I've been engulfed in this book lately and thought I'd share a bit with you today. It's a thinner book so it doesn't take long to get through. Quite interesting really. Although we plan on doing some things "off-grid", we won't be going completely Amish or anything. :) There are just some things that we do, as a modern society living in the city, that are so wasteful and don't make much sense. Take bathwater for instance...how wasteful. With four little ones bathing a lot, that gray water (because we use mostly plant-based soaps with no chemicals) could be used a second time to water other plants, trees or shrubs. As we design our next home (the RV will have to suffice for awhile as we plan), we'll be looking at these things. "The System" is so slaving to where we're going to work, away from our families all day just to get that paycheck to pay for necessities (with which we're quite wasteful), then to wake up and do it all over again. What's the satisfaction? To climb the corporate ladder. For what? Nothing.

We sat down last night going through our monthly expenses and were amazed at the difference between our monthly expenses living in this home, versus if we lived in the country, providing more for ourselves and not being so wasteful. The difference was jaw dropping, therefore not enslaving my husband to his job. Don't get me wrong, my husband isn't going to quit his job (we have been praying for some possibilities in flexibility here), but allowing him more time to be at home, helping train and educating our children.

The Table of Contents for this book include:

Chapter 1...Electricity, Power And All That

Chapter 2...Let There Be Light!

Chapter 3...Water: Hot To Get It; How To Store It

Chapter 4...Cookin' With Gas...And Wood...And More

Chapter 5...Heat For a Cold Winter

Chapter 6...Keeping Cool and Collected

Chapter 7...Refrigeration and Frozen Goodies, Minus Electricity

Chapter 8...Keeping the Lines Of Communication Open

Chapter 9...Generating the Big P - Power and Batteries

Sound intimidating? It's really not. I've been keeping some notes to apply to our future home with which we wish to build. More energy efficient.

Pick up your copy today and enjoy! ;)