About Me

or How I Got So Darn Clueless and What I'm Doing About It

My entire life I've pretty much just rolled wherever the wind blows.  I've had some exciting experiences and seen things some of my peers have only read about.  When faced with an issue, I have a fairly standard process I go through:

1. Freak out on a level in accordance with the size of the issue or idea (except maybe slightly more than is actually warranted).
2. Begin to think about the pros and cons of the situation.
3. If it's a course of action, wildly take the craziest possible path, convincing myself the cliff I just blindly leaped from is overlooking a pillowy-soft field of cotton balls (it's usually not).
4. If it's an idea, focus on the "cons" of it and promptly forget or deny that anything good could possibly come of this horrible catastrophe of a scheme, and wonder how I could ever have thought up something so flipping stupid in the first place.

Typically, this process ends in me beating the crap out of myself emotionally and becoming the social equivalent of a tree stump.  I have a bucket list a mile long and have been some amazing places, but I've never really done quite a lot of things.  That's what this blog is about.  Making the decision to live intentionally, here and now.

In the spring of 2013 I came up with one of my crazy stupid ideas.  I wanted to mentor a bunch of other people to accomplish crazy things.  On a regular basis.  So I choked back my intense fear and wrote a proposal.

It got accepted.

Then they wanted me to run the thing, which was really the whole idea, but it scared crap outta me anyway.  So I ran it. 

Then in November of 2013, I was asked me to tell my story.  In front of people.  Lots of them.

I did it.



Yeah, it was scary.

Scared the crap outta me again. (If you want to hear more about that crazy story, go here.)

So how does all this pertain to homesteading?

Well, in layman's terms, it means I want to learn to do things like a big girl.  I want to stop being so darn chicken and learn to raise them.  When the poop hits the wiper blades, I'd like to know that instead of standing in line at the grocery store, fighting over the last loaf of bread, I can just go home and bake some up.  Or that I've canned enough jelly and pickles to make my ravenous children all the Scooby sandwiches they can stuff their little faces with.

This also means stepping out of my comfort zone in order to try new things.  That, my friends, is scary as you-know-what. 

So now I have this crazy stupid idea to have you journey with me while I try to learn more new things.  Some things will be like taking big leaps.  Others will be small steps.  Either way, we both get something out of it:  I get to learn something new, and you get to experience it with me.  If I screw up, you get to learn from my mistakes (and maybe get a good laugh out of it).  If it works out, it's a win-win.

Ready to jump?