Can Breakfast Burritos Save My Life?

I have long been intrigued by the idea of cooking or prepping meals en masse and freezing them. It's all over Pinterest and Facebook. I love the promise of easier dinners and less mess in the kitchen. Part of surviving in a tiny home is staying on top of the daily tasks that can overwhelm a small area in short order. It has made life a bit hectic on those weekends when we are busy with sports, family and church. We're home long enough to eat and sleep and make a mess, then out the door again. Sunday afternoons used to be mandatory rest time. Lately, we've been coming home to the leftover mess from Friday and Saturday, which is not very peaceful. I've asked myself week after week, "How can we protect our day of rest without eliminating the family outings?" Eating out all weekend would break or budget in a hurry. The kids are getting too old for the children's menu so even eating fast food (which we despise) adds up quickly.
So, back to the big cooking day. I have researched it. I have looked at menus and considered how I can alter recipes to fit our whole food lifestyle. The problem is that I was a little nervous about getting in over my head. I needed to just get a toe in and make sure I could pull it off. The test recipe: breakfast burritos. My husband works long hours and over  night. He likes to have breakfast on his last break so he can come home and go to bed. I decided to make some breakfast burritos and freeze them. I thaw them in the fridge in the morning and by the time he wants them, they microwave easily. It worked out so well that it gave me the confidence to go all out! I'm not going to make a formal recipe, because you can really put anything inside that you like. For this batch, I used the soft taco size tortillas, eggs, all natural sausage, jalapenos, onion, cilantro and cheese. I cooked everything but the cheese. I put shredded cheese on the tortilla, then the egg mixture and rolled it up! I wrapped them individually in foil, then put them all into a freezer zipper bag. It really was easy and took me about 20 minutes from start to finish. Now, I'm seriously planning my big cooking day!

Life in a Cabin

I can't believe that we moved in just over 6 months ago. I can't believe that it has been over 6 months since I could string together more than a few sentences! So much has happened, and our lives were turned upside down for a bit, but now we have settled into a routine in our little cabin.
Cabin. That is what we have been calling it. When we were shopping for a building that would accommodate us, we looked at several styles. The designs varied from cabin, shed, barn, lofted barn, barn cabin, etc. In the end, we customized a side lofted barn, which only means a barn style roof and a side entry, as opposed to a door on either end. We could correctly call it a barn, but it doesn't sound quite as cozy. That is the best adjective for or new home. Cozy. It is small and we are never more than 38 feet from each other at any given moment. Many people don't understand what we are doing, and some even refer to our new home in less flattering terms, like shack, or shed. I have to bite my tongue and choose not to walk in offense. It is difficult, because the implication is hurtful. It is our chosen home, though. We planned and prayed, and this is what we decided to do. It is temporary, because the end goal is to build a house. That being said, people still think we're a little nuts. That is why they make thoughtless remarks. I get it. We are living the original American dream, not the dream of today. We are pioneering and carving out our dreams, walking in faith that they are within reach.
Today, one might say that the American dream is a job, a mortgage, car payments, 2.5 kids and a dog. That makes me laugh, just looking at it. We drive late model vehicles that we paid for in cash and our family of 6 lives in a cabin (lofted barn) while we work toward building a home paid for, again (hopefully), with cash.
It is a good life, though! We have new, different challenges from our old life. This winter has been a challenge. We have experienced a lot of snow, ice and sustained sub-freezing temperatures. When we lived in town, that might mean staying inside and enjoying a snow day. One of our newfound challenges was having animals outdoors. We had to not only build good shelter for all if them, but we had to go 2 or 3 times a day to check on them and often had to bring in water containers to thaw. It also meant we had large, concave ice chunks in the front yard where we threw them once the ice loosened from the edges of the water bowls. They looked like a bunch of tiny igloos!
At one point, our family vehicle needed some work and it was over a week, during the snow and freezing temperatures, that the kids and I were house bound. We had all we needed, but we did start to get a bit cabin fevered toward the end.
I smile about these "adventures" because I know that some day, we will sit around the dinner table in our house that we built and remember fondly, the days in our little cabin. Yes, it is a cabin, because I say so. After all, isn't a home what we make of it?

Dreary Weather Weekend and Mapping Outlets

Cayde, perched on a cinder block, surveying his kingdom.

