This is going to be good.

Background: I know I’ve slacked off on the blogging, but I intend to pick it up again later in the year. (We are on track to move in August.) I have much to tell you. Here are my excuses for the silence: our house is for sale, Greg’s been traveling, we’re going gangbusters on school, and the kids still want to eat every single day. So I’m busy. But you have to know why my homestead journaling is going to be good.

Greg and I took a whole week to figure out how chickens mate. Seriously, we discussed all the possibilities (you had to be there), and then after much frustration and annoyance with the jargon in books and websites, I called Valerie to talk me through the whole thing. We will make a good subject for the neighbors at the feed store.

Greg is a controls engineer and has all these ideas about automating irrigation, building solar and wind power that operate from a control panel in his office, and devising an automatic egg incubator on the cheap. It strikes me as un-agrarian to move electric fencing without going outside, but I digress. Maybe we will dig the wires underground by moonlight in secret. Or maybe we will do well to just keep the fields mowed.

There is nothing like going into something where you’re at the mercy of your benevolent neighbors and where you need a humble attitude and teachable spirit. I can think of a lot of things we’d do well to approach this way.

Today I read an article about how men decide to buy a car. According to the article, men choose vehicles in similar ways they choose a wife. (I’m just telling you what it said.) There’s a lot that goes on in the thought process, and apparently, it’s the subject of much study. Often, men will come in and admire an expensive convertible, but in the end, they walk out with the keys to a dependable sedan. I’m not saying there’s a correlation between a Chevy and a dependable wife, but I thought I’d think through the implications here.

When we married, my husband drove a new model red Honda CRX. It was small, sporty, and compact–exactly what I used to be, ahem. That car ran smoothly. It was fun to handle, drove a little fast, and didn’t have any issues. It was a fun little car, I recall. I remember those days.

Not long after we married, children began arriving, and the two-seater little sport car had to be traded in. Greg downgraded to my old red VW 4-door. (At least it was a stick, so all wasn’t lost.) It was fiery red, practical, and low-maintenance, but that’s about all it had going for it. I think the analogy is breaking down.

Six children later, and we drive a large van with lots of cargo space. It’s heavy on the tail-end. It’s pale, err, I mean, white, and it doesn’t get too many miles to the gallon. The cool thing about this van, though, is that it has a ton of bells and whistles inside. You’d never suspect it from the outside. When robbers look for a car to break into, they pass right on by ours. But there are DVDs, GPSs, and all kinds of acronyms hiding inside. It even has a vacuum, reading lights, and snacks stored up its sleeve. It’s built for the long haul even if she isn’t so pretty.

We have a second vehicle at the moment, too. The van Greg drives to work is the same age as our marriage. It’s reliable but pretty old. It’s getting about that time to trade it in, but I hope he keeps her till she dies. It’s hard to find a good car, you know.

I paused today when I read a great line in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Barbara Kingsolver writes, “…to many urban people the idea of growing your food must seem as plausible as writing and conducting your own symphonies for your personal listening pleasure.” Certain vegetables like the difficult-to-grow celery will certainly make the novice give up prematurely. (Start with zucchini.) But many people are returning to the backyard garden, if more for the rising food prices than the nostalgia. As for me, I’m thrifty and a sucker for romance, so that’s why my seed catalogs sit dog eared next to my Bible. There are flowers in heaven.

Here in Florida, gardening is done for the season. I picked the last tomatoes this week, and we chopped them up for today’s lunch, tacos. I’m chomping at the bit to get started at our new place. I laid out a garden plan for next year. We plan to lime and sow a cover crop as soon as we get there this August, so things will be ready in the spring. I’m driving my husband crazy. I see berries and daffodils in my dreams and all he sees is PVC pipe and an aching back.

Here’s my kitchen garden plan, subject to what-are-you-thinking from folks who know more about Kentucky’s peculiarities. It’s a draft, and I will ask my neighbors for advice. North is on the left.

It’s kind of hard to read, sorry. If you think this is ambitious, you should see my berry and orchard plan. I know, I know. I need to make it a four-year plan, not a four-day one. If you are new to gardening, it is no big loss to mess up with seeds, but you should always take time and care when adding berries and trees. They cost a lot more. Start small and then you can talk your husband into buying you a farm. Not that I know anything about that.

Here are my muscadine grapes. If you can’t grow these, there’s something wrong with your thumb. You can literally stick them in the ground and walk away. You just hack it to the ground after harvest, make several grapevine wreaths so you can feel crunchy, and that’s it.

