Browsing Tag

colorado

Life on the Homestead

Working full time and taking care of 50 animals takes quite a bit of time – but seriously loving every minute. Until I can update again, I’ll share a brief overview of whats been going on around the homestead.

– Made some Elderberry Ginger Syrup

– Experimented with making a high altitude adjusted Chocolate Beet Cake

– Learned how to save money and make our own goat feed

– Still learning about raising pullets

– Watching ducks make a massive mess everyday in their food & water

– Making reusable “utter wipes” for the goat milking

– Canning summer fruits and veggies

– Visits from family

– Homemade yogurt

– Using the dehydrator more often to preserve summer goods

– Goat cheese making

– Sourdough successes

Processing Homestead Life

After moving around and having constant change for the past few years, its been really great to have some routine and structure. Milking every morning and evening, feeding animals, making cheese and sourdough, finally being able to actually throw away moving boxes (!!!) and settle in. It’s been kind of crazy how fast all this has happened. It’s such a different life than what we were living before – and such a refreshing change. I don’t think I realized how absolutely peaceful living on a homestead, taking care of animals, and being SO busy with things that I love doing, was going to be. In the craziness of what our world & culture looks like these days, this verse describes perfectly what we sense God is calling us to and what we find joy in:

“Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to work with your hands, so you may win the respect of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone”

We also have the most amazing neighbors ever. I’m serious. I can’t even tell you everything that they’ve done for us in helping us get going – not only are they pros at homesteading, they are just really fun people and we are super blessed to have great friends living just down the road. You should follow them here or here.

I also have to brag on the husband a little bit – he’s been working extremely hard over the past few months at work & sacrificing time spent on the farm, so that we can actually have this place. #imlucky

I hope to have time to post more updates with recipes, photos, and stories – but for now I’ll leave you with this quote from Abraham Lincoln

“The greatest fine art of the future will be the making of a comfortable living from a small piece of land.”

Linking up with Leigh Kramer

September 1, 2015

Country Living, Simple Living, Tiny Living

Home Sweet Home

Quick update on our housing situation:

We bought a home in Westcliffe!

And it has a finished house on it!

With heat, water, electricity, AND a functioning kitchen.

And 6.5 acres. Also a barn & a couple of chicken coops.

And fun neighbors that we love.

We also ordered 30 chickens, 10 ducks, a couple kittens & 3 goats.

It may have taken us a couple years to get to this point, from starting to build a tiny house in Golden CO, to moving to Westcliffe last year, moving back to Denver area for work, and moving back to Westcliffe in March of this year.

Tiny House

Lots of folks ask us about our tiny house, so I wanted to talk about that a little bit here. It is currently on our neighbors land, waiting to be moved onto ours. We were initially told that the trailer was a better grade of metal than it actually is (thank you Craigslist) and we have been told by several knowledgeable folks that it needs to be put on a permanent foundation before we finish it/ASAP. SO: as of right now the plan is to move it onto our land and take it off the wheels & set it in its final resting place. There, we will either rent it out (nightly on Airbnb) or have it as a guest cabin for friends who come visit.

Our plans have changed so many times over the past two years. We’ve moved 15 times since we were married in April 2013.

But we’re hoping that this one really sticks.

In fact, to signify this commitment, we are expanding our family by 45 (before butchering most of them in the fall). We’ve got 30 chickens, 10 ducks, a couple kittens, and 3 goats headed to our little farm over the next month.

You better believe I’ll introduce to you them all and attempt to share our homesteading adventures over the next few months.

Welcome to our new adventure – we’re diving straight into this homesteading life!

(Photo cred for feature image: Susan Bonee)

July 6, 2015

Country Living, Simple Living, Tiny Living

Westcliffe CO: And Back Again

You people aren’t going to believe this. Some of you are going to think we are nuts.

And you’re definitely correct about that.

We’re moving back to Westcliffe – the land flowing with milk and honey.

Well not quite. At least about the honey part.

We’ve had quite the adventure over the past 2 years of marriage. We got married and started building a tiny house and lived it in for a few months, we moved to Westcliffe CO after dreaming about it for a couple years. We attempted to make it work (financially) in the small town – and figured out in order for us to get anywhere in life, we needed to make some substantial money first (otherwise, we’d end up living in cycles of poverty for quite awhile) – we moved to Brighton CO because Ryan got a job working in the oil fields in Northern Colorado.

