About us..

So many people have blogs, so I wanted to focus on what will make this blog different than most.

About my world in SAHMville:

I'm Janice. I'm 32 years old. Wife to Shawn for six years. Mom to 4 year old Samuel, 2 year old Sarah, and 11 month old Andrew. I'm a SAHM and Shawn works in law enforcement. We have a nice home in the county, but are currently looking at properties for our own homestead. Our dream is to have a functioning, self-sufficient homestead complete with chickens, goats, gardens, an orchard, and possibly even a milk cow!

We live a bit differently than most families around here.

Probably the first oddity that you would notice is my appearance. I only wear skirts, no pants. I have long hair that I wear put up and I do not wear makeup. I wear skirts because I struggle with accepting that Shawn is the head of the household. I'm stubborn and I like to be in control of things. The Bible states that the husband is the head of the wife. (1 Cor 11:3) Since I have such difficulty with this, I decided that I needed a physical reminder that my husband is called to be the head of this family. So, in this house, my husband literally wears the pants in the family! I don't expect any other woman to do as I do, but it does work for us.

Possibly the next oddity that you would notice about us is our way of eating. We do not eat foods with any artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. We do not eat corn syrup, MSG, or sodium benzoate. So, basically, that leaves out most anything that is packaged or processed. There are a few exceptions, but for the most part, we eat whole foods. I make all of our breads, muffins, pancakes, and desserts from scratch. I grind the wheat in my grain mill first and then proceed with the recipe. We eat this way because we want to avoid the chemicals that are added into foods when they are processed. We began eating this way in order to help Sam and Andrew. Sam had some behavioral issues that resembled autism and Andrew suffered from eczema. When we removed the artificial dyes, flavors, sweeteners, and preservatives, Andrew's eczema went away within a week. Sam still has some lingering behavioral issues, but has drastically improved since starting the diet. We haven't seen any type of change in Sarah, but we keep her on the diet too for two reasons: 1.) It's easier to have everyone eating the same way. I don't want to cook separate foods for my family. 2.) It is just a healthier way of eating and I want all my children to be healthy regardless if they're being obviously affected by a chemical or not. Since we want to avoid chemicals, we also do without scented candles/air fresheners, makeup, smelly laundry detergents, perfumes, etc.

I guess the next most obvious oddity would be our frugal lifestyle. We don't buy a lot of things that others have. We don't have blackberries, iPods, flat screen TVs, or even a riding lawnmower. Our cell phones do not have cameras and we do not text with them. Our family's clothing is plain and simple. It's usually received as a gift or purchased at Goodwill or yard sales. We don't have much, but that is by choice. We forego those types of items and prefer to save our money for purchasing our homestead. For us, living simply is just easier. There's less to store, less to clean, and just less stuff to keep up with.

Welcome to our wierdness!