I kept seeing this book discussed in various places that I visit online so I ordered it and have really enjoyed it. Frankly, I am in awe of families that can really be self-sufficient. I do my best with vermicomposting, growing some of our own veggies in the spring/summer/fall and buying organic when I can. I try and make my own bread and get local meat. But I have yet to try my hand at making homemade yogurt or sewing all my kids clothes. The ladies who seem to have the time for this also seem to have a slightly different household workload than my own with their spouse also around the vast majority of the time. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that sometimes practicality wins in my life and that means occasionally pulling into Chik Fil' A or using plastic ziploc bags and ditching them or throwing out leftovers instead of using them up.

But if I am really getting down to nitty gritty honesty, my biggest problem is lack of discipline. This is an overarching problem throughout many areas of my life from how I choose to spend my free time to not planning ahead to pack nutritious food prior to heading out with the kids knowing I am going to be tired and hungry and susceptible to pulling into Chik Fil' A. I definitely have a sense of entitlement that I should have fun and free time to waste on Facebook and video games instead of choosing to spend that time doing something more productive. Speaking just about this very thing on her blog, Sharon Astyk wrote a really great piece in response to an article written in Salon about the book. It was a really thought-provoking blog post and I encourage you to follow this link and read it. It made me think and since I read the post I am more aware of the things I take for granted that I can buy easily and cheaply.

Here is an excerpt from her post:

There's a kind of willful incompetence that is endemic in our society, and it is the territory of privileged folks who characterize basic, functional human work as something you need a special gift for. And this serves them well. As long as you don't know how to do something, and can naturalize your "flaws" as just "how you are made" you don't have to apologize for the fact that you are sticking someone less privileged with your work. In fact, you can totally sympathize with them, and totally care about justice for people just like them - at the same time that they get paid badly or treated badly for doing work you could do too.

-Jess