"In Her Shoes" a conversation with Courtney of A Life Sustained.

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit and talk to Courtney of A Life Sustained. What a lovely conversation we had. She is a woman after my own heart. She's a mama, radical homemaker, artist, blogger and avid reader. I found her blog through Rhythm of the Home and have been hooked ever since. 

Whenever I start reading a blog I like to go to the very first blog post to see what that person has to say. Yours was very telling as I felt like there was so much of myself in there. How have you found the transition from college student to a radical homemaker?

The transition was challenging at first, but I can honestly say that it’s gotten easier as time has gone on. At first I was very preoccupied with perfection--making all of our food, all of our toiletries, buying nothing, creating zero waste, etc.--and it was just too much to take on all at once. So, I backed off a little bit, forgave myself for my faults, and then focused on making real changes in ways that I could sustain over the long term. I realized that it’s a marathon not a sprint and it was more important that I make true, deep, lasting changes than to make multiple changes right now.

One of the first things that caught my eye about your blog was the Weekend Reviews. Wow what a list of books. If you could only choose three books for a newbie to this slower more connected way of living what would they be?

Just three? There are so many great books out there and my first piece of advice to someone just starting out would be to choose a title that speaks to you where you’re at right now, wherever that may be. It’s so easy to get burned out, but it’s also easy to get inspired by all the really great life-stories that people are willing to share with us and they do so from every angle. The Dirty Life by Kristin Kimball, for example, is a great story about a city girl turned farmer. It’s honest, raw, and full of hard work, but she also spends a lot of time talking about the deeper meaning in it all. I’d also recommend everything that Sharon Astyk has written. Independence Days is jam-packed with practical information about storing food, but she also writes beautifully and compellingly about the importance of rejecting the corporate food system and instead investing in our neighbors. Anything by Wendell Berry or Wes Jackson is amazing. I found Parenting for Peace by Marcy Axness to be incredibly helpful as I try to parent my toddler in a manner that is filled with kindness, attachment and simplicity. That’s three, but they really are just the tip of the iceberg.  

You’ve been doing a fantastic feature lately about your CSA box. Have there been any foods you’ve never tried before? Was there anything that you or your family couldn’t stand?

When we joined our first CSA three years ago everything in our box was new to us! Neither of us had ever tried kale. Swiss Chard was a mystery. That first summer was very heavy on the leafy greens and we had no idea what to do with them and, sadly, a lot of it ended up in the compost pile. But, it was a great learning experience and by the time the next summer rolled around we were actually looking forward to some greens and had a much better idea of how to include them in our diet. And now, I can’t get enough kale! I don’t think there’s anything that we can’t stand, but it is always a real challenge to use up eggplant. It’s not that we actively dislike it (well, I think Steve does) but every time we have it our reaction is, “meh.” Who knows, maybe in a couple years after trying it again and again we’ll think it’s awesome!

What are your favorite go to snacks for yourself and your little one?

Snacks are one area that I’d really like to expand on, actually. I’ve seen some really great homemade cracker recipes floating around the net that I want to try. Right now, I’m munching on lots of nuts and dried fruit or whatever leftovers are in the ‘fridge. I also love a good green smoothie. Silas, on the other hand, is crazy about dairy. I can offer him fruit and veggies all day, but all he wants is a hunk of cheese and some yogurt.

Both my daughters were born at a birth center with a midwife, which was a great experience. But I wish we had the opportunity to have had them at home. You had a homebirth with your son. Did you always want to do that or was it something that came about when you were pregnant? Can you tell us a little about your experience?

I always knew that I wanted to have a natural birth, but it wasn’t until we were pregnant that we decided that the best way to up our chances of that happening would be to stay at home. My ideas about birth came mostly from my mom telling me about my own birth. She didn’t plan on having a natural birth, but got one when I came too fast for her to take anything for the pain. She said that of her four children, it was the most satisfying labor for her because she was awake, in control, and totally able to enjoy the post-pushing endorphin rush. So, I spent most of my life thinking that this was how all births went.

After watching The Business of Being Born, I realized that such was not the case and I would have to educate myself and actively lobby for a natural birth if I wanted to avoid the cascade of interventions that is so common in hospital births. My gut instinct was that homebirth would be a good option for us, but there were many discussions, much research, and much time spent thinking it over before we made a decision. Steve, my husband, was a little nervous about it at first, but it only took one meeting with our fabulous midwives for him to sign on completely. Ultimately, we wanted to birth in a way that was simple, private, and that would allow us to work together as a team. For us, birthing at home was the best way for this to happen.

The experience of working with our midwives was absolutely dreamy. All of our prenatal visits were held in our midwife’s home office. They lasted for about an hour each during which they did everything that would happen at a hospital visit (blood pressure, urine analysis, measuring my belly, checking weight, listening for heart tones, etc.) plus we talked about everything. No question was off-limits and they did a great job of giving us answers, but also providing us with resources so that we could do further reading/research on our own. But, even better than that, we laughed a lot! These women were fun and they helped us to remember that all of this hoopla was about bringing a life into the world and that fact is worth celebrating every day.

I started having contractions at 1:00 a.m. the day before my due date. We actually had an appointment with our midwives that day for a home visit, so I had cleaned the house from top to bottom, but I didn’t recognize that I was nesting. I was in complete denial about going into labor. I kept getting up to go the bathroom and I was incredibly annoyed because for the first time in months I was actually comfortable in bed. I labored alone for a couple hours and Steve awoke to the sound of me filling the tub. He helped me cope for awhile by pushing on acupressure points (which totally worked!) and we called our midwives at around 5:30 or so.

I got into the tub after my water broke, which was wonderful. The first stage of labor was the easiest for me. Distracting myself from the pain was something that I could wrap my mind around. But, pushing through the pain? That, I resisted. My midwives for the most part faded into the background, offering words of encouragement and suggestions for different positions when they thought they would be helpful. Finally, at 9:40 a.m. I pushed my baby out and he went right to my chest after just shy of 9 hours of labor. We got cleaned up, moved to the bed, and the midwives made us some breakfast. It really was an ideal experience: peaceful, loving, and simple.

I like to challenge myself all the time to make things from scratch. The first thing I ever made from scratch was brownies. It was an avalanche from there. What were the first 5 things you made from scratch?

Hmmm.... the very first meal that I cooked from scratch was a baked pesto pasta dish with fresh mozzarella from a Rachael Ray cookbook. It was amazing and was enough of an initial success to totally set us on the path of cooking all of our dinners at home. After that I picked up a soup cookbook and we were obsessed with soup months. The two that were most notable were a chicken broth with pasta and meatballs and a really wonderful chili that we still make fairly frequently. There had to have been some sort of cake in there, but I don’t have a clear memory of one. I do remember baking a half dozen different kinds of cookies to take to our family’s Christmas celebration, all of them new to me. There were apple hermits and mini pumpkin whoopie pies and peanut butter puddles. I’d only ever baked chocolate chip in the past. I like to try new recipes, so it’s more likely that there’s something new on our menu than not.

If you could travel back in time before the industrial revolution, to see how people used to live where would you go and in what era?

Oh, there’s so much that I’d want to see and learn! I’d want to go way back, thousands of years, and visit some nomadic tribes. I’d love to go to the area that would become Germany, where my ancestors are from, but it would also be fascinating to stay right here and see what Iowa was like back then.

Thank you for talking with me today! I really enjoyed having you in this space! You can hear more from here on twitter and at Rhythm of the Home.