The rest of the ax... forcefully self-sufficient

Well, today we got the news that I was afraid would be coming, my husband is officially laid off. I, being self-employed as a painter (art not houses) am also having a very slow income time because the people that usually would buy art are either broke, or hoarding all their money so they don't become broke too. So what better opportunity to put my self-sufficiency skills to work. Mind you they won't pay the hospital bill, the mortgage, our car payment etc, but they might 'pay' the food bill, the clothing bill and lower some other bills like electricity.

Of course we are both going to be looking for some paycheck work and hopefully our small savings will tide us over this rough patch. We realize that the economy sucks and we're likely going to be taking jobs our college educations will go unused at, but maybe being forced to be very productive in our gardening etc. will be rewarding enough to make up for that.

Luckily, I have all those great heirloom seeds coming in the mail. That gives me something to look forward to, and I don't feel guilty about having bought them since they'll be put to very good use. For those of you that are in the Phoenix area and don't feel like starting your own seeds indoors in January, I expect to have a few extra seedlings of interesting and productive varieties of tomato, peppers and eggplants mostly. You can contact me here and/or also I'll bring them down to the Saturday downtown farmers market at the Permaculture booth in a few weeks when it's transplant time. They will be cheap, and if you happen to represent my bank, they will be available for mortgage bartering.

I don't mean for this to be a downer post. My mom is encouraging me to view this as a great opportunity. I think opportunity would be a word more suited for an occasion where you are given 2 weeks and a hundred dollars to make a fantastic present for a friend. This is more of fear-based initiative, where the car's going to blow up so I better figure out how to utilize my gum, ball point pen and paperclip to avoid catastrophe. Although, I suppose that's a sort of opportunity too...