Look Who's Still Alive!

...that'd be, me.  What an absence!  I'm a terrible blogger but we knew that already.

So... where to begin.  TONS of things have changed since two Easters ago, which was my last post.  (YIKES!) But I won't bore you with the day-to-day.  Just the big stuff.  Ready?

We used to live here.

Now we live here.

As someone who NEVER thought I'd live in a trailer, this was a REALLY REALLY REALLY big deal to me.  I'm learning.  Trailers are okay.  I know, I wasn't convinced, either, but we actually like it here.  A lot.

This guy was little.

And now he's BIG!

And the other ones got bigger, too!

We're HOME SCHOOLERS!  

Another thing I never-in-my-wildest-dreams thought would happen.

Legos are the new textbooks.  Just ask a home-schooler. 

And perhaps the biggest little thing... 

we've gone Paleo.  

I used to cook from scratch with whole wheat flour and raw sugar, source out whole wheat pasta and buy all this loot in bulk.  Nowadays I still cook from scratch, but I use coconut flour and raw honey, source out quinoa, and buy eggs as if all the chickens around the world are about to retire.  And you know what?  I think we're better for it.  If you're not sold on Paleo, that's really okay with me.  But we seem to be healthier on it.  At least, my husband does--I need to find someone to stand in front of my (DARK!) chocolate stash and slap me every time I meander over.  I do cheat too much, in the area of cocoa-related fare, but what are New Years resolutions for, eh?!  :)  We'll see. 

Our new [20 acre] front yard.

That's not our dog.

So, the trailer thing.  We LOVED our last house.  It was 2200 sq ft of everything we wanted.  But it wasn't ours (neither is this one, btw) and we couldn't do "whatever we wanted", so when our friend who lived a few miles up the road moved to town and left her 1200 +/- sq ft "antique" trailer setting empty on 115 acres beside two chicken coops and a 40' x 40' shed full of whatever we need to turn the ground, fix the fence, and work with a few animals, I knew it would barely take the gentle coaxing to "just think about it" that I laid on Hubby.  Tiny house?  We've lived in that sort of square footage before--not with 3 kids, but we're nothing if not adventurous!  And we could have chickens?  And we could have other animals, too?  And... and... and...  Our roomy, comfy, anti-chicken residence didn't stand a chance.  And so we moved.  

Our new doggie, Searge (Sarge?). 

Great Pyranese/Kommondor.  Love this guy!

Downsizing should have been the biggest challenge--we dumped at least half of our possessions--but the purging was good for us (and for Goodwill!) and we ended up feeling a lot lighter in the end.  The worst part was putting on hold all the things that "needed" to get done.  And the hardest part, in the end, has been catching up.  I've said it 100 times before, and I've never meant it more than now:  the next house I move into will be our forever-home!  'Til then, I'm NOT moving again!  (Yeah, yeah, yeah...  we'll see.)

It might be helpful in understanding our move to know that Hubby and I care a lot about the welfare of the animals we eat, the environment, our health, and our budget.  These are all reasons we went Paleo, too.  When you embrace the Paleo lifestyle, you eat a lot of HEALTHY, HAPPY meat, eggs, and veggies.  We're enthusiastic DIYers, so acreage and the opportunity to use it can go a long way in providing access to environmentally-friendly, affordable grass-fed, free-ranging meat and eggs, which hits all the aforementioned moral hotspots.  Even before going Paleo, we didn't want to eat CAFO meat or factory-farmed eggs.  But soon, convincing myself that "cage-free" actually means something on an egg carton (it doesn't) and picking the pinkest hamburger out of a shrink-wrapped line-up at the grocery store won't be a reality for us.  Insert Happy Dance. 

Little Miss with our 45 chickens.

And then there's homeschooling.  Little Miss is 6 and a half.  Kindergarten didn't traumatize her, per se, but she didn't exactly thrive there.  And the rest of us pretty much hated it.  So we're trying something different, and generally loving it. 

All in all, we're just as busy as usual and that's why I'm a terrible blogger.  Sorry!  And... it's likely to continue that way.  But if this wasn't your first blog post, you knew that already.  :/ 
Thanks for reading, see you again next year!!  JK--hopefully...