I quit my job

Remember when I made that post, around this time last year, about keeping my job? Hahaha! Well, now I'm writing the opposite post. I turned in my notice last week and it was, quite honestly, one of the better choices I've made.

My brother has understandably decided that after nearly two years as our mother's caretaker, he can't do it anymore. He's put some ambitions and goals on hold to go all-in on being there for her and now would like to pursue some of them. I get that! Caring for another person full time is hard.

And I'm now going to have three people that I care for full time. I was talking about this with my spouse and told him that between my job, my mother, our children, our pets, and the housework, something had to give or it was going to be my sanity. He sat back and asked me which, on that list, I felt could drop the easiest. Well, the answer to that is rather obvious, though I didn't want to admit it. I tried to make it work. I found a nanny--who fell through. When I thought about trying to find another it was just overwhelming. I was exhausted before even starting. Did I really want to keep pushing the issue when I already knew that I could cut out one thing and have LESS work to do instead?

By the numbers, this choice sort of works out and sort of doesn't. The nanny I found would have been a cost we paid above and beyond what I bring home--but only while we're also paying for preschool. Preschool is also the reason we would need a nanny, since the Munchkin only does half days. We'd need someone to watch Little Miss all day, and to do preschool pickup. But preschool ends in June and kindergarten starts up in September (!!!), so it would really only be two months we'd lose money. September, if I'd made it to then, was also when I would have been fully vested in my 401k--which would have been well worth the couple of months of a net loss paying a nanny. This also assumes that I wouldn't have had a pay raise in between, which was a possibility.

But. The work to do that. The coordination, the planning, the freaking emotional labor that would have gone into all of it. And still, I can't plan for the days when I might get a call because my mom has been crying all morning and no one can make sense of what she's saying. I can't plan for when she might or might not fall, or any of her worsening symptoms. I've already been to the ER with her once in the last month, will there be more of those in the future? I can't plan sick days for my kids, either, or for the days when they're out of sorts and everything is just harder. Having a job adds one more level of complexity to all of it that I'm just not willing to do at this point. I know myself well enough to say that it's too much. Maybe others could bear it well, but I'm not going to kill myself to make having a job work. Saying no, saying that this is too much, is a form of self-care that no bubble bath or glass of wine can replace.

Doggo picture as tax.

I'm not alone in this need, either. Here's an article about how mothers, in particular in the U.S., are being smothered in stress because we're trying to fulfill two different and opposing ideologies. We should 100% be all-in a parents, but at the same time we should be 100% all-in as workers. We're destined to fail at both. Being "just" one or the other comes with a whole different load of guilt. Oh, you're "just" a stay at home mom? Oh, you work long hours but complain that you don't get to see your kids enough?

Parent or not, I'm sure you know exactly the judgmental attitude and tone that goes along with those statements.

But this was also the sort of week that let me know I'd made the right choice. The day I turned in my resignation I also got messages from my brother letting me know that the baby was throwing up. But I didn't feel like I could rush home to be with her because I took a sick day so recently after my mom was in the ER. Then the illness, naturally, worked its way through the whole family--meaning not only were the grownups out of commission for some time but also that there was more work. Everything from more laundry to fixing a clogged sink because someone threw up in it. (Me. That was me.) For months now I've been wondering how families do it when both parents work. Now I'm wondering how we've been making it work even with my part time job. I keep thinking that each instance of chaos within the family is a temporary thing, that we'll get back to "normal". But chaos seems to be our default setting for right now. I think it's time I lean into that fact, rather than the idea of having it all or doing it all or making it work whether it wants to or not!

So I'm letting go of the guilt, the shame. I'm choosing the path that will make my family functional, that will keep me sane. And I'm trying to keep in mind what a wise person once said: there are seasons of employment, and seasons when it makes the most sense to withdraw from the paid workforce. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing deal, and there's freedom in being able to not only recognize the seasons as they come but also to take advantage of them. It's a privilege to be able to say I don't need my job right now. It's the greatest form of freedom. Just making this decision, though it wasn't easy and doesn't come without a whole heap of sadness, has made me so much happier. I've been more smiley, more playful, more fun, as the weight of all the expectations on me has lifted somewhat.

New year, and what we've been up to

I'm not big on making New Year's resolutions. Studies have repeatedly shown that those don't really work out so well anyway. However, I always like the New Year for the fact that it gives me a chance to reflect on my life--the usual stuff, like where life has taken me (spoiler: nothing ever goes to plan), where I see myself in the future (no more than a month or two out though, because even planning that far seems like a joke these days), and what I've been dreaming of the most (a quiet morning all to myself, drinking a whole mug of tea before it ever gets cold).

I won't go over the whole year, because I've already sort of done that. But I've been mostly radio silence for a while in a variety of outlets, and for good reason. The last four months of 2018 put us through the wringer in new and unexpected ways.

At the end of August we were finally able to move my mom into a memory care facility. I'm pleased to report that she is very happy there! We've all noticed how much more relaxed she is, and the staff mention frequently that she's a favorite because she's so sweet. Having met some of the other people there, this is a Big Deal. Dementia can make people bitter, cruel, and even violent in some cases. I haven't seen violence, but the other two have definitely shown.

We love that she's so close--generally we do preschool pickup and then go straight over to visit my mom. I do my grocery shopping over there on weekends and pop in to say hi to her. BUT, the caveat to all this wonderfulness is that it takes so. much. time. If I take half an hour to visit my mom, that's two transitions in and out of the car (or on and off the bus) with, usually, two kids. A half hour visit generally takes about an hour, or an hour and a half if I take the bus. To bike would be down hill, up hill, down hill, then uphill again, and I will freely admit that my legs just can't do those large hills while dragging a trailer. Which the Munchkin is growing out of anyway. Visits further have to be worked around nap times and school times and meal times--for both of my kids and my mom. I have to plan extra time to check in with the staff. And so you don't think I'm martyring myself, or trying to, I'm not the only one doing this! My brothers are also visiting and taking care of my mom's needs. It's just that caring for someone with dementia is always going to be a lot of work, no matter how it's done. We have to buy things for her (toiletries, clothes) and take her to doctor's appointments, and handle calls from them if something happens--like the few times my mom has fallen, or the day she remembered that my dad had died but not how. What else are we going to do, though, abandon her? I remind myself most days that I'm grateful to do this, to be able to do this, and to have had such a wonderful mom that I want to do this for her. Even in the midst of such a tragic illness I know that I am lucky, and I'm thankful.

With her move, however, comes the rather daunting task of cleaning out the house my parents lived in for almost 30 years. They weren't hoarders, but it was a big house so they didn't really have to be. They were both wonderfully sentimental so they kept nearly everything from our childhoods. I mean everything. It's been hilarious to go back through some of the cards we gave them, or that were given to each of us, and the stories we wrote in school. So much stuff is now junk that we've been throwing away (or recycling if possible, naturally), but it's been fun to sort of see ourselves through our parents' eyes. It's just a lot of work. And I gotta say, my Buy Nothing Group is coming in super handy. There's been a bunch of stuff that we haven't needed but haven't wanted to throw away, so I've offered it to others. Someone even wanted all the boxes of Christmas stuff that we didn't! This project has taken far longer than any of us expected, or wanted, but we are at least satisfied that as much of it will go to use as possible. And as of right now, we think we're pretty much done. Hopefully.

"Hello, lady!"

