The Homesteady

We are okay

I'm laughing a bit to myself, trying to think of a way to explain this: I've always felt that the months of the year begin to weigh more starting around September. In my mind, they must be heavier because if you stacked them, these would be closest to the ground, pushed down all the more by those gone by. Because they're so heavy, they rush past. Days and weeks begin to unspool so quickly, it feels hard sometimes to get a meaningful grip on them. 

This August and September, loss after loss tumbled through our lives. We're still rocked by a wake of sadness after having to make the impossible decision to put our dog Samson to sleep – I'm astonished at the brutality of how quickly life can change in two hours – bookended by added challenges like illness and surgery, anxiety and deadlines. 

I've always liked the term "circle the wagons" – problematic though its roots in western expansion are. But that's essentially what we've been doing since the last time I was here. The wolves have visited our door more than once in the recent weeks, and we're doing our best to protect our home while meeting them headlong. I find great strength imagining myself straddling the dark and light, defending my family from the newest emergency that has slinked through the shadows to our doorstep. In that way I've been feeling oddly empowered. I'm getting tired, though, and find myself searching hungrily for signs that we're almost through the gauntlet (we are). 

I'll be back soon. I have some knitting to show you, and who knows, I might bake more French macarons before the snow comes. In the meantime, I've been posting with more regularity on Instagram. We'll catch up soon.

What inspired us to make our first-ever family safety plan (with help from First Alert)

Thank you First Alert for sponsoring this post. Plan, practice, and repeat your escape plan with First Alert!

Six years ago, in February, it snowed. 

It snowed so terribly much that our home in western Massachusetts lost power. We had no electricity and no heat, and couldn't cook. The heavy snowfall had incapacitated cell towers and wifi, so we couldn't communicate with any of our family or friends, including my parents, who live in CT and who'd no doubt been hit hard, too.

On day three, Kristie and I packed our shivering dog into the car and drove south. Even though the roads had been cleared, much of our region was still without power. It was the most eerie feeling in the world to drive along a highway unlit by street lamps as the sun set. Radio DJs listed over and over the locations of places that did have power, or at least heat, where people could go to warm up.

We kept driving, and ended up pulling into my parents' driveway after dark. Their windows were all dark as well, except for a flicker in the living room. Not having been able to communicate beforehand, we had no idea if they were faring better than we, and they didn't know to expect us.

Needless to say, we were all happy to see one another. As it happened, they were in the same boat, having lost power and heat. My childhood home has a fireplace in the living room, however, where my father had stoked a fire and my mother had hung sheets over the doorways to keep the heat in. We stayed in there under blankets most of the night, cooking toast over the fire. The next day our neighbor texted to say that the heat and power was back at our home, as was cell service, so we drove back (and happily were able to extend the same hospitality to my parents since their electricity hadn't yet returned). 

It was the biggest storm I can remember – or at least the one that made the biggest impact on our lives. Since then, Kristie and I have been thinking more about the importance of planning for emergencies, especially now that we have Miles. And of course not just snowy emergencies, although that particular memory looms large. 

Before that storm, we didn't have a snow emergency plan. And I feel embarrassed to say that before now, we didn't have a fire emergency plan. But I'm so glad that we didn't have to experience it first this time before sitting down to review the layout of each room, plot escape routes, and decide on a meeting place a safe distance from the house. 

Thanks to First Alert, we were able to make our home safer and actually make an escape plan. We installed a new smoke detector, set up a smoke/carbon monoxide detector, placed a new fire extinguisher in the kitchen, practiced using an escape ladder, sketched the layout of our home, and even practiced getting the dog and baby together and walking to our safe meeting spot. 

You can download the escape planning sheet for free if you want to create a plan, too. The most important thing is to create your plan and practice it again and again, especially involving any children who live with you. (43% of homeowners have an emergency escape plan, and only 33% have discussed fire safety with their children.) That's the message First Alert shares: Plan. Practice. Repeat.

