Dear Blog Reader,

I think this is the first time in quite awhile that I haven't told the previous year not to let the door hit its ass on its way out. 2010 wasn't too bad, maybe it was even good. More good than bad happened for our family, by a long shot. There's so much I want to say in this post, but my brain just isn't fitting itself properly around it. When all else fails, try a silly metaphor, right? So, I'd like to summarize this year with the following photo:

Let's allow this humble bobbin of homespun to represent a lot of what has gone on in our home this year. Please, allow me to elaborate.

Well, first, it's just awesome. The fiber is from a little local dyer named Dyeabolical Yarns in St. Louis, near where my mom lives. When I saw this colorway my heart totally melted and I sent my mom one of those "PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE CAN I HAVE THIS FOR CHRISTMAS PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE?!?!" emails. The colorway is called "Little Bo Peep". Sounds like me, right? *snort* But it is awesome. I haven't even plied it yet. I'm calling it my "Yearlong Yarn" since I started it on Dec. 30, 2010, and finished it on Jan. 1, 2011 (at 1:30am).

Anyway, I digress. First, I should refer folks to my post on spinning and my own personal mental state, and point out that I am still happily spinning away. So there's that.

Also, this represents my new job, which I've prattled on and on about elsewhere. A lot of my job is about fiberwork, since we have alpacas, and hence, a sea worth of alpaca fiber. So my homespun often reminds me of my day job, and since my day job is so awesome, that's okay. Some folks here will remember than in January 2009 we were finishing up 9 months of unemployment, and were quite literally one month away from "Uh... I don't know what to do now, actually." I got this job in the middle of that month, and I cried when I accepted. The job has provided monetary and mental stability, which is worth more than a King's ransom. Considering I work for the Sisters of Providence, I cannot help but at least consider that there was a Providential hand in all of this....

The homespun also represents our family's ability to remain true to our values of homemaking and homecare. This is somewhat because my salary is decent, but also because our lifestyle is much more frugal than most, and because I have a husband that is willing to buck accepted social norms in order to stay home and learn how to manage our household, which is not easy. I am more blessed than I have any reason to deserve to have a husband like Brian. Not just blessed--straight up lucky. Becoming a homemaker is hard for a woman in our society, but at least it's still socially acceptable. A man as a homemaker is becoming more common, but still isn't considered appropriate. It is so bizarre to me how much we have devalued the most important of careers--home & family care, teaching, farming. It's insane. But screw society. Having one adult at home, at least part time (by preference, full time) has always been important to us, and we're lucky to be able to keep to this value, no matter what anyone else thinks. Oh, and ginseng. Never underestimate the value of ginseng in a family with depressed individuals--seriously.

And also on the homemaking front, let's not forget the chickens, and our expanding ability to be more self-reliant. Now, we don't delude ourselves that we'll be able to become fully self-sufficient on our little under-1/10-acre lot, and frankly I don't even think that this is desirable. I would vastly prefer working together with my neighbors to create a more self-reliant neighborhood, and working with local businesses to create a more self-reliant community. But we can live as much of the values as we can, and get better and better about it as we go. We can be one of the families that helps others see how a different, slower, lower-energy life could look, and that really it's pretty cool. AND, to that end, we will hopefully be scheduling an Urban Chicken Open House this spring! Woo-hoo! (My husband said it was okay--really!)

One of the frustrating things this year has been the relative lack of progress on starting our local foods co-op. We continue to grow in membership, but we are not bringing in the investments and member loans we need to really get off the ground. But we have an amazing team of leaders who, somehow, remain dedicated to this, and a membership that is being patient and forgiving and, hopefully, will soon begin to really step up and make our store a reality.

There's just so much else to say, but no way I could fit it all in here. I didn't even come close to finishing the "To Do 2010" list, since most of 2010 was spent adjusting to our new lifestyle. But hope springs eternal (as my boss loves to say), so I will rename that list "To Do 2011" and maybe even add a few things to it. I've got posts rolling around in my head already for the upcoming year. I hope you'll stick around, and share your wisdom with me whenever you can. Y'all have been invaluable to me, and I wish each of you the best of New Years, with prosperity and happiness in everything you do.

Sincerely,
Robyn

Good Morning, Friend-Citizen. Welcome to the Informal Economy.

Boy, I really do have a lot of catching up to do here, don't I? *pffff* It was nice to finally get back over here to write--quite cathartic--and I got lots of encouragement to keep doing it. And heck, my last post got picked up by Sharon Fricking Astyk (HOLYCRAPOMGWTFBBQ), so I'm feeling pretty good about myself right now. Believe it or not, I have been getting a lot done. Not so much things done on that list you see over on the right side of the page (ah well), but plenty of other things. As I said way back in my early posts, I feel that I am trying to prepare my family for two different basic events: a long emergency, and short-term emergencies. I'd thought there wasn't really any middle ground between those; if you're prepared for both, you've got the middle ground covered, right? Well, as it happens.... yes, that's right. Go me.

