Saving Summer

Ping…..Ping….

Ah, that glorious sound!  If you’ve ever canned anything you know what I’m talking about.  That sound that tells you all is right in the world, that all of your hard work really did just pay off. 

I just finished up stringing, breaking and canning a bushel of green beans this week.  Halfrunners to be exact.  In the south green beans ain’t just green beans.  They are greasy cutshorts, halfrunners, blue lakes, everyone has their favorite.

Stringing and breaking beans was an adventure this year, having Little Miss on the go and into everything.  Every time I looked up she had a bean or a string in her mouth or she had her foot in the bowl of fresh broke beans!  For some reason she likes to put her feet in everything now a days.  The Boy of course wanted to help, for about 5 minutes, then he was done!  That’s a four year old for you.

Once we got them all strung and broke I blew the dust off of a prized possession.  A pressure canner that has been in Hubby’s family for a long while.  I got a while back and after only a little research found a replacement gasket and weight (it’s a dial gauge canner) on Amazon, of course.  I then went to work preparing the beans, the jars, the canner for the job ahead. 

Canning can be a tedious job, a long job but I love it.  One reason is the sense of accomplishment when looking at the rows of jars knowing I canned it myself.  I love looking in my pantry, at the glass jars and their colorful contents and remember the day (days) of prep and canning.  Knowing I did it to feed my family.  Another reason, the one most dear to me, is that I never feel as close to my Mamaw Pansy as I do when I can.  I really can’t really explain it, we never canned anything together (and according to my daddy she typically froze her green beans instead of canning them) but she had a can room filled with jars my whole childhood.  My sweet Mamaw went to be with Jesus back when I was about 13 but her memory still is alive, laughing and cooking in the kitchen.

Two dozen quarts of halfrunners later and I am done, for now.  But I’m not retiring the pressure canner just yet.  I have a list of things I want to can this year, green beans just being the first, hopefully I can get everything put up that I want to before the season is over.  Harvest time is starting and for a country girl nothing is better than a meal of vegetables from the garden (whether it’s hers or someone elses) no matter what time of the year it is.  I can because I like to preserve that taste for later!

I am ready to enjoy the harvest and I hope you guys are as well.  And if you have extras you need to get rid of….let me know!  J

Dinner of left over beans, squash casserole, fresh cucumbers and tomatoes!  Yum!

Dreams and such...

I hate, loathe, owing people money.  I despise making monthly payments.  I am sure I am not alone in this, of course.  I feel a bit insane with the debt cycle.  Buy something to provide stability (i.e. a home) but have to consistently make monthly payments for the major part of your life until you actually own it.

We, like most of Americans, bought our house with a 30 year mortgage and even 9 years later we have only paid off about 20% of it, and that’s with never missing a single payment.  Really!?!  I’d like to be debt free before I’m too old to be able to enjoy it. 

So the wheels started turning in my mind and apparently the hubby’s as well and we started scheming, okay that sounds bad, like we were planning on knocking over a bank.  Dreaming, we started dreaming.  That’s more like it.  Mostly just talking about the “what ifs”, like what if we didn’t have to make a mortgage payment, what if we had the security of owning, out right, our home and land, what if neither of us had to work, full time, outside of the home (homestead) and could spend that time with our family, teaching, loving, working alongside one another.  Those what ifs sounded really good and so we kept on talking about it and how it could come true.

If you have read some of my other post you’ll know how we got a great deal on a piece of property.  That was the big break on our dream.  This is the start.  The first BIG step in the right direction, so what is the next step?  What is our goals?

Our goals are mostly guidelines for decisions we need to make in the future.  A lot of things are up in the air still, we’re not 100% on most of the specifics but here are the goals we have for the future.

Have our land paid for and build debt free.  Now that is a huge undertaking.  We know that it might seem like a big task to build debt free but it is our goal.  We are not looking to build a very large home since we have some crazy belief that many of our family members grew up in small homes and it created more togetherness, more family time and, the end result, a closer family.  That is what we want with our children.  We plan to take a page from our Appalachian ancestry and build a little at a time but more on that later.  Once we get our land paid for and home built we can start really throwing money into savings for retirement, travel, cars, emergencies and never have to use debt again (hopefully)!

