Life Done Free
Tag and Bee from Life Done Free
Community Leaders:
- Organized by
-
-
Single-Steading
-
Single-Steading
-
What an insightful thread here. My 69-year-old husband would help much on our place if he was in better health (lots of arthritis…too many times being tackled as a football coach!). I am 63, but I thank the Lord often for the vigor and strength I still have to take care of our home, garden, food preservation, etc….even building ANOTHER chicken coop this past summer. But I truly enjoy it all. Yes, patience and wisdom are keys. To those of you “doing it on your own”, you can do it and there is joy and satisfaction in your productivity!
-
Only been doing this for a couple of years so I just try to pick small projects to get done. I’m able to get most stuff done, a couple years away from 60 so still have “semi-old guy” energy. Occasionally have a couple friends visit and get some of the heavy stuff done. Most of the time you just have to get it done because it can’t wait for help. Lately I have been canning a lot of proteins, easy to do as a single homesteader!
-
I am single-steading on my journey to self-reliance. Not by choice, just the way it worked out. My Dad passed away a year ago just as I was trying to extricate myself from a WTHWIT relationship of nearly 9 years. I relocated & moved in with my 93-year-old Mom. We butt heads a lot, but I remind her I get my bossiness from her. But I also inherited a house in need of repairs, 1 1/2 acres in need of some serious love, a large shop full of goodies needing organization (now also housing my goodies), an old overgrown garden, a shed in dire need of repair, and a world that has just went plum crazy! All this on top of cooking, cleaning, laundry, groceries, errands, elder care, and managing bills.
Overwhelmed? You betcha. Gonna give up? not on your life. An RN by trade, I took the skills I already had (to name a few: sewing, cooking, crafting, carpentry, plumbing, minor electrical, planning & organization) and this year added prepping, pressure & water bath canning, pickling, and am initiating gardening & permaculture now. But it is slow going, as others have said the mind is willing, but the body has different ideas at times. And I don’t see myself as old (will be 57 in December) Just had 2 days of unplanned down time from doing yard work, sawing pallets for raised beds, and trying to finish up a bathroom remodel/repair. It is difficult to admit when a task requires more than yourself…but I am learning that too. And my task list is a mile long! lol
Time is short to get prepared for what is to come. Wish I had a partner but will be happy just to be part of a community working toward common goals. I am thankful for our internet communities. I look forward to an established local community. Community is how we are going to get through this.
-
Love your Attitude, Skainsgirl!
-
Thanks!
-
-
-
Lots of venting. Life is tough. You have to almost love a challenge.
focus the goal, find your path, stay the course
-
Moe said when talking about being single and starting up his homestead, “1+1>2”. He is right. Two working TOGETHER for a common goal can achieve so much more than one.
When you lose a loved one, through death, abuse, infidel whatever the reason, it’s very difficult to get passed the comparison game. Red flags wave vastly across conversations.
It’s important that you trust your instincts. It’s also important to be open to new possibilities.
I’m somewhat a recluse. When I leave my job, my favorite place to be is at home. I’ve finally figured out “Mr. Right For Me” isn’t just going to knock on my door promising to improve my life by being a part of that “1+1>2” scenario.
Is there a point to this submission? Not particularly. Me just thinking among friends.
I just keep on trying to live a life done free. Maybe someday….
-
I understand where you are coming from girl. I find peace in solitude and hard work. I only have to answer to God and myself. But a few months ago, an old video from Deep South popped up on my YT feed with Danny and Wanda talking about how they met. They described how they felt before meeting each other. I cried like a baby. And as I sobbed in the quiet, dark early hours that morning, it finally dawned on me. I hadn’t realized that the angst I felt was loneliness; that kind of loneliness you have from not having a partner who is your best friend. I missed sharing conversation with someone who shared my life. It was lying just beneath the surface of my extremely hectic life, gnawing at my soul. No amount of hard work can fill that void.