Well, we were a little discouraged by the weather Friday and Saturday, since my hubby was off. He only gets every other weekend off, so the hours in those days are at a premium for working on the house, especially if anyone was free to help. We still ventured out on Saturday, though, in an effort to map the electrical plan in the cabin. We walked through and marked the outlets and light switches, while the bids ran around in the cold, soaking drizzle. It didn't take long for us to call them in because their pants were soaked up to the knees. Meanwhile, inside the cabin the temperature was roughly 48 degrees. I must admit, it was cold! It made me wish we already had the wood stove. After mapping the electrical plan on the frame, Rich went back and nailed in the boxes that would house outlets and light switches. Just seeing those little, blue boxes on the walls made it look even more like a house. I sat in a camping chair in our kitchen, imagining myself at our dining table watching the kids play in the living room. It gave me a little thrill.
Today, after church, my Dad went out and helped Rich run the wire and connect it to the outlets, etc. We only lack the utility outlets and circuit breakers. We might even have lights by this time next week!

Marking an outlet.

Ella sat in her camping chair, bundled in
blankets and snacking on Cheerios.

Declyn and Cayde love to play with
the wood scraps.

Serious business, pretending to measure
and cut like Daddy.

The Next Phase of the Experiment

We have had many interesting experiences while experimenting with domesticity. Now we are moving on to a new adventure and the next phase in our family experiment. Please, come next door to Jones' in the Wild and join us on our exciting new journey, as we pioneer and try to carve out our own little piece of heaven.

The Walls That We Must Have

Our little house on the prairie looks like one, big rectangle inside. We love an open floor plan, but there are some things that require a bit more privacy. In our design (which changed 50 times before the building was even delivered and twice since Monday) we wanted to keep it simple and preserve as much continuous space as possible.  We finally landed on putting up only two walls, one that would create a bathroom and another to create the "master" bedroom. I have a difficult time calling the only real bedroom a master bedroom, but it is where my husband and I will sleep. These two walls are at opposite ends of the building, so the shared space will be in the middle.
Last Sunday, after church, we invited some of our family out to look at the homestead. My dad came ready to work and he and my husband managed to build the walls. All of the work has to be done around my husband's rotating work schedule, so we are blessed to have my dad jump in and help on his days off. Yesterday, Rich went and put the walls in place. Now it is starting to look like something! Next week we will be running electrical wire and hopefully have some power by the following week. I'm more looking forward to the plumbing, though. When that is in place, then we can start finish work, like wall covering. Plus, when we have an operating toilet, the family trips to the homestead will be more enjoyable and we will be able to pitch in for longer stretches. It's really happening!

Looking into the master bed.

Looking into the bathroom.

Welcome Basket

It used to be that, when a new neighbor moved in, someone designated themselves the welcome wagon. More recently, the welcome wagon might be something as simple as a knock on the door, polite but brief introductions and a basket of cookies or muffins. I like to imagine, though, that this tradition dates back to the pioneer days, when your nearest neighbor might be half an hour away on horseback.  In those days, you staked your claim on some land and planted crops or worked livestock, while living in a small cabin. It took many families years of working the land before they built a bigger home. So, if a neighbor came by, the offerings were probably more utilitarian, because new homesteaders wouldn't yet have a harvest of their own. I imagine that when you loaded up the wagon to drop in on the new family, you might pack a pie, some canned goodies like jam, maybe some roasted corn ears or some fresh bread and butter. Perhaps the women would chat about different fabrics or swap recipes, while the men might discuss plans for a barn raising. I think that in those days, it was not only good, but necessary, to know one's neighbors. They all valued good neighbors and people then were far more likely to share their time and lend a hand. That's at least how Laura Ingalls Wilder made it seem.
We are fortunate to have met some very good neighbors on one side and across the street. And, in the tradition of the welcome basket, my husband found a special surprise awaiting him at the gate on Friday. It wouldn't fit in a basket and it wasn't topped off with a bow, just a nice little note. It was one of the most thoughtful gifts I could imagine, though, given our endeavor. Sitting there, gleaming in the spring sunlight, was a brand new toilet. Yes, I said it - a toilet. This might seem very unconventional and it is probably the last gift anyone in polite society would consider, but I think our neighbors share our pioneer hearts, so they knew it would be perfect! The note was brief, stating simply that this was an extra and if we could use it, we could have it. I laughed out loud when my husband called to tell me the news. I said, "Thank you, Jesus!" because that was one less item that we had to purchase. If I had been given the choice between muffins and a shiny new toilet, I think I would have taken the toilet. So, now sitting just inside the door (though not there to stay) is our lovely, little throne. It is the first sign that our little barn is going to be our home. It makes it a little more real, a little more within our grasp. We may be pioneers, but there is a lot to be said for indoor plumbing!

