Book Review: Better Off

I'm currently reading a book called "Better Off". It's an intruiging read about a married couple who went completely off-grid for eighteen months in a community of Amish-like people. By off-grid I mean no electricity, no running water, no nothing. They grow their own food and don't use technology at all beyond a horse and whatever you can hitch to a horse. The community has a no car rule.

Now, no, I'm not going to be disappearing into the wilderness anytime soon, but I find it an interesting read. I wonder if I could make it without electricity. No AC, no refridgerator, no computer, no tv. In all honesty I think I could do without AC - I did it in college so I could do it again - but I don't think I could do without the refridgerator or the ceiling fans. I think I could do without a computer or tv for a while, but I think at some point I would miss it. I wonder what we could do with just wind power? Run the fridge and ceiling fans and the computer for a couple hours a day? Just a thought!

I think the hardest part of being off-grid like the people in the book would not being able to run out to Walmart. I think we, myself definately included, are way too dependant on Walmart or grocery stores in general. If the apocalypse happened I know that I would be screwed in a couple of weeks since grocery stores would quickly run out of food and there wouldn't be anyone to bring more. Yes, I have enough food to last for a bit, but it's only a short bit. The people in the book can every sort of fruit and veggies known to man and therefore have tons of food in their basements. They own chickens and pigs and cows and can slaughter them when the need arises. I think they are much better off if something drastic happened to change our way of life.

I think they're lives are extreme, but just think about what they are teaching their children - hard work pays off, community is important, family is important, pull your own weight, responsibility. Those things are nearly impossible to teach kids these days, but here these people are doing just that. It makes me slightly jealous, but then I go google something and I feel better about my technological life :-)

First Week of School

I just finished my first week of school. I'm so tired! I am not used to being in a classroom anymore and all this walking around makes my hips and feet so sore! And I'm not used to speaking for long amounts of time and catch myself saying "um" and "uh" a lot. By the end of the day I feel like I've given all I have to give.

Carter started daycare this week. He seems to be doing okay. I've been bringing his formula so that they can make it at school instead of pre-making it like I did for Colby. It's funny - Carter is usually napping or hanging out when I get there, never crying. But there's another kid named Carter that is crying in the morning when I come and crying in the afternoon when I come back. I'm super glad my Carter isn't like that, though he is fussy in the evenings sometimes. My theory is that he's tired when he comes home and therefore fussy. Generally, though, he's a pretty good baby :-)

Colby also started this week at school. Every day he's run into class and in the minute it takes me to sign him in, he's off playing with his friends. I get a bye momma and an I love you from across the room. I'm not complaining, though. That's a lot better than dropping him off and having him cry. He's been pretty tired and cranky when I pick him up, but I think when he gets used to the routine again, it'll be a lot better.

Now I know I need to clean up the house a bit...but it can wait until tomorrow because I'm going to bed after I make a couple bottles for Carter :-)

Oh! And I'm really excited that Brandon goes back to shift after labor day! Now I'll know his schedule way in advance and not the day before! Yay!

It's been a really good weekend. What did I do, you ask? Nothing! I went grocery shopping on Saturday with Carter. He'd been fussy and I wanted to get him out of Brandon's hair for a little while. That afternoon I sat out on the patio and read while Carter hung out in his bouncy seat and took a nap. I finished my Saturday by going for a walk at Wildwood park with the whole family. Colby rode his big boy bike while Brandon and I took turns pushing the stroller. I'd like to say that Sunday was just as nice, but with the weather being pretty nasty, it wasn't. We went to church and have just hung out this afternoon.

My Boys!

I love my bouncy seat!

My big boy!

My babies!

School is No Longer Out for Summer

We started school this week. I'm not used to getting up and staying up so early. During the summer Colby would wake up, I'd get him some formula and he'd turn on the TV and watch cartoons while I napped for a little while longer. I had been getting up around nine to eat breakfast. Now it's more like seven. Next week when Colby and Carter start daycare, I'm going to be getting up even earlier.

