In the beginning, pre-internet days, when I wanted to learn a new skill, I did it the old fashioned way. I asked.
Problem was, it was kinda hard sometimes to find people who knew how to do what I wanted to learn. Sometimes I had to figure things out on my own, using an old book with very few pictures and a whole lot of trial and error. It took time—and sometimes it was downright painful. Sure would have been simpler if I could have just ‘seen it done’, and what it was supposed to look like in the end. You know …. Something like a live YouTube video. Wouldn’t that have blown our minds way back in the day? Wow. It’s so much easier to learn how to do things now.
You can bet that whenever I found someone willing to share, I took full advantage. And if there were classes offered in my area, I signed up.
We read a lot and experimented a lot, and made a lotta mistakes, and learned a lot, and we’re still learning. I am including Dan in this, as most of what I did, we did together. We sure don’t regard ourselves as experts at anything we do. Just like you – we’re still trying to do the best we know how. And the learning never stops. In some areas, we just might be a little further along the road is all.
I have a motto that I live by. It is a quote from Maya Angelou stencilled in big black letters in my kitchen. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then, when you know better, DO better.”
So simple. So straightforward. And so absolutely profound. Just DO better.
Don’t beat yourself up over what you didn’t know before. Don’t live in a life of regrets. You did the best you knew how, but now you know better, and you can move forward.
I love the principle taught in the quote.
The purpose of this blog is to make your journey a little easier than mine was – by offering some shortcuts, hands-on instruction, and maybe even a few helpful suggestions.
Anyone who wants to, can achieve a greater level of self-sufficiency, and everything I share can be (and should be) adapted to fit your own home and situation. There is no single ‘right’ way, and no completely wrong way. Just ideas that might work for you and are worth trying.
Whether you live in an apartment with a balcony, a townhouse with a patio, a home with a yard, or a farm on the prairie – you can make it better than it is, and become more self-sufficient right where you are.
Here, we will explore a little of this and that – from the kitchen to the laundry room to the garden, to the thoughts and feelings that are intertwined with this kind of lifestyle, . . . . . and probably several places in between. We’ll go where the wind blows I guess. This is a new experience for me too. I’m looking forward to it.
I’d love it if you’d take a moment to comment when you read a post. Let me know what you think. Share your thoughts, your tips and your own way of “doing it better”. We can learn from each other.
– Cindy
I went looking for this little poem because I have a cookie jar that means so much to me and my, now adult, children. It was my grandmother’s, given to her by my uncle when he was a child, and the family lived in a small Italian village named Storo. I inherited it when Nana died and kept it filled with cookies, just as she did. One day, after school, my son, then six, wanted an extra cookie, that I had forbidden he have.
He dropped the lid, which shattered, but the jar remained intact. It sits on my counter today, waiting to be passed down to him someday.