Gypsy at heart...

I have decided I am 85% Gypsy and 10% settled and 5% wild. What does that mean? Huh, well, I have moved so many times in my 31 years that I have grown accustomed to moving. I love to move to new places, meet new people, see new areas yet there is a part of me that wants to have a home somewhere, plant seeds, settle and a smaller part of me that wants to just roam free and wild like.

My hubby and I have been trying to find a place to live for some time now and we can never decide. We pick this place because it is green and rains and has fog, or this place because it has mountains and lots of animals or this place because we used to live there and it is comfortable but none seem right just yet.

***FYI if you are planning on moving, how we do it is by lots of research online, finding out about jobs, rentals, schools, hospitols, and our hobbys (outdoor stuff). If it sounds promising we take a trip to there if we can. Check it out, see if we really like it. Then it makes our list!**

That part of me that wants a permanant home, wants to be able to have a dog, paint walls, grow a garden, it comes out and rears its head every now and again. It is depressing when it does because at this point,I am not sure if, even if we did find a place to call home, we would be able to afford to buy a peice of dirt. I do long for that day though.

Remember back to when you were a kid, roaming free, no worries. Yeah, my wild inner child. I sometimes, would love to just move to teh woods, nothing with me but my hubby, son, and my Bible and just live off the land. No job, no bills, just livin. HOwever, the idea sounds great but I would miss my computer and other modern conveniences. It is still tempting though.

All in all, I think we all have different percentages of those things in all of us. It just takes figuring out what to do and where to go to find the balance. For me, at this point in time, the balance would be living in the very North West of the US in a small cabin on about five or ten acres. The area would calm the gypsy in me, the home would calm the settled part of me, adn the acreage would calm the wild child in me.

To all the gypsys, never stop livin and seeing the beautiful Land God created for us! For those who are settled, Paint a wall for me, adn the wild children, keep on chasing those dreams!

Spring adventure...

On Saturday, we drove over to Camp Sherman, Or. and went to the hatchery. We had a great time watching the geese and ducks swimming. I had lots of photo ops with the fish and geese. Yet, it was not too far away from home.

The two geese here were very friendly. They even ate fish food from my sons hand and my own. It was a great day all in all. Fish, Geese, familly, and pine needles.

Pine needles you say? Yes, we gathered a bunch of pine needles so that I could attempt a basket. My willow has just been sitting around, not enough to make a basket with so it just sits. Yes, it is pretty to look at, but it taunts me.

SO, pine needles, why not give it a try right? ANd guess what, I did, I finished a basket. It was not as hard as it looks, yet the preperation was a little tricky. I wont give you how to's just yet as I am just a beginner but you can get some help from PaleoPlanet.net and go to the baskets sectoin, lots of info there, or I was actually reading a book called "Pine Needle Basketry- From Forest to Finished Project." BY Judy Mofield Mallow.

This book had a ton of how to's and a ton of photos of diffent baskets you can make. Not so primitive as I would hope but to start out, what the heck right? So I had fun, hope you enjoy my finished product. One Geese photo and one basket photo!

Questions from home

I was curious, if you could move anywhere you could move to, where would it be and why? If I was to answer myself, it would take a lot of thought, right off, right now, I would say someplace on the Oregon coast or Washington Coast as I love the beach but I would want to live in a small cottage and work from home. Dream on...right?

But given the chance to really think about this, the most important fact to me, would be that my hubby and son were happy there. Two, that we could eventually live off the land wherever that may be. Three, a place where there are many adventures to be had. And four, preferably in Oregon, Washington, or Montana.