The problem is time: time to heal from past hurts, time to meet someone, time to develop trust, time to establish a relationship. I just haven’t figured out yet how to find the time. And yet, time is the answer. Time equals patience. Something most of us are lacking (and by us, I mean me).
I once had a patient tell me that God had told her to tell me, “Stop looking for a man, God is going to send you one.” And He probably tried, but I was probably distracted by whatever loser I had allowed into my life. I look at those points in my life as steppingstones that are leading me to where I need to be. Not because God put them there, I did that, I made those decisions. Us hardheaded folks have lots of steppingstones! lol He is still working on me. And maybe, just maybe, THAT is the hold up. I haven’t become the person that I need to be for the man He has chosen for me.
I don’t have the answers. Like you said, going with my gut but trying to stay open to possibilities. And in the meantime, keeping my nose to the grindstone…alone.
-
Yes, time is a huge factor in our aloneness. I feel like if it were truly important to us to find a companion, a help mate if you will, that we would invest more time into seeking out that someone special but what gets sacrificed in the meantime?
I think we need to be honest with ourselves on what we are actually looking for in a companion too. Not just someone who can cook, clean, build a (fill in the blanks) but can carry a conversation, challenge us to be a better person, and continue to grow with in our older years. This gets hard because, we get set in our ways especially the longer we are alone.
I had a husband once who said, “[he] did not need me.” This was so hurtful to me at the time because I’m a caregiver by nature and I needed to be needed. The thing I missed was that he “wanted” me otherwise he wouldn’t have been there. Well, hurt turned into loneliness, that turned into depression that resulted in a divorce.
Sometimes, we get in our own way…unable to take a step back and evaluate the magnitude or miniscule of the situation before spewing words of “more hurt” which leads to more aloneness.
-
And then there’s the hurt of being lied to ur face that “you complete me”, knowing it’s a lie while he speaks it. A baldfaced lie, yet what you truly wanted, at one point. It’s like a slap.
I’m almost 3 yrs into my complete and utter *so done* and see no light at end of my tunnel. It’s just me and 2 older teens… So I’ve learned to feel cozy with no light. Honestly no chance for meeting anyone (I even work with all women lol) and my age keeps me unapproachable in case anyone cared anyway lol Old women have no value in the US but that’s ok. I’m not asking for anyones stamp. Just “waiting on” my Lord and Savior, the Lover of my soul. He is enough 🙂
-
Been there, done that one. It’s really hard. Once I finally got free from my lying cheating abuser, the reality was having to huddle in bed under quilts in the dark during winter with my teen, while eating oopsie pizza for dinner that she got to bring home from her job at a pizza place. But it brought us closer together and taught her resilience. She learned how to survive on almost nothing. So for that, I am grateful.
That’s the thing about hard. It trains you. It prepares you. So that when hard comes around again, you KNOW that you can persevere. In that vein, it’s a blessing in disguise.
-
-
-
👍 I have been single since 2000. I was out of sorts with that for a while but a few attempts that turned out diseastrous one day I woke up and realized that I liked being single. It was much easier and faster to make gains in life. Now I have much in the way of standards and the dating pool is more like a dating puddle. And that is something that requires me to turn my attention to. I have much larger plans and dreams to pursue today. Not slowing down, not looking back. I am playing to win.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by Ozark-Hillbilly.
-
You seem to have found peace in being single, but I would challenge that getting ‘things done easier and faster” is really a statement of “I give up trying to work with someone else.” I don’t mean this as an attack on you so please don’t misunderstand. I’ve dated too and found that we lacked compatibility and so it was easier to move away from that relationship than to continue to pretend all was well. Does it mean that I’m unwilling to work on another relationship? I think not but I will continue to listen to my instincts and hold my standards/self respect.
