Suburban Intro to Homesteading

In honor of it being 1 year since I wrote my first blog post, I wanted to start focusing on it again. So here is a glimpse of the going-ons of my life right now. More writing coming soon. If fat is stored energy I would like to turn on that generator please. After reaching a couple of milestones in the fitness world I had to take a hard look at the progress I've made. That lead me down a road of admittance that I don't have a lot of self control. Wanna race? You betcha. Wanna eat a whole pan of brownies? Absolutely. Drink all these beers? I'm already 4 ahead. So what's the answer to burning fat? Is there only one? (Preview....Of course not! This is a post about the one I am trying though) It took quite a few years and an abundance of exposure but eventually the Ketosis diet/lifestyle peaked my interest. Mostly because of a fitness expert/adventurer/bio-hacking podcaster I listen to swears by it. The big issue is that everyone says it's hard. Of course its har...

Chickens!! Our family is very excited that getting a half dozen chickens is becoming less of a fantasy and more of a possibility in the near-er future! Most of my spare time has been spent watching YouTube videos on how to raise backyard chickens so that we can be as prepared as possible. This will be one of the first major steps towards my Blogs original goal of introducing our family to Suburban Homesteading. So far we have done a couple minor things like getting a handle on Brewing Kombucha, I'm able to brew 2 gallons of yummy goodness every 8-10 days. Like so many Americans, I grew up in a normal suburb with fences, cats and dogs, and a lot of lawnmowers. No one had anything more exotic or farm-like than an occasional pet snake or a gerbil. It wasn't until adulthood that I developed an interest in having pet chickens. "What? Pet chickens!? You cant have food for a pet." That's my voice up until I was about 27. Lots of things have walked me down the p...

Faith over Worry. It has been my experience in life, that "God only gives us one obstacle we cant overcome, and we will die from it." At first this seems a bit dark, or dim. However, this quote almost entirely encapsulates my faith in God. I was raised in a Christian Church doing all the weird ritual things that might give you heebie jeebies like chanting along with people in robes, singing off key in unison, Christian rappers, drinking wine that everyone insists is blood (which is just so so weird to a child, lets be honest). *me looking toward the sky* I mean come on God, drinking blood? Super weird. But despite constantly being surrounded with things that feel weird and awkward in the modern world of Christianity or any religion for that matter, one thing has always stayed steadfast in my heart and mind and that was God working things out.  Maybe not how I thought it would get worked out, but it happened anyway. I could write a book ...

Getting back to my homesteading interests, I want to talk about my new favorite hobby, Kombucha Brewing and my motivations for it's consumption. First off, what is Kombucha? It's fermented tea that you can flavor almost any way you can imagine. It's also carbonated, which is a huge plus for those trying to kick soda habits, or just generally get tired of only drinking water all the time. I am about to finish up my third batch of Kombucha and I'm super excited about it. So far I've had Mango Ginger, Blueberry, and Cherry Cream Soda flavors, Those might sound pretty involved but for some perspective, in all of my batches the only ingredients I've used are Water, Sugar, Tea, SCOBY, Mango, Ginger, Blueberries, Cherries, Vanilla Bean, and Honey. About as natural as it can get. Wait, what was the weird word in the middle there? SCOBY. That sounds weird. It is weird! HaHa. It stands for Symbiotic Culture of Bacteria and Yeast, which is a really long acronym ...

"Ok, we now recognize that kneeling for the national anthem is for social injustice and not intending to insult the military, but now what? come up with a solution right now and stop complaining because we still think your insulting the military, so come up with a solution right now because your making us angry complaining about social injustice"                  -Everyone who is smart enough to kind of get it, but expects everyone to live exactly how they do. Yesterday I wrote out a post outlining an experience I had with police officers where I feel I could draw a different outcome if my skin had been a different color. Would that outcome be different every time? Is every police officer a racist, mean, hateful, bigot? No. I believe that statistically there is a higher risk for violence if a black man had been in my shoes even without thinking that the majority of officers are bad. The...

I'm still alive. Without trying to sound overly dramatic, I want to write about why I believe in and support the current protests going on in America. We have for a time now seen NFL players taking a knee, or sitting on the bench during the National Anthem. So here is a story from my life, and some thoughts. I'm still alive, and it's because I'm white. My family and a few close friends and colleagues know this story, but it wasn't until recently that the entire event has really taken a deeper meaning with me. Before my wife was pregnant I spent some time basically wasting life away as an Uber driver trying to avoid the daily 9-5 grind. What I found was that to make money, I had to drive drunk people home at night. About this time, there were surfacing stories about people attacking their Uber drivers. Well, I'm a little dude with little muscles. And at the time, didn't have the money to get a CCW license to carry a firearm. So I did what I thought was ...

I want to take a couple minutes to celebrate my wife today on her birthday. Opposites attract is pretty much the foundational building blocks of our relationship, and I have been very blessed to learn so much about life from my perfect opposite. We are very excited to go out and celebrate her birthday together, just the two of us. Which is mind blowing to me. I can't even dream of not going out with 15 people and having heck big party with tons of attention. But that's why Lindsey is so perfect in my eyes. She asked that we go out to her favorite spot, just the two of us for an evening. Elegant, simple, independent. Three characteristics that I love about her so much and want to celebrate. Lindsey knows exactly how to be elegant. She can hold herself with class, knows how to put together clothes, makeup and jewelry in just a way where it isn't flashyn but when you look a little closer she is perfectly put together. Simple. Simple might sound negative at first, but with...