Well, as you’ve all noticed gas prices are way down from what they used to be.

And while this is wonderful for lots of people, this has put his job at risk. In fact, he was pretty much guaranteed a lay off in the next few weeks/months. Since we are young and used to change, this hasn’t exactly shaken us too much. On the contrary – it feels like freedom to us in a lot of ways.

Most people know someone who works on the oil field, and you know that their work hours are unreal. Ryan has been averaging at 110 hours per week that he works (2 week on, 1 week off rotations). There are 336 hours in 14 days. 220 hours he has been working, 116 (58 a week or 8 hours a day – which always ends up being closer to 6) hours are spent sleeping, eating, showering, traveling to and from work, and anything else that comes up in life: like spending time with your wife.

Needless to say, we’re kind of DONE with oil field lifestyle.

So while this bring a tad of uncertainty back into our life, being the oldest children that we are, we both find some excitement in that.

Which brings me to the title of this post:

We are moving back to Westcliffe!!!

LOL

I’m sorry, I can’t help but laugh and roll my eyes at us. So its totally ok if you are too :)

Our goal in moving away to Brighton was to save some money so that we could *someday* move back, buy some land, and live simply. Well, this move back is certainly quicker than we thought it would be, but I suppose that’s life.

We are in the process of purchasing a piece of land in a beautiful valley (a couple lots over from this picture), with amazing neighbors who are already well on their way to living the homesteading lifestyle that we’re interested in. On the land and what we will live in is an…. (get ready to laugh and roll your eyes again)….

UNFINISHED TRAILER!

LOL! (Maybe I should have named this blog post “Déjà vu“…)

I couldn’t really believe it either when we started looking at this lovely piece of mess (sorry, no pics yet). I told Ry, “I’m really not sure I can do this again…”

I remembered last time we lived in a shed(tiny house), without electricity, without water, without a kitchen or bathroom… I mean, HELLO: I wrote an entire blog on it!! But before we saw the inside of this creature, we went through the things that were needed in order to make it livable:

Water
Electricity
Warmth
Functioning Kitchen & Bathroom

When we finally got into the tiny shack, we realized: it’s not as bad as we thought it was!! While it definitely needs some TLC, and a couple of major changes (like digging a well), overall, we don’t feel overwhelmed by everything that needs to be done. And that’s saying something.

Another question we’ve wrestled with: “can we/should we finish the tiny house?” And this is something we are still wrestling with. Because at this point where we are at with it is still: unfinished. Is it better to put money into tiny house or another unfinished housing project? Well, “what one requires less cash & stress?” is going to be the winning answer.

I haven’t found very many other tiny house people with a similar story to ours: except Casey and Jessica Friday (recently had their tiny house stolen). I empathize so much with this blog that Jessica recently wrote about why they won’t be living in their tiny house. While we do have several of the things that the Fridays no longer have at their disposal (land, lifestyle..etc), I totally get the basis of what she’s getting at here. The whole point of the tiny house movement is what? SIMPLICITY. So that’s our focus moving forward: do the simple thing.

So here’s to many more future blog posts about building chicken coops, milking goats, making cheese, and sharing life (and cows) with neighbors in our precious lil mountain town. Here’s to not many more moves, but an acknowledgement of “that’s where we are in life”.

Here’s to the kind of simple living that is sometimes more… complicated :)

(linking up with Leigh Kramer– because what I’m up to these days is moving and living the nomad’s life)

March 4, 2015

City Living, Country Living, Simple Living, Tiny Living

Tiny House Magazine Feature: Tiny Living, Big Community

Tiny House News

We are super exited to be featured this month in Kent Griswold and Andrew Odom‘s online creation of Tiny House Magazine!*

This month they are celebrating their 2 year anniversary! Congrats guys!!

The article tells much of Ryan and I’s story: from meeting, to engagement, to wedding, to tiny house building, to current.

There is a focus on our wedding and how it literally took our entire community to pull it off (there are several folks mentioned – not by name – in the article, so if you were involved in helping with our wedding, you might just be in there…) We like to think of it as our “barn raising” wedding.

