Update 2011

The main purpose of this blog is to chronicle my family's life for posterity.  If it helps or amuses others in the process, cool.  Ironically, the more we have going on, the less time I have to write about or photograph it!  So I'll just give a brief update:

Hubs is now working as a truck driver.  I am not happy about being left alone with three kids for three to four days a week, but I am happy about the steady paycheck.  Our finances appear to be on the verge of getting better.  Some uncomfortable decisions had to be made, but I think it'll be worth it in the end.

After years of whining about wanting to be a stay at home mom, I had the following epiphany:  I CAN DO IT!  I think we can pay the house off in 3-5 years if we seriously commit.  I don't think it'll require unreasonable sacrifices either.  We can live on Hubs' paycheck and use mine to kill the mortgage.  I really think it can be done and he appears to be on board.  First, we have a few pesky debts to clear, though.  Once we no longer have a house payment, I'll just work every other weekend just to fund my IRA. 

Of course, we'll have to cut expenses in order to achieve the above goal.  My plan for that:  grow our own food!  I'm talking urban homesteading, baby!  If that family in California can live off of 1/10 of an acre, surely we can do something similar with our 0.6 acre!  Although I think pygmy goats are adorable, I'm going to pass on having animals at this time.  I'm not even sure I'm allowed to have them.  But we can grow all kinds of veggies and fruits.  We can freeze a lot of things and I plan to learn to can, so we can eat off of our garden most of the year.  I hope to be able to post about it.  Our last gardening venture didn't turn out that well.  We did not pick the best spot in the yard for it, but it didn't do so bad, either.