the area more Star Wars crazy than us -- who knew?) 

There were also assorted fan geeks roaming about with lightsabers and robes, but that's to be expected for an "event sociologique" such as this.

Oh, and the movie was great, BTW. 

Best. Turkey. Ever.

So I think I mentioned in a posts several months ago that my blogging friend Stephen Andrew Jones ( http://stephenandrewblog.blogspot.com ) wrote a post that sold me on buying a sous vide system for cooking, due to his gorgeous, magazine-worthy pictures of his perfect Thanksgiving turkey. The other option was to show up at his house for the big day and just enjoy all his hard work, but since that's technically stalking (but is it still stalking if you bring really good wine?), instead I bought a sous vide system for myself. Stephen Andrew has several good posts on making a perfect Thanksgiving turkey on his blog, so if you've suffered through the curse of dry meat this year please check out his holidays posts from years past, as well as a couple of links I'll post below. It will change your life.

The sous vide uses vacuum sealed bags with the food inside, cooked at very precise temperatures, to cook meats and poultry to perfection. They cook at a lower temperature, for a longer time, making them safe to eat. I will never, for the record, knowingly eat a dry, briny, 165 degree bird again. 

Here at the homestead we've seen more than our fair share of dried up breast meat and under-done prime rib around the holidays and the stress of not knowing if we'd have another disaster every year was making restaurant reservations in town look extremely attractive.

Ollalieberry mimosas using my favorite sparkling Marsanne!

And so it's especially nice to be able to report that our home-cooked Thanksgiving turkey was, by far, the best any of us had ever had, whether at home or dining out. And for me, it was, by far, the easiest Thanksgiving prep I'd ever had. Thank you Stephen Andrew!

There were several factors working towards making this -- bar none -- the most delicious but also the easiest Thanksgiving ever.  The vacuum seal system I bought alongside the sous vide allowed me to vacuum seal anything, and so I used that opportunity to pre-make ALL the side dishes in advance and hold them in the fridge without fear of spoilage or flavor changes (including stuffing, which stayed moist and delicious despite not being cooked in the bird).  So all the side dishes were done by Wednesday.

Behold the stuffing cooker.

Thursday was Pie Day (we celebrated dinner on Friday, so Thursday was a prep day), using pumpkins I'd harvested a couple of months ago and Olallieberries harvested and fast-frozen in spring.  All I had to do was make two pie crusts and cook it all up, which wasn't hard.

Then our Friday Turkey Day arrived, and it was time to cut the raw bird up into pieces. I decided to only cook the breasts in the sous vide system and sear and then braise the legs in the oven, in a red wine reduction sauce (I got 99 problems, but lack of wine ain't one of them). I also pulled all the breast skin off (sous vide cooking means no crispy skin sadly, but there are alternatives for making this happen!). I slathered the peeled-off skin in bacon fat and a little salt  and popped it into the oven on a sheet of parchment to roast by itself. I roasted up nicely, but shrunk a lot, so next year I will be covering it with another baking sheet to hold it flat and help keep it's shape and size.

I then seasoned the two breasts and trussed them together to make a kind of "turchetta," popped it into a vacuum bag and dumped it into a stock pot with the sous vide cooker. Both the breasts and the legs were scheduled for exactly 2 1/2 hours of cooking. With about an hour left in the cook time, I took out all the side dishes out of the fridge and stuck them in the oven too. The stuffing I cooked outside in the solar oven to help keep it moist.

EXACTLY two and a half hours later, I had a perfect Thanksgiving dinner -- no stress whatsoever. What a cooking revolution. So nice to be able to tell people you're going to eat at 2 pm and MEAN IT. Commitment kept! There was literally no guesswork at all, which was so helpful to me as I started heating up side dishes and getting the table ready.

Generation Two, minus our son Groceries who is stationed in South Carolina.

We had two of our three kids home and I'm happy to say they absolutely loved the meal! So did Big Ag, even though he's not in this pic because he's off in the kitchen somewhere getting himself a drink.