Also a snazzy infographic (created by yours truly) depicting the average costs of weddings in the U.S. this year based on a study by Statistic Brain.

Here’s a sneak peak of the article:

I had never heard of a Tiny House until I met my husband in 2012. I met him in a coffee shop that I was working at in Golden, Colorado. He was living in Houston at the time and was just visiting family, who was traveling through the area. We had a lot in common; We’re both oldest children, both fairly stubborn, both enjoy learning, and we both wanted to live a life that was different than the average person.

To read the rest, click here or on the picture above to purchase this month’s edition of Tiny House Magazine! Get 25% off if you use the code 25FOR5 from now until December 23rd. (If you click on the link, scroll down until you see the 24th Edition- $3.99, with 25% off with coupon code)

Included are other stories and pictures of tiny house and sustainable living enthusiasts. If you like reading about things like grown men making homes in dumpsters, or families living in hobbit holes, or if you just enjoy learning about how to live a more sustainable life – you need to check out this magazine.

Other News

Another 2 year anniversary is quickly approaching – our wedding anniversary! I mean, we’re still like 4 months away, but whatever :)

This month I’ll remember my babe’s sweet proposal on Christmas day

cute baby tree and gorgeous big girl ring

It was awesome. Like for real. Totally didn’t see it coming. He’s so creative too: he wrapped up every candle, then as I unwrapped it he lit them all, and placed them around the room so that by the time I got to the last present we were sitting in a cozy, mountain, candleland. (#soromantic) He just rolls his eyes (like a good husband does) while I bring out the tissues while looking through every.single.wedding.picture. I can’t help it. #iloveus

As well as having fun memories from last Christmas when my family came to visit us and we packed 10 people in a two bedroom one bath lil rental, went sledding, and frolicked in the Sangre de Cristo mountains for the holiday. This Christmas will be quite different from my family’s normal traditions as my dad is recovering from a scare with severe acute pancreatitis. I may write more about this experience in the future, we’ll see. For now, we’re all just really thankful that my Dad is alive and on the mend.

My family, minus Ryan… he was making my Christmas presents #spoiledrotten

So I’m not exactly sure what this year’s Christmas festivities will include, but at least we got the tree up :)

Merry Christmas everyone! Don’t forget to grab your copy of the Tiny House Magazine, cozy up next to something warm (fire, candle, or coffee mug will do), and check out our article! :)

(*This post contains affiliate links)

December 18, 2014

City Living, Simple Living

Simple Living Part Two: Homemade Mouthwash

As I mentioned in the previous blog, I’ve really enjoyed learning about how to make simple and cheaper versions of things I use all the time. I don’t think that there is anything morally wrong with just using whatever you buy at the store – I’m not one of those organic evangelists who thinks that if you feed your child Cheerios you are a horrible parent (I buy my 31 year old baby Cheerios. I DO roll my eyes because he works in the OIL FIELD people! Don’t you need more energy than those lil round things to work 16 hours a day?! Whatever. He loves them).

I think that sometimes “living simply” can mean so many different things for people. For example, for someone who is working a demanding job, perhaps living simply looks like whatever can get them relaxing with their family as much as possible. Or if things are tight financially, living simply looks like purchasing/making whatever allows there to be more free room in the bank account. Does this make sense?

I am super curious about experimenting with various methods of making my own products (fill in the blank: toothpaste, shampoo, tomato sauce, candles…etc.).

ALL this to say, the next month or so I am going to do a series, titled Simple Living, documenting my experiments and reviews of specific recipes, as well as interviewing several natural living experts. Just like any other blogger, I love to get feedback. If you have a recipe for something YOU make around the house that simplifies you and your family’s life, I want to hear about it! I would love to feature YOUR recipes here :)

Email me at restoringsimple@gmail.com or fill out the form below to share a recipe, story, or experience you had creating something to simplify your life.

And now: HOMEMADE MOUTHWASH!

I recently got together with a good friend and we cranked out 6 different recipes that we wanted to try, including deodorant, face wash, make-up remover, shampoo, conditioner, and mouthwash.

Homemade Mouthwash: big thumbs up.

