March Resolution Review

It's hard to believe that a quarter of the year has already passed.  Time just flies for me lately!

I set some goals at the beginning of the year, so I thought I'd give a quick monthly update on my progress in March. 


Reading: 

• Goal - 18 Books and more than a year of Mother Earth News and Hobby Farm Home back issues (and yes, I've let the subscriptions to those magazines expire).
• March Progress - Read 2 books (7 books of 18 total), and 4 of the  magazines (10 magazines of 38 total). 

The books I read were:

• Jewel by Bret Lott
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Crafting:

• Goal - 12 completed projects, preferably one a month, with one being a quilted item and another being knit socks.
• March Progress - Started and completed the second toe-up knitted sock, completing the pair.  I also crocheted a couple of much needed pot holders using this pattern. ( 3 projects of 12 total)

The socks are far from perfect, but functional and very comfortable.  I love how they match, but aren't identical.  I really enjoyed knitting them and I'm sure I'll knit more in the future.

Gardening: 

• Goal - Organized planning, leading to an organized garden.
• March Progress - We finally bought a new printer and I was finally able to print pages from the garden planner I mentioned in earlier posts.  I love it; it's a very functional and attractive planner to use.
  
  We have begun planting and so far have potatoes and two new gooseberries bushes in the ground.  I transplanted 76 strawberry plants into a new pyramid, the garlic we planted last fall is coming up, as are the perennial asparagus and rhubarb.  We had big plans to continue planting early crops, but last weekend we were hit with our third mega-snowstorm in two months, so planting will have to wait a little longer.

Diet/Nutrition:

• Goal - To switch over to less harmful types of sweeteners and/or reduce sugars in our foods.  To grow more of our food in our backyard.
• March Progress - I have decided that the only way for me to do this is to just do it!  Despite the cost difference between plain granulated sugar and organic cane juice crystals, I used up the last bag of white sugar and I've vowed to eliminate it from sugar from our shopping list entirely.  I consider cane juice crystals the next step up on the sweetener hierarchy.  Not the best choice, but a better one.  We also continue to use local honey, molasses (local when possible), Sucanat and real maple syrup as sweeteners, but not with any regularity.

Fitness:

• Goal - To join a local yoga class better flexibility, balance and overall health.
• March Progress - I still haven't made any effort to find a different class, but with gardening starting up, I'm not to worried.  Gardening is great exercise!

Finances:

• Goal - To pay off our RV.
• March Progress - Shane has been working out of town a lot lately.  He's been getting both a per diem allowance (there is usually a little left over after expenses) and at least a couple of hours of overtime on almost every check lately.   That has helped me to continue to pay extra on each RV payment.  I don't think I'll reach the goal of having it completely paid off this year, but the balance will be reduced considerably.

February Resolution Review

Since Shane will be home and our weekend will begin tomorrow, and since the last day of February is today, I decided to write my Friday post today.

I set some goals at the beginning of the year, so I thought I'd give a quick monthly update on my progress in February. 


Reading: 

• Goal - 18 Books and more than a year of Mother Earth News and Hobby Farm Home back issues (and yes, I've let the subscriptions to those magazines expire).
• February Progress - Read 2 books (5 of 18 total), and 5 of the  magazines (6 of 38 total). 

The books I read were:

• Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan
• During the Reign of the Queen of Persia by Joan Chase

Crafting:

• Goal - 12 completed projects, preferably one a month, with one being a quilted item and another being knit socks.
• February Progress - Started and completed one toe-up knitted socks. ( 1.5 of 12 total)

I taught myself to crochet around the age of 12 or 13.  A few years later, I taught myself to knit.  I don't consider myself an accomplished knitter, and think it's more difficult than crocheting, but I usually do alright.  These socks were probably the most challenging knitting project I've tackled.  The work itself is not difficult, but just finding a pattern I could make sense of took days.  I made irreparable mistakes causing me to start over several times, but with each re-do, the quality improved.  A few nights ago I was determined to finish the sock, but come 2:00 a.m. when the yarn was about to run out, I completely forgot to consider that I needed a stretchy bind-off.  I bound off in a traditional way and couldn't get the thing over my foot.  So, I had to rework that, and now it might be too stretchy, but at least I'll be able to wear it (and learned a stretchy bind-off to boot!).

