The handy dandy chicken coop!

My handy Zachy built a coop with our neighbor Warren a few months ago. Zach designed a 3D model of it and then built it. We are really happy with the design. I have trained the chickens to go in the coop at night. I should call it bribing cause you can do a lot with chicken scrap, lol. This saves me a lot of time because I can not catch them until after dark( they can't see in the dark). If I do need to round them up Keynan can catch them fairly quick. The twins can too if they try for a bit but it is just easier to send Keynan out and catch them.

We currently have lost 4 chickens due to some neighbors up the road letting their dogs roam free. We were all really sad when our Rooster (Poker) got killed. The kids wanted to name him Pecker but I told them Poker was more appropriate if we named him. The kids came up with the hens name which is sneaks. The neighbors dog got Poker in the day time, seeing a trial of feathers of our first rooster that inspired our coop was hard for the kids. I luckily took a bunch of pictures of him the day before he got killed. Warren next door had recently got Poker's cousin Baby so Warren gave the kids Baby which is now Poker #2. Even though Poker #2 looks the same as Poker #1 they have completely different personalities. I honestly can sit and watch the chickens all day, they are so fun to watch! I love having them to eat up the bug population and of course having fresh eggs on hand. We have An Americana hen and she lays green eggs. We our now country folk and loosing animals to prey is common. I have a rifle now and the next time the dog enters my property I will have to shoot :( I can tell you there have been moments where I wanted to run back to the city. I love it though and just have to get use to the down side of this life style. Our coop has proven to hold up at night when all the raccoons, coyotes, and wild hogs are out. Now we just need to paint the coop and put a roof on it!

Ditching the Dollar

I think I am on a new record posting more then 3 posts in one week. I wanted to let friends and family know of some recent changes my family and I have made.
About 8 years ago if you would of asked me what a gold standard was I wouldn't be able to tell you. Today I can say I can, due to a well known Congressman in Texas named Ron Paul. Ron Paul has announced his run for Presidency for 2012 and my family and immediate family are super excited! With that being said I want to tell you what Dr. Ron Paul has inspired me and our family to learn. I am thrilled to use the word inspire because it is what I am trying to do with my children with their homeschooling (inspire, not require). I am fortunate I learned of Ron Paul 8 years ago and he has led me down a path to discover what free market principles are all about. Dr. Ron Paul got into Politics due to his economic interests and he discovered a book called The Road to Serfdom http://www.amazon.com/Road-Serfdom-Documents---Definitive-Collected/dp/0226320553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305317894&sr=8-1 .
This is where my journey began with economics. I was always into history due to my Fathers interest in the Civil War. I was never really interested in economic principles or history until I read The road to serfdom. I had the most conversational time in my sophomore and junior year flunking US history x2 due to the fact that I had studied and knew what they were teaching me were lies. If only I could of shut my mouth during my teachers racial and inaccurate lectures. That was one of the lovely teachers that claimed I would never graduate High School.. To my surprise I took Us History again my 12th grade year and aced the class(for me that is big, acing a class is really not my style). I had 2 economic courses in high school and did okay but I don't feel they were teaching free market values. Now that I look back I don't think the teachers knew much about basic free market values and either did I . It reminds me of all the people on Wall Street today and of course our Fed chair Bernanke saying that there was no way to predict the economic meltdown of 2008. Well that is also another blatantly lie because Peter Schiff's books were out long before the economy crashed..http://www.amazon.com/Crash-Proof-Profit-Economic-Collapse/dp/0470043601/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1305318956&sr=1-4 and he predicted everything!