Here is a link to the two recipes I used for this year's feast:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2014/11/food-lab-sous-vide-turkey-crisp-skin-sous-vide-101-thanksgiving.html

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2013/11/red-wine-braised-turkey-legs.html

Too much or not enough?

I thought it would be like this all the time.

It's been a busy summer here on the homestead, both with homestead-related activities and off-homestead fun and events.  Since moving to Wine Country, every summer I usually feel, guiltily, that I'm doing too much partying and too little homesteading, and have felt that way ever since we moved here three years ago.

But we've had out-of-town guests visiting from New Jersey for the last three days, and their last comment upon leaving us and heading to the Bay Area was something about how they were so impressed with everything we do for energy conservation -- water, electricity and propane. So there's me, feeling like we're slacking and not doing nearly what we should, and then there's our extended family relatives, who live more or less like comfortable urban folks on the East Coast do, in a planned development, who see how we live as something quite unusual and almost extreme -- but, surprisingly, in a positive way.

It's all in how it looks from where you're sitting, I guess.

When I started homesteading, I was committed with an almost religious fervor to live as lightly on the planet as possible, knowing it wouldn't change the big picture, but at least feeling like there would be an impact on the small one. And so I became conscious of every little thing we needed to do to cut back on the things we were wasting energy on (and also spending money on, not-coincidentally). I did as little driving as I could get away with, watched the thermostat in the house like a hawk, and made the family learn to live with crispy line-dried clothes.

Our lives changed, and the first place I saw it was in our bank account, which started growing almost as fast as the crops in our back yard, because we were no longer spending on a bunch of stuff we could grow/make ourselves, or using electricity without thinking about it. 

 But not everything we started doing became habits that stayed around.  While it's true that I still feel the same way about the importance of living sustainably, my world changed and grew bigger over the last three years and some things, like eating at home 100 percent of the time, have simply fallen off the map for us as our social life expanded. Not a good thing, but it is what it is.  Other things we started back then have stood the test of time: watching the thermostat, canning, hanging wash, making soaps and cleaners, growing some of our food.  

But once those things became ordinary for me, somehow I ceased to see them as making a difference.  They were just one more chore to add to the list each day or week. Until the other day, when I was reminded just how different those chores are by my urban relatives who don't/can't do them.

The reality is more of a balance.

We live in an area, thank God, where I've finally found a community of friends we love, and being active and attending gatherings is one of the best things about it. But I also love the quiet, relative isolation, and rural lifestyle we have here. It's truly a balance, but like the average temperature in any given month, is not so much a single line but rather a series of plusses and minuses that average out to a certain number.  Sometimes we're out too much, sometimes we're home a lot, but the average carbon and financial output of our lifestyle is probably still much less than the average American.

And so instead of focusing on my homesteading lapses and feeling guilty over all I'm not doing, from now on I'm going to allow myself to feel positive and proud for the things we have managed to do, and just enjoy that. 

Tis The Season (for Food Wars)

Living the life we do means that most of the time we eat very natural foods, almost always made from scratch.  My egg nog recipe has real raw eggs, cream, and lots of liquor in it.  I have similar scratch recipes for other foods which became popular in their commercially-processed states -- stuff like Sloppy Joes, Egg-McMuffin type sandwiches and sodas.  

When you commit to living the simple life, the former convenience foods you loved are suddenly no longer convenient since you're making them from their most basic ingredients, and leaving out all the stabilizers, artificial colors, and preservatives. And sometimes they are worth it. And, yet, to be honest, they often do not taste quite the same. 

Real eggnog

Both Big Ag and myself grew up eating at least some  of what the 1960's and 1970's offered in terms of convenience foods, so adjusting to some of those taste changes when we've "gone natural" has taken time.  But after awhile you get used to it, and then when you pick it up again in its processed form, you actually notice certain flavors are missing -- the ones you first reacted to when you made it naturally.