The middle ground emergency I'd not been figuring on (why I can't imagine, since I knew it was coming) is long term unemployment. By "long term" I pretty much mean over 1-3 months. I have no idea if that's the proper definition, or if there is a proper definition (of course there is). Who cares--my blog, my definition, over 1-3 months. There. Anyway. Both my husband and I are out of work, and received our last paycheck at the end of July (and had our medical benefits cut off at the end of August). My husband, thankfully, does qualify for a decent size unemployment benefit, and I'm working on it for myself. ($143/week, before taxes! Katy bar the door!) We do have savings, but without unemployment, we'd be drinking it through a straw right now. Blessedly, my children qualify for state medical coverage, so I no longer have to have panic attacks if they want to go roller skating or climb a tree. Overall, the process hasn't been too bad, although the unemployment process was designed by tripping bureaucrats who like to fondle their slide rulers. There's still a big, red "STOP! YOU MUST FILL OUT ALL INFORMATION ON THIS LINK!" sign on my unemployment homepage. I've followed that link at least 100 times, have filled out every blank I can find on it, and it won't go away. I've even called the office, and they said to ignore it (which I am just positive is the wrong thing to do). Fortunately, I've got a friend on the inside--er, rather, she's on the outside now but knows folks on the inside--and she might be able to help me out. Can you believe, she was laid off from the unemployment office? How's that for irony?

But I digress--quelle surprise. I've got plenty to say about what prep-work I'd done for us before unemployment hit, and how much good it's done us (read: one helluva lot!), but I wanna discuss something different. You see, today, or perhaps yesterday if you trust my Facebook posts, I officially entered the Informal Economy. Back in your dad's day it was probably called "under the table work", but that's so old fashioned, and has such interesting resonances now that we have more inventive porn movies, that I prefer the new moniker. You must admit, it sounds impressive, yes? The Informal Economy. And in fairness, it's also much broader of a thing than being paid under the table, or "off books", though that can certainly play a role.

The Informal Economy as I understand it (and do recall the discussion above about my blog, my definition--it's good to be the Queen) is basically the economy that doesn't show up on our GDP. It's a loose confederation of people, goods, and services, and their relative worth to each other, all chugging along blithely ignoring things like the DOW, or the Core Consumer Price Index, or reputable business attire. It's my baked goods that someone else wants, and who has lots of yarn and is willing to work a deal. It's my dairy class, that I can run in exchange for cash or services. Its my friend's hand-knit socks, which she is currently valuing at one week of cat-sitting. In college it was one hour of backrubs per double-A battery. Or, and this is the one where I've really taken the plunge, it's the eco-cleaning service you run because you have the time and flexibility (unemployment does confer some benefits) and need money.

You have friends, and they need something--a loaf of bread, a clean living room for the holidays, a hand-knit dead fish hat (of course I'm not making that up), some firewood. You have one or more of those things, and you need your computer devirused, or your car tuned up, or some cash, or your cats sat on. The informal economy exists in the space where all of these things meet. Slowly things bleed out, so that you're not just dealing with friends anymore, and that's fine. It maintains its own boundary conditions, just because if whatever you're up to gets too big, it becomes unwieldy and unmanageable, and you scale back (or, in some cases, politely dressed gentlemen from an acronymed government agency start asking hard questions about the street value of bread). So you keep it small.

It is both a delightful and a precarious place to be. It's liberating in its way--no doubt about that. Of course, it has nothing that looks like job security, either. And unless you are a very rare person indeed, you probably can't make ends meet just in the informal economy right now. Plus, the IE (I'm tired of typing it out over and over) puts its own demands on you, and you can lose out quickly. Didn't get that bread done in time? You just lost your 1-out of-5 bread customers, and more importantly, you lost their recommendation. Got a paying job that's putting constraints on you? Which one gives? If you're like most sane people, its the IE that takes a back seat.

BUT, for all that, it also offers jobs where there aren't any. Businesses don't have the margin to hire anyone, but their employees could sure use their living rooms cleaned while they're at work. Don't have the money to start a bakery? Of course you don't, who does? So you start a "bread share" with a limited number of folks, and add that to your minimum wage job and get by.

The IE is the natural response to a job market strained beyond the breaking point--it's water flowing over, around and under the dam. It's paradoxical in that it provides evidence for the libertarian notion of "the market will provide" but it does so by going outside of the Market because the Market is NOT providing. And it by no means covers all bases. I've yet to meet a doctor that is willing to barter open heart surgery for bread and a car tune-up (although I suspect "off book" surgeries are going to start happening soon). If The Economy does go pear shaped, there are probably a lot of goods and services that are just gonna go bye-bye. But even if it doesn't--and the Fed & Treasury are currently running neck and neck with biblical literalists in their willingness to do backflips to maintain their system--the IE is still there to take the strain off of the main economy.

So, as you can see, I'm just doing my part as a patriotic American to help our economy limp along until... um... something happens. So, anyone need their living room cleaned?