At basically the same time we moved my mom, we adopted a dog. I won't go into the long story about seeking a family friendly dog from the shelter, but it took a while. The guy we got is not what we expected, but he's the dog we needed. I laughed so hard in the beginning because he is comically different from our Old Lady. A 5-year-old beefcake of a pit bull, he's just the sweetest guy, so mild and a bit of a scaredey-cat. The first night he was home--understandably terrified--we caught the Munchkin dragging him up the hallway by his collar, determined to make him sleep with her. He hates being pulled by his collar, but he was meek with her, following along with nothing more than a pleading look. He checks on the baby when she cries, and gives out kisses to both kids. I am by far his favorite hooman, but after a small adjustment period he's settled into being a family dog very nicely. Although, he still refuses to go outside for most people other than me, so I end up standing out on the front stoop waiting for him to do his business. And walking anywhere without me is right out. But when Little Miss Sunshine recently crawled over to try to take a bone he was chewing on, he very gently removed it from her reach, ever mindful that he is bigger and stronger and she's just a baby. He mostly puts up with her attempts to pet him and tug on his ears, and if he decides he's had enough he just walks away. I definitely had a few qualms about bringing home a strange dog (we think he might be part boxer and part English bulldog?), but they are long gone. We named him Fezzik.

There was the start of a new preschool year in September, which meant a big transition and lots of acting out from our older child. Though we'd told her it would happen, the fact that the Munchkin had all new teachers and that some of her best friends had moved on to kindergarten were tough for our kiddo to take. As usual with her big emotions, she chose to take them out on us. We dealt with a few weeks of misbehavior that had us tearing out our hair, screaming into a pillow in frustration, and tagging out with each other frequently so that one of us didn't strangle her. I love my oldest child but even people who've only met her once describe her as a spitfire and a handful. Yup. I'm so looking forward to the transition to kindergarten next year. -_-

We also got the exterior walls of our house insulated and that was the best choice ever. The road noise is noticeably quieter, and our heating bill has been about halved. Or more? I realize that some of that is due to the fact that this winter is warmer than last--we've barely had a few hard frosts this year. But the house feels much cozier. In case you're curious, after all rebates from our utility the cost was just over $1,100. Always get multiple quotes. The first company quoted us over $7,000!!!

Into the midst of this, a friend told us that her daughter, it turned out, is horribly allergic to cats so did we want a cat who was used to kids? We took in the cat, Kona, on a trial basis--since Fezzik's history was completely unknown, and the shelter warned us that pits tend to have a strong prey drive. HA!! He chased the cat precisely once, because she was terrified and bolted and he just wanted to meeeet heeeer!! Of course that happened in the middle of the night and woke everyone up, so it was a nice 2-hour interruption to the night's sleep. But the pets seemed fine with each other by the next morning, so adopt this cat we did. She's a sweetheart with a tough history on the mean streets, but she hasn't let it make her bitter. She is amazingly good with both our kids--she'll lie still and let the baby pet her!--and she snuggles with us frequently. It's nice to have a cat around again.

Box cat! I put a blanket in there
to make it a bed for her.

We went to my cousin's wedding in early October--hurray! So much fun to see the extended family again, although it was pretty hard on me because HusbandX couldn't make it. He couldn't even, as the original plan was, make it to his own cousin's wedding in a different state, because work wouldn't give him the time off. So I had my brothers helping me, but I was still the only parent to two kids on a whirlwind three-state weekend trip. Woo. I didn't get to spend as much time with my cousins as I wanted because I was exhausted, and at least one kid seemed to demand my attention at all times (the baby swiftly went from "cool, new people" to "I only ever want Mom"), but I still managed to have a ball. And hey, I got to see one of my favorite cousins* get married!

Then I brought back strep throat, which my eldest brother had had. I got it at the same time the brother who babysits for us got it. Then HusbandX got it, and my brother and I both got it again. (Pro tip: apparently you're supposed to replace your toothbrush after you've had strep. That would have been nice to know, people at urgent care. Thanks.) The only mercy was that it's incredibly rare for children, and especially infants, to get strep. (Can you imagine anything worse than an infant with strep throat?!) So the kids were spared, but that also meant our two month journey through illness had to be done with two energetic, demanding kids going at full steam. Even worse, HusbandX wasn't permitted to take time off work basically at all. He even had to be careful about his sick days, even when he was at his sickest, and vacation time was right out. Hellish.

We had a 5th birthday, a grandparent visit, and an unexpected job loss all in one weekend. That was a doozy, followed the next week by hosting Thanksgiving. Luckily it was only family, but still it was a lot to happen in less than a week. The birthday parties (one for family, one for friends) followed by Thanksgiving would have been plenty on their own, but we can't seem to have anything crazy without adding moar crazy! It was about this time I finally realized that I've been waiting for the crazy to die down for four years now and I really just need to accept that it won't. The crazy will never end. Crazytown is where we live now. I've accepted this. Mostly.

We had my father-in-law visit, then my mother-in-law (for the birthday!), and then my father-in-law again. However, around the time he arrived here his brother broke a major bone while doing something he frequently does, and then found out that it was because he has cancer. So my FIL flew back to Alaska to then fly with his brother (due to mobility issues) and sister-in-law to go see a specialist here and discuss a course of action. Thankfully, the friend who'd been renting the basement apartment from us bought his own house (yay!) and moved out of here at the end of October. So we had plenty of space to put everyone up, AND we had beds because there was an extra at my parents' house that my brother had brought over. I just wish we'd been seeing all of them under better circumstances. As good news, though, the prognosis looks good and treatment can be done in Alaska, so there's no need for people to fly back and forth to Seattle.

Drying racks! When not in use,
we can put them down to be
flat against the wall.

While he was here, my FIL helped us with one major/minor project that makes my life so much easier. By "help", I really mean he did pretty much all of the work. He put drying racks in the laundry room. I shamelessly stole the design from this and I gotta say, I love them. I was slightly worried that the lack of airflow in the laundry room would lead to mildew and a lack of actual drying but that doesn't seem to be the case. Our stuff dries so much faster now and I can fit almost two whole loads of laundry onto the racks.

December somewhat slowed down after the family left, as we took the holiday prep at a chill pace. Except, our dishwasher broke just before Christmas. Maybe "broke" is a bit of an exaggeration but it stopped cleaning as well and started making a giant, awful noise. So we've been washing dishes by hand for weeks now, waiting for HusbandX and my brother to have time to figure out what's wrong. And it will be time-consuming, because they'll have to move the fridge and pull up some of the floorboards. At least we'll get to unearth the lovely 60's linoleum, circa the year our house was built, that we know is lurking beneath? Should be as beautiful as the olive green shag carpet in the front hall closet.

Christmas was small, nothing but local family, but things ramped up again at the end of the year as we (joyfully) hosted my eldest brother and his family. Several days of staying up late, watching the little cousins play, and playing many, many board games together. My brothers and I got some necessary family stuff done--cleaning even more stuff out of my parents' house, making some decisions--but mostly we were able to just hang out and enjoy each other's company. I laughed until I cried several times. Again, I'm so lucky to have siblings who I not only get along with but am friends with. This journey with my mom would be so much harder if we didn't have such a close relationship.

We ended the visit with my little section of the family all getting sick. Happy New Year!

Through all of this I should also add that I'm still dealing with a lot of grief. I don't know what I expected, an end point? But it's shocking to me how sad I still am at times that my dad is gone. Most of the time it's in the background, there but unnoticed. Then at times it's so sharp. There have been afternoons when I've gone to preschool pickup crying because I heard a song on the radio that made me think of my dad, or times when I've looked at Little Miss and been so sad and angry that my dad never got to meet her. I still can't tell if it's beautiful or awful that she looks so much like his baby photos. He would have adored her. It kills me that they never got to meet, and that I didn't get my chance to tell him about her. But she makes it almost impossible to stay sad around her, and mostly I'm just happy that she seems to have much of his easygoing, happy disposition.