Day 1

View from the master bedroom.

Yesterday, my husband drove out to our little homestead, roughly 10 acres in Southwest Missouri, to supervise the placement of a 560 square foot barn. It has 8 foot lofts and windows in each end, a lovely windowed front door right in the middle on one side and two windows opposite the front door. It is 14 feet wide and 40 feet long. On top, there is a beautiful, green, metal roof. The reason these little details are relevant, and very, very exciting, is because this barn is ready for horses, but we are going to turn it into a home for our family of six. We will extend the lofts to an even ten feet each, we will add two interior walls, one to create a bathroom/laundry room, the other to close in a master bedroom. Our youngest daughter, only 16 months, will be in the master with us until she gets older. Our two boys will bunk in one of the lofts and our oldest child, our ten year old daughter, will have the opposite bunk. CRAZY? Oh yes, but we have never shied away from crazy. We are going to be living it up in our very own "little house on the prairie" for about five years. There is a method to our madness, though. We are bailing out of the city life. My husband was raised around animals, out in the country, working hard and growing character. He chopped firewood with his father to sell, he hunted deer to feed the family, he learned the value of putting your hand to something and bearing fruit.
I, on the other hand, was raised in town. My husband teases me and calls me a city girl. If you have ever driven through Rogers, Arkansas, you would know I am not a true city dweller. I have dreamt of country life since I was little, though. My grandparents in Morrison, Oklahoma, showed me the life I wanted. We would go to visit in the summer and my grandma would teach me needle point and how to bake. My grandpa would let us ride around on his tractor and feed the cows and fish in his pond. I knew that was the way to live. I always loved the farm, but when I was in third grade, I met this awesome girl who lived in Missouri. When I stayed over at her house, we rode horses and swam in the creek and ran wild! That just served to further my desire for something different than "city life."
Fast forward several years and my husband and I are on the verge of making our dreams a reality. We bought part of his family land and we are are going to buy some chickens, a milk cow, a few head of cattle and plant a garden. The challenge for us, while planning how to make this happen, was how to get from where we are to were we want to be, God's way. We started out looking at building a house, talked to mortgage companies, looked at pages and pages of house plans, spent hours discussing if and how we could afford to build our house, within our budget, within a reasonable time frame. The biggest challenge was that building our dream house from the ground up, all by ourselves, while continuing to live and rent in town, was going to put us way over budget. Paying for a builder to build it would have lessened the amount of time for the build, but would have almost doubled our costs. We talked to financial advisers, both professional and family members, we looked at all these different options, and ended up frustrated and still confused. Finally, Rich and I put our dream back into the hands that had given it to us. We had prayed about it, but we hadn't truly released it into God's hands and given up control. It was only then that we both had a peace about it, and then, that suddenly this crazy plan started to form.
So, in a nutshell, we have a barn in which we are going to live, for the amount of time it takes to pay off the land. It will be very motivating to us to save and get started building our dream house, which by the way, will not be a one room cabin. We also feel very strongly that this will bring us closer as a family and help us to simplify our lives. Our kids are ecstatic about all the trees they can climb and the valleys they can explore. They are also very excited about having farm animals. I am excited about them learning true responsibility and gaining some common sense.
Oh, I forgot to mention the craziest part of our plan! When the barn was delivered yesterday, the clock started on how long we have to finish the inside and get moved in. We have 90 days until the first payment is due, and we don't want to pay rent while paying for the property, so we have 90 days to add electricity and light fixtures, plumbing and bath, cabinets, walls, wall and floor coverings, heating and cooling and a front porch.
So, there it is, the whole nutty story, and it all starts today, on day 1.

View from our front door.

I'm standing in what will be the bathroom,
 looking toward the other end of the cabin.

Ella, our youngest, checking out the new place.