Slightly cinnamon-y, minty, and refreshing. Doesn’t have that crazy burn that most mouthwash has. I had a painful mouth sore when I started using it and the next day after using this mouth it was significantly less painful, and by day 2 it was gone completely. My husband thinks that the mouth sore had just run its course, while I think the essential oils did the trick – this is an on-going debate we have about success of EOs. He thinks its in my head, I partially think it is too, but I still LOVE essential oils and am convinced that they do their job. But more about that later…

I like this recipe because it uses the essential oils that it does, so you get the added benefit of having the Thieves, Peppermint, and Lemon swished around in your mouth.

Plus, I kind of feel like there is a Christmas-y cleaning party going on in my mouth. It’s very pleasant.

Try it out and let me know how you like it, or don’t.

Here is the recipe that my friend provided (she originally found it here, but tweaked a few things):

2 tsp calcium carbonate powder

10 drops of trace minerals

10 drops of peppermint

5 drops of lemon

5 drops of thieves

2 cups of filtered water

Store in the fridge for up to two weeks (precaution).

Now, I’ve had it now for four days, and I haven’t yet put in the fridge… mostly because I keep forgetting :)

So try it out and let me know what you think!

And if you have a recipe or homemade product that you’ve made before (doesn’t have to be an original recipe) and want to share it, please fill out the form below and you’ll be hearing from me shortly :)

December 13, 2014

City Living, Country Living, Simple Living

Homemade Cleaning Products: Laundry Soap, Glass Cleaner, and Dish Soap

It is so much easier than you think to make your own homemade cleaning products.

For real. Like it took me a few minutes to make these cleaning solutions for laundry soap, glass cleaner, and dish washing soap.

I really enjoy learning about how to make a simple version of things we use all the time. AND CHEAPER. And so many of these recipes I’m finding all use the same ingredients. Now, that just makes sense to me. There will be more recipes coming in future blogs, I promise. I’m way too obsessed to stop now. For now, I’ll start with these THREE recipes for homemade cleaning products I’ve made over the past few months and LOVE them.

Ok. Go to the grocery store, (or your pantry) and grab these items:

– Washing Soda and Borax (both typically right next to each other on the laundry supplies aisle at the grocery store)

– Bar of Soap

– Citric Acid (I’ve never used this before, and after searching the store for 30 minutes and googling, “where to find citric acid in a grocery store”, I finally found it near the canning supplies on the baking aisle. You’re welcome.)

– White Vinegar

– Spray Bottle

– Corn Starch

These recipes came from Wellness Mama’s blog – which I highly recommend if you are a DIYer or lover of all things natural. ::thumbs up:::

Use 1/8-1/4 cup per load

Laundry Soap

– 1 parts soap (grated into fine pieces. We love the smell of Dr. Bonner’s Lavender) mixed with

– 2 parts borax and

– 2 parts washing soda.

That’s it.

Use about 1/8-1/4 cup for each load. Our clothes always smell super fresh.

Super crispy clean, no streaks

Glass Cleaner

– Mix 1/4 cup of vinegar with

– 1/4 cup of rubbing alcohol

– 1 TBSP of corn starch and

– 2 cups of warm water

Mix ingredients and you’re good to go. While I’m cleaning the bathroom mirror, I go ahead and use this cleaning mixture to clean the sink, bathtub, and toilet. Easy Peasy.

(Hint: shake the bottle or jar before each use to get the corn starch mixed evenly)

Not bad!

Dish Washing Soap

– Mix 1 part citric acid with

– 1 part salt

– 2 parts borax and

– 2 parts washing soda

Keep in an airtight container or the mixture will harden into a solid mass. Learned this lesson the hard way after the first batch. Still cleaned the dishes amazingly, but I just had to work for it (think hammer and chisel). Another option for this, as my brilliant husband suggested, is to store the citric acid (as this is what causes the mixture to harden and stick together) separately and then add to the mix when starting a load of dishes. This may vary depending on how hard/soft your water is, so just experiment until you find something that works :)

(Hint: we use about 1/2 cup of vinegar as the rinsing agent)

Let me know how these recipes work for you!

Happy Cleaning!

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December 8, 2014

City Living, Simple Living, Tiny Living

The Realities of Living in an Unfinished Tiny House

I (Hannah) have had several people recently ask me questions about living in an unfinished tiny home. I finally sat down and replied to someone with a really long email about the whole experience.

