A Fork in the Road.

Tomatoes are coming on, no red ones yet. The heat is continuing. It is making me wonder if this is it and we are full blown into summer. I am praying for rain. A thunder shower would be so welcome. We are so blessed to have hoses that are hooked up to water. What was it like to depend on rain? Farmers must have prayed a LOT.







Look at what I found while I was watering? Hello fellas, make some toadie babies to eat these skeeters up. I am being eaten alive while I am watering this yard in the sweltering heat at 9:30am. I'm wearing my nightie. Jimmy says I am shameless walking around outside in my night gown. I'm in the BACK yard. I can't see the point of taking a shower and getting dressed to come out here and soak my clothes in sweat, and then need another shower. Sweat first then shower. The toads think my logic is impressive and they don't give a flip about the nightie.

Tons of squash blossoms or gourds, there are tons of them. No cucumbers yet nary a one.


Do you see it? Isn't it cute? A little baby watermelon...


The husband went blue berry picking.

I'm making biscuits/scones and I can't take pictures of this. It's very hard to photograph white stuff. Beside the flash goes off and messes everything up.

This is the dough and it's going to go onto the floured board and then gently be folded and folded and then patted. Keeping it soft is the key.

Cutting out. This part is fun. I never thought of adding blueberries or anything else to biscuits but why not? I also put some dried orange peel bits in.


They are finished and delicious. Even with nothing on them, but I put some blueberry peach preserves on top. Lip smacking good.

While watering with both the hose, and the sweat I was thinking. I was thinking about how long it will be until fall when we will begin to cool off again. We have just really begun to peel away all the unnecessary layers of life. We are on a fast track to financial freedom right now. The only thing left to pay is the house. No car payments no bills, not one. If we continue to live like little farmers and put the bulk of our income onto the mortgage which is pretty small at this point we have 2 more years to go of me working in the hospital. I'm not ruling out some other source of income. We have other things we do, but everything else is in addition to the steady income. Everything is going toward paying off the house debt. Everything.

I was thinking about Brin over at "My Messy Thrilling Life," I was wondering what it was about her story that is so compelling. If you go back to the beginning of her adventure she is not the same woman now. She has been through the refiners fire. All the junk, the dross, the trappings of this world have been burned off. The only thing remaining now is who she is, purely. She is not pure, no one is, but who she is shines through and brightly. By uncluttering her life, and ordering her priorities she has stripped away all the junk that clouds ones person. Her thoughts can be clearly expressed in a simple world; her God, her dog, her home, the garden, the feelings of creativity, the appreciation of each day. Each part integrated into a calm expression of who she is one who is living life. She jumped off the hamster wheel of consumerism and became a producer.

Sometimes we find books that change our lives. A book "Choices," by Mary Farrar examines how we got to where we are now. She starts with the little house on the prairie, that small family unit that our forefathers lived in, and traces all the changes that occurred. For example the impact the industrial revolution made on the family. What happened to the family when the father left the home? She tracks each step in our history and discusses the impact the changes made on the family. It is an amazing thought provoking book. She is the one who put this thought into my mind, " we went from being producers of everything in our lives, to consumers. "

So what is wrong with that?

There is no soul satisfaction in consuming. We feed this bottomless pit of wants and desires. In the process of getting drunk on our wants and desires we also get sloppy and wasteful. We don't appreciate what we have. We don't even realize how rich we are. To a person in a third world country the poorest welfare person here, is rich. They have a place to live with appliances in it. They have toilets and sinks, running water. We just don't get it. I think about my African friend who said to me once, "you have pockets."

Eliminating clutter, and consumerism, is one more step to the journey we are on. It's getting easier and easier to let things go. No TV, no diet cokes, no fast food, no renting movies, no eating out, no ....whatever. I don't miss it. I did at first. But where those things once stood and are no more there are now, other things.

There is home made tea to drink and water with fresh squeezed lime or a sprig of orange mint picked fresh from the window box under the kitchen window. There are home made biscuits and fresh vegetables. We have accumulated a small mountain of movies, so now we are watching them. Eating out? Why not invite someone over and have a little get together, my meals are just as good, sometimes better.

There is an endless supply of real life stories on the internet. People sharing their real lives, without commercials or interruptions. I guess you could consider having to put the computer down to go pee an interruption, but it's not like getting stressed out when just at the most intriguing moment of a movie the gazillion commercials start. I don't want to pay for HBO. I am happy keeping the $50 I was spending for cable TV. As soon as we get hooked up to vonage our bill for the internet and phone will be $60. We were spending almost $300 for phones, TV, and internet. That is CRAZY.

Watering the garden gets my thoughts going and I apologize for rambling on. I'm just thinking about a lot of things this morning. I'm thinking about where we are headed and this fork in the road. There can only be one path. We can only go one way. So do we continue on this path the one that includes this blistering heat and the short amount of time to financial freedom? Or do we go back to the land of beauty and saddle ourselves with $400,000 of debt? Did you know that the word mortgage is a Latin based word and it means "a pledge of death?" It's not without temptation. It is really not as easy as it sounds. Our families are there. We have little grand babies there. We could do this. We could rent out the downstairs and do a lot of things to make money. We have the software which would help us get the mortgage paid off faster. We don't just sell it, we own it. We know what it could do. The pull to return is very strong. It almost feels like a riptide. But the cost.

Hmm, continue to simplify or?

I wonder if it was a test. Having my house come across my path, like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey. If it is a test I passed. I am waving goodbye. At least right now. I am not saying that it won't cross my mind a million times until it is sold. But for now we'll stay the course, going down this road.