The sock isn't without flaws, by far, but it will be wearable, and I'm looking forward to finishing the pair.  What's more, now that I have a clue what I'm doing, I'll probably make more socks in the future.

My first sock!  It's in Paton Kroy washable wool
sock yarn; the colorway is Clover Colors.

Gardening: 

• Goal - Organized planning, leading to an organized garden.
• February Progress - Our printer quit working and I haven't replaced it yet, so I haven't been able to use the garden planning downloads I bought.  However, I've been planning all the same.  I know what we will be planting, in approximate quantities, and have ordered seeds.

Diet/Nutrition:

• Goal - To switch over to less harmful types of sweeteners and/or reduce sugars in our foods.  To grow more of our food in our backyard.
• February Progress - I have to admit that I haven't made any progress toward finding less harmful sweeteners since last month.

In other nutrition news, I've started making kombucha tea and tibicos soda (aka, water kefir) again after letting both go dormant for a few months at the end of last year.  Since re-establishing the habit of drinking a cup of one or the other -- or both -- daily again, I've felt a noticeable improvement in the way I feel.  To me, they are like safer, more natural energy drink and they are good for your gut.  IMO, they taste good, too.


Fitness:

• Goal - To join a local yoga class better flexibility, balance and overall health.
• February Progress - I have not found a different yoga class to join and to be honest, haven't given it much thought.

Finances:

• Goal - To pay off our RV.
• February Progress - A little.  When we first bought the RV, I padded our first two monthly payment by about $90, rounding it to the next hundred dollar amount.  For the next five months, though, I wasn't comfortable doing that.  We are in a position now that I can start paying extra again each month and even start catching up on the five months when I wasn't able to pay extra.  Every little bit helps.

January Resolution Review

I set some goals at the beginning of the year, so I thought I'd give a quick monthly update on my progress.


Reading: 

• Goal - 18 Books and more than a year of Mother Earth News and Hobby Farm Home back issues (and yes, I've let the subscriptions to those magazines expire).
• January Progress - Read 3 books (3 of 18), but just one of the  magazines (1 of 38). 

The books I read were:

• Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles, Beatlemania, and the Music that Changed the World by Bob Spitz
• The Asperkid's (Secret) Book of Social Rules: The Handbook of Not-So-Obvious Social Guidelines for Tweens and Teens with Asperger Syndrome by Jennifer Cook O'Toole
• The Unschooling Handbook:  How to Use the Whole World As Your Child's Classroom by Mary Griffith.

Crafting:

• Goal - 12 completed projects, preferably one a month, with one being a quilted item and another being knit socks.
• January Progress - Finished a pair of fingerless mittens. (1 of 12)

I finished these crocheted fingerless mittens.  I had started them back in the summer on a camping trip, but lost the pattern on the same trip.  Fortunately, I was able to find it online, and was able to complete the pair. 

I also knitted a small afghan/blanket for our cat Bob, who was moved from outside to our basement in December.  He likes to sleep on dirty laundry, specifically sweaters, so I decided to make him something of his own.  It isn't much to look at, but it used up some of my yarn stash, and was good knitting practice for me.


Gardening: 

• Goal - Organized planning, leading to an organized garden.
• January Progress - Did germination testing on the seeds we already have on hand.  Printed garden organizer I purchased from Northwest Edible Life and recorded seed tests and a few other things.  Read about gardening.  Thought about gardening.

Diet/Nutrition:

• Goal - To switch over to less harmful types of sweeteners and/or reduce sugars in our foods.  To grow more of our food in our backyard.
• January Progress - Shane has switched entirely to local honey as the sweetener in his coffee.  I only sweeten coffee occasionally, but when I do, I've been using Sucanat.  I have not yet found a sweetener I like in my tea other than white sugar, so I'm working on reducing the amount.  Little other progress has been made on this front.

Fitness:

• Goal - To join a local yoga class better flexibility, balance and overall health.
• January Progress - Something came up and I was unable to join.  I plan to look for another class or a different activity to meet this goal.
• I've started looking at bicycles.  I'm getting a good idea about what I want and don't want in a bike.  Basically, I'd like a big ol' cruiser bike with a big, well-padded seat, and handlebars I don't have to lean over, but with multiple speeds.  If I can't find what I want, Shane says he can (and will) Frankenstein custom build one for me. 

