Don't Ya Like Jammin' With Me?

I have made jam! I got 21 half-pints of strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry jam out of my labors today. Tomorrow when everything is cooled off, congealed and (hopefully) fully sealed, we shall see whether I did my jamming correctly today.

Some of my veggies have taken a turn for the worse! I don't know what might have happened, but all of a sudden my beans and peas just dried right up on me, and my cucumbers have begun producing bitter fruit with a sticky juice that coats the inside of the mouth like sap...ECGH! I haven't watered them any less than when I was bringing them up. The only thing I can think of is that the hotter weather mixed with larger plants means that the water I was giving them wasn't enough. Any ideas? At least my tomatoes are still producing nicely. Everything else in my garden is either a has-been or a never-will-be (muskmelons and strawberries).

Emily and I have put a contract on a piece of property in Winder, GA. It is on 1.44 acres in unincorporated Winder. There is a singlewide mobile home in near perfect shape on the property, and it has a well and an outbuilding with electricity. We hope to close on it during the first half of August. That is where we will be living when we move in September!

On Saturday July 18, we went to a Pioneer Day Celebration at church. It is a yearly commemoration of July 24, the day the Mormon Pioneers arrived in the Salt Lake Valley after leaving their homes in the east and midwest. The Pioneer Day Celebration was really cool. I participated in a log cutting contest, made butter, made ice cream, ate grilled corn, made rope, made a candle, drank home made root beer, and saw a lot of antique machinery people used such as a hand-cranked washing machine and a scythe. With my penchant for homesteading these days, this thing was right up my alley!

We are going to court on August 10 for child stuff. Pray for us!

Roller Coaster

Life has been a very wild roller coaster ride lately. There have been such ups and downs, highs and lows. We are going back to court regarding child custody. Emily has been hired for her first job as a graphic designer. We are getting out of the Marine Corps and going after a new life and new challenges, but we are going to be taking a 70% pay cut and moving across the country. We are looking for a house to buy. I am 90% certain I have a job when we get to Georgia. Our babies are growing and they're very cute! I was talking with my dad on the phone telling him about some of the challenges we're facing right now, and he told me about a survey he read about in which older married couples were asked what the best time in their life was, and they reported that it was when they were young and struggling. I'm sure it's true. Struggling together for a common goal brings joy. Emily and I will always be struggling together for some goal, so we will have to think really hard about what answer to give when we are asked that question as an older couple. I'm grateful to be on God's path for my life. I know that no matter what is happening in my life, it is always really good to be alive.

Life Isn't ALL Bad!

Man, life is too good to be complaining all the time!

My cucumbers have started coming in! Emily and I have eaten one or two a day for the past four or five days. We also started eating the Dragontongue and Garden Variety beans, and, of course, our tomatoes have been beating down the door of the kitchen. Maddy LOVES our tomatoes, but they give her such horrible diaper rash. I feel bad for her, because I want to share them with her. I really think it's cute that a little one-year-old is so fond of tomatoes. She eats them like an apple, just like we do. I also feel bad for Em and myself, because we can't eat them around her unless we want her to get a rash. She will pitch a FIT if she doesn't get her tomatoes!

McCoy the Dog also likes our tomatoes. I found her chewing on one last night. I guess I can't trust her to stay out of the garden, so I'll have to start closing the gate more religiously.

This morning, my breakfast consisted of fresh beans, a cucumber, and a tomato--all hand picked from the garden. There is a confidence and reward that come with growing one's own food supply that can not be gained any other way.

You might be saying, "Why are you just now picking veggies out of your garden in July in California?" The answer is that as a first-time gardener, I have really had no idea what I was doing. I was shocked that seeds would sprout up and grow in my garden at all, let alone produce an abundant harvest! So...I delayed a little. I didn't even start until March, which is behind the power curve for Southern California. But my garden has been fruitful nonetheless.