It's important to have an emergency escape plan, of course, but there are protections you can install ahead of time that can alert you and your family if something is amiss. The National Fire Protection Association recommends installing smoke alarms on every level of your home, including the basement, and inside and outside each sleeping area. Carbon monoxide alarms should be on every level, including the basement and near each sleeping area. Test your alarms regularly, keep a fire extinguisher on each level of your home, and get an emergency escape ladder if you have more than one story. 

It feels so good to have this plan in place to protect our family. The next time it snows hard, we'll know what to do. And if there's ever a fire or carbon monoxide emergency in our home, we'll know what to do (though hopefully we'll never need to!).

How to support someone who's getting an abortion

Originally posted on Instagram

How to support someone who’s getting an abortion:

1. Don’t assume anything. Don’t assume they’ve told their partner or family members or friends. Don’t assume you understand their birth control choices. Don't assume this was an easy decision for them to make.
2. Find out what they can expect from the clinic, the appointment, the day (Planned Parenthood has good general resources on this) and gently prepare them. Suggest that they call the clinic for a breakdown of the appointment beforehand too if they feel that would be helpful.
3. Support them in making a list of questions for the provider. Prepare to ask them yourself if they want you to advocate on their behalf. Every patient deserves an answer to every question.
4. Ask how they’d prefer you deal with any protesters who might be outside the clinic. (Do they want you to answer if someone yells? Do they want you to help them avoid conflict?)
5. Offer a ride to the clinic and a ride home afterwards. Ask what they want to listen to in the car (what kind of music/the news/nothing).
6. Ask if they'd like you to hold their hand while you walk in together.
7. Offer to go into the exam room with them and be present for the procedure in whatever way they need (hand-holding? playing funny videos on YouTube? distracting them with conversation about "Game of Thrones"?).
8. Make sure they are as comfortable as possible when you bring them home. Settle them in bed or on the couch with blankets and a heating pad, and then go out and get their favorite foods for when they feel ready to eat. Make sure there are menstrual pads in the bathroom. Put things like water and Advil and the TV remote nearby.
9. If they want you to stay and you are able, stay. If they want you to leave, leave and tell them they can text you if they need anything or just to talk. When they text, text back.
10. Check in a few days later via text, and simply listen. Drop off a bag of little self-care things like chocolate, a candle, or a single-use face mask – things that will help them focus on themselves with acts of care, comfort, and love.
11. If you need to tell someone else what you’re doing, don't tell anyone who it is you're helping. Even if if they don’t tell you explicitly not to tell anyone, don’t tell anyone.

Do any or all of these things. Most importantly, keep checking in and asking what they need. (And remember it’s okay if that changes from one minute to the next.) Offer them love and support and acceptance and try your best to create peace.

The allure of the "soft apocalypse"

There's this Tumblr post, written in 2016, that's been reblogged almost 200,000 times. It's about a new genre concept called "soft apocalypse" and it sounds...really nice, actually.

(I won't do a good job of re-explaining it here so I won't try; it's perfect the way it's written. Please go read it.)

Why is this so lovely?

I sent the link to my friend Katy, and we texted back and forth about it for a little bit. Here's what I wrote to her, piecemeal, while at the gym.

The soft apocalypse. A world where everyone values the things that we value.

It feels like holding a bird in your hands. I'm loving right now thinking about why this is so attractive, hypnotizing.

1) Base equity. Everyone is facing the same challenges, working within the same constraints. No one is better off than anyone else.

2) Creativity, hard work, and passed-down knowledge are valued.

3) Handiwork is critical for survival = more time/effort spent in pursuit of these crafts, which are especially satisfying since they produce a useful physical product = more happiness and satisfaction in work.

4) Reliance on community becomes paramount. That which we can't do, our neighbor can. We survive because of each other. Acknowledgement and value of this symbiosis feeds community building, respect, and kindness.

5) Increased pride in one's own abilities, since we are able to witness directly how they fuel our community's survival/success.

6) More unity with nature. Interruptions in electricity/water delivery/automobiles force community-based, nature-informed responses to basic needs. Adverse nature events require collaboration, and therefore reinforce equity balance and community reliance.