Finances:

• Goal - To pay off our RV.
• January Progress - None.  I have filed our tax returns already, and should be getting refunds, but those funds are earmarked for tires for Shane's truck, tires for the RV, and a large chunk of savings for next winter when holidays and bad weather shrink Shane's paycheck considerably.  Very little, if any, funds will go toward the RV balance.  On the other hand, we just completed a No Spend/Reduced Spending month and were able to save quite a bit of money to put toward savings.

Shedding the "All or Nothing" Mentality

I think a lot of us who aspire to the frugal lifestyle sometimes get caught up in the idea that our efforts have to be all or nothing.

This applies equally to those of us who are trying to eat "clean" and keep our homes and gardens as chemical-free as possible. We begin to think that anything less than perfection is a compromise. We let perfect get in the way of good, and best get in the way of better.

Well, let me tell you, I'm not perfect, you aren't perfect, and neither is anyone else.

• So far this month, I've baked several loaves of homemade bread, ground my own wheat, and even made homemade flour tortillas and saltine crackers.  But I've also bought bread, tortillas, and crackers, and used store-bought white flour.
  
• I've dried clothes on my drying racks, but I've also used my dryer.
  
• I bought farm eggs and local honey, but I forgot my jugs when I went for raw milk and rather than drive back out to the farm, I bought big-dairy milk at the store.
  
• I try to consolidate errands as much as I can to save gas, but I warm the truck up on cold mornings.
  
• We harvest rainwater for our gardens to conserve water and save money, but I take a deep, hot bath whenever I want one.
  
• We make our own bath soap, laundry soap and toothpaste, but still use Dawn for dishes and commercial deodorant (for now, anyway).

We have given up striving for best and perfect.  But we do try to make better choices and execute better practices, and will continue to try to improve.  We don't let the idea of perfection stop us in our tracks.

That's good enough for us.

You Say You Want A Resolution?

Well, you know...

I prefer goals.  Goals, to me, imply moving forward toward something in a positive light.  Resolutions just seem a little heavy and negative:  this is something that's wrong with me that I'm going to try to fix.   Who needs that?  I certainly don't.

Anyway...I set just two goals last year.  The first was to read 26 books, one every two weeks.  The year before I read twice that many, so I thought 26 would be a breeze.  I barely made it.

My other goal was to do a craft project each month.  Forced leisure, if you will.  I ended up completing just six projects.  What happened?  Mostly, I have this hangup about needing to have all my housework done before I take time to craft.  I also have this thing about being on the Internet too often and for too long.  Basically, I just didn't make crafting a priority, although I enjoy it very much when I do make time for it.

Taken as a pair, I failed rather miserably at the goals I set last year.  So, this year I think I'll add even more.  Seems like backwards logic, but I tend to work better under pressure.

Reading:  I truly LOVE reading and will do it with or without a goal.  However, I enjoy tracking what I read on Goodreads, so I'll give it a number.  Instead of one every two weeks for a total of 26, this year I'll say three every two months for a total of 18. 

In addition, I have a year's worth of Mother Earth News and Hobby Farm Home magazines that I didn't make time to read when the issues arrived.  There's good stuff in those magazines, and I'm finally gonna read 'em, by golly!

Crafting:  I've been using our RV as a sewing/crafting studio, which is working well.  I like being able to leave my project out when I'm done for the day without fear of spilled food or crazy cats ruining it.  I'll stick with one project each month for a total of 12.  I'll go one further with this and get down to specifics.  One of the projects I want to complete is a pair of hand-knitted socks.  I also want to try my hand at quilting something, even if it's just a small table runner.  Wish me luck!

Gardening:  We've been flying by the seat of our pants long enough -- organization is the goal this year.  I purchased the downloadable garden planner and journal from Northwest Edible Life and I'm gonna get this thing squared away.  If you haven't seen this planner, take a look.  One affordable download lets you print a well-designed, fully customizable garden planner for the rest of your life!  That's a bargain at any price.  This goal isn't quantifiable, but I WILL get my garden plans in order this year.

Nutrition/Diet:  We're working toward a SOLE food diet around here, and I believe the best way to change my families eating habits is to make changes gradually.  When we eat at home, we eat pork and fish from within 100 miles. We consume eggs, honey, raw milk, and venison, all from within our county. We grow a lot of our own veggies and berries in our backyard. We eat what we believe are the good fats (butter, olive oil, coconut oil, lard) and I bake mostly with whole wheat flour that I grind myself. 

