All in a name!

So, I this is my first official post! I've been telling myself I'd do this for almost a year now and I couldn't come up with a title for my blog so I kind of gave up. I wanted it to be something that stood out and could stand up to its name. And I went through so many names (I'll spare you the long list, some were pretty awful). I also wanted to make sure that I knew what I wanted to write about and that takes time also, I didn't just want to write posts that looked more like tweets or fb status...I want to write stories(-ish) about what's going on around these parts (and I wanted to make sure they'd be interesting).

So...by now you've seen the name..."Our City 'Stead." And you are probably asking yourself, "What does that mean?" Well, friends let me tell you. We live in the city, Nashville to be exact, and love it. We've (my wonderful husband and I) been here for almost 2 years and God has put us on a pretty exciting path of learning, growing and adapting. Since we've come hear, we have been on somewhat of a food/wholeness journey that initially began about 5 years ago. It all started with HFCS (that lovely high fructose corn syrup that is in EVERYTHING!). Well, we began to become aware of this synthetic sugar that we were consuming on a daily basis and we started to ask questions and investigate. Next thing you know we were cutting out partially hydrogenated oil, BHT (and other preservatives), horomone filled milk, GMO's (genetically modified foods), horomone pumped meat, aluminum filled deoderant, sugar/fluoride toothpaste, and household chemicals. We began eating locally, buying food from local farmers and participating in CSA's (community supported agriculture), eating fresh eggs, raw milk and growing our own food. And as we've begun to embrace this new way of looking at food and what we put into/on our bodies, we began to hear this term more and more....homestead(ing). There were oodles of books and blogs dedicated to this way of life, it was like uncovering a buried treasure!

So what is homesteading? Well, the definition is so broad but the long and short of it is...it's sustainable living, self-sufficiency, getting back to the land, keeping a home and so much more. And it's something I love to do.  Its like a hobby, so it makes the work enjoyable and believe me it's a lot of work! So, seeing as how I loooove to shorten all my words (time saver) i.e. perf-perfect, presh-pressure/precious, secs-seconds (that I have quit saying recently because it was brought to my attention it doesn't sound right), div-divide, I mean you can pretty much halfsies any word..it's real fun, you should try it! So....naturally I shortened homestead to stead :) and Ta-da! "Our City 'Stead"

Oh, yeah, who are we, since it is "ours," grammar anyone, school did pay off after all! We are Shell and Sionnie (pronounced sho-ney)two friends (and our amazing husbands) that met through a wonderful orchestration of events, this was meant to be people! And now happen to live next door to each other! (Well, actually they are staying with us for the next 10 days until they move in to their house, did I mention it was NEXT DOOR!) I (we) will definitely go into more detail in another post about how we met and how God gave Sionnie and her husband the house next door, great story! But we are friends and we love to say that we are kindred spirits. It's amazing to us to have someone that we share so many commonalities with, from our families and how we grew up, our history and so many of our beliefs. It is truly something special to find someone that you can talk to who you don't have to explain/defend yourself to. Sionnie and I have been on a similar journey that has led us to this place of desiring to have our own urban homestead and much of what we have done, we have done together over the past 11 months.

This blog is our way of documenting our homestead adventures, the triumphs and the fails (believe me there have been lots of fails!), along with some yummy recipes, encouraging stories, and cool pictures (Sionnie is an incredible photographer!).

I imagine some of you out there reading are on a similar journey which is exciting! And I know we can encourage and help each other on this road! So please feel free to share your stories and helps!

Lovingly,

Shell (and Sionnie!)