Something's missing though...maybe it's 2 and 4 combined. Community reliance and value of passed-down knowledge engender the valuation and care of those who are not able to contribute directly.

That's 7.

And 8) Bounty. Forced to creatively reassess the utility of the things we have or can produce ourselves (since nothing can be ordered from a faraway factory anymore), we find that we as a people have or can make anything we need.

Back to 7, love matters because community matters. Then one day, love just matters.

9) Time/energy spent on creating the physical. We believe that love survives after our deaths; but we KNOW that at least some of the physical things we create do. Our lives, our work reassure us that someTHING will be left — and that we will value the women left whose only purpose is to add our names and our work to their poems.

= we never die.

(I can be a prolific texter.)

Katy pointed out rightly, beautifully, "It's really the pieces that are missing/devalued with capitalism."

I'm left with self-assigned homework: Keep this idea warm. Help it grow by rereading The Feminist Utopia Project. Try to amplify the whispers of these values in my daily life. Imagine honestly the other side of the coin: what would be lost in this hypothetical version of society (vaccines? accessibility?). Watch warily as news of our planet grows bleaker (NYT). Remember to compost. 

If this subgenre resonates, you might like reading Station Eleven [affiliate link].

The distance between home and home

Thank you Lexington Law Firm for sponsoring this post. A high service partner and consumer advocate that will help you fight for the credit you deserve!

It's time!

Kristie and I have resolved that 2019 will bring us closer to a new home – to a house that we own, walls that we don't share, a quiet street where Miles can grow and play. 

Our "whys" are many. Most of all, recently, I've wanted more physical space outdoors. Just a little more distance between our front door and the road. Room for planting flowers and a vegetable garden. Maybe for adding a chicken or three. More room to be loud, to park our cars safely, to leave our windows open in summer without inviting in the neighbors' experimental music. 

(Really, it's not our thing.)

I daydream about walls we can paint (or knock down) without needing permission. A quieter neighborhood with nice sidewalks and trees out front. Room for the record player to come out again. Built-in bookshelves. A fireplace, if we're lucky. At a minimum: Privacy and safety and peace. I love our future home so much already. 

I've written before about our path out of debt, which Kristie and I are still on. We each carry student loans, compounded by the cost of starting our family (which, for the record, I would spend a thousand more times to get our son. But gosh, it was a lot of money.) There's lots of work to be done on our finances before we're ready to buy a house. 

So this is where it starts.

After Miles goes to bed, Kristie and I take seats across from each other at the kitchen table and plot our family's future.

Our financial wellness checklist includes saving a down payment, getting out of debt, and improving our credit so that we can hopefully qualify for a home mortgage. 

Along with working extra hard on side hustles and cutting down our spending, tools like Lexington Law Firm are critical to address the third in that list. I don't want to be one of the millions of Americans who are denied home loans because of credit report errors (that usually take months to fix).

It's everyone's right to know and understand their credit report, and it's so important to be educated so you can advocate effectively for those errors getting repaired. Lexington Law Firm is one of the most respected names in credit repair and relies on new technology to have your back through the repair process (including an app that puts crucial information literally into their clients' hands).

The best thing we've done so far in this process is to talk openly about where we are, and to ask for help when we need it. I'm married to a person who likes to do her homework and research before we work with anyone, so I love that Lexington Law Firm is a Consumer Credit Protection Act compliant organization, which means they're regulated extensively. Along with finding a certified public accountant (CPA) to help guide our family, reliable professionals like Lexington Law Firm are going to be really helpful over the next several months while we get our ducks in a row, and then into our own pond.

The lull

I'm so enjoying the quiet of January this year. I feel like we've nestled deeply into its stillness, that hushed lull that follows the holidays. 

This winter feels incredibly different. Last year, of course, we were negotiating life with a three-month-old – the blessing of sleep deprivation is that later, your memories of it can feel foggy, pieced together, almost dreamy. Dreamlike, anyway. Almost like it never happened. (Almost.)