Sugar is still an issue for us; this year I want to get us completely switched over to the "good" (which really only means "less bad") sweeteners.   I want to find a source for local, free-range chicken, and I'd also like for even more of the foods we eat to come from our own backyard, which also ties in with our gardening goals.

Fitness:  Exercise and I have long history of not getting along.  In general, unless exercise can help me get something else done - like hanging laundry or planting potatoes - I don't want anything to do with it.  This month, though, I'm going to try something new; I'll be joining a Beginners' Yoga class in a setting I think I will enjoy.  My goal is more flexibility, better balance, and better health over all.

Finances:  I sure would like to pay off our RV this year.  I'm not sure if that can happen or not, especially now that we must update the wiring in our home, but it's a goal well worth effort.

In addition, there are those other goals -- to be a better parent, to get more exercise, to laugh more, to be more kind, to learn more, to enjoy life more fully -- but I hope all of us strive for those kinds of goal, all year round.

Now it's your turn.  Do you have any goals or resolutions this year?  Share them (or link back to your blog post) in the comments.

October Spending Challenge - Week 4

Today ends Week 4 of Northwest Edible Life's No-Spend Month of October.  To participate, I didn't join full-on, but decided to challenge myself to spend zero money in restaurants and as little as possible on food at the grocery store. 

This week (10/20 to 10/26) was spendy compared to the past three weeks:

Restaurant spending:  $9.96
School lunch spending: $4.30 (2 lunches)
Grocery store spending:  $48.86 (includes sales tax)
Pork processing fees:  $209.00 (already had these funds set aside)

At the stores this week, I bought: 2 packages of hot dog buns, 1 loaf of oat bran bread, 1 bag tortilla chips, 10 pounds of whole wheat flour, 5 pounds of Clear-Jel thickener, 1.25 pounds barley, a few ounces of dried basil leaves and a couple of ounces of ground nutmeg. 

I also (finally) found a source for raw milk and bought two gallons.  With bottle deposits, the total was $12.  Ive also included the cost of two dozen farm eggs that I forgot to include when I bought them last week - $5.

I blew my perfect record in the restaurant category yesterday.  My daughter (Kat's mom) rode with me to pick up our pork from the processor.  While we were out, I felt a migraine coming on, so I decided it was probably not a good idea to skip lunch.  I bought us each sub sandwich and put her in the truck's driver seat for the rest of our trip.

You'll notice I have a fourth category this week, which is the butcher's fee for processing. I had set aside $250 for processing, but I'm happy to say that some of that money will go back into savings.

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Here's what we ate this past week, most of which was already in the freezer, fridge and pantry:


Breakfasts and Lunches: 

• Our breakfasts and lunches were very similar to earlier, consisting mostly of hot cereals, leftovers and/or simple sandwiches.
• Kat requested two school lunches this week.  The first was meatballs and gravy over rice and the second was sliced ham with French toast sticks.  Each came with a choice of two out of several fruits and vegetables.

Suppers:  (This week's menu centered around chicken, with three meals made from one whole bird.)

• Leftover chili (from my dad), hot dogs on buns, salad with homemade dressing.
• Sausage-and-stuffing stuffed acorn squash, salad with homemade dressing.
• Chicken Oreganato, salad with homemade dressing, green beans.
• Chicken enchiladas, refried beans, salad with homemade dressing, homemade salsa.
• Chicken enchiladas leftovers.
• Bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwiches, pumpkin applesauce, tortilla or potato chips. 
• Fried catfish TBA.

Drinks and Snacks:
Drinks this week were water, coffee, iced tea, raw milk, lemon-lime soda, and beer.  Snacks were potato chips, tortilla chips, peanuts, peanut butter and jelly on flour tortillas, string cheese.

October Spending Challenge - Week 3

Today ends Week 3 of Northwest Edible Life's No-Spend Month of October.  To participate, I didn't join full-on, but decided to challenge myself to spend zero money in restaurants and as little as possible on food at the grocery store. 