I usually link these articles in the sidebar, but I wanted to highlight it. Gardening isn’t just good for your soul; it’s also good for your pocketbook. (If you can get stuff to grow. I know about failure.) Here’s something you can do about peak oil, the depressing economy, and higher food prices.

From By Anne Marie Chaker’s article, The Vegetable Patch Takes Root, in the Wall Street Journal this week:

More families are looking right under their feet to ease the problem of high food prices. As consumers balk at the rising cost of groceries, homeowners increasingly are cutting out sections of lawn and retiring flower beds to grow their own food. They’re building raised vegetable beds, turning their spare time over to gardening, and doing battle with insect pests.

At Al’s Garden Center in Portland, Ore., sales of vegetable plants this season have jumped an unprecedented 43% from a year earlier, and sales of fruit-producing trees and shrubs are up 17%. […]

The grow-your-own trend comes as the price of food has skyrocketed. The government recently reported that April’s 0.9% increase in food prices from the previous month was the fastest pace in 18 years […]

Bruce Butterfield, the association’s research director, expects 2008 will be another strong year for vegetable gardening thanks to “the combination of gas prices, food prices, and people staying at home because the world’s gone crazy,” he says. “At least they can have some control over their backyard.” [Amy: I love that phrase, “…people staying at home because the world's gone crazy.”]

[…] “I’m in no way a tie-dye wearing granola hippie,” says Garden Grove resident Dylan T. Boyd, a vice president at an email marketing company and father to two small boys. “But I was looking at the price of blueberries the other day — $5 for a fistful. I thought, ‘Are you kidding me?’ ”

While it’s a time commitment, he says, the payback is far greater. “It’s so much easier to walk to the top of the street and grab your lettuce and tomatoes for dinner, fresh every day.”

If you want to feed your soul, why not try some zinnias? My eight-year-old sowed these for me a little too closely, but the beautiful thing is that we don’t have to pull many weeds. When plants grow close together the mature leaves shade out the weeds below. All this beauty for two dollars for seeds and an ice cream cone for your sweet daughter who wants to score big?

It’s been a few years since I’ve attended a homeschool conference. It’s not because my kids all self-educate, pass out cookies at the nursing home, and clean the house before I get up in the morning. No, I still need the pep talk ….like everyday. I don’t know why I haven’t gone. Motivation. Logistics. Cheetos. (I threw that in there to see if you were really reading.)

I get all kinds of offers from folks wanting me to plug their goods. I usually pass, but I thought this one would be helpful to some of you. The staff and writers of Heart of the Matter Magazine want to give FIVE of you free admission to their virtual online conference. I checked out the participants, and I saw that Todd Wilson is speaking. Todd who? He’s the author of this cartoon that you’ve probably already seen around:

So, I’m in for Todd’s spiel. Also, some lady is giving a talk titled, “I’d be a Great Homeschooler if it Weren’t for These Kids.” I won’t even say it. This is just so funny to me, because I think I’d be an over-the-top hyper-homeschooler if I didn’t have like a gazillion kids to humble me. (Everyone say, “Praise the Lord she was delivered.”) I promise I’m not completely jaded, but I was homeschooled myself in the early 90’s back when the only biology choice was the orange Bob Jones textbook that stunk from being sold at too many used curriculum fairs. You know homeschoolers love a used curriculum fair, especially if there’s an early bird special. So that’s a long time for me in the homeschool circuit, once as a guinea pig and now as a mad scientist. I need a new denim jumper to go with my new attitude.

How to enter
Leave a comment with a good I’ve-been-doing-long-division-all-day-and-now-you-people-want-to-eat recipe, a kid funny, or some pep talk for me. Two entries for you if you use a Bible verse that isn’t in Psalms. (Oh Lord, how long?!) Three entries if you link on your own blog. We’re like the only people on the planet still doing school, and I need to feel the love. Don’t make it complicated. Something like, “Hang tough, Amy, and eat ice cream,” works completely. Contest ends at midnight Eastern this Monday, June 23rd.

The details from the sponsor

Shhhh! Do you hear that? It is the comfort of your home calling you. PJs, coffee (your flavor), and five fun filled days just for you!

In Heart of the Matter Online’s quest to bring you the absolute best home school resource online, they have listened to your requests and are providing you with a fun filled online adventure! On July 30th through August 3rd, they will be hosting Heart of the Matter Online’s first annual Virtual Homeschool Conference! They will be providing the attendees with motivational speakers, video tutorials, free products, question and answer sessions, and a vendor hall - all ONLINE! Just log on and listen live during that time or log in at your convenience and download the audios.

This conference will be less like a “seminar” and more like a bunch of close friends in a chat room. Just wait till you see what some of your favorite home school personalities have done to educate and entertain you! At the end you will join in to chat with them, ask questions, and they will answer.