Before Miles's arrival, seasonal affective disorder made this time of year so challenging. I still have it, I still know it's there, but oh it's quiet now. I've known for all of my therapy-going adult years that (1) regular exercise and (2) a consistent routine are direct paths away from the sadness and anxiety that settle in my heart in January, February, and sometimes March.

Of course, knowing something rationally and being able to implement it in real life are two very different things. It wasn't enough to only do it for myself (somewhat sadly, I suppose). I'd craft schedules and to-do lists, write winter goals, plan to visit the gym at work, and then slip so quickly from those promises into...well, couch life. That simply can't happen now. My son's schedule depends on mine, and his is one I'm motivated to protect at all costs. I have to hold myself accountable in order to keep his life healthy and happy and predictable – and now mine is healthier and happier and more predictable too. 

(The gym doesn't influence his life as much, I suppose, but I've been prioritizing an hour there every other day. It's become sacred time I can spend entirely by myself, and I'm enjoying so much the experience of my body getting stronger.)

Our weekends are blissfully empty of formal plans. Kristie and I take turns working on chores or small home projects while the other plays with the toddler close by. We bake and clean and launder, entirely together. We make second breakfast. We take Miles to children's museums or parks or play dates or the library. We doze on the couch while he naps. 

As for me, day to day: I'm keeping a list of knitting to-dos in my phone, and working through it slowly. (In the Google Tasks app, which I like very much.) I invite Miles to help me fold laundry on the floor or rip up kale for soup or sweep in the kitchen, understanding fully that the time each task takes to complete will be multiplied exponentially, but that it will be made immediately worth it to see him engaged and so proud to be helping. I watch an episode of Marie Kondo's new Netflix show after bedtime, and then sort through our belongings with Kristie, moving through the house one area at a time without rushing. I make our bed with cozy flannel sheets. I read a few pages of Mending Matters [affiliate link] before falling asleep, and dream of dyeing raw silk pink with avocado pits. I devote a few minutes each evening to growing our wedding video business. I take chilly walks downtown with dog and stroller in tow. I watch "Charmed" in the bath. 

I'm enjoying the lull this year more than ever before. The three of us (and Samson too) live religiously by a schedule of wake times, nap times, bedtimes. But it's this rigidity, this safe structure that creates room for unhurried wonder, coziness, gentle work, hygge to thrive. I like it very much.

Intention

More art projects, mending, composting, donating, “yes” (to Miles, to rest), being present, making for us, baking (later crossed out and replaced with "cooking"), and fun. I added the words “woods” and “saving” too after taking this picture, and then Miles ripped the whole thing up. I know there’s a metaphor in there somewhere... 

I’m excited for the adventure of a new year, and for sharing it with you here!

A rallying cry for my fellow mamas of white boys

I know I can't be alone in daydreaming about a utopia where "boy"-ness and "girl"-ness isn't binary; where children feel true freedom to like exactly what it is that they like. For the time being, with society the way it is right now, this is my letter to you, fellow mamas of white boys.

 

“How pretty! Oh... I mean handsome!”

Miles was perched on my hip and we were rocking slowly back and forth in the waiting room at his pediatrician’s office, there for his nine-month checkup. The doctor was running late, and Miles was starting to fuss after 40 minutes of charming his fellow waiting patients.

“It’s okay!” I quickly smiled, correcting the kind older woman who’d peered over to coo at him. “Boys can be pretty, too!”

She looked at me, a little concerned. Was I admonishing her? I tried to smile a little bigger, but she turned away.

Socially awkward situations aside, I'm here to tell you that it's more important than ever for mamas of white boys to intentionally cultivate softness in our sons. It's okay that they be pretty, or gentle, or kind, or emotional. We should all want it that way. It's the simplest way to counteract the insidious messages our patriarchal society is sending to them – that running "like a girl," crying when hurt or upset, or enjoying something just because it's beautiful makes them lesser because these choices have been traditionally labelled "feminine." Through our support and celebration of these traits, they will begin to learn that these are not bad things to be – that a girl or a woman is not a bad thing to be, that girls and women are not lesser than them. 