This baby goes her own way, even when
it comes to sitting in chairs. Or getting stuck in them.

In a different way, I'm also grieving my mom. Constantly. It's so bittersweet to see her and I wrestle with so many emotions--anger that this happened to her, to all of us. Grief for what could have been but won't. Bitterness because I know she did so many things "right" but still has to go through this. Anguish, because I know how painful, distressing, and embarrassing this all is for her. And joy because, in so many ways, it's still wonderful to have her with us. She has sometimes made angry or sad comments about what she used to be. "I have two master's degrees," she told my brother when she got lost at the aquarium last summer. We always point out that she's still a wonderful mother and an amazing grandmother, and it's true. She still knows family, and even remembers the baby's name once in a while. Her language skills are almost nonexistent at this point (it helps to think of her as a Benjamin Button, regressing in the way my baby is progressing--at the moment she's about like an 18 month-old) but she still manages to ask after her granddaughters if we show up without them. She lights up around my kids and they do with her as well.

But then I go back to anger again, that so much has been stolen from all of them by this wretched, horrible illness. I cannot be happy about her without it being tinged by sadness as well. Maybe that's just part of growing up, of having aging parents?

So that's where I stand at the beginning of this new year. So much good with a healthy mix of horrible, sad, and distressing at the same time. We have a basement and attic full of stuff, much of which is now ours but not really our own. We're working like crazy and constantly feel like we're running in place. Like I said, we live in Crazytown on a permanent basis now.

I've asked myself if I have any goals for the new year and mostly just laugh at myself. How can I plan things? And I always have goals that I'm working toward. We've had a joke ever since we moved into our house that things are "on the list". Someone will tell us something we should do or change to make the house better for us and we say, "Yeah, it's on the list." The list, if we wrote it out, is huge. We will never get everything on the list done. But that's sorta life, isn't it? And instead of focusing on what's imperfect about our house we generally make things work and focus on what we love. If I have a theme or a goal for 2019 I think it's to approach the rest of my life more that way. I always have stuff to look forward to--even that dreaded kindergarten transition means that my big kid will be in kindergarten!! She was almost crying the other day when I had to tell her that kindergarten won't start until next fall, because she's heard me saying she'd be in kindergarten "next year" and it's next year, right??!! It broke her heart because she is so ready to learn, to move on to bigger and better things.

My baby is about to turn one and I'm so excited to see how she grows and changes over the coming year. She's such a delightful kid, and she makes me so happy. She gives me kisses all the time, and she loves to snuggle. Her default state is one of pleasant curiosity, although she already doesn't like hearing "no" and throws little baby tantrums occasionally. She loves to do things for herself, to play with her sister, and she gets into everything. We have another "handful", just in a very different way.

So that's where I stand. Overwhelmed, exhausted, grieving, pleased, hopeful, and excited. Bring it on, 2019.



*I found a letter at my mom's house from one of my cousins, when we decided to be pen pals in elementary school. She called me her "favorite cousin" because "I trust you!!!" Now that we're all grown adults, and friends, this is hilarious to me. They're all favorite cousins. Just as with my brothers, I'm super lucky to have cousins that I actually enjoy spending time with.

Seeking abundance

A while ago I decided to see how much of what we need I could get for free. Within ethical limitations, of course. No stealing, no cheating others, and gifts don't count. This was not actually because I'm miserly and cheap, it was more an exercise in what is garbage. What are people willing to discard that's still really useful to someone, somewhere? What do we, as a society, get rid of?

If you dig into the cycle of production and discarding of items at all, it becomes pretty clear that we all have a problem. This is not a healthy thing, as individuals or as a society. It has become a sickness, one that is not making anyone happy. In an age of superabundance, when you'd think we'd all be happy because we have not only our needs but most of our wants met, people are severely depressed in increasingly large numbers. There are many causes of depression that I won't get into here, but one of them is definitely the fact that we are too tied to our stuff and the work and the money it takes to get all of that stuff.

So instead of buying new, or even used, I've been trying to see what's out there that people would otherwise discard. I joined my local Buy Nothing Group and another local sharing group as the first steps. People are posting things every single day, either searching for or getting rid of.

What struck me the most was just how much junk people have. Useful items--small appliances, kitchen tools, soaps and bath products, furniture, pet care items, clothes, even food--get posted frequently. But overshadowing those items are things like costume jewelry, novelties given as gifts, wine glass charms, etc. Things that, if we're honest, none of us actually needs. Things we don't really think about or want in our lives. There's a reason they go up on Buy Nothing after a while. And how many more people have these items that just sit unused in a closet somewhere? How many go to charity shops, or straight to the dump?

How many resources have been wasted, how much money has been wasted, on stuff that was made solely to be garbage?

So while I've been getting some items that I need, I've been very particular about what I'm willing to get. Most of what I've received has been from a specific ask that I made--such as winter boots for the Munchkin. Only a few times have I said I was interested in something that was posted by others. Most notably, bricks from a chimney that was taken down and some old paving blocks. I'll use them in the garden next summer when we re-do it, the bricks to make an herb spiral and the paving blocks to re-do two small beds that are currently made out of rotting lumber.

Free planter boxes that
the previous owners of
our house left for us.

But if you think that the sharing groups are the only source of free stuff, you would be very wrong. People put stuff out curbside with "free" signs frequently. There's the Craigslist "free" section. People are constantly getting rid of perfectly serviceable and useful items if you ask around.

Over the summer, my office moved to a new location. With the new location, the people in charge went a little crazy. Nearly everything was new for the new office. New furniture! New silverware! And as it turned out, new appliances.

When we moved into our house we knew that we'd need to get a new fridge. The one the previous owners left was an early 90s model and quite the energy hog. Plus, the design was terrible. It's a side-by-side that was very narrow so food was always getting shoved to the back, forgotten and moldy. We hated it.

When the office manager mentioned that the office was getting a new fridge for the new location, I asked what was happening to the old fridge. "Old" meaning that it was 3 years old, a fancy stainless steel one with the fridge on top and freezer on the bottom. The office manager offered it to me right then, as long as I could pick it up myself, and I happily accepted.

We also took the microwave and the toaster oven. And I'm still kicking myself for not taking one or two of the bookshelves. It was a crazy free-for-all, with people claiming a bunch of stuff that wasn't being moved to the new office. So much of it, though, still went to the landfill. The night we went to get the appliances I saw a homeless man digging through the dumpster. He pulled out a few of the things that I had been the one to throw away earlier that day because I had no idea what else to do with them. That, I do not hesitate to tell you, made me feel very ashamed.

As for the old fridge, I sort of thought that we could turn it into an ice box on the porch for winter but HusbandX nixed that idea. I tried giving it away through various means but no one would take it, not even for free. So I finally paid the city to haul it away after living with two fridges in our kitchen (one unplugged) for about a month.

Not just abundance, overabundance

The final source for free stuff in our lives is one that I'm hesitant to bring up. My brothers and I have been cleaning out our parents' house for a while now. My mom moved at the end of summer into a care facility, which has been a wonderful thing. She's so close now, and less stressed out. She lives with other people like herself--the facility is only for memory care--so no one thinks that she's strange. She's found a community and, in general, is quite happy.

But. This has left us, her kids, with the task of cleaning out her house. I know, absolutely know, that my parents would never have willingly left this task to us. Especially not in this way. But we don't get to choose how we die, so here we all are.

