Sunday, October 13, 2013

It's getting tight around here

But not for long. Seems that corporate decided everybody is getting "too much overtime" at work, so  now NOBODY gets overtime. This kills my paycheck to keep us going, so it's tighten the belt and go for broke. I'm going to get darned tired of tuna sammiches and hot dogs and ramen noodles over the next month or so till Quentin's back to work and getting paid again, but so's he, and it's what we have to do to keep going and keep fed. Mainly because he doesn't see the point in stocking up until we need it, and of course, by then, it's too darned late. His idea of homesteading and mine are worlds apart, I'm finding, and it's a long road to help him understand that living in the woods does not qualify as "homesteading" if you're still totally dependent on the grid and outside sources for all your needs, instead of trying to provide some of them yourself.

It's like the wood pile. Growing up, his family had a woodstove, and the boys all split logs for the stove. But they were all six inches or bigger for splitting and he just can't quite get past the idea that once you split it, it's STILL only going to be a couple of inches across at the biggest point. So what's the difference between cutting only big stuff and splitting it, and cutting the smaller stuff and saving it as much as possible for the wood pile, when your goal in the first place is to clear the land for further use? ARGH! Some days, he just totally aggravates me, and this last week has been one of them, lol.

He's so depressed yet that time isn't flying to get him back to work, and yet so juiced at the same time. All he can think about lately is getting back to work. I can't really be upset about it, but there are times I come home and honestly wish he'd just leave me alone to unwind for an hour, and he's so lonesome for human company, that all he wants is to socialize. But then he gets excited because my arrival home is cause to grab the sharpie and mark off one more day on the calendar until he can apply for rehire. (Thirty-two days and counting.) So there's the downside to it all.

Upside is that we'll be back to two paychecks, which will be a big help to getting more done around here. Of course, that means getting a lot of small things done every week at that point, like getting that propane heater and the tank and such, and getting the woodstove after that (because neither of us wants to be cutting a hole in the house for the piping in the wintertime), along with new tires that are needed. And that's just the "small stuff" that's so necessary right now. Then there's thing we both want for us. For him, it's more power tools and a generator. For me, it's more solar landscape lights for the walking path, a new computer, internet at home, a spinning wheel and a lot of books. (I do love to read and love books to teach me things, too. MUST have more of those crafting and homesteading books on my wishlist!!!)

Though things have gotten done around here again, and I still need to get some photos done. The fall color's starting to show a bit more and I really want to show it off. There's one thorny locust right outside the bedroom window that has already turned a blazing red with just a touch of orange to it, and I want a photo of that before it dies back for the winter. All the smaller thorny locusts on the mountain have already turned, so going up and down the road, there's a lot of small shots of color to look at. Winter is so blah, but I know that things need the time to rest. It also meant that this past week, we winterized the windows. The insulated blackout curtains that we left hanging up in the kitchen and hallway openings from the living room all summer, and just tied up out of the way, are now getting pulled down every evening to keep heat in the room. The front bedroom, which gets really warm, gets opened every morning to let heat into the rest of the house, along with all the other blankets and things we've got over windows, to take advantage of the last of the summer and fall heat while we can. As soon as I get home from work, it's close the curtains, windows, and door to that bedroom. With having closed up the house before it got cold this year, we stay a lot warmer. Once hubby's back to work and we get the propane heater, it will stay warm all the time, I know, which will be absolutely delightful.

Once he's back to work, too, I can get outside after I get home and get things done outside. No offense to Quentin, but he understands it, too. When I get home, he wants company. If I try to get things done outside before dark, he keeps wanting me to stop and pay attention to him, so very little gets done, if anything gets done at all. So outside work is on hold right now so he can get some human contact. Once he's back to work, I can come home, grab tools or whatever, and get outside to get more done. Of course, one of my other wants once he's back to work is a garden cart or two-wheeled wheelbarrow, to make hauling trash and crap to the burn pit easier than using a five-gallon bucket is. It will also make the loads bigger, so more will get done per trip. Plus with as rocky as some of the ground here is, a two-wheeled cart at the least is a necessity. A normal wheelbarrow would end up tipping over all the time.

Something he worked on this week that I'm really happy with is that he got a lot torn out of the inside of the Merlot, so the end where he'd already pulled off the tin outside sheeting, and we'd used the exposed insulation from that for filling that hole in the living room wall a few weeks back, well ... now there's a big, gaping hole in the end of the Merlot. That will make it easier to clean it out once he's working and there's a garden cart, because I can just shove it outside the hole into the cart and go from there, rather than hauling stuff all the way back to the other end of the trailer to the front door and going out that way with the trash. He also got enough stuff in the way of insulation (not the best but it will do for now) and paneling out of the Merlot to get the water heater compartment insulated on the stud walls. We can't do anything about the stupid door, but we can fix the walls up some so that heat doesn't sink out the bare walls there this year. And so he spent a day on that project. Don't ask for photos of it, because getting the door to that thing open outside is a pain in the butt.

And the business end of things is starting to pick up. I'm working on putting together a list of all the place I use to make a few bucks now and then online (though once I have internet at home again, it'll all pick up), and I'm working on making it into a book. Yeah, I do love to write, as you can all tell by my ramblings here. One of my Facebook fans for the farm's page told me it's like sitting down and chatting over a cup of coffee, and I do try to keep it informative and friendly in that way. We may be beginning homesteaders in the sense that we have bits and pieces of knowledge but haven't full-on lived the lifestyle and are just starting that journey, but I like to think that if we keep telling people what we're doing and how, and how long things take, then other folks won't get discouraged about how long it's taking THEM to get anywhere. I'm not the doom-and-gloom type like many I see on a couple of  homesteading lists I'm on, though I don't think this country is long for this world in it's present condition, but I do believe in preparing and living simply, and I like to pass that along.

With all that said, though, it's time for one of my favorite parts of the week - the freebie Kindle books festival! Enjoy, as I know I do (though my poor computer is getting awful loaded with freebie books, lol).

FREE KINDLE BOOKS FOR THIS WEEK

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And that's it for this week. I do wish I could find more homesteading-type freebies for you, but all they seem to have is COOKBOOKS most of the time, which gets pretty boring, doesn't it? Oh well ... until next week, maybe things will start to pick up then on things around here. I have a lot of work to get done!

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