This week (10/13 to 10/19) was alright, but not as successful as I would have liked:

Restaurant spending:  $0
School lunch spending: $2.15 (1 lunch)
Grocery store spending:  $56.62 (includes sales tax)

I spent quite a bit at the grocery store this week.  I bought: 5 pound block of cheddar, 2 loaves of French bread, 1 pkg. pre-made pie crusts, 2 bags marshmallows (ingredient in a party treat at the end of the month), 2 bottles of lemon-lime soda, 4 bags tortilla chips, 2 bag of potato chips, 2 pound sliced ham, 1 pound dry roasted peanuts 1/2 gallon millk, 3 cartons yogurt, 3 bell peppers, 2 pounds grapes, 2 packages flour tortillas, 1/2 gallon apple cider, 1 quart half & half, 1 package white chocolate chips (for party treats), 1 bag milk chocolate chips (for party treats), 1 can tuna, and 1 loaf oat bran bread.

Talk about jumping off the homemade/frugal wagon and onto the convenience/junk food wagon!  It was just one of those weeks, and they happen.  But I'll give myself credit where credit is due -- we had a busy Saturday away from the house and it would have been so, so tempting to have a late lunch out, but we resisted and came home for a nice veggie and pasta meal at home.

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Here's what we ate this past week, most of which was already in the freezer, fridge and pantry:


Breakfasts and Lunches: 

• Our breakfasts and lunches were very similar to last week's, consisting mostly of hot cereals, leftovers and/or simple sandwiches.
• Kat requested one school lunches this week, which was sliced ham with whole grain pancake, tater tots, and choice of two of carrot sticks, pear halves, apple wedges or orange wedges.

Suppers:  (A friend gave us a large venison roast that his family didn't want to eat; we stretched it into several meals for us, plus the scraps and trimmings were ground into a treat for our outdoor cat.)

• Whole wheat pasta with tapenade, spinach, zucchini, oven dried tomatoes and feta cheese; garlic toast.
• Chili (pork) with toppings (sour cream, cheese), tortilla chips, apple pie.
• Venison stew, sliced French bread with butter, cole slaw, apple pie.
• Venison fajitas (meat, peppers, onions, mushrooms, cheese, sour cream, HM salsa), homemade refried beans from homegrown pinto beans, lettuce salad with tomatoes and homemade dressings.
• Venison fajita-egg tortilla wraps (basically leftover fajita ingredients stretched with scrambled eggs), refried beans, lettuce salad.
• Venison lasagna, garlic toast, green beans, spinach.
• Miscellanous leftovers from other meals.

Drinks and Snacks:
Drinks this week were water, coffee, iced tea, hot tea,milk, lemon-lime soda, hot chocolate, apple cider, and beer.  Snacks were hummus with tortilla chips, apple pie, grapes, potato chips, and bread with butter.

October Spending Challenge - Week 2

Today ends Week 2 of Northwest Edible Life's No-Spend Month of October.  To participate, I decided to challenge myself to spend zero money going out to eat and as little as possible on food at the grocery store.  Kat requests the school's hot lunch a few times a month, so I'm including that spending as well.  I don't consider it to be groceries or a meal out, so it gets its own category.

This week of 10/6 to 10/12 was somewhat successful:

Restaurant spending:  $0
School lunch spending: $0
Grocery store spending:  $36.51 (includes sales tax)

At the store I spent quite a bit more than last week, but still a good deal less than usual.  I bought: 3 pound bag of yellow onions, 12 cans green beans, 3 bags tortilla chips, 2 loaves whole wheat bread, 2 whole "Just BARE" brand chickens, 1 lb. organic carrots, 2 heads lettuce, 1 pint sour cream, 1 pint ricotta cheese, 8 oz. block mozzarella cheese, 2 cans pumpkin.

Notes:  *Canned green beans are one of just a few veggies that I can rest assured that Kat will eat, so I stock up when they are on saled. *I make a lot of our bread from scratch, but will buy it if I'm especially busy like I was this week.  *I usually buy organic, free-range chicken from Trader Joe's for $2.49/lb, but the nearest TJ's is 15+ miles away.  I decided to try the Just BARE brand at $1.75/lb (and about 1 mile from home).  It's not organic or free-range, but from what I've read, they do follow cleaner, more humane practices than conventional poultry producers.  Anyone have any experience with this brand?

In addition, our neighbors moved away this weekend and gave us 18 eggs and 15 pounds of potatoes that they didn't have room to take with them.

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Here's what we ate this past week, most of which was already in the freezer, fridge and pantry:


Breakfasts and Lunches: 

• On both Saturday and Sunday, we ate steel cut oats and homemade toast with butter. 
• Otherwise, our breakfasts and lunches were very similar to last week's, consisting mostly of hot cereals, leftovers and/or simple sandwiches.
• Kat did not request any school lunches this week.