We have a term for our tomatoes: "home made tomatoes." I was talking to Em on the phone about a tomato I was eating, and I called it a "home made" tomato rather than a "home grown" tomato. She thought I was cute, so that's what we call them now.

Benjamin cracked his first smiles this week! Emily has pictures on her phone. They will follow shortly.

Emily officially exited the Marine Corps on Wednesday. She is officially a stay-at-home mom, and I am officially more than 50% poorer than I was last month!

I have a job interview for a position as an assistant manager with QuikTrip on July 21st at 9:00 am. I feel I have a very good chance at getting this job. However, I will be prepared to take other interviews if necessary. I need to finish my CDL training by getting my class B and HazMat endorsements before I leave California.

Madeline French kissed me today! I was lying on the floor when I asked her for a kiss, and she bent over with her mouth wide open, stuck her tongue out and licked my lips, then bit me softly with her teeth as she pulled away--all in one motion as though she knew exactly what she was doing. I'm going to have to have a talk with her.

Corey is with his father and step-mother in Louisiana this week. He lost a tooth while he was there, but his sister spilled some soda on the table and washed it away--I guess onto the ground outdoors somewhere. So he lost his tooth in the most direct sense of the word as well. I miss him.

God lives. We are progressing along the correct path. We have each other and a knowledge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Life is good.

The Dance

Did you ever hear that song, “The Dance” by Garth Brooks? It goes like this:

“Our lives are better left to chance.
I could have missed the pain,
But I’d have had to miss
The Dance.”

That’s how I feel right now. I’ve been really worrying and struggling mentally with all the change before me. It’s not that I fear the change. I fear the transition. I welcome the change of venue closer to my family, the change of career, and the less expensive cost of living. But I have been driving my life so confidently in one direction, and now I have to turn it 90 degrees to the right because the reality is coming -- the eggs I counted didn’t hatch!

The worrisome thing is that we don’t have a permanent address in Atlanta. We have found a couple really nice properties, but believe it or not, they have been scooped up by other buyers. So I’m pulling my hair out wondering where I’m going to light. There are too many variables. Where will I end up working? How much money can we get a hold of? How much work will the house we buy end up needing before we can move in? I really just want to buy something to give myself some mental stability -- something to focus on and move towards. But Emily is kindly and lovingly (!!??) reminding me that moving too quickly has gotten us into a lot of jams before. ;)

I find myself saying a lot, “But that’s not what I want,” as well as thinking, “I want this or that right now!” I know God is letting me suffer the consequences of my choices to let me learn from them. I’m also getting one heck of a spiritual workout; you should see my lats! The things I want for my life and my family are wonderful, but I am not going to be able to get them immediately. I have to deal with some of the problems I’ve created before I can go get what I truly want. I guess I’m just glad I do have a sense of purpose now. Some people never get it.

We decided to scrap the plans to buy the 8-acre property in Lincolnton. That would have created a huge strain on us by forcing us to live with my mother for a very long time before our house was built or moving out into our own house AND saving to build a house at the same time. We felt that that plan was not in keeping with the goal of becoming more self-sufficient. In addition, even if I were to have built a house magically within a couple months, moving to the property would have required me to commute 2.5 hours to Atlanta or 1 hour to Augusta to find work. I could possibly have found work in Washington, 20 minutes away, but that prospect is too distant, and I know too little about Washington, GA to feel comfortable banking on it. So we cancelled the offer on Saggus Road, and now we are looking for other properties in the Atlanta area. We figured that buying our own home near Atlanta would give us good mid-term security and affordability and would cost just as much as renting from my mom and paying our mortgage on Saggus would cost.

The goal is financial freedom—having passive income from investments that is higher than our living expenses. Our plan is to pay off whatever house we buy within three to five years, save up some money, continue to buy and hold real estate, get really rich, and give most of it away. Moving to the country, as I wrote before, will be more like moving to the outskirts of town physically. Mentally, we have already moved there. Of course, we still have some habits to change, but that will all come with time and practice.

