This and That

Good Morning!

Did you all have a great Christmas? We really have had a great Christmas season, my husband had 3 days off plus the weekend so it was like a vacation! I have lots of photos to show you, but I keep getting an error message on my camera - I will try again later - this has happened before so hopefully I will be able to download them later.

I have been working at eating healthier, and using non toxic cleaners etc...we live on 4 1/4 acres of land and would like to see the land not used for the horses only but to plant fruit trees, have larger garden - make the land work for us! Part of it is a desire to spend less at the grocery store - with 8 people in our family, fruit doesn't last long. It's okay, as we want them to eat an apple (locally grown) rather than a "fruit" roll-up. But the real thing is more expensive than than the fake.

Another part of our desire to use our land is for self-sufficiency. When we grew strawberries this year, and tomatoes and green beans it was so neat to go outside and get an ingredient for our meal.

My husband has a hip that needs to be replaced this year, he has had arthritis since he was a kid. We will be living at 60% of his income, while he is recovering. This is going to be a challenge - but I know God will see us through. We always desire to be good stewards of our income - we have felt stretched this year - with gas prices so high for most of the year, food costs all went up...we still have been able to pay extra on our mortgage every month to pay down the principle, we tithe, we support several missionaries...

My husband is wondering whether he will be able to go back to the kind of work he has been doing. He is a machinist and repairing printing presses requires that he squat, bend, get into tight spaces...maybe not doable for someone with an artificial hip. So there is the possibility that income wise we may need to head down a different path....it has exciting possibilities, but at the same time, I have come to "depend" on my husbands paycheck, rather than the Lord. In this economy many people have seen that their paycheck can be gone in an instant as companies layoff employees, or the company closes. I think this will be a good time for me to get my eyes off a "paycheck" and onto the Lord.

In all things we must look to the Lord to meet our needs, He is ABLE!

I guess I am just thinking out loud today...Some of the ways we save money are by not eating out very often, cooking from scratch, making our own salad dressings, I have even made our own laundry detergent before!

What steps have you taken or are you taking to save money by not spending money? Do you have any tips for me? I'd love to hear them!