We have thought about selling everything and moving to a foriegn land like Austrailia, Ireland, or someplace like that, and I must say, That sounds awfully intreaging, yet, I am getting to the age where I would love a place to call HOME and hang my hat for the rest of my life.
I dont know how many of you rent, but we do and it is sad wasting money each month into a place you dont own, you cant make your own all the way. I would lvoe to decorate, paint, fix up the yard, al that but as you know, we cant. OH HOME, you are somewhere out there, please come soon!! Oh how I long for home.

checkin in

We have not wrote on here in a while. A lot of things have been going on, unfortunately, nothing that include being out and about or learning about canning. HOWEVER, we still have been talking about lots of that.
We are still focused on getting out of debt, learning how to can, learning how to provide for ourselves and even talked about buying a piece of land cheap somewhere and building a off the grid home.
It was fun actually sitting at home learning about all the different types of homes. From earthships, which I must add personally< I love some of that idea, to building trapper cabins off the trees on the property you buy.
I dont know if we will be able to attack that dream this summer as that will take some time to buy a piece of land for us but we are still wanting do to this when we do buy. And of course, solar power computer acess will allow us to let you follow step by step, I know, I still laugh at online stuff when we want to be so unattatched from the outside world.
We just recently got an inexpensive video camera and have started a youtube site as well. It is also called All Over His Creation,look us up and see some tutorials on some primitive skills and thoughts from Johnny and a little about our pets. :)
In the meantime, since we are having cabin fever, share your stories and make sure you are enjoying His creation!

Some thoughts from home

Today, my husband and I were discussing how our grandparents always has extra food stored in the cupboards, they didnt worry if they were not getting paid or if there job was going downhill because they didnt live paycheck to paycheck.
In this day and age, most people live paycheck to paycheck. I can not stand the feeling of knowing there is a week left until I get paid so that I can go buy groceries. I dont like knowing I only have enough money for gas until I get paid because we are out.
This is because of numerous things including our debt which, I might add, this is the year we are going to get out of this debt we are in. And it is also because we rent so we dont have a place for a garden or any of that.
We have decided that using "a rental" as an excuse is just not going to work for us anymore. We are going to start growing a garden when the time of year is right in movable pots so that we dont damage our rental but we can still have a garden.
Our hope is that this summer we are going to move out of the town we live in to a place we can finally call home. Even if home is a rental, we are still planning on gardening and looking into a tear down green house. IN the mean time, I am gonna learn how to can.
Canning has been a desire of mine for a long time now yet everyone I ask says they will teach me and never do. I am reading on it and have what I need other than the bath canner. ONce i Have that, I am gonna be a canning fool. I can not wait!
My goal is that by this time next year, we will be, number one, out of debt, and two, we will be self sufficient so that we dont have to rely on paydays. We are gonna do more hunting no matter where we are and hopefully fill up our freezer too.
Might be strange goals to most out there but that is us. We love to not depend on money and we would love to have the ablity to live off the land if need be! (strange coming from an online blog site ...hee hee) Wgen I do get into canning or into planting herbs to start, I will definitly post some pics and how to's!
HOpe your lives are going great and your adventures in Gods Beautiful land are eventful and in abundance!

Out and About

It has been a while since I was on here last, mainly, due to computer issues. That is why there is no picture with this post. I did, however, want to share and adventure we had today that was fun yet did not cost more than a few dollars in gas.
We headed up to the local woods today to gather some more willow for my baskets, that I am sad to say is coming along slowly, but needed more willow anyway. Never have too much :)
There is a lot of snow around here so we couldnt go very far but we got far enough to gather some willow. My boys (hubby and son) were having an all out snowball war and leaving me out thank goodness when I got the idea for snowball baseball with a willow bat.
I took my hair tye out of my hair and tied the willow shafts I had, about fifteen, together, adn held them at the small end. They proceeded to throw snowballs my way and I would try to smack them.
THis was fun, to my suprise, yet the snowballs didnt go any distance but to the ground, it was a blast. The last one we did, my son through and as I hit it, it shredded into a mist of snow covering my face and shirt. Of course, bear laughed his head off.
But, point being, we had a blast just being goofballs out in the woods not too far just being silly with that we had. NO expenisive sleds, no gear, just layers of clothes, a little gas, and some willow.
Hopefully your adventures are all going well out there. Please pray for our computer issues so that I can add more stories and pics more often!
Until then, later!