We must let them own this softness, too. It must be part of their "boy"-hood. Our sons need to know and believe that wanting to play with a Barbie or crying when frustrated or picking a tutu for dress-up is part of being a boy. It's not simply that it's feminine that we celebrate their choice to paint their toenails, but rather, or in addition, because it's theirs. An expression of their taste or style or favorite color, just as normal and natural to "boy"-ness as they may understand an interest in toy cars to be. 

These messages have been seeded into our brains too, buried down deep along with all the other garbage we've endured or experienced coming up as women. Giving intention to anything means also giving some of your energy to it. It's taken work and therapy on my part to dismantle, or at least critically examine, the biases that I'm bringing to the table. And as a parent I have to check myself daily – when I'm shopping at Target I go on purpose to the girls' clothing sale racks first. I suggest to Miles's grandparents that they select pink or purple toys when they buy gifts for him. He wears lots of hand-me-down clothing, and as it comes in waves from the growing 2-year-old boy who lives across the street, we sort through and intentionally donate what feels a little too heavy-handed when it comes to dump trucks or superheroes or even the color blue. (Yes, he does wear clothing with tools on it – his last name is Hammer, so that's pretty inevitable – but he also wears rainbow rompers, pj's with pink stripes, and the gosh-darn sweetest bonnets you've ever seen.)

Have you noticed that I'm talking specifically about white boys? That's intentional, too; it's privileged folk who most need to adjust our behavior, biases, and expectations of ourselves and others. As mothers of white sons, we have the opportunity to affect that real change for all of the children in their generation. Black mamas are busy teaching their sons how to stay alive in a deeply broken country where young black men are exponentially more likely to be killed during an interaction with police – not to mention the countless other prejudices men and people of color face and have faced since America's very first days.

So is this the responsibility of mothers alone? No. Everyone has work to do. But it should come built into the #boymom brand. You know – the pride we as "boy moms" take in our ability to correctly identify obscure construction equipment; to discern quickly whether a rough-house injury requires a trip to the ER or not; to toss a good tee-ball pitch. (Although since Miles was born I have, and this is true, gotten much better at playing catch.) So too must we bake this important work in to our mothering. We are the shapers of white men. The responsibility to raise kind, good, fair boys rests, at least partially, on our shoulders. 

Are you a boy mama? Is this something you think about? I'd love to hear what kind of intentional adjustments you've made in raising your sons, or any good articles, books, or resources that have resonated with you.

You might like:

• The Feminist Utopia Project [affiliate link] + my review
• 5 ways to teach kids about consent
• American Girl's first boy doll
• 23 ways you might experience internalized misogyny
• Men report the "feminine" things they would do if stereotypes didn't exist (<-- this made me cry)
• Misogyny has been proven harmful to men's health
• Motherhood as a feminist act
• No means no when boys say it too
• 5 ways to teach children how to handle romantic rejection
• How to combat rape culture when raising kids
• Everything on this list

Clawing our way out of debt and into a new house (or how we make extra money)

I want to buy a house – a safer, quieter, bigger, better place to live with a yard and a fence and good-smelling trees and two bathrooms.

I want to travel – to teach our baby how to sleep on airplanes, to tote him around the United Kingdom and France, to show him as many new people and animals and foods as I can. I want to get tipsy on a beach in Mexico with Kristie. I want to rent a trailer and drive our family around the country. I want to camp somewhere remote and beautiful and mountainous. 

I want to be out of debt.

(I've wanted these things for awhile. So why don't I have them? Because money is hard and life is hard and sometimes I go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.)

We're essentially living on one income right now. Kristie and I are both working (because work can be fulfilling and I think we can all agree that a fulfilled person [however that happens] is a better parent), and I'm the primary earner, so what she makes basically goes right to daycare. 

Four years ago I wrote this post about how to spend less money. All the tips are good and relevant and we still do almost all of them, but we're obviously not millionaires yet, and we're not going to get there just by meal-planning and going to matinees. 