To make a long story short my family and I have ditched the dollar. Since our savings is minimal we decided to pull all Cd's, 401k, IRA's etc out of federal reserve notes. I'm not suggesting anyone doing this, this is just what we have chosen to do. We are younger and to pull a few thousand from a 401k has minimal tax consequences.
I urge everyone to start buying physical gold and silver. Since we are on a minimal budget, now that I no longer work outside the home we buy more silver then we do gold. With the CME trading 3 times last week bringing silver down 27% in one week. We will see silver drop even further and this is when all of us in America should be buying. This is the time now to buy and buy it up as quick as you can. Be careful to not listen to some televised people. You can get ripped off heavily if you do not do your research.. DO NOT PAY MORE THEN $4.00 OVER SPOT PRICE! I suggest buying in bullion because this will holds it's value. We buy both coin and bullion. Coin will be easier to use when the next crash occurs(or when the dollar looses it's reserve currency). This could happen soon or within the next 10 years. I really feel it will happen at the end of 2012. Silver will also be your best bet when we see more inflation and then into hyper inflation by 2015.

One last thought or maybe a few.. Thou shall not steal and paper money is stealing in my opinion. I listened to this wonderful podcast the other day on one of my favorite websites http://www.offthegridnews.com/author/radio1/
Our Country will have to make some serious changes to get us back on course. If we don't China will become the top economy in 2016. We will have to learn true principals of self reliance and saving.. I am speaking from experience because 11 months ago I had to walk away from everything I've ever worked for. I left my furniture, my piano, my cloths my car and the list goes on. I know what it is to be greedy because I was living that way. Living far above our means just because we had a good credit score. Trying to keep it all together but we eventually were forced to walk away from everything. I did not listen to Ron Paul even though I had read his books. My Husband also urged me but I persistently said that what we were thinking of doing is wrong. We were left with no choice when Zach lost his job in 2008. I continued on the road of this generation of using credit and living in a perpetual cycle of failure until finally I stopped and listened.

P.s. eventually I will learn how to make these links look more pretty,lol :)

I turned 30!!!

A few months late but the big 30 happened in February! I had a great day besides having a sinus infection that left me not tasting and smelling anything. My friend Krissie made my cake and friends and family were here to celebrate my day. We had a total of 22 kids running around and it was nice to spend the day with everyone. I had more on my accomplish list before I turned 30. It's funny though how your life can change overnight. I never thought I would have twins and I never knew I would be so passionate about homeschooling. Those two things alone have set back some of the plans I had for myself. I am looking forward to many more birthdays and looking back on the growth of myself and my family. We truly are blessed to be alive. I appreciate my life and the chance to discover all there is to discover. My Mom and Dad tried for almost 9 years to get pregnant with me. I'm so glad they did because even though I have had many trials in my life, I wouldn't trade them for anything. Here's to hopefully at least 50 more years of trials, heartache, love, laughter and of course progression :)

A Tribute Book To My Aunt Sue

Click here to view this photo book larger

Viola we have floors!

I posted a few days ago about the floors but the post is missing? I noticed blogger was down and well I figure I would just post again. Back in January, Zach did a trade with our buddy Ryan. Ryan put in the living room floors for Zach doing some graphic work.

We have so many projects to do that it is hard to pick which ones to start first. We had a rough winter with no flooring and no insulation. Here in Texas we only have electricity and it cost over $400.00 a month to heat the house at a comfortable 69 degree's. We went many days cold because we could not afford to pay the high cost of electricity. Of course we will be more prepared next winter for sure! We wanted to get the floors in so we could get our Parlor(wood burning stove) Stove in. We didn't happen to get the stove in but the floors are now finished in the living room.

We have no cement driveway and when it rains the clay on the ground turns to complete mud! I did not want the hassle of carpet so we opted for wood laminate floors. I also didn't want cheap flooring and you can pay as little as 66 cents a square foot or all the way up to 10.00 a square foot. So we got a mid grade floor that was on sale. It is oak and a beautiful color. It is really easy to clean and has a 20 year warranty. It is very durable and I would recommend it to anyone with rowdy boys. The brand is switch lock and it is made in Switzerland. I try to buy things only made in the USA but sometimes I have to go with the sales and deals I can come across. I refuse to buy junk from China because it never fails when I do, I'm disappointed at the quality.