The reason I hesitated to bring this one up is because I don't think of my parents' house as a source of free stuff. Cleaning it out has been a mixed bag of an exhausting, burdensome chore, a source of stress and anxiety, a look into family history, and a source of hilarity. We've found the most bizarre collection of items, some of which surely weren't meant to be saved and others of which we'll never know why they were saved. A caftan-like garment made out of an old sheet? (The only thing I could think of was that it was, at some point, used as a shepherd's robe in some nativity play.) The world's creepiest old porcelain doll? What great-grandparent did that originally belong to? And why was my dad's briefcase from the 80s inexplicably stuffed with nothing but pennies and shoved in the attic?

I wasn't kidding about the briefcase of pennies.

I found an old journal of mine that made me laugh until I cried, just from reading the first page. It just complains, in a whiny way, that my older brothers were being so mean to me. When I read some of it to one of said brothers he asked, "1996? ...Yeah, that sounds about right."

We've taken what useful items we could. We likely won't have to buy dish towels for many, many years. Some kitchen implements my parents had were far nicer than ours and will last much longer. We have bath towels and furniture and sheets.

But most of what we've gotten to use has been sentimental. The Munchkin and Little Miss Sunshine get their great-great grandfather's childhood bedroom furniture. The kids' clothing is useful, but it's not utility that I'm thinking of when I see one of my kids in a sweater my mom knitted for one of us. My dad's old woolen bathrobe is functional, yes, but wearing it makes me think of all the times I saw him wearing it as I was growing up, all the old Christmas morning pictures in which he's wearing it. It won't bring my dad back, but it can keep him close, keep his memory alive and present in my mind.

There's plenty of stuff that we're taking in, however, that we have no idea what to do with. A couple of dresses from, I think, the 20s? They're so fragile that they can't be worn, but they obviously had meaning for whoever saved them. And they are beautiful, but...?? Many items we did not take, even though they might well be valuable or have family history attached to them. What would we do with my grandmother's teacup collection? Or the heirloom silver?

This has been yet another thing that throws in my face how much junk most of us have. Cleaning out the house my parents lived in for 25 years has been a monumental task purely because so much of what they kept was useful at one time, but is no longer. My mom's college textbooks? Those got recycled. No one wants 40-year-old biology books, and for good reason. They're in the Library of Congress and that's good enough.

A bouncy ball that had been chewed on by one of our
old dogs. I'm assuming this was saved by accident?

Businesses are very fond of giving away items to employees that have the company name stamped on them. But what the heck is a stainless steel bowl good for that has a company name stamped on it, even if it is a Paul Revere replica? ...We're now using that as a dog food bowl. Sorry, Mom and Dad!

Since HusbandX and I are at the point in our lives that we're getting stuff like this from our own companies, it's making me think much harder about it all. My kids will not care about a plaque I might get for five years of service. I wish I could change corporate culture at least to the point that more meaningful gifts are given out, or less permanent ones. Flowers and charitable donations, as my company does for births and deaths in employee families, seems like a much better way to honor someone than a plaque or bowl with the company's name all over it.

One of my new goals in life is to pass down next to nothing to my children that isn't useful or sentimental for them. The easiest way to do this, of course, is to ensure that we are good stewards of what is in our house. This is a process, not a one-time thing like spring cleaning. We try to limit what comes into our house--which is much harder said than done when children are involved. Everyone wants to get them stuff. New toys! New stuffed animals! Fancy dress clothes! I was scraping my mind earlier trying to remember if we'd ever bought either of our kids a toy in their entire lives. I finally remembered that we bought some blocks for the Munchkin's 4th birthday. But that's it. In five years of having children we've only ever bought one toy. So why do we have four bins of toys? Because it's really hard, if not impossible, to say no when someone is being generous and wants to give your kid a gift. How ungrateful! But at the same time, we have toys in our house that rarely, if ever, get played with. I'm still trying to figure out how to work through this problem without major tantrums and without offending anyone.

The grownup stuff and the baby stuff is easier. I've been not only getting things through Buy Nothing, I've also been giving them away. Almost as soon as something is identified as being of no further use to us, it's been posted for others to take. In some cases, things have been set aside for friends. I've had a few friends trying for babies so I've kept the clothes from Little Miss Sunshine in case anyone has a girl. If not, those will also go the Buy Nothing route or to a homeless shelter for families.

We're still under a mountain of Stuff. We're not minimalists, and we even still have boxes to go through from our move. Some items are just difficult to know what to do with. But we're working through it, and these projects have made me by turns thankful for our abundance and disgusted by the overabundance. We could do without so many of our things, even many of the useful ones could be gotten by without, that it makes me cringe when I think of all the people out there who are scraping by without much of anything at all. Can we be ethical people when we allow there to be such disparity in terms of wealth and material abundance? I didn't expect all of these questions to be raised within myself when I started on this journey, and I don't have the answers. What I do know, now, is how much less I need than what we're taught we should have.

Bad news: there's a recession coming

Okay, this is not really a prediction. For one thing, I'm not even going to try to guess at when or why or how it will come about. But we live in an economy that, fairly regularly, doesn't work as intended. As economists like to put it, the economy goes through "corrections". Sometimes this involves only certain sectors and ancillary industries, but sometimes (as in 2008) it involves the entire economy. Or the world. Right now we are in one of the longest periods of "growth" ever, and this means that at some point the good times will end. That's the way our economy works. I've known this since I took economics in high school, and it baffles me that this always seems to come as a surprise to so many people when recessions happen. I guess a decade is long enough to make some people think that it will never happen again.

This is also not my prediction. There's this article, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, all with different experts talking about various reasons why we should be worried about the economy. Some point to credit card debt (which is as high as it was at the start of the 2008 recession) or student loan debt (which is now counted in trillions, and has never been higher), others to national debt, or all of that debt put together, which is enough that it should be worrisome even without the economic implications. Others point to stock market indicators like the "Buffett valuation indicator", and charts for various signs to look for. The thing is, they're not wrong. At some point, one of these things will go belly-up and then the rest of it will be in big trouble. Which means that we will all be in trouble.

Last, there are rumblings that the "recovery" was not actually a recovery. Basically all of the gains went to the already wealthy, and those of us who weren't born to crazy wealth are a bit worse off. I can't say I disagree with that assessment, considering that in these happy magical boom times, somehow around half of the people in the richest, greatest, and best nation on earth can't afford basic needs. Homelessness is up. People can't afford food, or medical care. It's like GDP doesn't actually measure how well individuals are doing, or that jobs which don't even pay minimum wage and don't give any benefits aren't doing anyone any favors. Crazy. Or, it's like having corporations do stock buybacks to enrich their already wealthy shareholders while suppressing wages is creating huge income inequality. Who knew?

So, with all of that lovely news, what can and should we do about this? The first thing, clearly, is for each of us to take stock of our actual financial picture. I like to do this about every six months or so for my household. I go through and figure out exactly how much money we have saved up and how much we owe in debts. It hurts a little, right? Yeah. But hopefully that's a good thing. After all, we can't figure out where to focus our efforts without the little bits that pinch. Maybe it's a credit card you haven't paid off, or that mountain of student loan debt, or the mighty mortgage payments every month. Whatever hurts, there's a reason for it.

And what hurts, that's what I focus my attention on. If it hurts now, when things are relatively good, then it's going to be a lodestone when things crash. Do what you have to to ensure that it can't bite you even worse later on.

A little story: 

I was lucky enough that my parents paid my college tuition. I did a lot to help them out. I paid my living expenses through my own jobs, I went to community college first, and I went to a University where I got in-state tuition. But still, my tuition was paid for. I was lucky enough to pay that forward a little. I graduated before HusbandX did and got a job with the University. It didn't pay much but it was a labor of love. One day, I realized that my then-boyfriend and I didn't actually have to be married to get partner benefits. One was healthcare, but the other was free tuition. Score! We jumped through a few hoops, like opening a bank account together, and he finished his degree while only having to pay fees for the last of it.

