About me: Too Long Didn’t Read
I know most people don’t have time to sit and read my entire about page, so here’s the TLDR: This blog is a parenting and homestead journey blog. My advice is for both moms and dads, but some posts be dad-leaning, but I think most of my advice is pretty universal.
Topics you’ll fine here:
- Parenting advice
- Making memories with your kids
- Homesteading
- Parenting tools
- Gadgets
- Gardening
- Food preservation
- Homebrewing
- Fermented foods
- Self sufficiency
- Baking
- DIY projects
- Anything parents might find useful
A little about me.
I am a dad of two beautiful little girls, aged 3 years and 6 months, and I have a wonderful wife. I love to cook, bake, garden, build stuff for the kids, homebrew, smoke cigars, and I like to run (even though I’m way too fat for it). I am a physicist by education and training. My day job consists of doing research and managing large-scale projects, but dadding and learning to be more self sufficient is the most important aspects of my life.
My professional career started off at the research facility I’m still currently at. The lab quickly hired me on full-time, six months into graduate school. However, there was a stipulation, I also had to maintain a full-time course load, so working 60-80 hours a week wasn’t uncommon.
Needless to say, come three years into this routine… I was burned out. Bad. I made it through my course work, but now it was time for qualifying exams. I didn’t have the energy anymore to study. My ADD and stress was just way too much to find the energy or drive to study anymore. I was done. My current mentor and boss at the time understood and we terminated my degree at a Masters.
After my masters defense, life chilled out a good bit since I no longer had to focus on course work. But the high-drive work ethic was still there.
It wasn’t until my first daughter was born that I realized I had a problem. Stress from work and homelife had just become too much. I was burning out again. All of my relationships at this point in my life were starting to be strained, including my relationship with my wife and daughter. It was time for some help.
I signed up for meeting with a counselor and he really helped me put my life and problems in to perspective. I became a better man and I was able to take better control of my life. The primary thing I learned from getting help was that not everyone has the same core values, but I need to find mine and stick to them and understand not everyone will agree with mine. This blog is essentially my journey through my primary core value: my children, the life I lead them through during their formative years, and they come FIRST.
A friend/mentor of mine was also having some issues at the same time. He had much more experience than I did and he too was having his own problems. One day he pulled me aside while we were doing some work in the field and he said,
Do not make the same mistakes I did. My kids are almost grown and I missed most of their lives because of work. Focus on your family. You won’t get to do this again. Don’t ruin it.
This really struck a nerve with me and really shoved me into a different paradigm. This guy was one of the guys I was trying to bust my butt for and here he is, seeing the effort I’m putting into my work, and at the same time providing advice how to be a better parent.
This blog is essentially about me taking the path I need to take to make my kids better adults than I am. There are some things I think are super important that I think my kids need to know. This blog is about some of those things too. Some important topics I want my kids to learn as the grow up:
- Know where their food comes from
- How to grow their own foods
- Understand where meat comes from
- Understand it’s ok to get your hands dirty
- Failure is ok, let’s learn from it
- How to be self reliant
- It’s ok to ask for help when you really need it
- It’s ok to stand up for yourself
- How to better handle emotions
- Know when to ask for help
- It’s ok to ask for help
Homesteading
When I’m not spending time with my family or working, I spend my free time daydreaming about what life goals and what my values really are. Right now I am very happy from a career perspective, so I don’t fret about it so much. Right now, my biggest dream is buying some land and building a homestead for my family where I can pass on the skills I want my kids to learn and be somewhat self sufficient.
It is of my opinion that americans as a whole have gotten way too attached to instant gratification and electronics. I am VERY guilty of this. I want to move away from a technology based life and go back to a more self sufficient lifestyle. I know this seems hypocritical from a blogger, but I really do believe there is a healthy life balance with technology.
Besides parenting content, this blog is also about my in-progress journey to be a homesteader. Family on both sides of my parents were originally farmers in rural Illinois. I am trying to reach back to some of my ancestral roots and find my green thumbs and live off the land a little more.
My grandfather (mom’s dad) was absolutely obsessed with farming, even after he made it as a big-time businessman. So much so, he had land just so he could play with his tractors and even had a tractor museum. That kind of left an impression on me and I’d like to return to that just a little bit. Right now, I don’t have my dream property of 10 acres with pond and a big garden, but I do have enough to turn our current home into a starter homestead, so that’s where we’ll start.