Luckily we each have a pretty good work ethic, especially when it comes to creative projects. This is what we work on on weekends, at night, during nap times. This will be what changes our lives. 

 

Things We Do to Make More Money

Freelance website editing: Kristie works from home one day a week and in the evenings editing listings on a travel site, a gig we came across a thousand years ago on Craigslist.

Wedding videos: Kristie and I are a good videography team. Individually, we've each worked with Brittney and Shana as a third shooter on their wedding videos, and done a couple ourselves that I'm really proud of. These videos are some of my favorite things in the world to make, and I want to do more. We're looking for one or two more this summer, and talking about making it our official (and primary) side gig next wedding season. My dad is a certified drone pilot, so we'll be pulling him on board too! This is the thing that probably makes us the most money, and it's what I enjoy the most too. 

Blog: I've been writing this blog for about six years (wow!). I usually take home between $1,000 and $3,000 per year from affiliate links (I have partnerships with some websites like Amazon or Etsy, and when a reader makes a purchase through a link on my blog, I get a small percentage of the sale), sponsored posts (I've made the most through opportunities posted on Clever), video gigs (through Darby), and Google ads. The money I make blogging first goes to things like my domain name and hosting, and DIY supplies for new posts. Then I "pay myself" with whatever's left over. It's not hugely lucrative, but it's something I love doing and that has its own value, too. 

Freelance writing: I've done freelance writing on and off since I graduated from college in 2009. Most recently, I sold three essays to Pregnant Chicken for $50 each. 

Graphic design: I made $15 last winter with digital holiday card templates on Etsy [affiliate link]. I was anxious about my ability to handle the work with a newborn, but it went well and I'll probably market a little more heavily this winter. I also designed the graphic identity for my dad's drone business for free, and am cautiously interested in doing more of that. 

Passive income: I design and sell cross stitch patterns on Etsy [affiliate link], and photos on Creative Market. Once the up-front work is done (designing, stitching, and shooting patterns/shooting and uploading photos), I take home about $20 a month.

I'm also working on two e-books (one of 10 French macaron recipes, and one of 10 mini feminist cross stitch patterns), and I'm planning a year-long cross stitch subscription for 2019.

Photo editing: I passed the tests to become a Mendr editor (basically freelance Photoshopping for $6-$10 a pop), but they have editors on-staff so there are almost never any available gigs. I still check, though! And I'll edit photos for friends here and there.

 

When it comes to what we do with the extra money we make, it first pays for whatever the gig's needs are (a rented camera for wedding videos; the blog domain name; etc.) and then we try hard-but-not-hard-enough to follow the plan set out in this book [affiliate link]. Be warned, there's a lot of Christian rhetoric in Dave Ramsey's books and on his podcast, but his ideas are sound and his writing is motivational. 

I've made the mistake before (at least once) of taking on too much. Too many hustles. And now I have more to lose now than just downtime; I don't want to do any of this at the cost of spending time with my son. (As I'm writing this, I'm actually kind of talking myself into picking one and putting my time and energy there. It should probably be the wedding videos.)

How does our garden grow? (Um...not well)

My wife Kristie slapped together a garden bed to house some vegetables last month.

It's my first garden in a few years – with each spring I think, no, we won't be here through summer, we'll have bought a new house by then and I won't want to leave our produce for the next renters. But of course, what you need to buy a house is a down payment! And we haven't gotten there quite yet. So I decided to put down a few more roots this spring. We're still working hard on that whole down payment thing – maybe I'll share some of my side hustles here soon – but in the meantime, I'll keep trying to coax some veggies from our backyard.

Spoiler alert: It's not going well, ha! Turns out it's hard to remember to water plants when you're focused on keeping a baby human fed and happy too. Luckily we're still having fun visiting the garden bed after work, talking about the plants, and burrowing Miles's feet into the soil. 

I want to remember the vegetable plants like this. (You know...alive.) Should any rebound from the trauma of being moved from seed tray to garden bed – plus a few days' abject neglect – I'll take their picture again.