Ho-kay, peeps! The down lo...

[ArmyOfFive4God]

A lot of you know me from when I joined until I left a few years ago. Last you knew, I was in the LURVELY state of Wyoming. However, we've since moved back to the South & are in TN. We're realizing we miss Wyo a whole ton'a'bunch.

 

While I was away, I was busy honing some awesome skills. I've since raised chickens for meat & eggs & rabbits for meat. Therefore, I've learned to butcher small animals. I've also learned a lot of medical stuff that goes along with them. I've built a chicken coop (from pallets) & a rabbit hutch (from an old butcher block/prep table from a restaurant). I also got to process my first deer. I've had my oldest & Hubba get their hunter safety courses dealt with (a HUGE deal in Wyo), and oldest son has now been hunting. I also started learning about foraging for weeds. And, yes, we ate them, too

 

Being in Wyoming brought a LOT of experience dealing with less than satisfactory conditions. It snowed 9 months of the year if you were lucky (more than that if you weren't). There are literally 3 days a year that the wind stops blowing No, you never know which days those will be. Anything less than 40mph is considered a breeze. Try gardening in that! LOL. Anything above 26º calls for t-shirts & shorts. Seriously. The closet stuffmart to us was 1 1/2 hours away. I didn't miss stuffmart, though.

 

We had ONE single full service grocery store in our small town. We also had a dent & bent, but you know how those go- you can't get everything you need each payday from there. The next closest, and still small, store was 40 mins away. I learned to make trips out of town worthwhile, learned how to mix my own feeds to save money & grow for the chickens & rabbits. We lived on a generous tenth of an acre in the "city." We were able to do a whole lot considering.

 

Now, I'm not complaining. Like I said, we MISS it like crazy, and we're considering going back one day. The above is just to give you an idea of what it's like to garden & raise livestock in Wyo.

 

Some of you have also seen my posts on the Nourishing Traditions board. We're still living that lifestyle as best we can. We're not 100%, never have been, but it's been a Very Good Thing for our family. Since switching to real foods, we've also switched to natural (and usually homemade) cleaners. I haven't used store bought toothpaste since April of 2009. I gave up shampoo February of last year (2011). We're brewing dairy kefir, water kefir & kombucha alla time now, too. I've also been stocking my homeopathic medicine chest.

 

In Jan. 2010 my brother passed away. That trip made my back flare up with issues. We drove from Wyo to GA. The kids & I spent 15 days away from home (Hubba stayed a few days then flew home to work). In that time, I slept on a futon & 3 beds that were not mine. I was put on flexeril for a bit, as well as some painkiller. I don't remember which, because I never used it. I've since taken up yoga to ease my back pain & sciatica.

 

A couple months ago, I went to urgent care with stroke like symptoms. I was made an urgent appt. the following day. They took a urine sample & 5 vials of blood. They found nothing in my blood work or my urine. I have a first appt. with a neuro Sept. 18. I believe my answer will lie in an MRI. While I'm not keen on doctors, this episode scared the YKW out of me! I'm also now off gluten to see if that has any impact (I truly believe it's all migraine related, and I can't wait to get an MRI done to confirm that or not).

 

A couple weeks later, I came down with what was symptomatic of food poisoning. I was the only one that got sick, and we all ate the same things- nothing new-, so I'm not sure what it was. I was so bad that Hubba had to take off work to care for the boys. Never in the time we've been together have I been SO down that I couldn't at least feed the kids each day. Well, except surgery, but I was back up & at'em fairly quickly after that.

 

While we were in Wyo, we bought a house. Then when we moved, the realtor AND the bank screwed us (we had it up for sale after doing a ton of reno on it while we lived there), so we've since had to let that go. We're ok with it, though. We held up our end of the bargain as long as we could, continued to make payments as long as we could & we ALWAYS kept in touch with them as to our plans until we couldn't afford 2 homes anymore. Now, we're renting & saving our pennies as best we can to buy some land & a home where we decide where we want to be "forever."

 

Hubba's still working at the same company, which he hates. I'm doing data entry & writing menu mailers working from home. I've monetized my blog, and that's really beginning to work out. We still homeschool. We're still gardening, albeit in buckets right now. We're still buying in bulk (with a teen & an almost teen + a shorter boy, you have to).

 

Etc. Etc. Tried to keep this short-ish. Like Cliff notes.

 

Any questions? LOLOL (Not that I'll answer them. I'm mean like that, BAHAHA!!! Take THAT you duct tape heathens!!!)

Edited August 23, 2012 by ArmyOfFive4God

[Mt_Rider]

Wow, ArmyO5.....you have kept yourself busy!!! Sorry about the problems with the WY home. You've been having a lot of interesting events and learning new skill sets.

 

As for the health issues, will pray that the docs can pinpoint what is going on!

 

 

MtRider [... Glad you're back!! ]

Edited August 25, 2012 by Mt_Rider

[Daylily]

I have a question What does it mean to monetize a blog?

[Virginia]

Welcome back.

[Annarchy]

Wow, you have been busy. But, we still missed you.

 

Nice to hear about the new skills you have acquired. Every little bit helps.

[ArmyOfFive4God]

Thanks all. MTR- me too! I am so ready for an answer, so I know which move to make next

 

I should probably add that we paid on that house for quite some time after we left it. It was after we moved & were still paying that things went bad :/

[themartianchick]

I have a question What does it mean to monetize a blog?

 

 

Monetizing a blog is when you add advertising banners to your blog to earn a little cash. You can select the types of ads that you are willing to have displayed in most cases and with some companies/advertisers like Amazon, you can actually select specific products that you are willing to have ads for on your blog.