Successes/Blessings: I picked some flowers from around the yard to enjoy in the house (in the picture above). I don’t plant much in the way of flowers. I pretty much only allow flowers in my yard that are easy to grow and come back year after year. I just don’t have the time to dedicate to flowers, unfortunately. I planted the hydrangea 3 yrs ago when we moved in, the sunflowers re-seeded themselves from last year, my mom gave me some zinnia seedlings this Spring because she knows I think they’re beautiful (she has such a green thumb!), and the cone flowers and black eyed susans are perennials. I have been harvesting red onions from the garden as needed. I made homemade kefir and then used that for soaking grains and also for smoothies (this smoothie was made with kefir, frozen berries from my yard, raw honey from my beekeeping uncle, and some kale powder that I dehydrated and ground up using kale from the garden. I made ginger carrots a la Nourishing Traditions I made a candle using some beeswax from my uncle’s hives (mine isn’t mature enough to take wax from yet) and a bit of tallow that I rendered from our beef order. I added 1 tsp of pumpkin spice for scent. I dehydrated 2 batches of kale and 2 batches of carrots for our food storage. I also purchased 40 lbs of dry pinto beans. I went to our local thrift store for a few items. They were having a 30% off sale on housewares and books. We got 8 books, 2 puzzles, a silicon bundt pan, a bag of wooden […]
Archives for July 2015
Contentment in Our Smallness
Hey everyone! Still experiencing some technical difficulty as mentioned in previous post. Truth? The difficulty is that we reorganized our living room, which involved unplugging the … everything. Computer, TV etc. And my husband has been too busy to put much of anything back together. That’s what happens in Summer (well, life really). You get too busy. For anything. Between work, house repairs, car repairs, doctors appointments, dentist appointments, and, oh yeah, he’s taking college courses (I’m writing this on the laptop he uses for his coursework, which has none of my pictures on it)…we usually fall into bed sometime around 11pm having accomplished MAYBE 25% of what we planned for that day. But, that’s okay. We’re getting done exactly what God wanted us to get done. I recently read a post from Amongst Lovely Things titled, “I Am Not an Airplane.” And it totally resonated with me. I am not an airplane. The sky is not the limit. The sky is beyond my limit. I am finite; my time is finite. The ground is where God has planted me. Firmly. Quite beneath the limit of the sky. The smallness of my limit is real, and it’s humbling. I read this morning during my morning Bible time: 1 Peter 5:6 “Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” There’s the list of things I’d like to get done, things I’d like to cook, clean or organize, skills that I’d like to learn, hobbies I’d like to spend more time on, ministries I’d like to be a part of, books I’d like to read my children. […]
Technical Difficulty & Frugal Fridays
Hey guys! Sorry to go MIA on you. I’ve been experiencing some technical difficulties. NNothing major, and I should be able to have it fixed by the end of the week and resume regular posting. For now, I’ll do a quick frugal Fridays from my smart phone. Successes/Blessings: – the kids harvested about 5 cups of black raspberries from our yard. I froze them all. – I mulched my entire garden with straw. It wasn’t as cheap as the free wood chips, but my husband has been way too busy to spend hours shoveling mulch into his truck for me. We got the straw for $5/bale and needed 5 bales to cover all of my gardens. Not bad! I’ve already noticed the plants looking mulch greener and more lush. – we ate meatless multiple times this week. – I made bread. – I ordered a book off of Paperback swap using credits. – I purchased the workbook that goes with our science curriculum (Sassafras Science) in ebook format so that I could pay for it once, but print it off multiple times for each of my school aged children. – I was given a solid wood end table that is in great shape…just needs a little refinishing! – we attended Mass at a closer parish this week, which saved gas. It was supposed to be in the 90’s on Sunday and our van AC doesn’t work, so we didn’t want the kids having to sit in the hot van for the 30 min drive to our usual church. – I harvested more lavender to dry. – I dehydrated 2 lbs of carrots […]