To insure your spot in the conference room and to take advantage of the early bird special. Simply, visit the Heart of the Matter Online Conference site and click the “pay now” button. At $19.95 these prices won’t last long! This $19.95 includes a fabulous $30 package from Currclick: curriculum in a click! Currclick (formerly HomeschoolEstore) is the largest one-stop shop for electronic lapbooks, affordable curriculum, and homeschooling resources.

One of the pleasures of owning rental properties is that you’re never in need of drama. We got a call at 10 p.m. the other night with some major news. Apparently there was a terrible storm in the area—hail, lightning, gusty winds—and one of the apartments leaked like New Orleans. The tenant called the manager with the news that he was standing in ankle deep water, his flat screen TV and game systems were all ruined, and everything was a total loss.

Our manager went over there right away to decide how to proceed with this dilemma. Greg talked about money all night long (landlords are not responsible for possessions, by the way), the logistics of the situation, and how to deal with it. There is a lesson here about worry, but I’m not going to say it since it’s so plain.

We got an email the next morning with this picture and the following text:

How much of life’s stuff ends up like the little kitty bowl with a teaspoon of water? Not everything, for sure, but plenty enough.

Whenever my husband goes out of town, he tells the kids to be good. This is because he likes me to be in a good mood when he gets home, which is admittedly difficult after no relief for a week. If I’m happy, the gentle ripple goes out through the whole house and all is well. (I could’ve just said, “If Mama ain’t happy….” as I’m not sure about the phrase, “gentle ripple.”) Before he leaves, Greg tells the kids to straighten up. This is code for, “Do your jobs without being told. Don’t fight. And don’t flush things that will clog the septic tank.”

There is usually some kind of reward for well-behaved kids when Greg returns: moose-hair trinkets from Alaska, foot-long bubble gum from the convenience store in boring states, and a plastic horse set from California (not sure of the connection there except that California is closer to China than we are). Sometimes if I tell him there is a Golden Child, he will stop by 7-11 for a Slurpee on his way home. If my child is ever golden for you, please mix all the Slurpee flavors. That’s how they like it.

There is a particular child that receives accolades quite often. She’s just a good kid. Whenever she steps out of line, though, my son in his best sportscaster tone does a voiceover, “Golden Girl has just moved down to Lead Girl.” He made that up himself. It’s all in good fun, but they do try to outdo one another. Before you think my kids are crazy golden though, you have to know they outdo one another in the bad way too. Why else would I ever be in a bad mood? Moi?

So on no particular day, definitely not today, they were off the precious metals chart. In a bear market, not a bull. They were somewhere near cheap plastic, the kind in Happy Meals. I got onto them about their jobs and doing what they’re supposed to be doing and —you know the drill. In the end, the angel on their shoulder happened to be louder than the devil (this time) and they got to work. A whirlwind of good behavior and cleaning up (oh, I love that, it’s in the Bible I think) ensued.

We were having a great time. I praised them. I talked about what we were going to get to do now that we were back on track. Then someone got the great idea to really go for broke, so she decided to smother me with kisses. Generally, that’s a great idea. The problem is that another child wanted to get on my good side too. So she shoved and pushed her sister …so that she could have a turn to kiss me. The irony. Get out of my way so I can show love! That’s the spirit.

That’s what happens in church parking lots all the time. You sit through a nice little service, worship God, and then yell at the dude that cut you off on your way to witness to the waitress at Piccadilly. Good times.

Keeping the main thing, the main thing is so hard sometimes. You can try to impress Mom with your loving spirit and knock out your little sister while doing it. For my children, the problem is immaturity. For me, losing sight is from exhaustion. We all lose focus. No matter. I know I’m not the only one who is tired and forgetting about important things–people and my relationship with them. In the middle of it, you don’t have the perspective about what’s important that hindsight brings. You make decisions you wouldn’t have if you weren’t so tired. The heat of the moment—which can be a lot of moments strung together sometimes, a fog that won’t lift –is a testing ground, so choose well. Make the choice you would’ve wish you’d chosen if you were looking back. I’m talking about speaking kindly, being slow to anger, and preferring others above yourself.

I’m notorious for saying things I wish I could take back. Have you had an argument and felt really bad the next morning? That’s how I look back on my week and think that I would’ve lived it differently if only I remembered that it was for Jesus and not me. That there is one day—coming in a few years for me particularly, yes, but even more glorious in eternity– that I won’t be tired, and I’ll be glad that I chose the better thing when I had the chance.

