Whew, let me just say, an unplanned stay in a powered home for a week is like vacation yall.  AC, wifi, PS3, a REAL kitchen – with a dishwasher and a fridge!  The children have spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and learning how to play the piano.

I am so ready to go home, but also kind of sad.  Mostly for the fridge and AC.  Its hot out there!

I spent much of the first 4 days learning and researching solar options.

Amps and watts, ohms and volts, series and parallel.

Oh. My. Word!  And somehow the charge controller volts has to match up with the panel watts and somehow that interacts with the inverter watts which affect the whatchamacallit and the thingamajig.  And don’t forget to top off the blinker fluid every few weeks!

The basics I got.  The devil is in the details.  And I’m pretty sure my brain went into overload. 

Long story short, I think we may have figured out a way to possibly get grid power.  Yes, it goes against one of the original goals for the house, but after a year of no power, I’m ok with it.  We can always add solar later and cut the power.  We will officially find out next week when a lineman comes out and tells us how many children we have to sell to afford it.

Which leads me to QT#3.  I have accepted the fact that while the goal is to simplify, get back to  basics, I have no reason to not use our modern conveniences and knowledge.  The Lord put us in this time for a reason, I think He is alright if we take advantage of the perks.

I know how to make and knead bread.  It is serene at times to work the dough, almost meditative.   But I also have a bread machine that works just great for those days that I have much to do or just don’t feel like being meditative.  Its ok to let that machine do 3 hours of work for me.  Ditto the washing machine.

It will be a balancing act.  A balancing act with air conditioning. 

My indolent ways became more evident this week.  See, my inlaws have a garden.  Not a very big garden even, but a garden that requires watering.  Daily.  After spending an hour a day watering I have no doubt in my mind that sub-irrigation planters are the only way to go.  Our garden is planned to be as big as their yard.  Plus we are using precious rain water.  I have 6 children.  Anything to make my life just a little easier.  Besides, I will still have to plant, weed, harvest and preserve!  Why not pass on watering??

The children, however, had a blast watering.  Not sure how much actually landed on the intended plant…

It was really neat (even fun!) to watch how each thing matured and then to pick them.  It was a first for all of us to pick veggies straight off the plant.

I have spent a lot of time Pinteresting researching while we’ve been here and love some of the ideas I have found!  We have discussed (often) the need to get some goats (groundskeepers!) and chickens (bug eaters!).  Quickly.

What has stopped me??  What about those days we want to go do stuff?  Or weekend trips?  Let alone week long vacays!  Very few folks will make the drive to the house anyway, it would be a bear to get someone to do it twice daily for 10 days!  And whats the point of a simpler and freer lifestyle if we are confined to the house??  Finding resolutions to those issues automatically helps with the daily chores – that whole “get up and open the door at the crack of dawn and close it at night” thing.  Sorry, but even my children know better, mama doesn’t get up and do anything before 8 or 9 am.  Not to mention the whole food and (again) watering thing.  Like I need to add more feeding to my daily duty.

I found out it is super simple and super cheap to fix all those problems! 

Behold:

I am now ready to get those aminals! 

Hey now, don’t judge – if Ma and Pa Ingalls had plastic they totally would have done the same things and freed up a ton of time!

Mr. has been working on the solar cooker this week!  I’m so excited!!  Hopefully we can get it finished up this weekend!

 After we get it finished up and experiment a few times I will write about it… if not before – I’m so excited 😀

Hope you have a Blessed Week!!