Pressing Onward

I have had the "funny" realization that last June I was writing about blooming where you're planted despite financial troubles. Here I am again, same song, next verse.

Anybody who tells you that you can live on one income if only you're willing enough is.....only partially correct. We have lived off of one income for most of our nearly 15 years of marriage, and it has always required sacrifice, creativity, and thrift. In the past year or so it has gotten even harder, without us having made any major mistakes. It's so hard that at all times we are just one small step away from not being able to survive on one income. It's ridiculous how small the margin is.

My husband is no slacker. He works hard at two jobs and I do what I can to make the dollars stretch, plus whatever I can do here to rake in a little extra money on ebay or whatever. Lately I've been working very hard writing a book (got my rough draft finished!), working on writing more books, and building my business. Hopefully all of the many, many seeds I have been planting along the way will start to grow an income for us....soon!

In the meantime it can be disheartening to not have the money to do the things we would like to do. By this I do not mean "We cannot go to Disney for vacation." I mean, "We do not have the gas money to take the kids fishing 25 minutes away." When I say we live thrifty I am not kidding.

It is fortunate, I suppose, that it comes fairly easy for me to look around and see what I have rather than what I do not. I have a nice, comfortable home with air conditioning. I have the best backyard of anybody I know of. We have one nice vehicle that gets us from A to B, usually without too much trouble. I live in a lovely, quiet town where things are simple, and I like that.

My husband was feeling low about having to not do so many of the even simple things that he would like to do for me or the kids, but I encouraged him about all the good, fun things we have to do around here that are FREE.

So far this summer we have had FUN getting our free bricks, and my husband just last night completed our lovely new patio. It didn't cost us a penny! We worked together, taught the kids how to do something new, enhanced our yard, and it was great. We even used the sod clumps that we dug up to cover bald spots throughout our yard! We felt very resourceful and proud of ourselves.

We set up our tent in the back yard. The kids have enjoyed having it to play in and to get shade while reading or laying around outside. If you move it to a new spot every couple of days, it won't kill your grass.

We've used our slip-n-slide. All it takes is some medium weight plastic or a tarp. Lay it on your grass, hopefully going downhill. Use some dilluted liquid soap to squirt on the tarp, and keep a sprinkler going to keep the tarp wet. Slip and slide to your heart's content!

We're all enrolled in 2 library's summer reading programs, so we have those reading goals to work toward, plus have the activities to attend. Lots of free fun there.

We have many home improvement projects that we can work on. I think most people do. It can be as simple as needing to reorganize a closet, or it might be something like painting. We've got plenty of both of those plus some. I love to do home improvement projects of any type, and always enjoy the rewards of having things nicer afterwards. Why not put our energy into making our home nicer? Why not use up the paint that is waiting to be used, the flooring that still needs to be put in the unfinished areas, and so forth? Get it done! Most of our projects have already been paid for, and are now waiting for us to get off our rears and complete them!

Enjoy the outdoors! We have a beautiful, big back yard with a big hill. Our kids run up and down the hill, climb trees, ride their bikes and big wheels, play in their tree fort, and tons more. My husband and I like to go walking through the yard and talk about ideas we have for things we could do to enhance it in the future. We also enjoy checking on the progress of our various fruit trees, grape vines, berry bushes, garden, and so forth. Get a little fresh air, take a little walk, see what's going on around you.

Read! We read a lot here and enjoy it so much. I have some audio books for the littler ones to listen to, or sometimes even the older ones enjoy those if they are tired after playing outside.

So often people today get stuck thinking that they have to GO all the time in order to do something worth doing. That is so wrong. I am convinced that the richest moments come from being home as a family, and by being engaged with each other so that when the special moments arise, we are there to experience them together.

The other day I got a lovely picture drawn by my daughter. She had drawn the two of us dressed like princesses. She had written, "Mom, you ROCK! Thank you for playing games with me. When you spend time with me like that it builds a great fellowship!" Somehow I don't think I'd have gotten a note like that if she'd been getting carted to activities in all of her spare hours.

Be there. Be thankful. Life is full of so much good.