It's My Mother's Fault

She would love that. She got got riled whenever some "expert" blamed someone's shortcomings on their mother and their upbringing.

But honestly, if I think about it...this current issue I'm having must be her fault.

Lately I have been thinking A LOT about how wonderful it would be to live a more sustainable lifestyle. Homesteading sounds like a wonderful way to raise our family. I imagine the big garden, the wide open spaces. Canning and cooking and freezing. Maybe get some animals...chickens or some sheep or alpaca (ooh could spin my own yarn.)

That would be a terrific lifestyle for the boys and being more self-reliant...sounds great.

But oh reality, bring me back before I jump in with both feet. I am not a gardener. I want to be. I just am not terrible good at it (or with the creatures you find while gardening...at least I no longer shriek when one of the boys brings me a worm...that's progress.) I don't know the first thing about canning. Animals...yeah ummm do they bite or peck at me. Because I'm pretty sure I'd be chicken of the chicken. It's an embarrassment really.

But growing up my mom always had these gorgeous magazines called things like (and I might be wrong about the exact titles) Country Woman and Farm Woman. I saw these incredible images of a lifestyle that looks so appealing and right. And it's my mom's fault because....she bought the magazines and put the thought into my dainty, wimpy mind. It's not like she ever lived that life. She grew up in a city know for it's mills in an orphanage with Nuns. (This is clearly where my mother's rigid housekeeping ideas developed..and my own lackadaisical housekeeping rituals are also mom's fault..because I was forced to rebel.) My parents never had a garden. I think once when I was growing up we had one (yes one) tomato plant. Maybe mom was living vicariously through the pages.

So now, I research and dream and read all these incredible blogs about people living a lifestyle that looks so wonderfully amazing...because my mother brought home these magazines when I was an impressionable kid...and now I want to live on a farm and grow things and be a modern homesteader...or maybe I will forever live vicariously through the amazing blogs I read while the husband plants some cucumbers, beans and peas...did I mention I don't have a green thumb..not even a little bit?

-Peace