Alarmist?

I'm not sure if I consider myself an alarmist, but the more I watch and read, the more frightening things are in the world right now. I'm not going to lie to you, I understand very little about what's going on down on Wall Street right now, but I know it's bad. Very very bad. I know Jeff is worried; he's afraid to get our 401k report. I think that's why a large part of me just wants to hole up in our house and not leave. Just stay home and hibernate under a blanket and watch old movies until next spring. Then we can come out of our burrow and just pretend like the winter time never happened. By then, the tulips will be up, the grass will be green again and hopefully, we'll have a coop of laying hens!

Oddly enough though, in some ways I'm more at peace than I have been for ages. I've been praying; a lot. And already God is answering my prayers. And I'm comforted in the fact that we have a good bit of food saved up. Quite a bit of firewood. Lots of wool hats, gloves and slippers. Ways to stay warm, fed, dry and entertained. I think that's one of the weird after-effects of taking a homesteading approach to life. You learn that the only thing you can control is how you react. You can't change policies, the weather, the government, your neighbor. But you can decide to plant an extra row of beans and can an extra batch of applesauce. You can felt those old wool sweaters for cozy mittens instead of just throwing it away because it's out of date. You make connections with your faith, your neighbors, your past. You learn to get past the drivel and figure out what the necessities in life really are...warmth, food, shelter, family, love. That's pretty much it. And when you figure that out, it's so much easier to let the 'noise' of the world sort of roll off your back.