I haven’t written in a while for a couple of reasons: one I just haven’t been that inspired, probably because I am exhausted and life/work has been quite demanding; and two I can only do it when my wife isn’t around because she hates me blogging as much as she hates my truck.

Just for clarification, I paid $1500 for my truck and have since put about another $1500 in it. So overall I have spent $3000 on a truck with a full (8 foot) bed, a manual transmission and an inline six engine. The thing is practically a tractor. It is a power house beast that’ll last forever. She hates it because it is ugly, and thinks I should have used the money to apply toward a credit card. If you ask me the truck is well on its way to paying for itself. We have used it many times for things like hauling stuff to the dump, bringing home the television armoire she bought used (no delivery option and it wouldn’t fit in anything but the truck due to its size and weight – it couldn’t be laid on its side without risking structural integrity), and bringing home a pallet of sod. I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking to use the neighbor’s minivan to fill with sod.

So back to my original point, I have to post in secret unless I want to deal with a bunch of attitude. She thinks that it is time that could be better spent finding another job in fortune 500 CorpAmerika. She just won’t accept that my blog serves any kind of purpose other than wasting my time. She thinks it’s about as useful as watching reruns of “Friends”, so I must get up early enough to do my posts by 6:30 AM. Like I say in my tag line, “…No Money, No Time, and An Unsupportive Spouse.” Thing is, I may one day want to create a blog that generates revenue because I am a huge believer in multiple revenue streams. In fact, that is a concept I am teaching my kids because that may be the only way many in their generation will be able to do more than just scrape buy. Redundancy implies resilience. This blog is a perfect training ground for that.

Another thing is: the more people I can show how to get on the road to liberty and resilience, the less power the current centralized systems have. Options are power, and the larger the community the more power it has. Many people look at what others are doing and have accomplished and feel like it is out of reach for them to do that. This blog shows them the baby steps that I am taking are steps almost anyone can take. That gives people hope and direction, which then brings them into the resilience community. But we must take action as individuals in order for the community to be viable. For me right now, if my job goes away, I am dead in the water. I have nothing in place to mitigate that catastrophe so I would be nothing more than a burden in that community, which by definition would mean I am not part of that community at all. I am still completely dependent upon the corporate payroll system and the just-in-time grocery system to meet my needs. That must change. I must get back up systems in place – and so must you!

Action

• Took my youngest with me to buy some more raw milk from a local farm. [Supporting local community, supporting small farming, improving health through quality food. Also showing by example the importance of buying local and natural]

“If we wait for the governments, it’ll be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it’ll be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time.” – Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Town movement.