Carmen Cullen

Congratulations Harmony on your great success! May you have many happy and healthy years together.

Came here to share no constructive criticism, but to say that this website works.

Until I looked at that webpage, my understanding of the pros and cons of rocket mass heaters was dubious at best. At one point I had tried to understand, but then decided I was happy with my heat needs being met by my gas furnace. I was not convinced by what I had already seen here on Permies.

After looking at these graphics, I now understand it enough to consider it seriously. Thanks for this valuable work!

Foster fail is one of the best fails. My cat is a foster fail (of sorts). She was placed in my care as a foster, pending a spay. I knew immediately that I wanted to keep her. This was all in February 2020.

Due to the events of March 2020, the animal shelter never followed up with me on a spay or adoption paperwork (or fee, for that matter). They're frequently max capacity, and probably just let us slip through the cracks. I don't think anyone is unhappy with the result.

Congrats on your boy! May you have many happy and healthy years.

Making the switch to family cloths. I've been using them for awhile, but my spouse has been wary. We ran out of toilet paper today, and not enough money in the discretionary budget to buy toilet paper (takeout twice this week!).

Since my spouse is the only one who uses toilet paper, and we have a free alternative, they've decided to join me. Toilet paper for guests only!

I'm a chronic cell phone buyer, since I'm pretty bad at keeping track of them, charging them, or keeping them safe. I also typically buy low end phones that don't last very long, due to finances.

My most recent change was buying the warranty, which has helped a lot with keeping a phone in my hands. Less worry on whether or not a phone is in it for the long haul, but hopeful that each one I get will be "the one" that makes it through.

Flip phones, for me, have been the sturdiest option mainly because I don't ask much of them.

Thekla McDaniels wrote:

Would it be recommended to add more soda?  Or just try it as is before messing with it?

Do it as written and see how it goes. It's very easy to adjust, just by adding more of the other components to even it out. In a pinch, I've even omitted the soap with moderate success. Not as clean, but not stinky either. We cloth diaper the dog (he's 19) so our detergent working is VERY important to us. The no soap formula was not strong enough for cloth diapering, but it was good enough for average adult use clothing.

I imagine the soap you described being nice as a laundry soap and you may really enjoy your result. Report back if you think of it!

I've never horsed around with dissolving the soap in water to make a liquid laundry detergent. I wash in cold and have no issues with my detergent. Quite the opposite, in fact. I've never found anything that works better.

1 box borax
1 box washing soda
1 bar of laundry bar, grated

Mix it together, add two tablespoons to each avg sized load

I sell this at the farmer's market, and people go bonkers for it

Every job I've ever had has had issues like this, which is why I've decided to be self employed. I work 10x harder for a quarter of the pay. I've found it worth it, just to avoid these headaches.

My spouse and I are 29, and we call ourselves "semi-retired." I bought the house before we met for $12.5k and rehabbed it little by little. The only housing payment we have now since the house is paid off it the furnace loan. Replacing the furnace was non-optional for us, unfortunately. My spouse's part-time income covers all of our bills and small debt burden. I sell jam at the farmer's market for saving up to buy the farm, and I drive for uber for our spending money. Would like to drop the uber, but it's a mighty convenient way to put cash in my pocket for little work. I think I'll substitute teach a few days a week once the season slows down.

Debt takes up half of our monthly bill budget, and we're only two payments off from paying one of them off. A few years out for the rest, then it's done. The only debt we want now is the farm debt, and that seems worth it to us. Everyone seems to have a mortgage, and we can leverage ourselves to have a very small mortgage payment.

I don't regret my debt, but I do wish I did not have it. I'm grateful that it's all things I need and use, and I'm not paying interest on fidget toys and takeout like my ex husband is (he took his debt with him thank god!)

I used to be a "don't have kids" type of person, but my primal needs to have children have caught up with me and now I have a different perspective.

If I want someone to talk about how they grew up on a permaculture-ish farm where they learned how to live sustainably, I have to raise one. If I raise one, then that person will be able to talk to people about the way they were raised (I'm ready for them to not like it, but that is out of my control). That person, whether they like it or not, will use some principles that I instill in them for the rest of their life. Some of those will be sustainable.

If you don't have a baby, we have one less person who can carry on the things you know, believe, and do. You lose the bad, sure, but you lose the good too.