Produce as much as we consume, within reason.  It started out mainly as our edibles.  Have a garden, grow our own vegetables and fruit, our own grains, our own animal feed or be able to barter or trade for some of those things.  Have some animals that we can sustainably grow and keep.  Animals like chickens for eggs and meat, a dairy animal like dairy goats or a cow, maybe a pig or two to raise a year, sheep or cow for meat each year as well.   Whatever our land can support without too much burden.  Now are also starting to consider things like our energy needs.  Looking at renewable energy sources, solar, hydroelectric, things we can produce from our own property.  Now I’m not talking about being completely off grid, though maybe one day, but producing some of what we consume would be wonderful.

Having these two goals in mind will help us make the big decision that will be able to provide us with the life we want…but we will have to make some sacrifices.

I’m sure most folks will think we’ve flipped!  We’ve talked about living in a single wide trailer or in a tiny house for the first little while as we build our home.  Things like that don’t scare me, I’m not afraid of making sacrifices.  Sometimes the end result is worth all of the sacrifices that we are willing to make. 

I am just crazy enough to believe that we can make these dreams come true and being able to keep these goals in mind along with our resolve, I am sure we’ll get there one day.

Mason Bottle Review

Disclaimer:  I am not being paid or compensated in any way for my opinions on this this product. I just love them.

I am a true southerner and, as turns it out, also a sucker for anything Mason jar related.  I know all things Mason jar is hot right now, very hipster, and I’m not usually one to be into that kind of stuff but I just can’t help myself when it comes to Mason jars!

So naturally when I heard about the Mason Bottle nipples, I knew I had to check them out. 

Just to give you a quick description.  They are made of medical grade silicone and fit perfectly on any sized regular mouth mason jar.  The nipples have a wide base and two vents.  Little Miss has been using these nipples since she was about a month old, so about 8 months now.  Since we have some experience I thought I’d give a little review.  Here are some of my thoughts about them.

First off I love the fact that I can use any sized jar making it perfect to grow with baby.  I have TONS of mason jars in various sizes so it makes it quite cost effective for those of us with a stash already.

Next the fact that the nipple it made of silicone means no plastic or BPA concerns.  Pairing that with the glass Mason jar makes for pretty great system to avoid plastic without spending a fortune.  Buying glass bottles and nipples in various flows can really get costly, if you already have the jars you really only have to purchase the nipples at $10 for a two pack (I got mine on Amazon).  The fact that the nipple is silicone also makes it really soft but strong.  It is soft enough to flex but strong enough to not just collapse.

Speaking of collapsing, I love the fact that the nipple has the two vents so it NEVER collapses, even using a slower flow then she needs at times we still haven’t had any trouble with that.  I have used other nipples that collapse as Little Miss is using them, meaning I have to stop periodically to let it inflate.   Also since this nipple has two vents she hasn’t had much trouble at all with any belly aches or spitting up.

I also love that there aren’t, seemingly, 100 parts to clean.  There is the nipple, the ring and the glass jar.  I know some bottles that have so many parts to clean (or soak) and that require special brushes to make sure you get all the nooks and crannies clean.  Not so with this system.  I only have two nipples right now but because they are so easy to clean I can quickly wash them once she is done and put it up to dry for her next feeding.  So simple.     

These bottles are perfect for littles that go back and forth between bottle feeding and breast feeding due to the shape.  The wider base makes it more familiar for babies who are used to breastfeeding.  Little Miss has never had a problem going back and forth between bottle and breast using this system.

Another great thing about this system is that even though they sale caps for the bottle you don’t need to purchase them (unless you want to of course).  You can simply invert the nipple into the bottle, place a regular lid on top and tighten the ring.  You have nice sealed, clean and contained bottle for very little cost.  Also the flat lids are easier to store then bulky plastic caps (in my opinion).    

Lastly there is so much less to have to store once baby is done with the bottle since the jars can go back to use as whatever they were in their previous life.  Jams, jellies, pickles, drinking glasses, storing dry goods, whatever you can think of!