If you are considering moving into a tiny house that is not yet finished, perhaps you should read this. Or not. If someone had tried to tell me this information (oh wait… they probably did), I/we would not have listened. We wanted/want to live our own adventure – hard times and all.

Without further ado, a story about living in an unfinished tiny house as told in a reply to a question via email from Hannah’s perspective (Ryan may add his thoughts later on).

Alli,

Good to hear from you! I’ve really enjoyed the Tiny House community on Instagram.

Ok. “What was it like to live in an unfinished tiny house?” This is gonna be long. Prepare yourself.

When we first moved in, we ONLY had the bedroom built. Like, just a 10X10 (or so, I don’t remember exact dimensions right now). Pics on website, on “Tiny House and Wedding Update” blog post or the “Our Tiny House” page. We eventually finished the entire exterior, but this was while we were living in it.

A tiny bit of back story: we got married in April 2013 and a week before we were married the housing situation we were planning on moving into together, fell through and we were forced to scramble last minute to find a place. We found a month-to-month rental place that was 240 sq feet (great practice for Tiny living). We knew that in July 2013 we either had to make a year commitment to the rental place, or find somewhere else to live.

Around the beginning of June, we found a great deal on a gooseneck trailer that we bought. So our thought was to start building immediately and move into it at the end of July when our lease was up.Everything worked out: we found somewhere super close to where we both worked to start building. An amazingly sweet elderly woman had a few acres right in the middle of Golden CO (where we lived at the time) and allowed us to park the trailer (and all of the extra stuff that comes with it – turns out building materials take up a LOT of space) and start building.

We did get the bedroom somewhat livable before moving in..meaning it was framed with plywood and some tarps to keep out the rain. VERY basic. We ran an extension cord out from her shed to charge cell phones, laptop, and power tools, and kept water bottles around and used her hose to refill. But we didn’t have room for a kitchen, it was just the bed. She allowed us to keep our clothes in her garage, so that became our closet. We didn’t have any food storage options, so we just went to the grocery store every morning for breakfast, fast food (ugh) for lunch and dinner. We’d come back to the tiny house after work and work on it in the evenings before bed. We showered at my office which was like 2 miles away and used the bathroom at a gas station close by.

The lady whose land we were living on eventually took pity on us (I believe her words were, “no one should have to live like this”) and invited us to use her kitchen and bathroom. So at that point we were basically living with her, without living in her house. She allowed us to use part of a fridge and freezer space, kitchen to cook meals each day, and bathroom to use and take showers in. This significantly improved our quality of life, as you can imagine.

The building process took us SO much longer than we anticipated. We moved in in July, and I was under the impression that we were going to have the whole tiny house down before winter.

October hit and the temperature started dropping significantly, especially at night. Although we did make significant progress, we didn’t have electrical wiring or insulation done yet. Tragically, the elderly woman passed away very suddenly, and her family decided to put the house and land on the market. For 2-3 months around that time, we lived in friends basements, guest bedrooms, and cheap hotels around the Denver area. We decided to move to a tiny mountain town 4 hours south of Denver at Christmas, and moved the Tiny House down there as soon as the family sold the place.

Summary

Overall – yes, I can honestly say that I am slightly scarred from the experience of living in the tiny house before it was complete. There may have been other factors involved with that time period being difficult, like we were VERY much newlyweds, basically moving into a shed after being married for 3 months, living a “3rd world country experience” yet still trying to keep up with our “1st world” jobs and community. Or the fact that when we were dating and first married we had like $300 and had no idea what we were doing as far as building something this enormous – did I mention that our tiny house is HUGE? Like 250 sq feet. Needless to say, it made me feel fairly unstable and made both of us stressed out in general, not having somewhere to just CHILL and recoup. To be living in a construction zone, always having SO much to do: that list only gets longer and involves more money.

All that and I still say this: I really hope that this doesn’t scare you away from building a tiny house or even living in it unfinished.

I know that for who my husband and I are (we’re both firstborns) we needed to do this. If you are even considering building a tiny house, I feel like you will understand this somewhat. Even if it causes some scarring :) you can heal from it and learn a ton.