I remember the first time I bit into a chocolate-chip cookie made with whole wheat flour instead of white and the wheat had a much stronger, nutty flavor than I was used to. I felt vaguely cheated, like my previously delightful sin had somehow been made more respectable and therefore less tasty and fun.  But now, I love the stronger flavor whole wheat has, and much prefer it to white flour in almost everything.

The taste change also happens if you switch from chocolate to, say, carob and if you change from white sugar to honey or agave nectar. I've heard nightmare stories from people who switched from coffee to chikory, although most got used to it after time.

Real mac and cheese

And some foods you cannot reasonably replicate.  The carob-for-chocolate swap is one shining example. It just never tastes the same, and is never as good. Another one happened here this afternoon, when I made my homemade egg nog.  I think it's awesome, but I know that tomorrow or the next day, Big Ag will stop by the supermarket and come home with a carton of that awful, artificially-flavored egg nog from the market because it's what he grew up with and therefore what he prefers.  And my oldest son, who I call TrainMan, will be staying with us after he has some dental work done after the holidays and has already asked that I stock up on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese -- that's right, the bright orange boxed stuff.  Sigh.

Un-real mac and cheese

The fact that I make a killer gourmet mac and cheese with three different kinds of cheeses does not matter, because no matter how hard I try I will never achieve the orangey, tangy, velveeta-textured goo that TrainMan feels is a mandatory part of the Mac and Cheese Experience.  And since its him who will have the sore mouth, who am I to turn a blind eye to his wishes?  (For the record, I never made Kraft Mac and Cheese at our house, but evidently it was on the menu at friends' houses enough that he developed a taste for it.  I guess I should just be thankful they weren't serving meth.) 

So tomorrow I will go to the store and buy some stupid, boxed Kraft Mac and Cheese, grimacing as I pull it off the shelf and throw it into my cart.  And I will also grit my teeth when the artificially flavored-and-colored "egg nog" shows up in the fridge next to my fabulously-natural Colonial Egg Nog (made from a recipe penned by George Washington himself!) as I just know its going to. It's a holiday tradition, just like bad sweaters and Christmas songs by The Chipmunks.  These are all things that must be endured as we plow through the season.  

Un-real eggnog

One thing that makes me feel better is remembering a story natural food guru Michael Pollan told once, about walking through the grocery store with a box of Fruity Pebbles cereal in his cart (for his daughter, who insisted on it) and someone noticing and saying something to him about it.  His response was that, although natural is better, if we have spouses or children we also have to acknowledge that sometimes we're going to have to compromise, and to pick our battles.

Which I guess means that although Kraft, Knudson, and Kellogs may win a round or two here and there, we natural cooks are still committed, long-term, to winning the food war. And so next week I will temporarily surrender on the Mac and Cheese front, open that packet of orange powder and make something that makes my son happy.  

But I have not given up the war. I'm just surrendering, temporarily, on one front.  A gooey, artificially orangey one.

Battleground Lost.

Boundaries

When you decide to make a change in lifestyle, such as adopting homesteading practices, the first thing you will need to do is establish boundaries where other people are concerned, because most assuredly, everyone will have an opinion about what you're doing.

Some people will be supportive and others resistant; your job will be to take all the good advice you can get to heart but remember that everyone, and I do mean everyone, has an agenda.  

Usually the goal of people's agendas is to prove they are right. So, to that end, if they're homesteaders themselves they can often offer practical, helpful advice. They'll listen from a point of knowledge or experience and support your efforts by pointing you towards practices or resources which will help you do what you would like to do, and help you get there.

But other people have different agendas. Some times, for whatever reason, their goal is not so much to prove themselves right, but prove YOU wrong. And they will resort to some interesting subterfuge, such as manipulation, guilt, sarcasm, or confrontation, all to see that you are emotionally undermined in what you're doing. They may not de-value you directly, but that is how it feels, even if all the while, they are saying they really are on your side.

But saying it doesn't make it true.

