By and by.....

It is becoming a reality and I am loving every moment of it. The Lord is giving us an other opportunity for a blessing. Our electric dryer that I have been using over the winter has a heating element going out. Our electric washing machine's aitator is making knocking noise. Praise the Lord!!!! I am soon going to be doing our laundry without electricity. Yes! This is a blessing! We are planning on having our home off-grid next fall. We had considered getting a propane dryer, but I am seeing that this will be an unnecessary expense. I am SO excited. This weekend, we are getting a drying rack & stringing up a clothesline in the bathroom so that I will have a warm place to hang laundry on the cold winter days. Yes, the laundry can be hung outdoors and dry, but this will be faster. In hanging laundry out on the line in the cold winter, the clothing freezes. If you want to speed up the drying process, you take a stick or something and hit the frozen laundry to knock off any ice that is on them. Once the ice is gone, the moisture can evaporate off the laundry faster. It still takes much longer to dry though than hanging in a warm room of the home. We heat the bathroom, so that will be an ideal place to hang the clothesline over the bathtub. The drying rack will be in the kitchen where there is more space for it.

Today, I am packing up more excess. You would think it would all be gone by now. Each time we think we have got rid of all excess, we have a time of contentment and then start seeing where we can get rid of more. Such is the case today. We now are looking at everything with the attitude of what we are wanting to keep for the other home. There is actually very little that I want to keep. It is making it easier to purge the remaining excess.

My dream home is one that Joe and I saw at a museum in Marietta, Ohio. It was a historical home that the museum had move to their property & furnished as it would have looked back in that time period. The home was very sparsely furnished. No excess of any kind! The main room of the home was the kitchen which also contained the dining table. You could see in this home that the heart of the home was the kitchen. It was the place where the family congregated. Our home will be the same. Other than bedrooms & a combination bath/laundry room, the home will have one large room that will serve as a kitchen, dining area, and family room.

With our plans to be off-grid, there is so much that we will not need. Our lives are focused around our Lord, our family and homestead - in that order. We don't need a TV or other distractions that take our attention away from those things. The only thing of the modern technonology that will remain in the home will be the computer. Sound like a contradiction? Not really. The computer offers us a means to stay in touch with others, a way of researching, and a way to earn a bit of extra money for the family. Because it serves to meet some needs for the family, it will remain. We just don't allow it to become a distracton or a main focus in our lives.

I am redoubling my efforts to find the things we will need when off-grid. I am especially looking for a treadle sewing machine so that I may be able to continue sewing for the family. There are a couple of other items that I am looking for, such as a Dazey butter churn, that would make things easier but they will come in time.

I am so grateful to the Lord for giving us the knowledge to be able to make the transition to living an off-grid lifestyle. The work is such a blessing. It is so amazing to realise just how much of what society teaches us is essential is actually unnecesary to our lives and well-being.