Where we are at now:

The tiny house is still down in the mountain town on some other friend’s land, in the unfinished state we left it in. It is PACKED full of building materials. We basically ran out of money and realized that we needed to spend a few years being a tad more strategic in planning our future. We moved back to the Denver area, took great jobs, and are living a fairly focused life just working and planning for the future. My husband works 7 days a week in the oil field and he has 1 week off every once in awhile so he is planning on going down there every so often to finish the house. We still have high hopes of finishing it, and we just realized that we had to be a bit more strategic if we wanted to remain sane :)

Advice (take it or leave it) for those considering living in an unfinished Tiny House:

– Work on finishing the inside first. That’s what you’ll be living in. If the outside just has tyvek for awhile, and it looks like crap, but you have electricity, insulation, drywall and a bed and chair (:sigh:) and the inside can be a refuge for you, it will help you keep going when you feel overwhelmed.

– If you do move in without electricity and water, and its basically like a shed, simplify your lifestyle. And by that I mean cut out as many extra activities as possible. I don’t know if you work, or how much, or if you are super involved in your community, or hang out with friends a ton, or have your own business, etc… but the more of these “other activities” you can temporarily cut out during the time you are building and are forced to live a highly rudimentary lifestyle, the better. Almost like meditating or something, just make your focus the tiny house for a little bit. I think that if I would have been able to do this, I MAY have enjoyed the process a tad more. If I could have just woken up each morning, not had to think about how long it would take me to actually be ready for the day (grab clothes from garage, go to store get breakfast, drive to work take a shower, awkwardly have wet hair and toiletries at work…etc) but just wake up, enjoy living a slightly “pioneer-ish” lifestyle for a few months.

– Have a back up plan. If/when the tiny house takes longer than you anticipate, have a backup plan in place so that its not this extreme pressure to complete the massive project before the first frost or something. We both didn’t handle that pressure very well, me more so than my husband. I think the unknown for me was almost unbearable. Not knowing how long I’d have to live like this was really difficult. If you set deadlines like, “if we don’t have the inside livable by November 1, we are moving into this apartment.” That way, when things get hard, you can just tell yourself, “Hey, I got 2 months of this and then we’re either going to be living in a functional tiny house, or this other housing situation.”

– Passion vs. Practicality. I read an article in the paper that talked about 10 ways passion could kill a new business. Basically, that emotions can block logically decision making. We just wanted to build this freaking house and at times this basically stopped us from creating a realistic timeline or putting a plan in place. So, for your overall health, be willing to set aside excitement for the finished product for like a few days, and maybe talk to some people in your life that you trust to help you come up with a practical plan for executing this fun project.

Questions for those considering moving into a tiny house that is unfinished:

– Where are you located?

– What’s your story? Are you married? Single? Do you have kids?

– Where do you work? What is that environment like?

– What is your background in construction? (for the record, mine was NOTHING when we started)

– What kind of budget that you are working with?

– Whats your timeline?

– How did you get involved with tiny houses?

– How have the people in your life responded to your dream of building this tiny monster? ;-)

Hope this helps somewhat, and I’m super pumped for you guys who are building or thinking about building!

If you are reading this and you are considering building a tiny house, or if you are considering moving into an unfinished tiny house, tell us your story! We would really enjoy connecting with you.

And if you’re ever in the Denver area, let us know. We’d love to have you over for tea :)

September 22, 2014

City Living, Simple Living

Homemade Energy Balls: Make in 15 Minutes!

I’ve never really been a huge fan of energy or power bars. I mean, I’ve really tried to be, especially the ones that have a ton of protein. To get a whole meal’s worth of nutrients in one bar – that’s super convenient! If you don’t have time to make a lunch, or just want to save money, I feel like power bars are a reasonable choice. There are some pretty healthy options actually.

But the taste… ::shudder:::

I typically thrive in denial : Let me be ignorantly bliss please. But I cannot ignore the fact that most power bars taste like cardboard. No matter how much I try to tell myself, “Hannah, this is good for you. These ingredients are natural, and you are getting the protein that you didn’t pack in a lunch today”, I CAN’T DO IT!

Well, sound the Hallelujah chorus now please: I’ve found a great energy ball recipe!

Several years ago after a hike, my friend pulled some funny looking balls from her freezer. These energy balls were SO much better than any power bar I’ve ever had.