Once the Boy was done with the bottle I put all of the various bottles that I had collected over that year up, in three bags mind you, and stored them in the closet.  Babies take a lot of equipment sometimes!  Using this system I have virtually no waste and nothing much to store!  Win, Win!

I think I have found the bottle system I plan to use in the foreseeable future.  I really can’t say enough how much I love these bottles!  They are simple to use, easy to clean, are super cute (I get lots of compliments) and Little Miss loves them!

It's A Girl...

After Little Miss was born I put pen to paper and wrote out the story of her birth.  Here it is for your entertainment and encouragement. 

On October 12, 2016 (my Daddy’s birthday) I had a routine 37 week check up with my OB.  She checked my progress, which was the same as the week before, 1 cm dilated, 50% effaced and she said the baby was still “high”.  I left that appointment a little bummed as I was hoping for a little more progress.  You see I was hoping, wishing and praying for a VBAC (vaginal birth after C-section) since The Boy ended up being an emergency C-section (The Boy's Birth Story).  My OB doctors’ policy was to not induce labor in a VBAC due to the risks involved but also not to let you go to long before scheduling a repeat section.  They had already went ahead and scheduled a repeat section for November 9^th, when I’d be 41 weeks, if I didn’t go into labor on my own.  I had so many feelings surrounding this.  The Boy’s birth was traumatic (to me) and I wanted to avoid that at all cost.  I also wanted more children and having repeated C-sections can limit the amount of pregnancies in some cases.  I just wanted a different experience.  I wanted the joy of birth.

Back to the story though.  The rest of that evening went normally, cooked supper, ate with the family, took a relaxing bath and went to bed around 10:30pm.  At some point after we went to bed I started having some mild cramping, not enough to wake me fully from sleep but I was kind of in that ‘sleep/awake’ phase.  Finally it was enough to make me want to get up and get awake enough to figure out what was going on.  When I got up I went to the bathroom but right as soon as I got in front of the toilet my water broke.

It was 12:10am and I decided it was time to wake up Hubby and page the doctor on call.  Contractions started pretty much as soon as my water broke and from the very beginning they were coming two minutes apart but weren’t too intense.  I talked to the doctor who said that as long as wasn’t having any pain between contractions (can signal uterine rupture which there is a 1% chance of this with a VBAC and it is an absolute medical emergency and life threatening for mom and baby) I could decide to come to the hospital when I was ready.  I felt pretty ready at that point since I had a cord issue with The Boy and I wanted them to monitor her/check me to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.  I called my parents, it was nearly 12:30am at that point and it takes them nearly 35 minutes to get to my house.  Once they arrived my contractions had gotten more intense. 

Hubby and my wonderful Mama and I headed to the hospital while my Daddy stayed at our house with The Boy.  We got to the hospital at about 1:30am and made our way up to the labor and delivery department.  We checked in and was taken to a small area for them to check and see if I was, in fact, in labor and far enough to be admitted.  They hooked me up to the monitors and one nurse said my contractions were beautiful, however I didn’t quite agree at that time!  The nurse checked me and said I was 3cm, 100% effaced and the test came back that my water had indeed broke (I had had no doubt).  They decided to keep me and I walked to my delivery room, stopping in the hall once for a contraction.  They were getting progressively worse.  Around an hour after we arrived the doctor got there and check me again I was at 5 cm.  I was progressing quickly but didn’t fully realize it since I was in a lot of pain.  Once I knew I was progressing I asked for an epidural.

I had been thinking all along I could do this naturally but in that moment I just didn’t think I could go through to much more of those contractions.  Apparently before I got the epidural hospital policy determined I needed to have labs drawn and have some fluids via IV.  So they started an IV (which was quite hard and painful since I had to try to keep still during a contraction).  After the IV was in and the fluids were started I knew I couldn’t labor/have contractions on my back any longer.  It was far too uncomfortable!  So I sat up on the edge of the bed with Hubby in front of me on a stool holding the baby’s heart monitor, since it wouldn’t read well in that position, and my mama on the bed behind me putting counter pressure on my lower back.  I stayed there for a long while.  The only relief I felt from during the contractions was the counter pressure and vocalizing. Once the labs were back and fluid was going good our nurse said I could get the epidural however the anesthesiologist on call was called away to an emergency so I’d have to wait.  It wasn’t too much longer after that that something changed and I started having the urge to push/bear down.

