Frugal Families Blog : Finally back to sharing!

Finally back to sharing!

Posted by: Tammy

Yep, it’s been a long time since I blogged. Last year my laptop went critical and went to the great recycling center in the sky. My desktop was also beginning to struggle, giving it’s all to the last click which literally was “transmit” on the Turbo Tax software to get our taxes sent to the gov on April 14th! Looking back, I should have allowed the desktop to go but I resuscitated it. That said, the desktop is not a great place to sit and share with everyone.

I am now back to an awesome laptop and ready to get back to sharing life on our little homestead!

Well, now we have TWO homesteads! For about four years, our family was shopping for a piece of property that would serve as a vacation destination and maybe as a future retirement property. Well, we had been searching in upper state New York for three years and after celebrating our 20th anniversary in New Hampshire, we decided to consider NH instead. I had been born there and loved the idea of staying in New England. So, the New Hampshire search began. I guess it was meant to be because we found our dream property within the first month of searching!!

We fell in love with the little pond, the reclaimed, hand-hewn barn timbers they used to frame out the sun room, the three-stalled mortar and tenon barn, the workshop garage and the big pasture. We fell in love the the little porch that overlooked the pond and we fell in love with the quiet location. I could see my future garden and orchard. I could maybe see some chickens scratching around and I saw the potential for fish-farming. The fellas were hooked on the pond and the property which boasted a hunter’s shack and camp near the backside of the nearly 8 acres. Thank goodness we “saw” all that because we could also see the evidence of a serious mouse infestation, lack of insulation and quite a bit of other work we had to do on this foreclosure but we managed to negotiate an awesome price with the bank which allowed us to stay in our small budget. That was a year ago already!

So here and there, I can now share our story of bringing this wonderful little property back to life and how we’re doing it as frugally as possible!

In the meantime, things slowed down to a crawl here in CT. I suffered a severe sprain to my foot and ankle last summer. Unbeknownst to the orthopedic surgeon, I also dislocated the cuboid bone, a rare injury. The cuboid was dislocated for nearly 12 weeks when I finally started physical therapy and they discovered it! The long and short of this injury is that it’s NOT common, it’s commonly not diagnosed properly because it’s assumed all the pain is the sprain (when it usually happens) and the overly stretched cuboid ligament doesn’t properly hold the cuboid bone in place in the mid-foot. In the end, I learned so much about cuboid syndrome and took myself to an orthotics expert who designed a special orthotic for my shoes which supports the bone and allows for healing. I am FINALLY on the mend!!! That said, I lost out on my fall hunting season, was really limited with fall canning season and harvesting and will probably sit out this maple sugaring season (although the temps are such that I’m not sure we’ll have one). It will take a long time to regain the strength I lost with sitting around in a cam boot for nearly three months of 6 months and sitting around much of the other time even when I wasn’t in a cam boot. Life is slowly getting back to a new normal.

Okay, so now you know I’m still alive and living the frugal life. Off to work the job outside the house now and think of what to share with you next.