Bottom line, if you're going to get anywhere in life, you'll need to build some healthy boundaries from the naysayers. As well as figure out who the naysayers are.  And this can be difficult because although the naysayers generally say negative things, sometimes your best friends -- with your best interests at heart -- may also not always say exactly what you want to hear. But unlike the naysayers, they do understand you, they do know what they're talking about and they are really trying to help you. Distinguishing between the two can be difficult.

Support comes in many forms, but sometimes the trick is intuiting when it's true support and when it's destructive sabotage. Know yourself, get comfortable in your own skin and it gets clearer.  But when you're making life changes, that makes it more challenging.

Find the grounded people around you and keep them close.

My Ironic Son

A few days ago my son (who is a public relations major at a university in Los Angeles) called me to let me know he'd gotten an interview for a prestigious PR firm.  I was ecstatic for him; he's good at what he does, and I know this internship is an important step towards success in his field.

He called again the morning of the interview, stuck in traffic on the 405 Freeway, slightly panicked about whether or not he'd make the interview on time. For the record, he'd given himself almost two hours in rush hour traffic to make the 38-mile drive, because that's just how LA is.  

Anyway, he made it on time, he got the internship, and will now begin making that two-hour commute three days a week.  He will be wearing a suit and be working in a skyscraper with a glass elevator, a mahogany-paneled conference room, and his own office.  I'm sure there will be evenings out on the town and plenty of lunching at Beverly Hills restaurants.

And in the midst of all his success, I found myself inexplicably depressed, despite being HUGELY proud of him. And it wasn't Empty Nest Syndrome, either. I found myself depressed because he's running headlong into the life I ran headlong out of 20 years ago.

You see, I was also public relations executive (apples don't fall far from their trees, do they?).  I had an expense account, two secretaries, a company car, and worked no less than 50 hours a week, oftentimes more.  I wore tailored suits and made good money, but because I lived in such an expensive city, I had little left over at the end of the month.

 Some of the problem was me -- I loved eating out, having my clothes dry cleaned, and taking vacations.  Some of it was the price of living in LA, where my crappy, one-bedroom apartment in a so-so part of town cost about $1500 a month and my car insurance was more than my actual car payment was.

I loved those years of my life, but truly, a part of me always longed for the country.  My vacations were always to mountain villages, remote and undeveloped islands in Greece, or just up the coast to Big Sur. I rarely visited other cities, because I lived in a huge one already. The truth is that, with all my success, I longed to get my hands into the dirt and to simplify my life.

Eventually, I did just that, and I raised my son in that same, simple life.  He had lots of animals, wide open spaces and a Mayberry-type town to grow up in, out in the endless, flat fields of the California's Central Valley.  But now he's in the city, living in the exact place I moved away from because I felt it wasn't a good place to raise children.

I guess that's a good example of irony, isn't it.

And so, along with my pride in his accomplishments, I also have some fear.  I fear for him, living in a city that often chews nice, kind people up and spits them out for breakfast.  I'd hate to see him lashed to the mast of a two-hour commute on a permanent basis.  And as much as I want him to meet new friends and even have a great relationship, I want him to be able to disconnect from LA Life when he is ready and fly away.

But of course, my son is college-age, and all these decisions are his to make. I just hope that his upbringing of having a love for the land will stand him in good stead and ultimately bring him to the place he's meant to be.  Some of it's trusting him, some of it is trusting God.

But since I am neither of those individuals, my job is just to wait and see.  And that's not an easy job, I'm telling you.

Hit by a family on Doomsday

We had the first of our family arrive last night for the holiday; the rest will be here later today.  I shopped like a Doomsday Prepper yesterday, stocking the fridge and cupboards with everything they'll need or want for the next several days.  It's nice to be the gathering place, where everyone wants to wake up Christmas morning.

And speaking of doomsday prepping, it looks like we all made it into 12/21/12 without too much trouble.  Which is a good thing, I would have hated to spend my last day on the planet trolling a shopping cart through Von's.