Our Resolution

I've never been one for New Year's Resolutions. This year there's been something nagging on my mind for months.

Every time I leave Wal-Mart I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I load all of those bags into my van. I hate the feeling of, "Oh, we ran out, we need to go to the store to get more." It has to do with a few things. First, I don't like the idea of being dependent upon a store for our basic life necessities. Secondly, I don't like how much our family is consuming. For me, this has nothing to do with leaving a smaller carbon footprint, not that that's wrong - it's just not my motivation. I just feel that as our family grows we are consuming a mind-boggling amount of stuff. And I consider myself a frugal shopper. Besides making our budget feel strapped, I just wonder what would happen if we switched to just consuming what we needed and not a lot more. And, thirdly, the idea of "running to the store to get more" just feels lazy and uncreative. Not sure if that one makes sense to everyone - but I feel the security we'd gain with a little hard work would be well worth the effort.

My hope is that by consuming less we can become more free. More free in a few ways. We would become less reliant upon unreliable resources (like the store) through learning to make more of what we use ourselves. We would free up more of our income to use on long-term storage and emergency preparedness. We would also have more income free to do more humanitarian aid work, a value I want to cement into the core of my children's beings. Many of you know our church is big on self-reliance, food storage, etc. The idea behind it is that if you have taken care of your own needs, you are then free to help meet the needs of others who can't do for themselves. Makes sense, huh?

My mother said during the last election that our country is losing the meaning of freedom. She explained to me that to be free means that we can choose what we want, and we can work for it ourselves. Therefore, it becomes ours and ours alone. We are not beholden to anyone. I believe this to be true.

What inspired me to do this? Besides the sick feeling I get carrying all those plastic sacks of Wal-stuff into my house every week, I had the experience recently of learning to make my own laundry soap. I went to a class about it taught by a woman in our community who'd learned how. I was skeptical that it wouldn't work as well as the All Free Clear that I spend over $10 a month on every month. The homemade laundry soap was liquid and had three ingredients besides water. The cost? About 78 cents for ten gallons. Yep. Surely it wouldn't work as well, or it would be clumpy, or fade out my clothes. Nope. Couldn't be more thrilled with it!! I've been using it for two months now. It's so easy. After we post our concrete goals for the year it'll be my first post.

What will I be posting on this blog? First of all, I don't intend for this to be a really wordy blog like this post. I plan on posting our concrete goals next. We will work on those as a family. I want goals related to resource usage (water, electricity, etc.), lowering food costs, planting a garden and learning how to can several items I buy almost weekly at the store, increasing the amount of hands-on humanitarian aid work we do, and learning how to make more of what we use ourselves. I also hope to learn to barter, a technique my friend Jolin is fabulous at, and I want to store up more necessities for future needs. Those are just a few examples. After we come up with our goals, I plan on posting our progress one step at a time. If we learn how to can something, I'll blog about it. If we make our own soap, I'll blog about that. So, I plan on lots of pictures and information to share with others who might want to try something new, too. I also can't wait to hear other's suggestions as we go through this year.

Am I nervous? Definitely. To me, this has felt like something we've needed to work on for a long time but it felt too big to really tackle. We are, however, doing this as a family. I've found that children often have the most practical solutions. Mostly, I can't wait to get started.

So, I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks! Let's see what happens....