Tips about and stories of~Off-grid Living:Tell us what interests you!

[Slinkytoys]

After she is a rich and famous author, just think--we can all say we "knew" Bee back when I think there are more and more people who are trying to get back to basics because of all the turmoil in the world today.
Slinky

 

[Ldychef2k]

My favorite movie of all time was "The Bridges of Madison County".

In my list of favorite all time books rests "She's Come Undone" by Wally Lamb.

These two things have in common the sense that something is deeply wrong with the person's life and they want a change...somehow. Any time I find a movie or book that speaks in a similar voice, I jump on it. That probably says a lot about me.

I have seen Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom" at least ten, perhaps 20 times. Her character was quite wealthy, so I didn't relate to that, but I did relate to her struggle to make it, even though it was light comedy.

I would be drawn to a novel that searched the heart of a single woman in her thirties with at least one child who finds herself at a crossroads in life. Perhaps she is divorced or widowed, but somehow she is without support and soon without income for whatever reason. She has to learn how to take care of herself with practically nothing. It takes her a while, and she makes some significant mistakes (creating crisis) but she does ultimately make it. And because I want to REALLY relate to this story, she does it alone, without being rescued or falling in love with the veterinarian!

Anyway, I would glean from our long thread on having concerns about the SS lifestyle.

 

[Beekissed]

Ldychef2k, you are going to love my book! Everything you mentioned will be in there....almost to a "T". Although my crossroads came gradually and in my twenties instead of thirties.

And I never got rescued either....only in the movies does Cinderella get rescued.

This will be a book about several journeys interwoven with my journey...how all the women I've known influenced my decisions and all the things I learned along the way....about country skills and just about life in general. It will be stories inside of stories, physical survival, emotional survival, financial survival.

There was something deeply wrong with my life(emotionally, spiritually, financially) and I really, really wanted a change....and I changed. I'm still changing....I don't think a person ever gets done changing if they do any self-analysis whatsoever. In short, I finally stopped waiting to be rescued and just rescued myself. Am still saving myself....well, rather, God is saving me from myself!

Never too old to change or learn or adapt.

 

[lorihadams]

I hate to tell you this Jules, you may have enough material to do several books! One filled with stories and one filled with how-to material and another on living off-grid and loving it!

 

[Beekissed]

It's uncanny how perceptive you ladies are.....my sis was telling this to me this very evening, lori! Scary!

She said do one book and call it Volume, or Book I, so that folks who like it will be looking for the next one.

How about The Hillbilly Chronicles? White Trash Trilogy?

I think you are right....if one is going to have a hillbilly soap opera, ya gotta leave 'em hanging at the end of the book.

I can't imagine that my life has that much interesting material in it to fill a couple of books but it sure would make for amusing reading.....

My sis said that she had never met anyone as unlucky as me all those years ago....it was kind of a family joke.

 

[Ldychef2k]

My sis said that she had never met anyone as unlucky as me all those years ago....it was kind of a family joke.

I can relate. My mom use to say "If it's on the lawn, you will step in it."

 

[dragonlaurel]

Maybe " Hillbilly Life " or " How a Mountain Woman Gets By "

You could have a contest for title suggestions and if one gets used they get an autographed copy.

 

[Ldychef2k]

My entry would be: Simply Living

 

[Beekissed]

FatFantasy, welcome to the forum! Some moniker you have there!

I already have a pic for the front of the book, which shows my mother sitting on a stump looking towards the cabin. The cabin has a deer hide stretched on the side of it..... The attitude of how she is sitting is so symbolic for book that I had to choose it. So accepting, resigned, humble..... yet strong.

I'm calling the book Hillbilly Women....and what we know.

It will be a women-enpowering, tongue in cheek story on who the real movers and shakers are behind the scenes....especially in an endeavor like moving off-grid. Who has to produce three meals a day without the convenience of electricity or a gas stove? Women. Clean clothing? Women. Processing and canning the food? Women. Helping to do all the other "man" chores(carry firewood, pile brush, cut brush, mow the grass, carry water and feed to livestock, carry in all the water for the household needs, gut, skin, process deer, chink logs)? Women. Who gets the kids up each morning for that long walk to school? Women.

Men? They get to run the chainsaw, ride the tractor and run the tiller. They get to direct the building projects but don't have to do it all themselves because they have the women to help them. They get to lay down each night on clean sheets with a full belly and never have to wonder how that miracle keeps happening each day.

Because they have the women.

 

[lorihadams]

I LOVE IT!!!!