Myakka's Journal

Where are you and where are you going?
Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

Well, I had a nice day turning the plain light yellow paint job in my living roon into a faded-out impressionistic landscape sort of thing. It is done except for some belated birds I added at the top. I don't like the way most of the ones I did today have come out, but I am too frustrated and tired of painting to even try to figure out what to do about them. I'm probably going to live with it a couple days and then try to correct them.

This mural is basically free at this point. I am using the paint that was already used to paint the room with. The yellow I mentioned before, white (from the ceiling), and a brown that was used on one wall and the inside of the front door, etc. The brown is my shadow color, the white is the highlight and cloud color, and the yellow when painted over the other two colors fades them out a bit. Faded out is good because the walls are supposed to be a background type of thing. It feels wonderful to have this project 98% completed.

On another matter, in reading through what I wrote before I noticed that I never mentioned how I solved our bathroom vanity issue. We had the same guy who was making cabinets for the kitchen do one for the bathroom. Kitchen cabinets are routinely fit to pre-existing spaces, and it was no problem for one to be made to fit the space in the bathroom with a plain white exterior. Neutral colors in decorating come in handy when you tire of one look and want to move on to the next one because they go with everything.

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

Here I am journalling again. I have spent today and yesterday reading several of the other journals here looking for other ideas on how to forward my family's financial situation. And there is one thing that keeps drawing my attention -- that I should start contributing income to my household.
It is embarrassing to admit that my husband's (quite good) job is the sole source of income for us. I hear judgements about not being responsible and not holding up my end of things.
I am college educated. My bachelors is in physics and astronomy with a minor in math. I did well enough at it to be inducted into the honor society Sigma Pi Sigma. (That that was an unusual feat for a woman is evidenced by the piece of jewelry they gave me for it -- a tie pin.) From there I tried and failed to complete a masters of engineering in Environmental Engineering. It was by making this expensive mistake that I learned that fixing the environmental crisis could not be done within the educational and employment system. My education in this field included the repeated dictum that what companies were after was to meet the regulatory requirements for the least amount of money. As someone who was even at that point a long time environmentalist I found this unsatisfactory.
The smart thing to have done would have been to have stopped immediately and gone elsewhere. But my identity was tied up in "being good at school" and I really didn't know how to stop or even to do something else. So I floundered for several years then.

Today, I am living out my dream of "fixing things" by using permaculture methods to increase my family's self-reliance. I am learning to garden (and in my world my whole yard is my garden) without needing to turn routinely to the local stores for inputs. What I keep on wanting (but I haven't figured out how to do it yet) is to grow grain here in Tampa, Florida in a Fukuoka (One Straw Revolution) manner. Vegetables are nice -- vitamins and minerals are a needed part of things. But to meet one's caloric needs grain goes alot further.

It is via this learning to growing things sustainably that I am making my chief contribution to my family. I think I want more than FI, I want food independence, too. I want not to be depending and feeding into the systems in our cultures that are degrading the natural systems we all depend on. It is a slow process and it takes me changing who I am and how I do things to grow into it.

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

It's been awhile since I last checked in. Sometimes I get really frustrated with things and the best strategy at that point in my experience is to give them a rest. I am back now and possibly more dedicated than before to the ideas here. I like them as much for the self-empowerment aspects as for the prospect of being FI one day.

My husband isn't a real fan of all the ERE ideas, even though his job is stressful and at one point he wanted to retire early. But I think his dream was more of the standard make alot of money and retire variety AND some of his self-worth is tied up in his job (he is an actuary) so in lots of ways it is hard for him to let it go.

BUT recently he told me that he had paid off the car loan early and now suddenly I see some hope. ERE is having an influence on him and we are making better money decisions than we would be making without its influence.

After over a year the bunny is finally settling in and feeling safe here. She eats weeds from the yard. (I did some research when I first got her to learn what some good ones were.) And her rear end stuff is helping the plants in my yard. (This is the first year I've seen blueberries and loquats, and our calamondin seems to always have fruit these days.) There is still room for growth. While she no longer is interested in the pellets, I do buy her some organic barley at the store. That growth may be happening as we speak -- for yesterday I found a full-grown and dried out barley plant in my yard. She seemed to really like it when I brought it in for her to try.