Suppers:  

• Saturday evening we were invited to eat at our friends' house.  We contributed homemade cookies and one of the last watermelons from our garden.
• Ham and cheese pretzel bites, green beans, lettuce salad with tomatoes and mushrooms, homemade honey mustard or ranch dressings, leftover cole slaw.
• Homemade pizzas (choice of ham and cheese or Thai chicken), lettuce salad with tomatoes and mushrooms, carrot sticks with homemade salad dressings for dip, homemade zucchini hummus, tortilla chips.
• Ham and dumplings, green beans w/bits of ham, lettuce salad with tomatoes and mushrooms,  carrot sticks with salad dressing for dip.
• 4-Cheese ravioli with homemade pasta sauce, garlic toast, salad with tomatoes and mushrooms, leftover green beans.
• Choice of homemade soup (chicken noodle or tomato bisque), fried egg sandwiches on toast, lettuce salad with tomatoes, watermelon.
• Sweet and spicy salmon burgers on homemade buns, roasted acorn squash, zucchini-tomato bake, lettuce salad.
• Pasta with tapenade, oven-dried tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini and feta cheese; garlic toast.

Drinks and Snacks:
Drinks this week were water, coffee, iced tea, hot tea, hot chocolate, beer, and white wine punch (wine and lemonade, basically).  Snacks were dry roasted peanuts, tortilla chips with homemade salsa (both red and green), zucchini hummus, apples, homemade toffee chip cookies, and popcorn.

October Spending Challenge - Week 1

I mentioned Monday that I was joining Erica at Northwest Edible Life in her No-Spend Month of October by challenging myself to spend zero money going out to eat and as little as possible on food at the grocery store.  Kat requests the school's hot lunch a few times a month, so I'm including that spending as well.  I don't consider it to be groceries or a meal out, so it gets its own category.

This week of 10/1 to 10/5 was a success:

Restaurant spending:  $0
School lunch spending: $2.15 (1 lunch)
Grocery store spending:  $8.55 (includes sales tax)

At the store I bought:  10 pounds russet potatoes, 1 large head of lettuce, 1 small head of cabbage, and a 1-pound bag of tortilla chips.

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Just for fun, here's what we ate this past week from what was already in the freezer, fridge and pantry:


Breakfasts: 

• Shane doesn't eat breakfast during the week. 
• If I do, it's usually just toast and coffee. 
• Kat ate a scrambled egg with toast (2 days), a waffle with butter - she doesn't like syrup (1 day), toast with almond butter (1 day), and oatmeal (1 day).

Lunches: 

• Shane takes supper leftovers or other pantry items for his lunch nearly every day. 
• I ate enchiladas left over from camping (3 days), miscellaneous leftovers (1 day), and stuffed cheeseburger buns (1 day). 
• Kat ate stuffed cheeseburger buns (2 days), leftover ham and potato casserole (2 days) with yogurt, string cheese, peaches, tortilla chips and/or peanuts as side items all week.  She requested the school lunch for today:  turkey and gravy, whole grain roll, and two or more of applesauce, apple wedges, banana, corn or celery sticks.

Suppers: (I baked a half ham that has stretched all week and will make some future meals as well.) 

• Baked ham, mashed potatoes, green beans, sauteed cabbage, fermented cherry tomatoes, whole wheat rolls with butter.
• Ham-potato-onion casserole, peas, home-canned peaches, cottage cheese, fermented cherry tomatoes, whole wheat rolls with butter.
• Fried ham slices, eggs (fried or scrambled as desired), whole wheat toast with butter, cottage cheese, sliced tomato, apple-ground cherry galette.
• Potato soup with ham, cheese and broccoli (per Shane's request); fried egg sandwiches
• Tonight we will have a homemade version of a Primanti Bros. Sandwich that we saw TV once time.  Ours will have ham, cooked chicken, cheddar, French fries, slaw and tomatoes on homemade bread.  No side dishes will be needed with this sandwich!

Drinks and Snacks:
Drinks this week were water, coffee, iced tea, hot tea, hot chocolate, half of a 2-liter bottle of ginger ale left from camping, and beer.  Snacks were dry roasted peanuts, toast with apple butter, tortilla chips, string cheese, and apples.