-
This reply was modified 1 year, 10 months ago by
-
When my ex left because she didn’t like being a mother or wife I pretty much decided to be single and raise my girls. That was 2011 it’s now 2023 and I went out a couple times with a previous girlfriend in 2018 other than that month or so I haven’t even considered dating again. That’s not to say I wouldn’t love to find someone but I’m not going to stop life and go looking either. A lot of my reason for doing like I did was being a child of divorced parents I wasn’t going to drag women in and out of my daughters lives with every shift in wind direction. I still remember my mom dating several guys before she met and stayed with one for many years when I was a kid.
-
A very valid point. I was fearful to bring a man into my home as I had two small children. You’re smart to protect your girls. That’s what a daddy (and momma) are supposed to do.
-
-
Single and working a full time job while trying to start my homestead and have time for woodworking as well. I’m tired but it’s worth it. Right now I have ducks and have had a garden starting three years now. Just ordered laying hens, meat chickens, and a couple turkeys and geese. Want to pick up a couple pigs also. Trying to clear a silvo pasture for possibly sheep at some point in the future. Need a greenhouse and root cellar yet. 🥱
-
Oh I would loooove a root cellar
Even just a regular basement/cellar!
-
Wow, hats off, you’re packing it on with both barrels blazing. You know what’s all about. Being single and doing everything by yourself is not the worst. I find it worse to have a husband who’s not only not helping, but literally being a hinderance from getting stuff done.
-
Sorry but it is good to see I am not alone, already though I was nuts well a crazy chicken lady for sure. While my husband thinks it is a good idea to drive remote controlled cars with our son, I work in the garden. Son javing fun so let the kids play around, but his way doing groceries now is not buying at all because the prices are so high and still going up.
Everything I was saying was nonsense and will see be ok no worries, took last pasta and he would bring new but he did not. Asked if I was cooking pasta, said from what if we do not have any left.
Still not now I am still preparing and already for quite some time, but not going to tell till have to right. Took the extra canned vegetables away, he can not remember and i exchange them out by first in first out.
I love to see the man standing by there wife’s and help them, but I know the feeling you described hold on keep going with or without the men. They get less food when shtf and no extras or treats right.
-
-
-
Hey Art!
So I was thinking about how-to’s for this post. For example, how do you connect (whether it be with nail or screw) two boards in a 90 degree angle with just one person? I’ve seen men just hold the boards in place and get’r done but with my small hands, I struggle. Recently, I watched a YT video that showed a clamp that actually held two 2x4s at a 90 degree angle while you screw them together. It’s a game changer for me. I might actually get a few building projects done in a timely manner.
Anyone else have useful advice for us single-steaders to help around the homestead. I’d really appreciate hearing what you have to say.
-
I’ve been single since 2008. Thought we would get back together but it never happened. Still not divorced. Not sure what is keeping the marriage on paper but it is what it is. I realized 10 years ago with the kids grown with their own families to take care of, I am truly alone now. Also I realized I couldn’t afford to live on my retirement income and that began my journey to “figuring out what I’m going to do”. I am a year out from making the leap to the off-grid property permanently. And terrified that those who tell me I am crazy, are right. How am I going to do this alone? How am I going to accomplish ‘My Grand Plan’ alone? But every time I think about The Grand Plan the excitement of it all fires me up. I am resourceful, intelligent and not without skills. I can cook, can, bake, and garden with the best of them. But I’ve never built anything bigger than a birdhouse. Not like others who have posted here that at least have children to keep them motivated to get out of bed everyday and moving. I truly don’t have anyone else to share the burdens, work, thoughts, days and nights with. Maybe I am crazy to start this at 65? But what choice do I have but live under a bridge if I don’t.
I have created a web site and working on starting a YouTube channel. This post could be the subject of my second Blog…
-
No, you’re not crazy. Crazy is doing the same thing, making no adjustments or changes, and blaming everyone else for the inevitable outcome. With the spouse and kids gone you need others who will encourage you along the journey to more freedom. May you find many of them soon!
-
Thank you for the encouragement.
-
-
-
Do nòt let those people stopping you from living your life in any way! Do what you have got to do, to live your life!
-
Thanks!
-
Log in to reply.