I finally made my own batch last weekend – and they taste like cookie dough. Chocolaty-chocolate chip cookie dough energy balls. Yet, I’d still consider them a healthy snack. Or meal. I had a bowl of them for dinner last night. #dontmindifido

I think I really enjoy these because you can put whatever you want in them. If you want to use organic, all natural ingredients, you can. If you just want to use whatever you have in your pantry, you can.

Ok. So here’s how the magic happens.

Side note: I don’t have a food processor, so I kind of used a blender (I say kind of because a food processor would have worked MUCH better). If you have a food processor, or even a good blender, you could do all the steps below in the machines. Since mine sucks, I adjust.

(measurements are approximate)

– 1-2 cups almonds (demolished them in a blender)

– 1-2 TBSP cocoa powder (add to the almonds before it turns to butter)

– 1-2 TBSP wheat bran (add to mix)

– 10-15 dates (soak for an hour or more in water, then mash in a bowl with a fork. Add the wheat bran, almond, cocoa powder mix)

– 1-2 TBSP chia seeds (stir into mix)

– 1-2 TBSP unsweetened coconut (stir into mix)

– 1-2 TBSP mini chocolate chips (stir into mix)

The mixture should be somewhat sticky as you roll into small balls and then roll through some more chia seeds, OR chocolate chips, OR coconut… and then pop them in the freezer for a snack.

Some suggestions I’ve had and seen for other ingredients were:

– peanut butter (thanks Emma girl!)

– flax seed

– sesame seed

– macha powder

– cinnamon

– oatmeal

– honey

– cacao nibs

– other kinds of nuts (pecans, pistachios, walnuts, peanuts…etc)

– NUTELLA! (goodlord that’s a great idea)

– pretzels

– the list goes on…

I stored them in these lil containers and a few more in ziplock bags for Ryan to grab and take to work (because let’s be honest, if he takes that tupperware, I’m never going to see them again).

I’ll let you do your own research on what benefits each of those ingredients has, but all I know is that they tasted amazing.

ENJOY and let me know if you have more ideas for additional ingredients or another energy balls recipe!

September 19, 2014

City Living

Brighton, CO

So, remember when we shared that its pretty difficult to find work in Westcliffe?

Our savings account knows that fact all too well.

After a long winter without much work, and a husband with ADD cooped up in a house with no job, we’ve decided to take a few years to “fund raise”.

Basically what this means is…. we’re on the road again!

This time this destination is: Brighton Colorado!

This means a few changes for our rural living lifestyle:

(1) Saying goodbye (or see ya later) to this great little town we’ve really come to love and appreciate. We’ve made so many amazing relationships here and we cannot wait to move back ASAP.

(2) Macey has to go (or stay really). The cute lil pooch we got when we moved here isn’t really suited for the apartment lifestyle of the city. Being a St. Barnard and Lab mix, she loves running around our 2 acre lot. We have a good friend who has offered to take care of her and she will get to live on a farm and chase cows and chickens: her dream.

Maceyface

Griselda Hobbs

(3) Grizzy. The 1975 Jeep that has rescued Ryan from the mud, ice, and snow many times this winter. She’s such a beautiful old thing, but like Macey, better suited to mountain life. She is currently for sale if anyone is interested in giving her a loving home.

(4) Tiny House will stay here. We just had it moved {expensively} down here and some friends have graciously allowed us to store it on their land for now. So until we get land of our own and have some $avings to finish it, the tiny house will stay in Westcliffe. {see recent pics on instagram}

(5) The Mountains. AHHHH. Need I say anything else?

Hello these are my friends, the Sangres.

New things we are excited about:

(1) Stability. We are both going to be working full time jobs for the first time since we’ve known each other. This is uncharted territory people. :)

(2) Future. Since being in Westcliffe, we’ve had lots of time to begin thinking about what we really want in life. This move (and the job$ that come with) will enable us to pursue the things we really want to. Also, not live in poverty forever. :)

(3) Purpose//Focus. Since we know what we want (at least, we THINK we do), we’re attempting to be pretty focused on working really hard & saving some cash. So, if you happen get married in the next couple of years, and we aren’t able to come: please {oh please} understand its totally not you. We are really just trying to practice discipline with our finances. Or if you come into town, maybe we can go for a lil walk instead of to dinner? #pleaseunderstandweloveyou #alsoholdusaccountableherepluleaaaze #daveramseystylesavings

All that being said, here are some things summed up into one picture that we’re going to miss.

mountains.car.pooch.westcliffe.