Frugal Fridays (Even though it’s Monday)
Why am I doing Frugal Fridays on Monday? Because my husband was out of town for 3 weeks, and life got a little crazy. And the baby decided he didn’t want to sleep. At all. It’s all good, though. Hubby is home and baby has decided to resume a good sleeping pattern. Therefore: Frugal Fridays. On Monday. Successes/Blessings: I canned 4 more pints of Cinnamon Rhubarb Jam (this is seriously the tastiest jam I’ve EVER made). I dehydrated 10 bananas for our food storage. I made yogurt and granola. I added walnuts and coconut to our granola this time because I had remnant bags of them floating around the pantry. I also used honey from my uncle’s beehive (he gave me a frame to extract a few weeks ago. YUM-O). A neighbor informed me of a sale going on at the used book store. When I showed up, they women there guessed that we were a homeschooling family, and told us to take as much as we wanted and that they weren’t going to charge us! How sweet!! We got a big reusable shopping bag full of books. I havested 4 quarts of black raspberries and a handful of sugar snap peas. I haven’t gotten many peas as I’d hoped for…mostly because the weeds have taken over that part of the garden. My fault. My son found out the hard way (by falling into them) that we have stinging nettles behind our garage. These have never grown here before, but I’m very excited! (Although I felt terrible that the little guy got a rash). I made a poultice out of some plantain leaves from […]
Frugal Fridays #32
Successes/Blessings: I havested lavender and sage from my garden to dry. I also was given the opportunity to harvest mint, lemon sage, and oregano at my uncle’s house! I harvested a good amount of black raspberries from my own yard, and then some from the same uncle’s house. I’ll make jam in the next few days. I harvested garlic scapes and sugar snap peas from my garden to make stir fry. So far this is my favorite way of using the garlic scapes. Sooo yummy! I only had enough for 2 meals…note to self: plant more garlic this Fall for next year! I harvested 15 kale leaves, dehydrated them, and then ground them in the blender to make a powder. 15 leaves dehydrated down to fit into an 8 oz jar. I’ll use this in soups, smoothies, quiche etc. By the way, I’m really loving how easy dehydrating is, and how LITTLE space it takes up to store dehydrated foods. I was given some items from my aunt that were leftover from a garage sale including: place mats, Food & Wine magazine’s cookbooks, some holiday decorations, an espresso machine, and a number of other items. Our neighbor graciously offered to mow our lawn while my husband was out of town for work. I was given some zucchini and cucumber plants by a friend who didn’t have anymore space in her garden. I transplanted carrots into the garden. I know carrots are typical directly seeded into the ground, but I decided to try starting them out in peat pods since my first couple of plantings never germinated. I then carefully separated the sprouts and planted […]
A July Day Book
Outside my window… It’s evening now, so it’s cool and I can hear the crickets chirping. It’s actually too chilly to even have the windows open. I looked at the last day book I did in April. Almost exactly 2 months ago, and it was snowing on that day. It’s not quite that cold now, but we have had lots of rainy days in the 50’s. I’m thinking… About curriculum and lesson plans for next year. Do you ever do that? Just barely wrap up on year and already you’re ready for fresh curriculum? We’ll probably do some light math and daily reading this summer, but I don’t intend to do anything else really. I loved this post by Sara Mackenzie about Summer being time gained…not lost. Time to relish in your children, read, rest, and just be. I am thankful… For a husband willing to volunteer to take a 3 week work trip away from home so that we can have the extra $ for some projects around the house. These particular projects are things we need to do to get the house ready to sell. Our goal is to move to the country in 2 years…and that’s really not a whole lot of time to get several big projects done! In the school room… We’re just finishing up. Maybe a week or so left. We’d be done by now, but we got a bit behind when we had a month of the stomach flu in our house, and then a baby being born via unexpected c-section, and then another round of the stomach bug. From the kitchen… My grandpa made me a bread […]