Zach just recently put the flooring in the school room and plans on doing the boys room this weekend. I didn't have any current pics but I will take some after he finishes the boys room. We also will be getting the stove in in a few months, it is a must for this coming winter. For right now the stove is holding my knick knacks. On the top of the stove there are two cooking burners. I plan on using a lot of cast iron and avoiding as much electricity for cooking as I can. On some of the survival(self sufficiency) blogs I'm learning techniques. I won't be able to practice until the stove is in though. For example you can cook a pot of beans in an ice chest after you warm it up on the stove! I can't wait to experiment!

Lunar Eclispe/Winter Solstice and Ringing in the New Year 2011!

We put the kids to bed at 8:00 p.m. sharp and woke them up at midnight. We were able to see the start of the Lunar Eclipse all the way until it ended about 2:30 a.m. We met up over at Tiff's house and all my nieces and nephews got to watch it too it was spectacular and all the kids really enjoyed it. What was cool too is knowing that this hadn't occurred on the start of Winter Solstice for 378 years. The next Eclipse will be next year but only those in Asia will see it. The one that we will seen again in the United States is July 2015. I hope to have a telescope by then.


We had a great Christmas and New Years. We spent both days at my sis and brother in law's. We trade off so each of us gets a break from hosting the parties. My Mother in law and Father in law came out for a few weeks too. It was nice to enjoy them during the Holidays. We also got to shoot some guns when they were out which I had a lot of fun with and technically it was my very first time since I was small shooting a gun. I always watch the guys but this time got to jump in. Of course the twins used the rifles for the first time and hit the bull's eye right on.. I can tell you I missed each target and need to practice my aim,lol I would have to give credit to some of the video games for the boys aim. I'm amazed with their dexterity and you only could imagine if I let them play those darn games all the time what their aim would be,lol. That wouldn't be healthy but gives me a good chuckle to think about.

We also rang in the new year with instruments. Zach's family has some great musical skill.  Zach's Dad played the sax and his sister played the clarinet while Zach and I  played the guitar(well I tried but am way out of practice). We all sang to Christmas hymns and John Denver tunes. We also sang some other Political songs and a few songs that Zach  has written and it was a lot of fun. All of us are out of practice(except Zach and Tiff) and we plan on polishing up the music skills and recording a family album. We hope to have it in the making soon. It seems time is really going by fast because I'm writing this in March. I needed to catch up the blog without skipping some of the fun we have had the last few months!

I'm either really happy or really Chinese!

Starting our own Thanksgiving Family Traditions!

Happy Thanksgiving even though it is after Christmas now! I figured I'd better post this before the ringing in of the New Year! This was our first Thanksgiving that we hosted in our new home. We planned on having dinner at 2:00 that is on Anderson time which ended up to be about 6:00 p.m.. I have learned through out the years(I think) to take a chill pill when we don't eat or get to places on time. I come from a family where everything had to be precise, The Anderson's have been good for my growth, they all go with the flow and well I see it makes life a lot easier! We had the Turkey done by 2:00p.m. but all the fixings were still cooking. Since I am not used to cooking with an electric stove I didn't factor in the extra time! Come to find out that leaving the turkey in the oven bag outside of the oven not only left the turkey hot but gave it 4 more hours to soak up all the juices. This was for sure the best turkey dinner yet and all of us kids were proud, we did it all ourselves without Mom there. We did use the Anderson Mom's cook book(A cook book my Mother law Victory made for us one Christmas with all of Grandmother Anderson's recipe's) that cook book has saved me one to many times and it possibly was the best Christmas present ever!



We were all happy when Mark (my bro-in law) came home the day before Thanksgiving for a Dr. app. The appointment was canceled unfortunately but Marks boss let him enjoy Thanksgiving with us before he had to return to the rigs the next day! Sometimes the misfortune events turn into fortunate ones!


My funny face needs some work!


Partners in crime my sis-law and I.

These two are more alike then they know and note to self to charge the beefy camera I kept having blurry issues!


Yes we are a video game bunch.. Thanksgiving is an exception because they only get 3 hours on Saturday!


Truly and Keynan crack me up!! they are so cute when they are together and some times so dang funny. There is defiantly adversity there while they play they go from laughing to crying in seconds!

Let the melt downs begin!