The next adventure which is in midstream at the moment is the new rocket stove I bought recently. Here on our little patch of land in the suburbs there are trees and bushes that routinely need trimming and removing to keep them from harming our house. So, there are lots of the little twigs to fuel the rocket stove with. Ethically, I feel better taking a plant out if I am using it -- this is probably the main reason I am going in this direction. But of course this also has the potential to reduce my use of fossil fuels and will allow us to have cooked food if the power goes out for an extended time (say after a hurricane). AND there is some small money to be saved as well.

In the context of my husband having a very well paying job and me having only a small earning potential there is very little incentive for me to go out to work. My contribution is the creativity of discovering how to use the things that this little piece of land wants to grow for food and cooking fuel and cleaning. In work environments I struggle with having sensitivities to things that other people do as a matter of course. But I love the process of discovery and figuring things out. And the things I am working on are small steps away from depending on the System that is so very destructive to life on Earth. I call this becoming Native to the place you are living.

One of the problems people face when they protest against the things that the System is doing to them is that they are also dependent on that System. ERE lessens that dependence by allowing one to not have a job if that is what you choose. Becoming Native lessens that dependence by allowing one not to go shopping for some of the things you need.

George the original one
Posts: 5404
Joined: Wed Jul 28, 2010 3:28 am
Location: Wettest corner of Orygun

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by George the original one »

Myakka wrote:Here on our little patch of land in the suburbs there are trees and bushes that routinely need trimming and removing to keep them from harming our house. So, there are lots of the little twigs to fuel the rocket stove with.
I tie the little twigs into trimmed bundles tied with twine (faggots) to use as fire starters in our woodstoves. Rather than multiple sheets of newspaper to get the fire going with regular small branches, the faggots just need one sheet of paper to get started. They burn hot, like newspaper; unlike newspaper, they leave coals which help ignite the small branches.

Why only one rabbit? Don't they usually like company?

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

Hi George,

Thank you for the faggot instruction. I need to do that next time I use my stove.

I think the reason for one rabbit is mainly that she is my first bunny. I've had alot to learn and I still have at least one kink in the system to work out with her. For now I am her company, and she is mine.

I do understand about them liking company, and I may do that someday when I am up for the challenge of getting two bunnies used to each other.

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

The wind storm that came through here a couple weeks ago did a number on my clothesline. It has lots more spots for lines than are practical to use (and I was low on twine when I started replacing them) so I have so far just replaced the ones I really use. But the experiment of living without an electric dryer is going well enough.

The same wind storm that did a number on the clothesline has knocked over the chaya (a semi-tropical/tropical plant with edible leaves). I've cut it back from over the road way and want to take care of the parts that are now over the neighbor's property. I've discovered since cutting it back that it is good bunny food -- so there will be someone actually appreciating the trimmings.

But none of these expenses compare to my husband's medical bills. (He is struggling with lyme disease -- something the government and the standard medical doctors don't acknowledge as existing. He doesn't have the stamina he used to. He works the long hours they expect of him at work and then falls asleep to the television at night.) It is looking at the moment that we will not be able to retire early because of them. Maybe there is something to be said for being less foolish with our money and me living really frugally even if my husband isn't interested in that.

I don't have an arguement for not spending money on supplements he thinks are helping him reclaim some of his health -- even though it seems out of hand to me because there are just so very many of them. Does anyone have any thoughts?

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

Things seem to be looking up at the moment. There seems to be hope that our Earthship might maybe be completed. And i talking my husband recently I learned from him that we currently have more money on hand than we owe on our one remaining loan and that we are putting about 30% of our income into a savings account now.

On a personal front, I have discovered a classical music from south India (Carnatic music) that brings my (often repressed) emotions into balance.

Myakka
Posts: 122
Joined: Thu Sep 13, 2012 3:39 am

Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Myakka »

That Earthship is all but completed now and looks like it will be sold. (The dream of living there has vanished for both of us.) I keep voting for extra money to go towards paying off the line of credit still outstanding from the effort to get it closer to being completed. We will be carrying no debt whenever that happens.

I've been reading the thread about Jacob's ERE levels chart lately. I am thinking that for my husband and I that chart only possibly applies if we are thought about as a unit. He is the one with the successful career. I am the one crafting a lifestyle for us that increases our enjoyment while reducing our need to purchase things. To use items made by me for us to meet our basic needs adds something special in our lives. Is this a fair way of applying the chart??

Stasher
Posts: 69
Joined: Thu Mar 18, 2021 11:23 am
Location: Vancouver Island BC
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Re: Myakka's Journal

Post by Stasher »

I treat my wife and myself as one unit so I think that is fair to make that assumption for yourself Myakka

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