Home Sweet Home

I was home last night and I am home again today and will be home again tonight.  There has been a lot of drama going on at work that I can not get into, but suffice it to say, I am pulling away a bit.  I am now only going to do two 8-hour shifts a week.  That's it.  I have another project in mind that will better serve the demographic that we have been trying to work with.  When I get more information and have a better grasp of details, I will share.

In the meantime, I am enjoying my family.  We have gotten a lot done.  We have lots of firewood for the barrel.  More is coming in for the cook stove.  Stuff got moved around and things got cleaned behind.  I got to make granola yesterday afternoon.  (It has since been devoured.)  The children have been introduced to Winter Popsicles.  (Ice hanging from the roof.)  Break it off and suck on it.  If I feel particularly insane, I will pull out the powdered sugar and let them dunk the ice in it and have fun.  We are also going to have snow cream later.  We have 7-8 inches of snow and it is still falling at about 1/2 inch an hour.

We have water in the large stock pots, a 5-gallon bucket, our 10 gallon water cooler, and some other indoor containers and the outside tank is currently being filled.  Once it is filled, we will head into town to pick up feed.  Things are happening again with me home!  YAY!

The hours I was working was insane and I was about to have more added.  I was working 12 hour days 7 days a week.  That was about to be increased to 17 hour days 7 days a week with an hour drive there and an hour drive back making for 19 hours away from my family.  This was worse on my family than when I was in Indiana.  When I was in Indiana, the expectation was "wood, water, feed."  Well, with me back, other things was supposed to get focused on like going beyond basics and finishing projects that were half started.  Trying to do it all, and me working, and everything else, Husband's health was deteriorating fast.  Sunday, he had a pretty good seizure after having chest pains.  We were in the middle of church.  Not acceptable.  Not when the trigger was caused by me being gone and being taken advantage of.  Not to mention all the other drama going on at work that was also affecting him.  (Him being board president means he gets directly involved and gets to say "What the heck are you thinking?" to other people.)

Anyway, I am home and happy to be home.  A friend of mine came over yesterday and we talked out some ideas to fix the issues that are happening and I showed her around and how we put the cabins together and use the barrel stove to cook on.  I also introduced her to my granola and she really liked it.  "It's simple.  I like simple.  Simple is good."  That's what she said about lunch and granola.

We went over to her house and she showed us her Indian artifacts as well as archaeological finds from other places.  She also showed the children some Native American stuff that she made and the frame to her tee-pee that she sleeps in during the summer.  She is more than willing to be a wonderful source of information for Native American information both past and current ideologies, culture, beliefs, etc.  I think it helps that (as she puts it) my "kids are easy to like."  I think the girls liked the rain stick the best.  Charlie like the stone hatchet and the knife.  He wanted to bring them home.  When that was not allowed, he wanted to stay.  She looks at him and says "you can't come back if you don't leave and I want you to come back."  She has a great sense of humor and a lot of wisdom.