We called for the nurse to come and our doctor came as well.  Later I found out that they knew something had changed before we called because my vocalization had changed and gotten louder I suppose.  The nurse has stated later that they heard me in the hall…oops!  The doctor stayed in with me for a little while and gave me the go ahead and try to push/bear down with contractions while I was still on the edge of the bed.  At that time they told me there wasn’t really any time for that epidural I had asked for.  I had mixed feeling about that.  I really wanted the pain relief but I also really had wanted a natural birth during my whole pregnancy.  As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for, you just might get it!   

 All that pushing/bearing down with the contractions must have brought her down more because after a little of that I laid down on my side and the doctor checked and said I was at 8-9cm.  It was probably close to 4am at that point, but I can’t be certain, I didn’t really register what the clock was saying until after she was born.  Only about 4 hours after my water broke and 2.5 hours after we had arrived at the hospital and it was nearly time to get her here.  I continued pushing, bringing her on down.  It was horribly painful and there was a moment when I said “I don’t think I can do this” and I really meant it!  But the doctor and my Mama reassured me that there wasn’t any other option! Ha! I really don’t mean to scare anyone off from a natural birth, it was a wonderful, beautiful and empowering experience but be prepared that you will have more pain at that time then you feel like you can stand.  I think part of my issue with the pain was that it all happened so fast that I never got a chance to “get ahead of” the pain.  Now a few months out I do have the grandiose idea that I can do it again naturally.  God’s gracious gift of forgetting.   

After sometime of pushing she was crowning and the doctor asked if I wanted to feel her head, which was a wonderful moment that gave me the push to power through.  The doctor said she had hair!  After that I was ready to meet her, so I kept pushing and before I knew what was happening she was here at exactly 4:41am.  They placed her on my chest, rubbed her down a bit and then placed her inside my gown for some skin to skin time.  In the next few hours I was able to hold her, nurse her and get a few pictures.  They weighed her at about 7am.  She was a whopping 5 lbs 6oz and 19 inches long. 

I suppose I can’t complain too much about a quick 4.5 hour labor even if that meant that I progressed too quickly for an epidural. 

I feel like a part of my heart was healed with that time with her right after birth.  I have had such a hard time with not being awake for The Boy’s first moments of life and missing that birth to chest precious time.  Now I feel like I have gotten to experience a birth rite and so I no longer have that hurt when people talk about when their baby took its first breath.  God was gracious to give me that and it is something I will cherish and remember the rest of my life.

Have you tried for a VBAC?  Comment below with your experience!

It's A Boy...

During my pregnancy with Little Miss I was addicted to birth stories.  I love the unpredictability of birth.  I love hearing other people’s story of how they brought their child into the world.  I love hearing of how it happened and how they felt.  It has taken a little while but I have written down both of my birth stories and thought I’d share them.

The Boy is four years old and I have never written down his birth story as of yet.  Why?  Well when the clarity was there it was still to fresh and traumatic.  I wasn’t ready.  Once it wasn’t so traumatic I just didn’t want to sit down and relive it.  The time has come though because, traumatic or not, it was the day I became a mama and my first blessing arrived. 

I had a relatively healthy and uneventful pregnancy.  Had some bleeding at first but baby was fine and growing so all was well.  We told our families and everyone was excited for the arrival of our first.  After I failed the glucose test, twice, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (GD) in the latter half of my pregnancy.  That was pretty much the biggest complication I had.

At my last OB visit I was 39 weeks + 3 days and due to my GD it was decided I would be induced on my due date.  Looking back I really shouldn’t have went through with the induction since during that visit a cervical check determined that the baby was still high and probably wasn’t ready to come.  I was a first time mom though and didn’t (and of course still don’t) want to do anything to harm the health of my child, I also like most women at the end of their pregnancy was very ready to have the baby.  So I consented. 