After HusbandX graduated, he got a job. That disappeared after four months because he graduated right into the recession. The same thing, pretty much, happened with his next two jobs. Luckily, we had continued to live as if we were still college students, mostly off of my salary (less than $30,000/year, sometimes less than $25,000/year net) and saved in our own "boom" times. Meanwhile, the student loans went into deferral and racked up interest. We got married, and his debt became my debt. Thanks, love! At some point, flush in the pocket due to double employment, we decided that we should start paying off those loans. Instead of going for the minimum, however, we decided to set the bar at $600/month. This was what we thought, fancy-free childless people that we were, was a reasonable amount to pay back monthly against $35,000. Not as much as we would like, but a reasonable amount.

Somewhere in there we had a kid. HusbandX went back to school and his income dropped into the low hundreds of dollars per month. We moved, and were mostly jobless for two years. We lived with my parents. And still, we paid $600 every month like clockwork. It was not easy. We could have let the loans go into deferral again and gather more interest. It would have wiped out all of the gains we'd made by paying them off so aggressively, but conventional wisdom said that it would be fine, we could pay it back later! Obviously, we didn't go that route, and just kept paying. We dipped into our savings to make the payments, but that was why we had the savings. We prioritized paying back our debt above most other things.

Almost exactly a year ago, we realized that the debt had gotten low enough that, even without totally wiping out our emergency fund, we could pay off the rest in one swoop. $10,000 or so gone, just like that. If we hadn't done that then we would still be paying $600 a month toward that debt. Every single month. By paying it off early we saved ourselves about 18 months of payments and a little over $500 in interest. Seems pretty worthwhile, right? That's not even what I appreciate the most, however. Not having that debt hanging over our heads, and the large payment every month, has been so freeing. And now we have no student loans while most of our peers are still paying the monthly minimum.

What to do with all of this information?

We were able to do this not because we've made tons of money through our lives--on the contrary, most of our marriage has involved very low salaries punctuated by a few months of relatively high earnings. We were able to pay off this debt because we worked hard at it. That is so underrated in our society. We didn't spend our money on unnecessary and frivolous crap. I hate to say it, but most people do. If you ever wonder where your money has gone, you should probably look around you. If you can find even a few unnecessary things in just a quick scan, you have your answer. We prioritized paying off our debt while most people prioritize Things.

When you have a debt to pay, the minimum monthly payment is just that. The minimum. It is not designed to help you, or for your convenience, or to benefit you in any way. It's designed to keep you paying at that debt as long as it can be dragged out, so that the lender can gather as much interest from you as possible. It's usury, plain and simple. Put your debts through a debt calculator to figure out how much money you'll be paying in the long run. With the $35,000 we owed in student loans, the average interest rate was 6% (I think--it might have been more). If we'd paid half of what we did, only $300 each month, that would have taken us almost fifteen years to pay off. It would also have cost us almost $53,000 in the end thanks to interest. As it is, since debt is always front-loaded with interest (that is, you pay more interest at the beginning of your repayments) we still paid almost $40,000. Ouch. Ouch. I can think of so many better things we could have done with that extra 5k than spend it on interest.

I don't say all of this to brag about how awesome we are. I want to help other people feel as secure as we do, because it's important. Debt is so rampant in our culture, however, that people have gotten used to it. They feel comfortable with it, even if they're not secure. However, I have a radical notion and it is this: you cannot feel good if you do not feel secure. If you constantly feel as if you're one or two paychecks away from losing everything, that is a source of stress, not happiness.

One major part of our security has been that we plan for the worst. I have friends who've described this quite aptly as the "inner bag lady". When you get anxious and think about all the worst possibilities that could happen, that's your inner bag lady talking. For me, my inner bag lady whispers about a lot of things. A lot. The key is that I listen to her just enough that I have a plan in place for all of these things. Seriously. I won't go into all the ridiculous scenarios that my IBL (inner bag lady) has come up with for me to fret about in the dark of the night, but suffice to say that I know I have plans in place and that allows me to tune out the IBL's worst ravings. I let her prod me into making better financial choices, but other than that I am able to ignore her.

People who do not prepare themselves for bad things, however, end up having to listen to their IBL more often. What if I miss a payment and the car is taken away?  Or, I can't lose my job because I NEED it. When little things crop up, and they always do, those who are not prepared for such emergencies end up with more stress and more worries than those of us who plan and prepare for such things. Just this year, we finished paying all of the bills for the birth of Little Miss Sunshine, a planned expense, and then the bathtub in our basement cracked. Decidedly not planned. But it was okay, we had the savings to cover that too. And again to cover the cost when our car got a flat tire a few weeks after the bathtub was fixed. Again, this is why we had the savings. All the scrimping and saving and watching our pennies is worthwhile to not have any worries when emergencies crop up.

Each person should have 3-6 months, or more, of living expenses saved up as an emergency fund. It should be money that you can access within 30 days or less. Having equity in a house does not count, nor does a retirement fund. We have our e-fund in three different places, as an added layer of security. The first and most obvious is in our savings account. But we also have a small amount in an index fund, so that it will gain interest faster than our savings account. (It's not much--I think I could have bought a drip coffee every other week with the gains this year, had I been so inclined.) The third place is in a different, international investment. This diversity gives us a variety of safeguards. If the stock market tanks and we lose everything in the index fund, oh well. If our credit union, for some reason, goes belly-up it's still not the end of the world. If the third fund turns out to be run by a Bernie Madoff wannabe* then we won't lose all of our emergency money.

Every single person should have this, if at all possible. I know, there are plenty of people for whom that is a distant reality. So much more reason why the rest of us should have our shit together. Assistance should be for those who really need it, not those who had opportunities and pissed them away on crap.

As a couple, and that part is important in a relationship, HusbandX and I have always set our finances up as if we expect life to come crashing down around us. This is partly because it usually does at some point. Since we're Millennials (maybe?) this experience is not unusual. What is unusual is that we always have the money to cover the crash. Most people don't. Don't be most people.

But wait! I said above that most of us aren't experiencing an economic high right now, that wages are depressed and it's harder for the average person to get by. Yet I'm still saying that people should save out of their meager pay?! Yes, that is correct. I know it's hard. But again, if things are hard for the average person right now, it won't get any easier during the next recession. Layoffs and foreclosures and seized assets are going to take an even bigger toll the next time around because the buffer just isn't there anymore for so many people.

Weeding out the chaff

There's one more hidden advantage to making the necessary cuts to save money and pay off debt "aggressively". Because we prioritize these two things we have also learned exactly what is important to us and what is not. We have identified our needs and all else is unnecessary fluff. Which is not to say that we never buy fluff, just that we keep it to a minimum.

As an example, I recently purchased a new bike saddle. This, to my mind, straddled the line between "need" and "want." I had a saddle, one that was not worn out or damaged. However when I started riding again after Little Miss Sunshine was born, it hurt. I was saddle sore for weeks. It mostly faded, but there were still new pressure points. After several months of dealing with an uncomfortable saddle (which can cause lasting damage, BTW) I sprung for a new one. It was pricey, over $100. I even paused for a whole month before finally purchasing it, because I wanted to be absolutely certain that it was really what I needed. Now...oh boy, riding my bike and not being sore is wonderful. Not only that but this purchase also advances one of our family's goals (health), and it makes my rides more fun. Fun bike rides = more bike rides, less driving or transit, and also a happier, healthier Mom. Wins all around! (My favorite.)

