{A simple, green, homeschooling family of six learning to thrive with less on a modern-day Iowa homestead.}
In 2010, the Iowa Legislature signed into law a bill that essentially reimbursed Mid American Energy (a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) $15 million to study the feasibility of building a nuclear power plant in Iowa. Since that bill was passed, Mid American Energy has quietly studied the land, and has been paid to do [...]
Not that you can tell by the snowy weather out here in Eastern Iowa, but it’s spring! And that means spring cleaning, purging, and new projects! I am refreshing my frames this year because all of my pictures are out of date. I have been wanting to display my Instagram pictures for a long time [...]
It’s not easy being a work at home family. Our work is never done…there’s always something we should be doing…and we’re often not focused on enjoying life as we work to keep the bills paid. I have decided that we cannot be workaholics all the time. There must be some fun in our lives too. [...]
We’ve been in Central Missouri for the last few days, just hanging out before my Grandma’s funeral next week. One of the big highlights for me has been bird watching. I never really considered myself to be much of a bird watcher, but I have been fascinated watching them this weekend. Central Missouri was bombarded [...]
My Grandma, Mary, died Tuesday morning in her sleep, peacefully at home, just as she wanted. She was 92 and 1/2 years old. If you read my blog, you know that I was with her when she had a massive heart attack a couple weeks ago and that I had to work with EMTs to [...]
It’s been a long time since I have posted – the longest I have ever gone without writing a blog post. Getting starting again is a little daunting, honestly. So much as happened in the weeks since I last posted. At the end of January, I took my 4 kids on a trip to New [...]
Earlier I shared some of the reasons we homeschool and in this post I’m sharing what we’re doing in our first grade homeschool and some of my favorite resources. I’m always curious how other people homeschool, so I will share our method! We just finished the first half of our homeschool year and I am [...]
I set a few lofty goals for myself this year and shared some of them on New Year’s Day. Another goal I have but didn’t share is to spend some quality one-on-one time with each of my children. All 4 kids are constantly clamoring for my attention and sometimes it really gets to me. I [...]
I declared Christmas officially over earlier this week in my post about writing Thank You cards. And I am ready to move on…but I realized I never shared any photos from our three Christmas celebrations and I got some really sweet and funny pictures I’m dying to share…so here’s one more Christmas post before I [...]
I don’t know about your kids, but my kiddos made out like bandits at Christmas last week. Between our immediate family, two sets of very generous grandparents, great grandparents, and loving aunts and uncles, they brought home a HUGE loot. The amount of stuff is really overwhelming to me. I strive each year to make [...]
Welcome! I'm Michelle and I'm glad you're here. Simplify, Live, Love is a blog about simple life in rural Iowa. We are a self-employed, frugal, green, mostly homeschooling family of 6 working to go off the grid on a modern day homestead in Eastern Iowa. Please subscribe for gardening tips, green living hints, recipes, fun giveaways, and frugal ideas. Thanks for stopping by.