The morning of my due date, October 19, 2012, we arrived at the hospital and got the induction started.  They got an IV started with Pitocin and my water was broken. I had forgone any medications for pain and it was getting close to unbearable after lunch time, about 5 hours in.  I waited for my OB to come back to the hospital (as she was back and forth seeing patients in the office as well) to check my progress before I made any decision to get an epidural.  She arrived a little after 1pm and started the cervical check.  Right away she told me that I was 5 cm but in the next breath, it felt like, she patted my leg and calmly told me that she needed me to roll over and, for lack of a better term, put my hind-end up in the air because the cord had prolapsed and she would have to do an emergency C-section.  A prolapsed cord is where the umbilical cord passes the baby’s head and therefore every contraction that pushes baby down and out also pushes baby against their own cord and can cut off their oxygen supply.  This could be life threatening without intervention. 

The one thing that I DID NOT WANT going in to all of it was a C-section. During my whole pregnancy I said I was flexible about a lot when it came to childbirth but I didn’t want a C-section.  However in that moment nothing else mattered except for my baby’s life and health!  Funny how something you worry about for months no longer is of concern.

They rushed me to the OR, leaving my mama and Hubby standing alone in what was to have been my delivery room.  I have been immensely blessed in life to have a mother and a husband that have a wonderful relationship and I have been thankful for that many times over in past but never as thankful as that day.  I am so glad they had each other.  It was stressful and scary and the thought that one of them would be left alone standing there after all that happened would have been awful.  I, on the other hand was alone, surrounded by many medical professionals, but alone with my thoughts and God.  Praying He would take care of my baby.

Since I hadn’t had an epidural placed and it was a true emergency the doctor quickly explained that they would have to put me under general anesthesia but that they would have to wait until the last minute so that the anesthesia wouldn’t affect the baby.  I laid there staring up as they disinfected my lower abdomen praying again, praying that no matter what that the Lord would protect my little guy!  I kept thinking that there was no way they’d be able to get me knocked out before they needed to start the surgery and I was telling myself that that was going to have to be okay.  That was the last thought I had though.

The Boy was born at 1:26pm.  The doctor told Hubby and my mama that they got me ready for surgery and him out in 5 minutes.  I believe that too!  I, of course, was out of it for a long while and when I woke up in recovery the only thing I wanted to know was how my baby was!  Hubby was quick with a photo on his phone of him and told me that when he was born they cut his head while they were cutting me and he had to have stitches.  Bless my baby’s heart!

Once I was stable enough they wheeled me up to the NICU to see him and hold him but they said that they were going to keep him in the NICU because they were afraid he might have a lung infection or problems breathing because he was grunting when he breathed. 

They ended up keeping him six days in the NICU.  The six longest days of my life!  Turned out that he was perfectly fine, no infection, nothing wrong with his lungs or breathing.  However they had started an IV and was giving him Dextrose (basically sugar water) so he didn’t have much of an appetite.  They had to wean him off the IV fluids and get him nursing/taking a bottle and he had to keep his weight up, then they’d let him go home.  The day finally came, out with the stitches and we got to bring our sweet boy home. 

Four years later and some days I still get sick at the thought of what could have been.  Instead he has absolutely no issues surrounding his birth.  Thanks in part to the quick action of my OB and the precautions and availability of the hospital I gave birth in.  But the biggest thanks must go to the Lord for answering those frantic silent cries to Him.  I know He has a plan for my boy and I just hope I can be the mama he needs to get him to his purpose in life. 

So what about you?  Comment below with your birth highlights!  I'd love to hear them!

So it Begins

We have been dreaming a long time.  So long that I feel like we have always had this dream.  In reality it’s probably been about 4 years.  It’s funny how things change, your dreams change, your actions change once you become a parent.  Life takes on a different meaning.  You start reading labels, wanting to know what is in EVERYTHING you feed them and put on them.  And, if you are as crazy as I am, you start thinking even as early as when they are crawling about what kind of school they will go to and the things you want them to learn. 

Then you start to plan to create a life that allows you to do all of the things that you want to do for your family without breaking the bank. 

For us that dream means living a sustainable lifestyle, being able to produce as much as we consume ourselves.  Being able to grow the majority of our food and meat.  Being able to live off the land and give our children the best of life without being constantly in debt. 

