Alink - Little house living : the make-your-own guide to a frugal, simple, and self-sufficient life

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This book is dedicated to my family, without whom I wouldnt have had the drive and passion to create these recipes in the first place. I thought of you while writing each and every page of this book. Thank you for encouraging me over the years to continue writing and for putting up with all of my kitchen experiments.

The real things havent changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with the simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.

Laura Ingalls Wilder

M y name is Merissa and this is my story. Not long ago I was struggling to make ends meet and barely had a dollar to spare. Living the simple life had always been my dream, but somewhere along the way in my journey the waters were muddied and it was hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I married my best friend at the young age of nineteen, when I still believed that love was all you needed to survive. Id been a country girl almost my entire life, having the run of eighty acres in rural South Dakota. When I was little I would run through the prairie grasses in my dress-up clothes making little prairie houses and pretending I was living out the life from my favorite childhood book series, Little House on the Prairie. Although my family was blessed in other areas, we werent always blessed with the newest and best toys, so we made do with what we could find. I had a set of play dishes that my grandpa made me out of wood and pretend hamburgers that he made out of pressed rubber mats. From a young age, what would become my lifes motto was instilled in meI was all about making the most with what I had. Pieces of scrap wood became houses that we built for dolls we made out of sticks; old fence posts made the perfect foundation for a playhouse built out on the prairie. I was happy with my simple childhood. I learned to be creative and my mind was always trying to come up with new ways to play and new things I could create.

Fast-forward to that nineteen-year-old bride. I knew how to be creative; I knew how to cook, clean, keep house, and take care of babies. But what I didnt know was that the next few years would test all of my skills and come close to breaking my resolve.

Right after we married, my husband moved us across the country to Albuquerque for a good job he had lined up. I was ready to make the most of this adventure that I faced, and for a while I spent my first few months of being a wife by teaching myself new recipes that my husband would like and learning how to run and take care of a household on my own. It took me a few weeks to venture out and learn where the grocery stores were and where I could find the best deals on what we needed. I tried to make the best of the situation, but it didnt take long for both of us to realize this wasnt the life for us. The stress of the city had already worn on our nerves and we decided to move back to the small town where wed met. We packed up the few things wed already acquired in our married life and we headed north. We soon found a new place to rent and make a fresh start, but instead, things started to go downhill quickly.

We had no money left from the move and in the middle of winter it was difficult to find a job. My husband finally started working part-time in construction, but work was slow since the weather was frigid, and the only thing Id been able to find was a job delivering newspapers in our neighborhood. Maybe not our dream jobs, but it was something and for that we were grateful. We werent able to afford luxuries like heating our whole house, so we took blankets and covered doorways to heat only the room we used the most often. Then I got sick... really sick. After fighting a fever for a week we decided to scrape together enough money to go to the doctor, who diagnosed me with a severe version of the flu. Over the next few weeks I started to get better, but I never seemed to get back to feeling quite like I had before. During the time I was sick, without the work wed been doing, any money we had left had run dangerously low. We were able to pay the bills and that was it. There wasnt money left for food or household things. One night I scraped together dinner for us with what was left in the cupboard. I had bread crumbs, orange preserves, and pasta... and it was disgusting. I could barely choke it down and my husband, trying not to hurt my feelings, ate a full serving and told me how good it was. But I knew something had to change. This couldnt be what my life had become.

I wasnt feeling good, we had no food, and we could barely pay the bills. Id been signing up for free samples just so we had shampoo to wash our hair. It wasnt where I wanted to be and I knew it was time to do whatever we had to do to get out of it and put ourselves in a better place.

I was part of a local free-sharing group online and I put out a cry for food or anything that another could spare to help us out. My cry was answered by a kind soul whom I will never forget. She immediately brought us a huge box full of food and other household goods like shampoo, facial tissue, and some other odds and ends. Although I never knew her name, I will be forever grateful to this person who gave us something to help us get on a better path and live a better life, who helped pick us up off the ground and get us back on our feet again. After she left our house, I promised myself that when we were in a better place, I wanted to be that person to help others get back on their feet and try to live the life they really want.

For us, that life we really wanted was the simple life like the one Id grown up with, and now we were more determined than ever to make it happen. We went from our rental to a camper, to a small acreage, and back to a camper again. All to try to pay off debt and search for the simple lifestyle that we were dreaming of. We didnt have much extra, we paid the bills, and we always seemed to have more month than money.

Plus something still wasnt right. I wasnt feeling well. We ate an average American diet, but I was having issue after issue, from severe stomach pain to a very scary anaphylactic reaction. I tried various types of diets but nothing really seemed to be effective. We finally decided to go to the doctor, who, after hours of testing, diagnosed me with more allergies and intolerances than I can even remember. I was allergic to everything from the food I was eating to the cats living in our house. I remember going home that night and feeling utterly defeated and depressed. My husband and I decided to make a trip to the grocery store to see what I could find to eat and use. I walked around the store and went through all the aisles I was used to shopping in and I just cried. I couldnt live this life anymore, I couldnt eat these things anymore, and if I ever wanted to feel better, many things were going to have to change.