Conversely, almost all of the furniture in our house was free. Buying a house is a usual time for people to go more than a bit spendy, buying new furniture, pots and pans, towels--new everything--to fill the house. We lived with a mostly bare house for most of last summer, slowly accumulating our motley collection of free furniture. The only item we purchased was our mattress. Even the bed frame was given to us by my brother-in-law. I can live with hand-me-down furniture, including the section of the couch where the seams are pulling apart. I even like that a lot of the furniture is not new--we have the dining table and chairs that my grandmother gave to my parents when they got married. (She reportedly got the table at a garage sale for something like $20. Go grandma!) We have the bedroom set that belonged to my grandfather and his brother, for my girls. The couch that's looking kinda worn is also super comfortable. Many a nap has been taken on there, and a few night's sleeps.**

We are slowly spending money on our house as we identify what matters to us, but furniture is waaaaaay down the list. We'd rather spend that money making ourselves actually, rather than superficially, more comfortable. Insulation for the house is our big project this fall.*** It will serve us well for many years to come, through good times and bad. When the next recession comes I won't be cursing the insulation, which I would if I'd instead bought a new couch--especially on credit. Prioritizing things as we do means that we will also be much more comfortable over the long term. We are more comfortable now than many of our peers who are deep in student loan debt, but we will also be more comfortable as debt and lifestyle creep catch up to our peers who continue to pay the minimums, often racking up more debt in the meantime. We've planned for the very worst and since that is unlikely to happen, anything else that comes our way is something that we can handle. We've taken care of those worries in advance, rather than letting them pile up later on.



*My brother-in-law is working for this company, and I'm confident that he would know if it was a scam. It's a small operation. As a general rule, however, I don't recommend investing any money outside of large corporations with a proven track record.
**My only excuse is that David Attenborough is pretty damn soothing when you're tired. So easy to fall asleep listening to him talk elephants and snails.
***After the rebates from our utility, the price will come in just over $1000. Not too shabby.

The Midsummer Garden and What to Plant

Amazingly enough, it's the middle of summer here. It's gone by so fast. When I think that I haven't gotten much done, however, I glance at the garden. Tossing a few seeds about and planting a few starts has somehow turned into actual plants that are huge. The teeny tiny tomatoes that I planted are enormous and bushy and vying for space because, whoops, I planted them too close. (And now I don't want to tear any out because I forgot to label them. I think that one of the varieties was a slower grower, and I don't want to just pull those plants!)

What's going on in and around our house

The broccoli is starting to form crowns, and I've been harvesting both peas and carrots like crazy. I've even had lots of meals now where all of the vegetables came from my garden, even a few non-salads. (Hello, stir-fry!) That is a huge accomplishment for me. As the summer ages, I expect to have that become more the norm than an outlier, or at least to have an even more significant amount of our vegetable diet be homegrown. The carrots I've been using have almost exclusively been the ones I needed to thin, so they've been smaller than usual. More like baby carrots. As the others get bigger due to the extra growing room I'll be able to use fewer but have them make up a larger percentage of our meals. The tomatoes that are big and green should start ripening soon, and my squashes are still just babies that won't be ready until sometime in the fall. I have another sowing of greens that's starting to pop up (although not as many as I planted, stupid summer heat and stupid birds eating the seeds!) and my peppers are finally starting to put out some fruit.

This is the kind of bouquet I can get behind.

For some crops, like garden peas, I've been using what I think of as the 50/50 rule: half the time when I harvest, the garden peas get eaten fresh. The other half get shelled, blanched, and tossed in the freezer. Small batch blanching is easy with peas. I boil water in the kettle (usually making tea as well) pour it over the peas in a small bowl, let sit for about 30 seconds, then drain the water and put the peas in the bag in the freezer. If I'm really on my game I pour the blanching water into another container so that, when it cools, I can use it to water some of my plants. Don't waste that water! (We also pour "stale" water, or mystery water if we can't tell whose glass it was, onto the plants. Don't waste water!)

I use this same rule for the fruit I bring home from the farmer's market. Half of it is either frozen or preserved, the rest is eaten fresh. Yum. Don't worry, even with this rule we've been making ourselves sick with what we've eaten fresh. #worthit

Freezing our own fruit for winter use has been an exceedingly worthwhile use of my time. If you've ever bought frozen fruit from the store, you know how pricey it gets. $9 for a pound of cherries makes spending the time to pit them, lay them out on a pan, and stuff them in the freezer a bargain when I can buy organic local cherries for $4/lb. I can do well over thee pounds in an hour. Even better, cherries can be water bath canned in nothing but water and I've found them to be incredibly versatile that way. I used most of my jars over the winter in either baked oatmeal or as the fruit in a yogurt and granola parfait. Of course, you can also turn them into dessert, like a cobbler or topping for ice cream, but the healthier options are like a nice treat anyway, at least to me. Again, don't waste the water. It's got all kinds of nutrients in it from the cherries! Use that in baking, or in those parfaits. Thicken it into a sauce and pour it over ice cream, or into yogurt. Use it in a cocktail. Just don't dump it out.

If you're going to work with cherries, do yourself a favor and get a pitter. Or as my brother described it, a cherry hole-punch. They make it a breeze to do pounds and pounds of cherries. I will never, ever go back to cutting each cherry by hand and picking out the pit.

Some of our strawberries got preserved in jars as well. Since we still have several jams in our basement, and I didn't want to do another strawberry jam, I instead made strawberry syrup and, with the leftover pulp, strawberry butter. Yum. These were, unfortunately, farmer's market strawberries. All of ours were either eaten directly after picking or by the critters. We've got future plans for keeping them safe and expanding the number of plants, but our current set-up is rather poor for that.

Catastrophic preserving fail! The contents
were hot when I put it in the canner
--maybe the jar was too old?

In the midst of all of this harvesting, preserving, and the ongoing weeding, I had to plan and purchase my fall and winter garden. I've been enjoying eating out of the garden so much that I wanted to carry it forward all year, and not just from the larder. I had to figure out what will grow around here, and most important, what we will actually eat. It's totally pointless to plant something that grows well but that we hate. That being said, I ordered seeds for Scarlet Kale over my spouse's objections. ("If you grow that, eventually it's going to end up in my dinner!") I'm hoping that homegrown kale is different from store-bought kale, but I also have a few recipes that call for kale and I'd like to make them. (Even if my husband won't eat them, I will.) Plus, a winter-hardy and incredibly nutritious "green" (in this case, more of a purple) vegetable is hard to turn my nose up at.

I also ordered two kinds of chard (rainbow and Perpetual Spinach), a turnip variety, Early Wonder beets, and two kinds of carrots. I'm hoping to get more broccoli going before fall, since my family will eat three crowns in one meal (the Munchkin loves it as much as we do) and I'm still debating whether or not to get garlic. I don't want to get too ambitious, however, because we have plans to re-do the backyard, especially the garden, sometime next year. We've mostly hashed out a plan (my proposal for backyard chickens was nixed, darn it!) but it's going to take a lot of work. Since I don't want to stop growing things--horrors--I'm going to mostly be trying to do the work around both the weather and what's growing in the garden at any given time. Wish me luck.

The potato experiment

I've experimented in the past with ways to grow potatoes up rather than out, since space has always been an issue in my gardens. Sometimes this has been decently successful, other times not so much. Sometimes the weather interferes (rainy summers) and getting even a couple of potatoes is an accomplishment.