For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith. ~Galatians 6:8-10

Here are the winners to/from/for* last week’s contest:

Robin in New Jersey
Tina at Sufficient Grace
Jamie
Elle (love the name) at A Complete Thought
Erin at a blog with a broken link

Winners, your registration will be sent next month to the email address you provided to me.

This means if you didn’t win and you still want to attend, you have to cough up the cash (or the PayPal). You can register here.

* I spent like 20 minutes trying to figure out the correct preposition there. I couldn’t decide so I put all of them. I’m sure that’s wrong though.

On the plane going up to the farm last month, I sat next to a nightclub bartender. I eavesdropped—how does one not—on his phone conversations as he tried to score dates with girls. I’m guessing he didn’t get one, but it was not for me to mention why he might be striking out. Girls don’t want to “hang,” at least not the marrying kind. Sometimes I wonder about life on the other side of the fence, but times like these, I don’t dwell there too long. Like middle school, it’s a place I just don’t want to go to again.

A weird thing happened besides our conversation after the phone calls. I wonder and pray for the next generation, as they don’t seem to be in any rush to take responsibility for anything: job, home, family. I am talking about the late 20-somethings, not the just teenagers. I’m not one to be boorish and uptight, but man, he wouldn’t even take care of his cold. He was sick and coughed, coughed, coughed. He never turned his head or covered. The timing of one of his coughs happened right when I inhaled. I knew I was doomed. As it turned out, I came down with a miserable cold.

I get sick easily, but this weird coughing directly into my mouth thing was akin to injecting the virus right into my bloodstream. We’ve stayed home from church for many months now due to colds being passed around. We stay home when we are sick, but at rare times when it’s impossible to stay home, at the very least I don’t cough at people or shake their hand. Almost without exception, people thank me when I explain why I shouldn’t shake their hand. I plan to continue our sequester here at home out of respect and politeness.

For now, the only sick one is the baby. She is miserable. I talked with an older mom last week about how she managed sickness when all her 10 children were young. She answered, “We stayed home and my only social interaction was at the doctor’s office. The doctor finally stopped charging me and just had me come on in.” The beautiful thing about this was that I noted that the mom of 10 who’d survived The Cold That Will Not Die didn’t seem crazy in the least. Or maybe I didn’t notice because she seemed an awful lot just like me.

Our house is for sale. This is not my first real estate transaction, but it is my first attempt to sell something in a down market. Buyers have so much to choose from. It’s a hard sell. The economy is tanking, and our house costs more than anyone’s economic stimulus check. When we had a yard sale once, my son was amazed because he watched me talk a lady into buying something she didn’t want. I still feel bad. Selling a house, however, is a lot harder than selling a purple bike trailer to someone without a bike. The proverbial used car salesman and I have more in common than our bad hair, but it’s still hard.

Back in 2001, I sold our first house while Greg was out of town. It was a fizzbo (For Sale By Owner), and so all the leg work landed on me. I held an Open House on two weekends and found a buyer. I don’t recommend this technique with a baby and toddler underfoot when your city is listed in the Top 10 Most Dangerous Cities in America. Safety first, but I’m just saying. It sold in less than two weeks without being listed in MLS and for $1,000 less than the asking price, which realtors told me was too high. Those were the days.

When the housing bubble hit Florida in 2005, I pestered Greg about selling our house. He kept asking where we were going to live, but he’s like that, he gets hung up on details. My great ideas lack follow through, admittedly, but someone has to think up this stuff. Who else will go off and buy the farm? The world needs people like that. All the famous inventors were wild and crazy, I think, but I’ll have to look that up. If you want my first recommendation on selling in this market, it’s this: Move out of California, Florida, or Detroit before you try to sell.

My next recommendation is to make everything negotiable. You like my rocking chairs? They’re yours. One guy told me that my a/c unit was as old as he was. He was over 60, but I’m not one to quibble on time frames, so I’ll upgrade. Just make me an offer. Greg jacked up the driveway —no kidding, what do you think we do with our weekends? –that was sagging a little. A question about termites? We forked over $350 for a transferable termite bond. And this morning, a phone call that a buyer wants to see the house in 20 minutes. No problem-o, just don’t look under the beds. You should’ve seen that scramble.

The other thing you have to remember is that you are selling a lifestyle not a house. This is why I get all the kids out of the house. Nobody wants to imagine life with six kids, so I hide the econo-size peanut butter in the back of the pantry. In the dozens of families who have been through our four bedroom home so far, the child count stands as follows: one with two, many with one, and the rest with zero. Hide, children, hide! When I point out the features, I always leave out the part about the wood floors being an excellent playing field for Horse Head Hockey.