I'm pretty excited about school because we got new books. The books we were using were published in 1999 and were definetly showing their age. My books looked horrible and had vulgar things written all over them. Needless to say that if I see a student writing in these new books, they will be in lots of trouble. I'm also excited because I have not one, but two honors classes first semester. In some ways honors classes are more work for me, but in other ways it is less work. At any rate it's going to be good.

This week Brandon has been awesome enough to take off of work to hang out with the boys. I think they've been having fun :-) I think, though, that Colby is very ready for his school to start to see his students and his friends.

Looking for Land

So it's always been mine and Brandon's goal to buy some land, preferably about 5 acres, and build a house. So from time to time I go online and see what's out there just in case there's something awesome that we just can't pass up. Recently while looking online I found this property - 14 acres for $26,900 - out in Giles County. We looked at it on Google maps and the Giles County GIS and it looked like a decent piece of property. The price was obscenely low so we decided to go take a look. We figured it was worth a shot at any rate. We drive out ther and what we see is the side of a huge, steep hill and we are not impressed. I mean I'm talking a 45 degree angle. So the realtor takes us up a small gravel lane and onto another smaller gravel lane that goes into the property and ends at a turn around of red clay. We can't even look down the hill because the weeds are so tall and the red clay, a.k.a. the red glue, gets all over all of our shoes and I'm even less impressed. Then we have to turn around and we're in the van, not our four wheel drive Rav4, so I'm like there is no way we can turn around on the mud, so Brandon had to direct me to turn around in the middle of the gravel road while trying to make sure I didn't go falling down the hill. Ugh. So we went back to the realtor's office and her boss tried to sell us on the property, but I would have none of it. They showed us some other properties on their computer and we swung by to have a look at one on the way home, which was better, but we weren't in love.

Even though the looking was a bust, we learned a few things. We learned what to ask for when it comes to property around here and I learned that I REALLY do NOT want to have to find a new church, so we will be limiting our searching to within a reasonable driving distance of Radford. Brandon and I are making lists tonight to see what is important to us when it comes to land and homes so we'll be able to tell a realtor exactly what we want. We're not in a rush or anything so I think we can get what we want eventually for a decent price.

Olympics!

I very much enjoy watching the Olympics. Summer, winter, who cares I love to watch it. There's something about watching a high performing athlete compete at their very best and knowing that I can't even TOUCH how good they are. So far I've been watching gymnastics, volleyball - indoor and beach, water polo (which is where the hot guys are ;-) ), swimming and other random sports like rowing (which for some reason they call skulls) and kayaking. Of course Colby still wants to watch cartoons so I've been watching Olympics in the bedroom...but when I go in the bedroom Colby follows me, but if I change the station in the living room I get huge tantrums...sigh. I think that Colby and I have spent WAY too much time together because we're getting on each others nerves. School starting will hopefull fix that :-)

Carter has started sleeping for longer streches. That makes me happy because I like to sleep and I feel less of a need for napping...though maybe not carrying around all this extra weight is giving me extra energy!

Pumped for Coming School Year

I'm really starting to look forward to the coming school year. I checked my class load and I'm teaching 2 honors classes and 4 academic classes. I think this will be a really good year because I'm not taking any college classes, I'm not trying to finish an internship and I don't have foster kids and I'm not planning on having any until the next calader year. Plus I'm going to continue to lose weight and get some of my energy back! I feel like I can put my best foot forward and try out some new ideas especially in the area of writing. I also want to do more things online so that I won't have to grade as many things by hand. I only have a couple of concerns for this year - my class sizes range from about 21 to 26. 26 will be the most students I've ever had in one room. I'll need some more desks, that's for sure. Also, for the first time ever, I have third block planning, which is when all the lunches are. Last year they did away with lunch duty, but I fear this year they will reinstate it and I'll be stuck hanging in the lunch room for 25 minutes during my planning - boo! I mean seriously...I'm on a diet! The only food I need to be near is the food I'm allowed to eat! :-) But on a more serious note, I think this year is going to go well. Our principal was new last year and some things didn't work out well, but now I think he'll have a handle on things and get things moving better. He already hired an excellent SPED coordinator and kicked a nuisance back to the schoolboard office, so I think we're heading in a great direction!