Dear Westcliffe,

We are so grateful for the past 6 months. We love your people so much, they are the most down-to-earth people we’ve ever met. They all love to garden and fix things. We think that we’d like to raise our family here someday. If you could get a few more jobs for younger people like us, that would be rad (but don’t get too many ok? we like you small). But until you do or until we can handle your drought, we’ve gotta say goodbye for now.

Don’t worry. We’ll visit. Often.

Ryan & Hannah

June 6, 2014

Country Living

Life in the Valley

Note: when I say “valley” I’m not speaking philosophically about where we are at in life.

Nope.

We literally live in a valley.

Between the Wet Mountains and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

And its great.

Here is a little snapshot of what our lives have looked like since being here:

The Groths (Hannah’s fam from TX) came and celebrating Christmas with us. Pic below is of sledding adventures in the mountains. It was great to create memories in our (2 bedroom 1 bath) rental home with them. SUCH a tight squeeze, but so worth it.

Ryan has been making rustic/farmhouse style furniture for the rental we’re living in currently (with hopes to sell when Tiny House is complete). There is a barn on the property, so he has a workshop finally! He’s had a few local folks interested in some custom furniture, so hopefully he’ll get to be out in his barn more often.

I’ve (Hannah) enjoyed having a home for the first time since we’ve been married. We realized that since April we have lived in 5 different homes and about 10 different hotels. The little things like cooking, and relaxing on the couch and watching a movie, having a Christmas tree, or hanging our coats up in a closet are things that I am thankful for in this housing situation.

We also have a new addition to the family: Macey the pup! She’s a Lab/St. Bernard mix and has a really laid back, sweet personality. She’s six months old, loves to please, and is eager to learn. One downside: she eats poop. No, she loves poop. I’ve heard this is normal for pups, still: NOT.OK. Other than that she’s great :)

We also traded (for good or bad) our Saturn for this big girl, Griselda Hobbs. She’s a 1975 Jeep Wagoneer. Almost all her handles that do anything functional, come off and on at different times. The radio doesn’t work as far as we know. To get to the trunk you need a special key to first put the window down, then unlatch the back. The fabric is torn and super retro. The seat belts go across your lap. She’s a hefty lady weighing 3 tons, but she can maneuver her way through at least 6-8 inches of standing snow, hold her own on the iciest of roads in negative degree Colorado winters, and she’s a lovely burnt orange, oxidized in all the right places. Not sure how long we’ll keep her alive, but for now, this charming old gal is ours.

We have been working on the Tiny House to get it ready to move down here from Golden. We had to order some more (bigger) axles, that could hold more weight because this house is freakin huge! We have some friends down here that have offered to let us park it on their land. Once it’s moved down here, we’ll work on getting it finished! The exterior is almost completely done, its just the inside that needs work now.

While we’ve found part time work here in the Valley, we are still looking for more lucrative means of making a living here. As we’ve talked to many people here, this is what they have to say about new folks coming in:

– people move to Westcliffe because they love it (either they have family that lives here, they’ve visited growing up, camped here, been hunting with their grandfather…etc.)

– they all struggle financially to “make it” for the first several years

– if they make it out of those first years, they stay forever

– if not, they leave to go make life work somewhere else

So, we have a similar story. We felt compelled to move here. Moved. And we would LOVE to make it work here and stay forever.

But that’s the part that we’re at currently: making it work here.

We absolutely LOVE being here. The people that we’ve met have such similar passions and goals in life as we do. There is a slightly older population in town, so we enjoy being on the younger end of things. There is an openness here to do things “differently” (i.e. build a Tiny House, or straw bale, or earth bag home). We are really looking forward to raising a family here and participating in the community here.

So, we’re still hopeful that perhaps we can be one of those families that can make it work here :)

We’ll keep you updated on our lives in the Wet Mountain Valley.

Living in a small town is like living in a large family of rather uncongenial relations. Sometimes it’s fun, and sometimes it’s perfectly awful, but it’s always good for you.

– Joyce Dennys

February 9, 2014

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