Changing Seasons

The 2012 camping season is over for us.  You can read a couple of new posts about our last camping weekend of the year at Haphazard Homestead on the Road.

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With camping season over, summer is "officially" over for us, too.  As we move into fall and look ahead toward holidays and cooler weather, I've decided to take on two challenges for October.

The first is that I'm going to join in with Erica at Northwest Edible Life in an October No-Spend Month.  I think Erica is attempting an across-the-board reduction, but I've decided that I want to limit my challenge to grocery and restaurant spending.  Those of you who were readers of my old blog know that I can get a little carried away with numbers, but I promise not to do that this time.  My goal is to spend as little as possible at the grocery store and for us to not go out to eat at all in October.  I'll post my updates on Fridays and keep them simple. 

One exemptions right off the bat:  We will be paying the meat processor for pork already butchered and waiting for us to pick up as soon as the cured cuts are ready. 

If you'd like to join in, please do.  It's my understanding that this challenge is less about austerity and more about being mindful of and deliberate in your spending habits, whatever they may be.

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The second challenge I'm going to join is "All Done by December 1" at Happy Simple Living.  According to the Happy Simple Living blog, "The idea is to do some advance planning about the aspects of Christmas that are most important to you and your family, followed by some easy tasks and organization. The goal? To have every do-ahead task done by December 1, leaving you three glorious weeks to have the best celebration ever."

If you'd like to join in, click over and sign up for the e-mail updates.

Zoom...

(Source)

Flying by, but too busy to stop for a post.  Shane is working out of town this week, I have lots of gardening and kitchen tasks staring me in the face, and I'm getting everything ready (from plans to clean laundry) for our trip that starts July 4.  I'll try to write a real post if I can this week. 

Good news is that I just found out we will have wi-fi at our campground, so I might be able to post some vacation photos next week as they happen.

Making Decisions In A Controversial World

Source

I will think...about what truly matters to me and what kind of end result I want.  I will ignore what others, from the media to big business to my next door neighbor, tell me to think.

I will read...as much as I can get my eyes on.  Until I'm sick of reading and confused by the contradictions.

I will think...again.  Have my thoughts changed because of my research, or am I still clear about my ideas and ideals?

I will decide...on my own -- which food is most nutritious for my family, and which candidates' views most closely match my own.  I will decide how I spend my money and my free time, and how I will teach my child..   If I bandwagon, it will be because I'm truly convicted, not just because I want to fit in.

I will do all of these things with my head, and then...

I will act...with my heart.

**********

These thoughts were just rattling around my brain and needed a place to land.  They aren't in regard to specific events or decisions I am facing; this is just what happens in my head when I'm doing housework and tending the garden.

Self-Control and the Struggle to Stay Productive

What's your Internet Achilles' heal?  For some it's Pinterest.  For others, it's on-line games.  For someone else, it might be eBay.

I don't have a problem clicking away from any of those, but I can't seem to stay away from Facebook.  It can suck the hours right out of my day.  I don't know why I have such a weakness for it.  While I do "get something out of it", especially on my Haphazard Homestead page, I don't think what I get out of it is commensurate with the time I can find myself putting into it.

Worse is that I can't seem to leave it alone on my own.  I'm not normally one who has trouble exercising willpower, but staying away from Facebook is harder for me than cutting back on sugar was last month, or giving up cigarettes cold turkey was ten years ago.  I did give FB up cold turkey a couple of years ago (really, that long ago?) and did fine, but I don't want to give it up entirely now; I think it's a usefully tool for bloggers.

What I have found that works for me is LeechBlock.  LeechBlock is a free Mozilla Add-On for those who use the Firefox browser.  I can choose what sites to block and either block them entirely, for specified periods of time each day, or specified amounts of time within a time period (for example, I can block a site for 45 minutes out of each hour), or I can set up one-time blocking as needed.  There are also tracking tools to show you what sites you spend the most time viewing and other nifty tools.

I've tried a few different scenarios.  Blocking Facebook from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. was a little too stringent, but allowing myself 10 minutes each of those hours was still too lax.  I'm currently allowing myself a half-hour in the early morning, an hour at lunchtime and a half-hour in the afternoon, plus unlimited time in the late evening and on weekends.  That gives me several large blocks of time during the day to get other things done without the Facebook distraction.