The idea behind growing up is that potatoes grow between the seed and what you see on the surface. If you can maximize the root that grows between those two things then you should have a decent number of potatoes. This year I put together a pallet bed specifically for potatoes. It's deep. It's wide. Roughly 4x4, plus three feet deep, it's a rather large growing space. It's also cited in a lovely spot, so it gets lots of sun all day.

What's experimental about this little bed is how I planted the potatoes. They've got a thick layer of compost at the bottom, then I placed the potatoes, and on top of that I alternately layered compost and grass clippings. The grass serves multiple purposes. One, it lightens up the load. I put over a foot of compost and grass clippings over those potatoes. That's a lot of ground for a potato to try to grow through, and it's possible to smother the seed potatoes. If it wastes all of its energy just trying to get its sprout to the surface, it's not exactly going to make a healthy plant. Or, in some cases, any plant.

Second, it adds organic material to break down and continually feed the potatoes. Potatoes are rather heavy feeders. I don't believe in breaking down a plant's nutrient needs into simply N-P-K as many fertilizers do--I think that's as silly as saying humans only need fat, protein, and carbs. Clearly we need more, and they can be crucially important, just as many trace minerals and nutrients can be important to plants. The decaying grass, which I'm certain is pretty much unrecognizable by now, will release its nutrients over the summer as it continues breaking down with the help of the compost. Or at least, that's the hope.

My janky, lopsided pallet bed. I don't care that it's not
pretty. It's lined with gardener's fabric so I can easily
dig through the soil when it's time to get the spuds.

Third, grass clippings can hold a lot of water. By layering them in there I've basically made a continual watering system, so that the potatoes won't ever run dry. This also means that I don't need to water them as often, or for as long. We soaked the entire bed really well a few times and since then I've not done much more than point the hose in there for a minute or two. The plants are thriving, putting out flowers and truly healthy looking.

Will it work and give me tons of gorgeous potatoes? I have no idea. Right now the plants are more than chest high to me, with roughly two feet of above-ground growth. Let's hope that what's under the ground is doing just as well.

Starting the winter garden

As crazy as it seems, now is the time to start planting for fall, and in just another month or so it will be time to start planting for winter. O_O  I know.

I tried a new method of planting carrots that I'd read about, and that is planting gel. Supposedly it wraps the seed in a protective coating and helps it maintain moisture for about as long as it needs to get going. You can buy them, or you can make it for just a few cents with some water and cornstarch. Guess which one I did?

Well, I'm not sure if I did it wrong or if it works better in spring, when it's wet anyway, but it ended up making my neat planting rows into dried husks with seeds embedded in them. My next planting of carrots, without the gel, got eaten by the birds. :( I'm still trying to figure out how to keep it all damp enough to sprout seeds and also keep it safe from the birds.

There was an attempt.

One thing that I will recommend for seed starting is chitting your seeds. Most gardeners know that you can do this with potatoes but many other seeds can be chitted before planting. Once the root starts growing it will keep growing unless the conditions it's been planted in are just seriously wrong. Like, a chitted squash seed will not continue growing if it's then planted in mostly frozen or boggy soil. But if you chit a seed and plant it out at the right time, you can sometimes get an extra week or two of growing time. This works easily with big seeds, like peas and squash, but can also work for smaller seeds. I've seen people chit them on top of a bowl of growing gel, or in a mason jar, or in a paper towel. Just check the seeds every day and plant very carefully (so as not to disturb or break off that root) at the first sign of growth.

Is it all worthwhile?

I estimate that I've spent about $400 on the garden this year. That is not a small amount of money. However, much of it has been spent on things that will pay off for many years. We bought four more blueberry plants (for a total of six), which won't pay themselves off for several years. In this first year, I actually pulled most of the flowers off so that the plants would put more effort into root growth rather than fruit, so that they will be healthier in years to come. In addition to buying these, my spouse also built two new raised beds in the front for them. That wasn't cheap either. Since blueberries like truly acidic soil, we wanted them separated so that it's easier to deal with them on their own. Since they're pretty, however, we were able to put them out front by the fence. I've even overheard a few people passing by commenting on how lovely the beds are.

I also purchased a rhubarb plant, we got two apple trees, and a lemon tree. (The lemon is in a giant pot, and will live indoors for about half the year.) None of them can be harvested this year, and probably nothing much, if at all, next year either. The trees are all tiny. Just as with the blueberries, they were purchased based on future rather than immediate payoff.

Combined with the compost, a few other annual plants I purchased, my seeds, and the stuff to make low tunnels, it was a pricey garden year. Next year might not be any different, since we're going to be re-doing the garden area entirely.

All that said, I still think it's been worthwhile already. When my first crop of lettuce was going I ate salads anywhere from 2-14 times each week and never had to buy lettuce. We've been eating a ton of stir-frys but have mostly just bought a bit of chicken and rice to go with the vegetables. I harvested the potatoes I planted early into big buckets, and will get several large breakfasts from them combined with some of my onions and topped with an egg. All of this and I still haven't gotten to harvest any tomatoes, broccoli, cabbage, or my main crop of potatoes yet. Most of my onions are still in the ground. We've easily already diverted $200 of grocery spending and will almost certainly be exceeding the other half of what we've spent on the garden. And that is, again, without any of the perennials we planted being harvestable.

It's not exactly food independence but that's not
a bad start. Potatoes, snow peas, garden peas,
onion, carrots, and chamomile.

Aside from the money, having a garden is a form of security. When things go bad, food gets scarce. Think of what it would be like if we actually had The Big One (earthquake) here. Would you be able to feed yourself for two weeks without the grocery store?

And even aside from that, there are rather routine "price shocks" in food these days. The cost of food has been rising faster than average inflation, and almost certainly will keep rising. The book Bet the Farm has a really good overview of what's going on with food and the financial markets. It's both depressing and scary to read. Spoiler: people all over the world will continue to go hungry because it's not profitable to feed them. I'm not okay with that. I'm not okay with being part of a system that exists to exploit some people and starve others. To the extent that I can opt out, I will opt out.

This year, crops all over the world are failing due to drought, flood, or heat. The Irish potato crop is failing, Farmers in the UK and Australia are freaking out about the droughts, so is Germany. They should maybe be thankful they're not on fire. Where it's not in extreme heat and drought, there are floods. You guys, these are the climate change impacts scientists have been warning us about. This is almost certainly the start of a new trend, not an aberration. If we all want to eat, and eat well, then many more of us need to grow food, in less stupid ways.

Which brings me to my next point. Even a brief overview of our current farming system should show how dumb it is. As one example, we killed off the grazers that used to roam the Midwest grasslands. Then we ripped up the grass to plant corn and soybeans that we turn around and mostly feed to different grazers...which we keep in giant factories. Because they're in factories and not on grassland, their waste collects in giant cesspools and becomes hazardous waste instead of fertilizer. Since the natural fertilizer is going to waste farmers instead have to import fossil fuel based fertilizers, which are very expensive and help put many farmers into debt. *facepalm* And this gets subsidized by the government, while many people tout how "efficient" it is. Organic and small scale farming is only land efficient if you don't count the land cost of oilfields to help run conventional agriculture, FYI. So, maybe if your only metric is how many calories are produced, sure, doing things this way is more efficient, but by every other measure it's pure stupid. It's wasteful and polluting. Again, I really don't want to be part of such destructive stupidity. And by growing at least some of our own food, we're decreasing the amount of land needed to be razed and used for agriculture.

My household wastes less food when we grow it ourselves, because, darn it, if I grew it then I'm going to eat it. Even parts that are often considered "waste" in the grocery store can have their uses in the kitchen. "Inedible" garden pea pods aren't actually inedible, they just have a tough membrane that can be peeled off so the rest of the pod can be consumed. Celery leaves can be used to flavor soup. As a last resort, I use the "waste" parts to either make vegetable broth or to add flavor to chicken broth.

