Richer Than Weve Ever Been

 

 

It is by no mere chance that Im sitting here writing this post.  It is because one year ago I was asked to choose between my job and my family. 

And friends, I chose my family. 

It was a difficult, heart-wrenching decision made in the heat of a moment, especially because of the shock of being asked to make such a choice, by someone who I had always considered a father-figure.  I was making good money, given bonuses and family vacations.  I had no idea at the time how we were going to make it on just a third of our income. 

But it turned out, one-third was more than enough. 

I am reminded of so many scriptures as I write this post.  All of the promises that weve seen come to fruition because we chose to be obedient to His Word.  Its amazing actually.  We are in constant awe of how God has provided for us over the past year.  I am also a bit ashamed that it took me so long to come home to my family.  And that is why I am sharing my story.  Because we are now richer than weve ever been, and it took taking away most of our income to get us here.

Life sure has slowed down.  Instead of eating meals picked up on my way home from work, we eat meals cooked in our own kitchen.  Instead of throwing everything in a landfill, we recycle and compost.  The girls get to come home from school to their mom, and I have time to help them with their homework, and teach them how to garden and cook.  We have family meetings and home Bible studies together.  We volunteer more at our church together.  In fact, we do everything together. 

I cant think of a job that would pay me enough to make me leave my family again.  When I lost my job, I spent so much time feeling sorry for myself and being angry at my old boss.  But you know what?  It truly was a blessing in disguise.

Id like to say that I cook everything from scratch and my house is perfectly organized and clean.  Id like to say that I know how to can all these vegetables were growing.  Id like to say my kids dont get sick of me being around all the time and that my husband and I never argue.  But that would be a lie and not at all what our blog is about.

We want to be good stewards of what God has given us.  We want our lives to reflect the gratitude we feel for His saving grace.  We want Him to use us for His good works. 

We are not experts.  We are on a journey and invite you to come along with us.  And we really appreciate you being here.


"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him."  Romans 8:28



This post has been shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, Simple Lives Thursday, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Natural Living Monday, The HomeAcre Hop, Front Porch Friday, Wonderful Wednesday Blog Hop

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Garbage 101 Adopt a Meat Garbage Disposal Never Waste Food Ever Again

"40 percent of food purchased for the home is wasted.  Half of the worlds produced food is wasted."  Thats a huge amount of food wasted, food produced but never eaten.  And certainly most of that wasted food ends up in landfills. 

We are proud to announce that we  here at Simple Suburban Living waste 0% of our food.  Absolutely no food whatsoever finds its way from our house into a landfill.  Remember from yesterdays post that landfills should be the last resort for our waste.

All of our food scraps get fed to the dog or chickens, and anything they dont eat ends up in our compost piles.  We have a worm compost bin in the basement, and a compost pile in the backyard. 

Our chickens are our vegetable, grain, fruit, and dairy garbage disposals.  They are fed chicken feed also, but they just love the food scraps, too. 

 

 

 

 

~ Our Meat Garbage Disposal ~

 

If you have ever read the ingredients on most dog food packages, you will notice the first ingredient listed is corn.  You dont even want to get me started on the subject of corn, but more importantly, dogs are not meant to eat corn.  They are carnivores.  They need meat.  With that said, our dog eats all of our meat scraps and leftover meat.  We do give her dog food also, but not nearly as much as we used to because her diet is supplemented with our leftovers.  We have noticed a huge improvement in her coat and bathroom habits since weve changed her diet. 

 

You can help save the environment and a stray by adopting a faithful friend and meat disposer.?

 

 

 

To make things easier and more convenient, we keep food "garbage" bowls on our kitchen counter.  One bowl is for the chickens, the other for the worms and compost pile.  We found that we compost more when we dont have to walk the food scraps outside.  In other words, we found that we are a very lazy environmentally-minded folk.


Serving our food waste to the animals and compost piles is now an integral part of our life and the changes were easily implemented over a short period of time.  Even the girls take an active part and know where to separate the food scraps.  I just love it when the youngest SSL Kid says "compost".

“I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” --Maya Angelou   


This post was shared at:  Homestead Barn Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Homestead Blog Hop

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