I'm sure there are other similar tools on-line for folks who don't use Firefox.  I did a very quick search of "website blocker" and came up with a few.  LeechBlock is free, and others may be as well, but I have seen some that charge a fee for the service.

I think these tools work psychologically as much as they do practically.  In addition to my laptop, we have two other computers in the house that are not blocked.  I could easily hop onto one of them to see FB while mine blocks it, but I don't.   I could also get on Internet Explorer and access it that way, but I won't do that, either.  I guess I just need a small reminder to turn away and stay on-task with other things.

I don't block any other sites at this time, but if one becomes a time-suck for me, I will add it to my list.

What about you?  Do you have a lack of will-power when it comes to certain websites, or the internet in general?  What tools do you use to make your day more productive?


Disclaimer:  I was not compensated in any way for this post.  This is simply a tool that works for me and I thought I'd share it with my readers.

February Sewing/Crafting - "That Afghan" Is Finally Done

The afghan I started more than two and a half years ago as a wedding gift for my daughter and SIL is finally done!    And I have to say, "What a relief!"

Now don't get me wrong.  I like the afghan and I think it's very pretty.  It wasn't that difficult to do, but it was really beyond the scope of my patience.  All those color changes, then working the ends in was te-di-ous!  I also realize, looking back, that I should have got my new eyeglasses long before I did.  Switching from lined bi-focals to transitional multi-focals really improved my staying power as I finished up this month.

My best guess for this project is 120 to 150 actual clock hours of stitching.  So, yeah, it could have been -- and should have been -- done a long time ago.

Below is a pic from the original pattern, done in Caron.com Country yarn.

My daughter asked for to have the Claret (red) replaced with a deep plum and the Peacock (blue) replaced with a teal.  I think her choices were good ones, but they necessitated a yarn change. The final product was worked up in Red Heart Soft yarn.  The original pattern measured 50" x 64", but I added rows so that the one I made measures approximately 72' x 90".

My daughter hasn't seen the finished product yet, but I think she'll be pleased.  If nothing else, she'll be glad to finally get it.  :) 

I bought myself a large knitting loom a couple of years ago and still haven't used it because I was waiting to get this done.  Now that it's finished, I can get started on something for myself with the loom.  I'm not sure what yet, but I can guarantee it will be just one color!

That will probably be my April project.  For March, I'll be sewing a couple of things for Kat; I don't want to put them off any longer; I'm afraid she might outgrow them before I get them done!

January Sewing/Crafting: Just Under The Wire

Remember when I said I wanted to complete a crafty project a month this year?  And that the first thing I wanted (needed) to complete was cutting and hemming some drapes?  And that it wasn't exactly what I would call a fun craft?
 
Well, as expected -- by me, anyway -- I put it off and put it off until January was almost in the books.  I finally got the job done yesterday, just in the nick of time.  Thank you, dear blog readers!  If I didn't have you to be accountable to, all eight panels (our bedroom and Kat's) would still be dragging the floor.

I promise to be more punctual with my next project.  I'll succeed by default since there are only 29 days this month!

My Return To Blogging

When I quit posting on my old blog a few months ago, I honestly didn't know if I'd come back to a blog or not. 

I began thinking of a new blog almost immediately and I toyed with the idea of making changes -- many and big -- to what I had been doing.  Still, I was enjoying my time off, so whenever blogging crossed my mind, I just brushed the idea aside.

After a while, though, I saw that one of several things I missed was the accountability that comes with blogging...or with my kind of blogging, at least.  Yes, near-daily posts had been taking up a lot of my time, but I wasn't always using the time I saved by not blogging in a productive way.  I had wanted more time for working outside, organizing my home and spending time with my family.  What I got instead was more time for Facebook and Pinterest.  Because I didn't publicly say that I was going to organize those recipe clippings or dig up the Jerusalem artichokes by Friday if it killed me, I just didn't do them.  Without a blog, who would know the difference anyway? 

It didn't take long for me to realize that I'm a lot more productive with an audience to keep me on track.  It took a little longer for me to decide that "many and big" changes weren't necessary and that a new look, new name and a slight shift in focus would do the trick.

As for my willingness to commit to a blog again, well, I'm still not 100% on board with that one.  The accountability, though, is worth enough to me to give blogging another go.

If you've been where I am, what made you decide to blog again and what keeps you going with it?