Storage

After living here for 6 months I'm starting to get a feel for what I like and don't like in our kitchen.  My husband had the idea of  getting rid of all of our dishes except 1 plate, 1 bowl, 1 dessert plate, 1 fork/knife/spoon and 1 glass for each of us. Less dishes to wash, right? So that's what we did. I hate it. There is never enough forks or spoons. We make 3 meals a day in our tiny kitchen and if you are tasting your food or shredding roasts you run out of forks and spoons for the meal.

Without running water its not easy just to wash the fork you are using. I would like a full set of flatware. I have to heat water on the stove to do dishes and empty the sludge/rinse bucket, I tend to wait until after dinner to wash all the dishes for the day and just do it once. I have my Grandma's china set stored away so if we do have guests over for dinner I have plates for them to eat off of.

Having such few dishes does save us a lot of space. Digging the pots and pans out of the cabinet was annoying so we used empty vertical space above the bathroom to hang them. Its so much easier and less noisy putting them away.

My husband finally got our vent a hood installed. We found this in the scratch and dent area of the store for $150 regular price $700 and  I love this thing. It sucks any grease or bad smell right out of the place. I can render down my deer fat now for soap making. I'm squirreling away money for tiles for a back splash.

I had to get creative and use empty spaces and vertical spaces because our place does not have any closets. I did a shelf and hook set up by the front door with low hooks for my son's gear. I got this cool bench/shoe rack from Ikea.

I used this normally awkward space on the fridge to hang hooks for the broom/dustpan. I had the counter fabricator make this tiny L shape as a micro office desk. We keep the computer, phones and pens and paper here.

We built shelves at the top of the stairs as a mini pantry.

We definitely need more shelves especially when we get the garden going for canning and fermenting.

Relocating with a toddler

One thing I think gets over looked when people make huge life changing moves is how it will affect their children, especially toddlers. I know I did. I was very caught up with getting things completed and "move in ready" at the homestead and I was overwhelmed with packing up our place in Minneapolis and sorting our belongings into 3 piles  a) KEEP b) DONATE c) TRASH. I never really paid any attention or researched moving with a toddler. From what I have read since toddlers do not tell time they know what to do based on their routine. Moving upsets their routine! When we moved my son was 2.5, still in a crib and mostly potty trained. We had a routine of my husband working full time 40-50 hours/week and me staying home and working 16 hours per week (2 weeknights and 1 weekend shift.) When we moved everything got flipped upside down for our son. A brand new place to live, no parks near by, no play dates, we got rid of his crib for a toddler bed, Papa's work went down to 25 hours and my job went away all together. Not to mention boxes everywhere everything out of sorts. Oh and the two cats ran away into the woods. We did not have running water at the time of our move, so our routine of bath before bed went away too. My son flipped out, I mean really flipped out. He started biting more, he was throwing terrible tantrums and waking up a lot at night. I would just have to pile us in the car and drive with classical music on in order for him to calm down. I could not figure out what was going on. Then it dawned on me, oh yeah he has no idea what to do. I started to research what we have available in this local area and in our small town. The library has a story hour, the family resource center does weekly play dates and the homeschool moms do weekly meet ups with the kids. My son was also missing his Papa only time. I started taking a weekly morning off on Thursdays (for my sanity and their father/ son time). I'm very strict with the routine now. Breakfast, tv show or free play, an outing to one of the places listed above or weather permitting outside play, snack, books or tv show, nap, snack, free play, dinner, bath, books and bed. (my husband does bath, books & bed). It took a full month but his tantrums and sleep improved.

Here are some resources if you are planning to relocate with children:

http://www.babysleepsite.com/sleep-training/how-moving-homes-affect-baby-toddler-child-sleep/
http://kidshealth.org/parent/emotions/feelings/move.html#
http://parentingsquad.com/tips-for-moving-with-young-children