Why We Blog
Our desire to live a more self-sufficient, self-sustaining life has spurred us on to record our journey to get there. We will talk about the steps we take to create this lifestyle and help others learn from our journey. From starting a garden from the closet under our stairs, to living frugally to be financially ready for the adventure, we will help you see that anyone can strive to have a more self-sufficient and self-sustaining life.
Us
We are the Book family. We are a typical – albeit rare – nuclear family: husband/dad, wife/mom, two kids/punks, and a dog. Residing in the Midwest, we enjoy spending time with each other, church, music, movies, television, being involved in community theater, and many school activities associated with having teenagers.
Both of us – the parents, Matt and Steph (that’s us!) – have decided to pursue a more self-sufficient, self-sustaining life. The odd thing is, we both came to the same conclusion but we each got there in our own way.
Read how each of us arrived at the conclusion that we wanted to live differently.
Steph
I (Steph) am a woman with many hats, as most moms are. 🙂 I love taking care of my family and have a full desire to be working solely from home. I love keeping my home clean and inviting, preparing healthy and homemade meals, and doing all kinds of projects. Even though my kids are getting older, I desire to be home and be the homemaker I was when they were little. Right now, I work part-time as an Administrative Assistant for a friend in her home office, I own my own primitive business called Grubby Primitives, where I focus mostly on my can candles, and I sell Mary Kay Cosmetics. As I said above, my desire is to be working from home, but these jobs will eventually help us get where we want to be. When I am not doing the wife and mom thing, I do find time to do things I love as well. I love music and being part of our worship team at church and participating in Musical Theatre at our local theatre. I am able to be the stage manager for my son’s upcoming school musical and this summer, I am wearing a new hat as an assistant director. Eek! I hope my journey will be encouraging to you and hope my desire and journey to be a homemaker will help you learn to make your house a home too.
Matt
I (Matt) have a full-time job that changes more often than I’d like and most of the time it’s out of my control. As of this writing (November 2016), I’m facing another job change as my contract is running out at the end of the year and won’t be renewed due to the Chinese market, lowering costs, changing direction, blah blah blah. Changing jobs when I didn’t choose to is frustrating, stressful, inconvenient, and honestly very depressing. It’s time for me to get out of this cycle and I’ve been feeling this way for a few years.
My bachelors and masters degrees are in Bible, theology, and pastoral ministry. Most of my work experience is in the field of web development and as a software engineer. One of my greatest passions is playing music – piano/keyboards, bass, guitar, and a little bit of singing. I like board games and Minecraft.
This journey, for me, is about turning my passions into revenue streams, helping Steph with her craft projects, and living a healthy, self-sufficient life and being prepared for whatever the future brings.