How do you do it all? I DON'T!

Often, when I'm posting on Facebook or talking to someone about the projects we do, people often say, "I don't know how you do it all!  I could never do all that!"

The main thing to remember is that you need to focus on what you CAN do or HAVE done.  Just because I accomplished XYZ  today, probably means that I had to let something else fall by the wayside (usually housework and laundry).  I try to accomplish at least one small thing every day that falls in line with our sustainable lifestyle.  Whether it's making laundry soap (takes 5 minutes) or making and canning sauce from the tomatoes from our garden, which takes all day...  Every task is an important one.  Often, I feel so far behind, that I post everything I have done as a reminder to myself that the small steps are important and they count too.  Putting all you have accomplished in writing really helps to put things into perspective and validates that yes, you are moving in the right direction.

Measuring Independence

I don't have much time to write lately, as the pigs have been very challenging to keep contained, and with a 2 month old baby, you can imagine our hands are full.  I thought today, as I'm feeling frustrated, I would try to measure how far along we are in our self suffiency.  Following are things we don't have to buy now (if we don't want to), that we either harvest, grow, raise, or make ourselves:

Eggs
Milk & cheese (goat)
Bread
Soap
Laundry detergent
Dishwasher detergent
Jams & Jellies
Spaghetti sauce
Produce (for now, from our garden)
Pickles
Diapers
Wipes
Mustard
Soon, we will have meats (rabbit, pork, goat), and if fate allows, we would love to have a mini-jersey cow to make butter and cheeses and have cow milk (the kids don't care much for goat milk).  Hopefully, next year, we will have apples (this year's crop was killed by a late frost), pears, cherries, and peaches.