And if all that doesn't get you excited to grow something, there's also the fact that we eat healthier because of the garden. Seriously, did you not read where I said I was eating tons of salads all spring? I munch on vegetables raw while I'm out in the garden, and so does the rest of the family. I add the onion tops as green onions to basically everything I can so that they don't go to waste, but I'm also conscious of the fact that it gives me a bit more vegetable matter in my diet. We all benefit from the healthy freshness of the veggies, and we eat more than we would if it all came from the grocery store. It's fantastic.

Homegrown stir-fry

I know a number of people who've tried gardening and failed at it for one reason or another. Maybe it was a bad season, maybe the soil was poor and they didn't know it. Try again! And if you really, really can't stand it, find the one or two things you can grow and do those. I have an acquaintance who mostly just grows strawberries, but that counts. Good on her.

It might seem ridiculous to think that small scale home gardening can have an impact on any or all of the issues I highlighted above, but around a third of all vegetables consumed in the U.S. during WWII was produced in victory gardens. Gardening can also foster greater community ties. By getting outside more often, people naturally interact more with their neighbors. Just ask ours, who is pleased as can be that I want to harvest the apples from her tree. (She hates them, apparently. They make great applesauce and apple butter.) And among many people in cities, community gardening has provided not just food but also a social outlet. Gardening is awesome. You should try it.

So what should you grow?

I've spent a lot of time thinking about the crops that are the most worthwhile to grow for a variety of conditions. There are so many lists out there but this one's mine. Obviously it comes with the caveat that if you or your family won't eat something you shouldn't grow it because that's a waste. But these are the ones that seem most worthwhile because of either price, taste, or because they're just so darn easy.

1. Leafy greens. I'm including collards, kale, lettuce, spinach, and chard all into one. I think just about everyone can grow at least one of these. Many of them don't need, or even like, a lot of sun. They can be grown in any climate, they don't take up a lot of space, and they can be grown in pots in a sunny window if that's all you have. Perhaps best of all, you don't have to harvest the entire plant. Take a few leaves here and there until it starts to bolt, then pull the plant and replace it. I almost never have all of my plants bolt at once so you can try to get the next crop in the ground while eking out a bit more from the plants that are still going.

2. Herbs. Most of them are easy to grow and they don't take up much space. The fact that they're really expensive at the store makes them totally worthwhile monetarily. If you use any herbs fresh, do yourself a favor and figure out how to grow them. Bonus points: if you buy the fresh ones they almost always come in those stupid plastic containers. Now you don't have to throw those away. (Let's not kid ourselves--recycling plastic is frequently throwing it away.)

3. Carrots. They're so underrated, but homegrown carrots just have so much flavor. There are few vegetables I enjoy more than a freshly picked carrot. Any variety will do, though they do taste slightly different. Some are spicier, some are sweeter varieties. Doesn't matter, I'll nom all of them. The only reason they're not first on my list is that they do require a bit of land to grow. Apartment dwellers need not fear, however, because I've had luck growing fat, short Parisienne carrots in a wide, shallow box. They also grow quickly, so in most climates you can get several sowings from spring-early winter.

4. Peas. They grow vertically so they don't take up too much space. A person willing and determined, with a sunny balcony, could grow peas from a pot up a trellis. It would be beautiful and decorative as well as functional. If you're going to grow them in such a small space, though, stick to sugar snaps or snow peas. Garden peas take a decent amount of space to be worthwhile. I still grow them, but the most I've gotten in any single year was about a gallon and a half of shelled peas.

Peas, butternut squash, and bush beans. They're way
bigger now.

5. Potatoes. They're cheap at the grocery store, true, but they're also an easy way to get more of your calories from your garden. (The other biggies are winter squash, beans, and corn.) Plus, they're really fun to dig up, particularly for kids. I do the digging and have the Munchkin keep an eye out for spuds, then pick them up. They do take a bit of land to grow, though it doesn't have to be really good land. Potatoes will grow even in somewhat crappy soil. They'll be lower in nutrition from lower quality soil, but not enough to make homegrown potatoes detrimental. Particularly considering how poor quality the soil is on most U.S. farmland these days!

6. Zucchini. Good old zucchini. I'm kicking myself for not growing any this year, since this is a powerhouse of a plant that will, if you treat it right, reward you with many, many squashes to eat. When you get sick of eating them for main dishes, then you start getting into the crazier things like zucchini cookies and zucchini pancakes. They're really good, actually! Zucchini bread might be one of the best dishes ever invented. It's basically cake, but it has a green vegetable so it's totally healthy and you can eat it for breakfast. Right? Right. Anyway, zucchini, again, takes a little bit of space to actually grow well so it's not suitable for inside an apartment. Summer squash is an equivalent that's also yummy and easy to grow.

7. Beans! This year I'm growing both green and purple beans. We're going to eat them fresh all season and, if we're lucky, I'll be able to put some in the freezer or in jars for winter. They're like peas in that they don't have to take up a lot of room, they help replenish the soil with certain nutrients, and they can give you a lot of calories and nutrition. I haven't tried growing them myself, but there are several varieties that are good to eat as long beans or as dried beans.

8. Walking onions. Apparently there are more varieties than just the Egyptian ones, but those are the ones I've got. They were actually planted in the garden by the people before us and I thought they were neat so I left them. I didn't actually expect them to survive the winter but they did, and now I have tons of onions. I mean, I planted all those starts in the spring so I had lots anyway, but now I realize I have this crop and it's wonderful. They're, obviously, a perennial so you don't have to worry about planting them ever again. They take care of that themselves, hence the "walking" aspect. I like a vegetable that requires basically zero effort on my part.

Fishbowl view of tomatoes. Planted too close together,
but they're making it work.

9. Tomatoes, of course. I don't actually like fresh tomatoes all that much, so I can't speak to the flavor. I know it's different but it's still...tomatoey. But I love cooked or dried tomatoes and my spouse goes nuts for all tomatoes. I've started appreciating cherry tomatoes and if you just have a small area or the space for one little container tomato plant, do a grape or cherry tomato. Those things are champion producers, and if you have extras they can be dried. If you have more space, there are endless varieties of tomatoes to get. Slicing tomatoes are good for things like sandwiches, some are better for salsa, saucing tomatoes are good for, you probably guessed it, making sauce. Some are better fresh, some need to be cooked to unleash their full potential. Just don't go with the big box store starts. They're basically the same as what you'd get from the grocery store and why are you growing them at home then? Branch out, friend.

10. Celery. I really like celery, but only if it's homegrown. Grocery store celery is just so watery and tasteless. Garden celery has an amazing amount of flavor, enough that it can be overpowering if you use as much in a recipe as you're used to. It's also a much darker green when I grow it at home, so it pops visually when I cook with it. However, celery is a rather persnickety plant and can be tough to grow, particularly from seed. Most of mine died this year but I've got three that are finally starting to come into their own. They take a long time to get going--they were the longest of my seeds to sprout, and even discounting that time it took them the longest to start putting out their first true leaves--but it's so worth it.

11. Bonus, but grow absolutely anything edible that is also perennial. It is the most effortless way, by far, to grow food, as well as the most efficient. I haven't had to do anything for our perennials except plant, water, and harvest. Maybe a tiny bit of weeding here and there in the blueberry beds. Compared to the endless tending to my other crops (starting them in pots, thinning them when they're too close, making sure they grow up the trellis, caging them or tying them up) the perennials have been a breeze. If you seriously lack money and/or time, perennials are the way to go.