The big problem with that?  In the area we are from land prices are ridiculous.  Sometimes a third of an acre going for $100K plus.  I understand supply and demand, and this place is BEAUTIFUL so I understand people wanting to live here, I mean I couldn't imagine living anywhere else!  But for those of us who don’t bring home six figures or not interested in overwhelming debt, you feel stuck.

Once we started talking about purchasing a tract of land we started making a list of things our dream property would need to have and praying.  Water (like a spring) would be a necessity, wooded area with mature trees, a good couple of acres would be great, in our home town close to our families and with a price tag we could feel good about.  It was all just a fantasy at that point.  That is until Hubby actually had a dream or vision of sorts where the Lord dropped into his spirit that the land we were to purchase would have good water, it would be 8 acres or better and gave him the price that we could reasonably afford to pay off in a timely manner.

So we knew it was out there and we knew that just anything would not work.  We knew that in God’s time we would find the property He had for us.

In the early part of 2016 Hubby was contacted by a family friend who had a great loss in his family.  A great loss that I cannot fathom.  But due to this they had a piece of property for sale.  After some talk back and forth we found out that it was 14 acres +/- , was wooded and hadn’t been logged in the past probably 80 years, it had 2 springs and was only a few miles from Hubby's parents home.  He talked to them about price and after some negotiations they agreed with the price that the Lord had given him.  It seemed meant to be.

It has taken many blessings and a year later for us to finally get to today.  Those blessings include; the 14 acres turning out to be 16.31, our needing $10k to put down to get the loan turning into just a few thousand due to us already making a good faith payment to the sellers, a hiccup with the title search that turned out to be nothing and everything just working out so smoothly.

So today, June 28^th, 2017 we went to the lawyer’s office and signed the papers on our new property. 

We are blessed beyond belief at the thought that we now own land in our home town and in a community that has been home to both of our families for several generations back.  We feel like we are going back home to be with our people.

So it begins, the long process of turning this land into a homestead, a homeplace for our children.  And making a long awaited dream come to fruition. 

3 Years Later...

Well, turns out that I was busier than I thought I'd be back then!  I mean really, how could a working mother with a busy toddler not have a few extra minutes to sit down and put some rational thoughts together?!?  Haha!  I suppose I was living in a fantasy world then!

Turns out that I might still be in a fantasy world now, time will tell!

 The Boy is 4 years old now and full of spunk and  is quite STRONG WILLED!  I love him fiercely and even though he keeps me on my toes and a bit ragged some days I wouldn’t change him for the world!  In October 2016 we welcomed Little Miss as the newest addition to our family, she is laid back and brings us all so much joy!  I love them and feel blessed to be called mama!

You see, my heart’s desire has always been to be a mama and God graciously gave me that!

After I became a mom four years ago though, as it was, my heart’s desire changed and all I wanted was to be a stay at home mom. However, at that time we were sure we needed two incomes so I went back to work when The Boy was 3 months old.  Over the next few years the Hubby and I became more committed to the idea and once we got pregnant with Little Miss we were dedicated to make it work.  Once she was born I never returned back to my full time (outside of the home) job.  It was a leap of faith but God has blessed us each way we have turned during this time.  I would be remised to fail to mention how much He has helped me grow my faith in these past few months!

Being a stay at home mom suites me, I’ve decided.  I can be a homebody, so being home is no problem plus there is always something to do….or clean….or wash….or wipe up….or change….well you get the picture.  I am terribly blessed with a husband who tells me and shows me his appreciation and who is dedicated to me and our family and is a willing participant in parenting!  You don’t always find that with husbands.  Don’t get me wrong, he’s not perfect, but he is perfect for me and we make a pretty great team if I do say so!

Together we have found a piece of property that we have fell in love with and that God truly has brought to us (more on that another time) and we are now in the beginning processes of purchasing and turning this vacant land into the homestead of our dreams!  Lots of work to do and decisions to make in the future!

Come follow us as we, undoubtedly, make mistakes, make decisions and make memories along the way to the Old Path!

Blessings,

Ashley