last week, when serina and i were sitting in crawling traffic inside the liberty tubes (who knew that there was a wikipedia source for the liberty tubes?!), we chatted about the struggle of Everywoman in america today: the desire to raise goats and sheep.

fortunately, we are of one mind on this issue (well, she more than i, but i'm getting there), so we were able to talk up our dreams and encourage each other that it was within reach. and that's where my problem begins.

i don't know if it was the culture in which i was raised, or the culture in which i started to make my own adult decisions, but at one point along those lines, i realized that i love to consume. new things. bright, shiny things that make my life so much easier, faster, and stress-free. and then recently, since meeting kenny at least, i became aware that that isn't necessarily a good thing. especially when you are a professing follower of Christ.

so then kenny and i began daydreaming one day over our sunday morning fairly-traded coffee at the bagel warehouse about moving out to the country and raising not only a family, but animals. that can help us live more simply. fast foward 6 years, and here we are: acreage, 3 boys, chickens, honeybees, enough grass to pasture several more animals, and a barn (that needs a bit of a fixin') to house more animals. we are in the position to live an incredibly simple life, eating our own (chicken) eggs, drinking our own (cow or goat) milk, shearing our own sheep, and working good and hard to make this life possible. we have enough land to garden organically, put up jars and cans of fruit and vegetables, we even have a small orchard of fruit trees (that do need some pruning, but could probably produce fruit again some day). we have a huge laundry line out back and i only air-dry a fraction of our laundry in the spring and summer.

so why do i still feel the need (or desire?) to go to Target, Sams, Barnes and Noble, and Giant Eagle (local grocery chain) to provide almost everything that we can grow/provide ourselves? we have this simple life in reach, and yet i push it away and still want to buy, buy, buy!

and not only that, i want to look good doing it. not me, per say, because i've already landed the man of my dreams...but my home. i want a pristine home, bursting with spring flowers, summer bounty, autumn foliage, and serene scenes of winter. our current chickens are free-range and they've torn up the base around most of our trees, and they dig up all the flower beds, not to mention they leave their droppings everywhere, including the front porch.