Continuing on . . . .

 It seems that life sometimes hands you things to change ones path.  I have made lots of soap and find it very fascinating.  I love seeing how it turns out, and cutting into a new loaf is fun.  I AM finding it a bit frustrating not to have the money to invest in mica for coloring it, and the various essential oils to add aroma and medicinal benefits.  It is frustrating!  Also not to have the molds I want starts to get frustrating as well :(.

I have found ways to make incredible soap for laundry and for shampoo.  I only use my shampoo bar now for my hair, and I rinse with my homemade vinegar as well.  My hair is soft and not falling out as much as it was, which is wonderful! The laundry paste I created is wonderful, and cleans the clothes marvelously.  I get nice bright white clothes if I use the bleach substitute I found how to make.  So, all in all, I have found ways to make what we need to keep out household going with things I can make.  Most of my laundry cleaning supplies needed washing soda, and I even found a way to make this using regular baking soda, so that is cool too, though it is less expensive just to buy the washing soda.

I did learn to use my drop spindle and spun some alpaca roving into yarn.  I liked the yarn, but wasn't crazy about how slow it was to make it.  I had to do the "spin and park" method, which wasn't as relaxing and fun as I had hoped, so I purchased a spinning wheel.  I found some alpaca fiber at an estate sale, so am excited to spin some yarn on it.  I just watched some YouTube videos on how to card and clean the fiber, so am excited to try my hand at spinning.  I found a Hitchhiker spinning wheel, and it seems to run smoothly, so am excited to try my hand at spinning on it.  It didn't come with written instructions, so I had to find a YouTube video about that as well.  Thanks goodness for people liking to post things there!!  Without it I would definitely be in a mess with all the things I like to learn about.  

I have also found videos on something called Rocket Mass Heaters.  This looks like a very economical way to heat a home.  It uses about 1/10th less wood to heat as a regular wood stove and can be converted into a cooking surface and oven.  I think it is a great idea.  One can also build one outside, so it can be used in the summer to cook on and even heat water.  

I also looked into cob construction of homes, and various other ways to build that are economical and uses renewable resources and can be built fairly rapidly.  I wish I were younger so I could physically do more of this and have the time and resources more at hand to accomplish the dreams in my head :(, but who knows, I may still be able to accomplish all of this, or something even better!

I would still love to have chickens, alpacas, goats, and a small farm to meet all of our needs, but my health is getting bothersome, and I have had other commitments come up so I can't get into all of this at the moment.  My husband and I are committed to helping our daughter and grandchildren for the next several years, so we have put all the other things on the back burner until then.  In 5 years, or so, we can look for our dream place, and move to where we will spend the rest of our lives.  By then we should have enough money saved back to have a nice down payment, and have everything planned out to what and where we want that place to be.

In the mean time, we will continue to dream and plan.