We're all learning to adjust to sizable price increases in everything from food to fuel, and everyone is feeling stressed, trying to squeeze blood from that proverbial turnip. Add all the election rhetoric, and the fact the holidays are upon us, and it's no wonder folks are struggling to stay afloat.

It's easy to fall into that feeling of despair when you live here. Listen to any media and you are reminded daily that West Virginians are at the worst end of any list, whether it's economic, health or most quality of life issues. It makes sense that when hard times hit, we think we're all in the same boat. But I'm not sure that's true here in the country.

Since I moved here from what seems like an opposite world - a very economically blessed and busy urban environment - I have learned to adopt a different perspective on the problems plaguing our own little towns. It is easy to feel stressed or depressed here in the hills, but if you lived on a small sliver of land in the middle of hundreds of subdivision houses and all your utilities, food and water were things that you could not provide for yourself, you would feel even more at mercy to the economic ebbs and flows.

These days I think about our friends and family still out there in suburbia who drive home each day and pass foreclosure signs in their neighbor's yards, or watch co-workers leave with a pink slip in hand. I know that could just as easily be my family right now. For years, we made our living building homes in those subdivisions when they couldn't be built fast enough to keep up with demand. Now, a lot of our professional acquaintances are struggling to find just one customer to tide them over to a better year.

I also remember how many of them thought we had a couple of "loose screws" when we decided to move away and come back home to a quieter existence. I questioned it myself, too, many times. Were we making a good decision? Would we be able to make a decent living?

Now when I hear about folks there struggling to make their new house payments, car notes and utility bills in these hard times, it is then that this creaky old farmhouse (no mortgage) and my 12-year old truck (no payment), and my unpredictable free gas suddenly don't seem so bad.

The way I see it, Mother Nature has made amends here to help us out. This year nuts are plentiful, apples and pears are everywhere (which also means there should be a lot of plump deer to harvest in a few weeks). Gardens were bountiful and pantries are full.

The woods are brimming with game. Local hunters are getting ready to fill their freezers. Fresh water springs dot the hillsides, creeks run by most of our front doors. Natural resources are everywhere.

For a variety of reasons, I didn't do a good job this year of accomplishing many of the goals I had for taking advantage of living here. I didn't plant any orchard trees, or make any old-fashioned kraut. I didn't pick blackberries or experiment with drying fruit. We didn't even get started on that cut stone cellar we want to build to put it all in.

We didn't can any tomato juice, join the local beekeeper club or start a strawberry patch. I did buy a couple books on making maple syrup and growing grapes, as well as building a greenhouse out of recycled materials, but never got around to any of those projects.

I neglected the plentiful Black Walnuts and heirloom apples. I didn't pick any springtime greens or even get lucky enough to find any morels - those awesome Molly Moocher mushrooms that everyone else had plenty of this year. We didn't look for ginseng, plant any future Christmas trees or go check the persimmon trees for ripeness. We never went to the river for cat fishing, nor did we try out our new jerky-making equipment (although Richard feels sure he can solve that problem come deer season).

We also didn't start on a new house like I desperately wanted to this year. But because the land affords those opportunities over and over with each new season, I have hope that I'll be a better steward next year.

Until then, our family has decided to take the hard times and turn them into a learning opportunity to do more with less. Maybe clean out some closets, have a yard sale or two.

To save gas, we can spend more time at home, maybe enjoy some TV time together as a family. We can make more Christmas presents this year and buy less. I can start a daily thankful journal and use these down times to teach the kids lessons on everything from saving change to volunteering. Maybe we'll get a chance to finish at least one scrapbook we've started.

And we'll have another few months to fine tune the houseplans we've been fine tuning already for months.

When we set our Thanksgiving table this year, we'll be glad to have the land and its resources rather than the new home and fancy car in a concrete jungle. Because life is simpler here, it can be simply easy to forget about what's happening outside our little neck of the woods. And that's just the therapy we can use to get us through to better times.