Growing Pains

I am realizing it is going to take me possibly a number of years to move to the country. It’s not simply a move in location. It’s a move in mindset. It’s a move in lifestyle. It involves the clearing of the financial arteries, which have been collecting the cholesterol of debt, and the healing of the cancers of paycheck-to-paycheck living and the rapid acquisition of liabilities. How often I have lamented in this time of uncertainty, “If only I did not have a house payment!” The more I have pondered the move before us, I realize that the geography really has little to do with living my life according to my values. To tell the absolute truth, I would rather live in a densely populated area because I am a supremely social creature. The location in a rural area has more to do with the affordability of land than it does a desire to “get away from it all.” The real move is made in the mind. It is a move away from pride into humility. It is a move away from selfishness toward consciousness of and concern over the effects of my actions. It is a move away from the isolationism resultant from the race to acquire goods and prestige into an awareness that our families, our communities, and our fellow man are the true riches in life. As I have been drawn to embrace this mental shift, I have come to realize that I can not focus on what I believe to be the true riches in life because I have obligated myself to go to work to repay debts. I have knavishly clamored to be brought down in chains in exchange for possession of an item that caused my intemperate heart to race with delight. Now, in the depths of humility, I realize what I should have been doing with my time, my money, my education, and my body for the last 15 years. If I am to escape from debt and live a self-sufficient lifestyle, I must reject the systems of thought and action that have been presented to me by the world I grew up in. I must now work for only those possessions that truly make a difference in my life and my children’s lives: a home, a car, an education of knowledge, service, work, art, self-reliance, temperance, patience, nature, family, God, and an understanding of the behavior of humankind. What else in life is needed to bring happiness? And which of these of a necessity requires merciless debt if one is educated and willing to work from an early age?

I am angry. I was not educated properly in my youth. As a young child, I witnessed the world embrace the credit card, the 3% down payment on a house, the 0% down payment, the exponential growth in distribution of reading material, movies, music, and television shows unfit for consumption by the human mind. Now as a father and husband, I have to figure out how to undo the damage of years of wanting the wrong things and get my life on track I can begin to enjoy the true riches that Heavenly Father sent me here to enjoy and to help others enjoy.

I am angry at the world’s ways. But I am thankful that God has a way and that it is never too late to begin keeping that way.

Saggus Road--Our New Home!

One small signature for Em and me...one giant leap for the Smith Family Homestead. We signed an acceptance on a counteroffer on 8 acres of land in Lincolnton, GA today! We are to purchase this land with a well, septic (which we won't use) and electricity in place for $30,000. There is no house on it, so we are going to save up for a couple years and build a small house that is expandable in future years. We are going to be living with my mother for a little while before we move out to the property or to our own house somewhere near her house while we are saving up some more money. However it works out, we are very excited about the prospect of owning our homestead property already!

I applied for a job with the QuikTrip Corporation online, and within an hour I had a call back from the hiring manager. It seems my previous experience with the company and possibly my military experience are in demand. This will be our main income until we become financially free and can move out to the property. The best part is that with a $30,000 property and saving to build a debt-free home, financial freedom looks much more like a quick walk to the end of the street than it did a cross-country trip just a few days ago! Also, if we get really serious and work really hard, we could buy a house for all cash in Georgia to live in between my mom's house and our final move to the homestead. 1500 square foot houses only 30 minutes north of the city of Atlanta are going for $50,000 now! That's not our main goal, but it is a pretty important sub-goal, I think, to be able to have our own place while we're working and saving toward our final move. So we'll see what happens.

We are planning to move by August 1 so we can rent out this house. That means we have to sell the entire inside of our house, touch up paint and carpet spots, get the sprinklers fixed and make the grass turn green again all in the next 18 days. We are going to be very busy. It is not going to turn out perfectly, but our end goal will be well worth the sacrifices.

One question remains: What will happen with Corey?