Update on Life

Wow guys!  Its been a while.  I am sure you all thought I quit blogging, with good reason too.  I didn't!  I only just now got my computer set back up and have access to the internet.  In the past month, hubby and I have moved to Texas.  Why? you ask?  Well Hubby is getting out of the military in Feb. He had enough leave saved up that he could be done working mid Dec and on vacation until the end of Feb.  We debated for a long time if we wanted to stay in Maryland, or move elsewhere.  We realized that without the military pay, we wouldn't be able to keep our mortgage even with both of us working.  And if we couldn't stay on the farm, we knew we didn't want to rent an apartment in town.  While we love Maryland, what was keeping us there other than the military, was the freedom to have the farm. Take that away and we didn't want to stay.  It was incredibly hard saying goodbye to all our friends and "adopted" family there.  Moving to Texas allows us to be a short drive to Hubby's family.  I have extended family in Texas and close relatives in Arkansas.  Its also a shorter plane ride to California! 
  Once we decided to move and told the Army, we figured we would have a month before they came to pack.  Since Hubby is getting out, they will move us to our final destination (as long as its not farther than Houston where he enlisted).  Apparently December is not a popular moving month, so the packers were completely open.  They came less than a week after we got our official orders.  For two weeks after the movers came we were still staying in the house with only an air mattress and our clothes.  I don't recommend that as a long term solution.  Since Hubby and I have two cars, we had to drive separately.  I left early so I could spend some time with my family in Arkansas.  Once in Texas, we found the cutest rental (Ill post pictures once all our boxes are unpacked).  The house was built in 1929 and has been lovingly restored.  Swoon!
  So now I am in the midst of unpacking, decorating, cooking (so thankful to have our pots and pans back!) and taking lots of knitting breaks.  I am not sure of the direction this blog will take.  Since we are renting, we can't tear up the yard to plant a big garden.  We will still be living much the same as before (just with no farm animals for now).  The kitchen is so tiny in this new house that there is no room for a microwave.  So we will be learning to live without one.  One of the biggest money eaters in our budget is going out to eat.  I have barely any willpower and am the first to suggest grabbing a pizza.  This year one of my goals is to cook from scratch at least 5 nights a week.  Ill write a post on my reasoning's for that later.  All that is to say that the blog will be featuring more cooking, frugal living, knitting, living simply and whatever else might come up.  For the time being you wont be seeing chickens or goats although chickens are allowed in our town (just need to work on our landlord...).  I appreciate any one who is still reading.  Thank you for understanding that life happens and not always (or most times) how we plan it!

New "About Me" Page

I just added an "about me" page. I thought I would post it here too in case you don't notice it there. This is what I said: I always think "about me" pages are a little excessive, since this whole blog is about me. That said, I will share a little bit more details about my personal life that are non farm related. I grew up in sunny Santa Cruz, California. I always felt out of place. Santa Cruz is a surf, beach town. It is perfectly acceptable to wear flip flops year round (in the rain, they dry out pretty quick so no rain boots for us!). Growing up I didn't like the beach. Instead I favored camping. I obsessed over the Donner Party (I could tell you every person who perished in that tragic event). When my sisters were reading GooseBumps, I was reading Laura Ingalls Wilder. While they watched Pinky and the Brain, I watched Little House on the Prairie. My best friend and I would pretend we lived in the "olden days". Our bikes were horses and had names, and would take us on grand adventures. On cleaning days, when my mom would put all the dining room chairs outside on the patio, we would line them up to make a train. We would pretend we were fancy ladies going to visit some relative. Or a mail order bride going to meet her new family. One of my favorite movies was Sarah Plain and Tall. I wish I could say that was just a stage that I grew out of. Instead the desire to live on a farm, or in the olden days just grew. I went to college in Santa Barbara, California. Santa Barbara is a very posh town that many celebrities call home. While I loved its charm, I hated the attitude of having to live up to a certain standard. My friends would make fun of me when I said that someday I would own a milk cow. I was the one laughing last year when I was trudging out in the snow to milk our goats. After college I moved to Texas (I had this extremely romantic notion of cowboys, line dancing and manners). Texas did not disappoint. Today it remains one of my favorite states, but for different reasons. It was while I was living in Austin that I started going out with my future husband. Fast forward a bit, we got married and he got called to deploy to Iraq. For the first year and a half of our marriage he was half way around the world. I worked a desk job at a local bank, made friends and dreamed of having livestock. I always thought we couldn't have chickens or goats since he was in the military. Fast forward even further and we got transferred to Maryland. We fell in love with the area and bought a house. Maryland has a huge agriculture community, which we both loved. It also has a large fiber community, which feeds into my fiber addiction. I fell even more in love with knitting (I learned in junior high) and delved into spinning on a spinning wheel. One of the many things I enjoy about Maryland is the fact that it has seasons. Santa Cruz and Texas didn't, at least not in the same way. Santa Cruz, is pretty much always 60-70. Sure it has cold days and hot days, but on an average you can get by with jeans, flip flops and a sweater. Texas was always hot. Always. Maryland gets snow in winter, cherry blossoms in spring, fireflies in the summer, and gorgeous fall foliage. The weather is always changing and I appreciate each season for what it is. Winter is just long enough that you don't get too sick of it. And by the end of summer you are wishing it was winter again just so you can get out of the sweltering heat. As much as I love Maryland, last summer my husband and I separated. I moved all my belongings back to the West Coast and have been staying with my parents. This coming March, I will be reversing that drive to go back to Maryland and try to reconcile things with my husband. I don't want to get into too many details about our relationship, but I am extremely hopeful that we can fix what went wrong before. As I type, I am in my childhood bedroom, full of half packed moving boxes. I am eager to get back to Maryland and my husband, but sad to be leaving my family. I hope to once again get farm animals in Maryland and continue what we started a couple years ago. I will continue to blog our successes, attempts and failures. I am so thankful to everyone who reads this blog and hope you are able to get something out of it. I love comments and will try to answer as much and as often as possible. That's my life story in a nutshell.