Whole lotta living going on...

BOY it's been a long time since I've written anything! It's amazing how much living one can fit into a year.

My first inclination was to write an apology for not writing in so long. But who am I really apologizing to? Why feel guilty? It's been an amazingly long and full year or so.

We moved from SC to TN and then again within TN.

We've tried urban homesteading and now we're on a farm.

We made a 6-week cross-country trip with friends, and we're still friends.

Daughter-face broke her leg while on that trip.

Been learning lots about myself and God and my relationship with him. Been working through lots of stuff, too.

We decided to stay married.

We are learning to let go of stuff and hold on to what is really important.

We are learning how to plant, take care of, harvest from, and "put up" a garden.

We are learning the process of raising rabbits, chickens, ducks, goats, miniature donkeys, and even a horse. We're also learning what it's really like to lose them to old age (some animals age faster than others), escape, and predators. We're also learning to identify with our forebears more... to understand that to "lose a ____ to a fox" (or whatever) translates into, "we just lost a week's worth of meat to a ______."

We live on 8 acres, in 1300 sq feet of 80 years of history, drink spring water, actually have indoor plumbing, swim in a lake, and are sung to sleep by crickets rather than cars whizzing by.

We've moved away from old friends and moved to new friends. We've had friends move away, and friends move in. We've even had "friends" decide they don't love us any more, simply because they couldn't get anything else from us, or because we wouldn't leave our religion.

Sometimes the point isn't to get forgiveness from another person; the point is to forgive ourselves, especially when we haven't done anything wrong.

Yes, there's been a whole lot of living going on... and hopefully I'll be letting you in on a bit more of it as we keep living through this next year.