I wanted to share what’s working for us these days regarding chores (we call them jobs). We’ve had a number of systems and charts over the years. Some worked well, others not so much. Some systems worked for a time, but then life shifted and so did our needs. I encourage you to try a variety of things. If one system doesn’t seem to be a good fit for you and/or your children, don’t give up. Just try something else until you find something that works. Since we homeschool, everyone is home all day and our house gets quite messy. I really feel that we should all work as a team to clean up the day’s mess, not just mom and dad doing it all. I don’t ask for perfection. I don’t think perfection is really even possible in a home with children … let alone 5 of them! And I don’t want perfection anyway. I’d much rather our home feel comfortable and lived-in, than sterile and unwelcoming. On that same note, things can quickly go from lived-in to utter chaos around here. So we take a few minutes a few times a day to put things back in relative order. There are some days when we’re running errands, or visiting with family, when morning or evening jobs don’t get done. There’s probably 1-2 days like that per week. We have a large extended family that lives locally, so it’s not uncommon to have a few birthday parties and family dinners each month. No day or week is the same. Having the kids participate in cleaning up what is mostly their own mess isn’t […]
Frugal Fridays #27
I hope everyone is getting weather as beautiful as what we’ve had this week. It’s been so nice to open up the windows and let the fresh air in. The only downfall is that it’s been abnormally dry. I usually only have to water my garden a handful of times all year at the height of Summer, but I’ve had to water it several times already. Since we live in the Great Lakes region, water is really inexpensive. I don’t expect to see much change at all in our water bill (usually about $25-30/month for our family of 7). Thank goodness for cheap water. I’ve heard from many people in the United States that pay triple or quadruple that…so I am truly grateful. That in mind, I still dream of having our own water source someday in the form of a well. Successes and Blessings: I was given a bag of clothes that will fit my 2 year old son this Summer. I ordered some Jerusalem Artichokes to plant in my garden. These will produce tubers that are described as a mix between a potato and a water chestnut. They are native to the Northeaster U.S. and will produce year after year. I have hung most of my laundry outside to dry this week. I used the dryer for 3 loads total, which isn’t much when you consider that I do 2-3 loads a day. I am gradually weaning away from using the dryer at all, though. We had a potluck style cookout/birthday celebration for my son’s birthday on Sunday, and then we were invited to my dad’s house for a cookout on Memorial […]
A Garden Update
We’re in the thick of planting season now that the cold weather has finally subsided. Winter had no intentions of releasing its grip on us this year. It was a long, cold, dark winter. Spring has sprung, though. Last week we had nights down into the 30’s, but today is sunny and in the mid-80’s and there are no frost warnings in the future. I wanted to post some of what’s going on in the garden at this point. This isn’t everything, though. I think I’m actually going to start doing my garden updates as vlogs instead of blog posts. I think a video would do a much better job of showing you what we have going on. The black raspberries are doing well. I planted 4 brambles 2 years ago, and 2 more last year. This one was planted the first year, and it’s the only one that has ever survived. I attribute this to the very harsh winters we have had the last couple of years. I plan to take cuttings and start new plants from this one since it’s apparently very strong. We have lots of clusters on this one plant. It’ll be a nice snack in another month or so. Not enough for jam, though. This is one of my brussel sprout plants that we purchased from the farmer’s market. I’ve never grown these before, but we’re excited about them! There are some shallots planted in this bed as well. Beets. I love beets. This is an assortment of fig trees that I purchased from Baker Creek Seeds several months ago. They’ll be transplanted into 5 gallon buckets today. […]
Frugal Fridays #26
Successes/Blessings: My mom brought over some mint, pineapple mint, and columbine flowers from her garden to transplant into mine. I rendered five quarts of lard from last Spring’s pig. It’s been in my freezer this whole time, but since our next meat order is being delivered soon, it was time to render it. I plan to use it for cooking, baking, and soap making. We picked up some scrap lumber from my grandfather’s house. He didn’t have a use for it. We’ll use it to build potato boxes. My grandfather also gave me the pair of clippers that were my mom’s right after she finished cosmetology school. He doesn’t need them anymore since he goes to a barber now. They’re still in great shape and much better quality than the clippers I’ve purchased. I gave the 2 older boys a haircut. I baked our bread. We went to the public market for our produce. Our meat order came in! I hung all of our laundry outside to dry. I do 2-3 loads a day typically. I made my previous sourdough starter with fresh ground flour using hard white wheat. I wasn’t happy with how it turned out, so I tossed it and decided to start over. After some research, I learned from the family at The American Homestead that rye flour is best for sourdough. I’ve tried to make sourdough starters in the past and I’ve used a variety of flours- all purpose (bleached and unbleached), whole wheat from the store, whole wheat ground at home. I was about to give up, honestly. None of them had a very pleasant sour smell. More like […]
An Apology
So I’ve had this blog running since the end of 2013. Sometime in 2014, I changed over from Blogger to a self-hosted website on WordPress, using Bluehost for my hosting. I don’t really understand what all that means (my husband steps in when it starts getting too techie for me). It’s all over my head. I do know that being self-hosted gives me more freedom to use this blog the way I want to. Here’s the whoops: I’ve been getting e-mails from some of you for the last several months, but I didn’t realize it. You see, I thought I had set it all up to be forwarded to my personal address. I wasn’t getting e-mails, but that didn’t surprise me, because I’m no big-time blogger. I don’t expect that people will be e-mailing me often. I’m totally blessed by the comments that you all leave me. So I was just going along writing articles, approving the sweet comments that I get from you guys, but not thinking twice about the fact that no one was e-mailing me. But you were! You were e-mailing me. And I wasn’t responding. I feel terrible. It’s because the forwarding address wasn’t set up properly (apparently). So today when I logged into my hosting account thingamabob and clicked “check your inbox” not expecting to see anything except maybe some spam…there were e-mails there! I’m slowly going through and responding to all of you. I’m sorry!! FacebookPinterestE-mail
Tour My Pantry
I submitted this article over at one of my favorite blogs to support Mavis’s effort to raise money for food pantries. You can click HERE and head over to One Hundred Dollars a Month to read about how I stock our pantry. Enjoy! FacebookPinterestE-mail
Frugal Fridays #25
Life is all kinds of crazy right now. Babies, homeschooling, home improvement projects, garden season. Whew! I feel like Dori from Finding Nemo lately. “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.” It’s good to feel productive, though. I remember in the days of healing right after my c-section how I was longing for the business of my life. I was thankful to spend time cuddling my new baby, but being stuck in bed or on the couch was difficult for me emotionally. So I’m thankful that I have the energy to do the things that need to be done around here…and that I’m able to have an incredibly full life with a houseful of people that I absolutely adore. God is good. Successes/Blessings: My aunt and uncle decided that they didn’t want their barrel composter anymore (this is the same one), so they gave it to me. I’m so thankful for this! I was researching making a worm bin, which is fairly inexpensive. But hey, free is better. We ordered some Hemlock trees at a great price in order to create a privacy hedge along our rear property line for less than $50. We have a neighbor living behind us and their very large living room windows look right into our backyard. A living fence is an affordable option when town codes and tight budgets prohibit traditional fencing. We made the 45 minute treck out to the Amish bulk foods store. The closest LDS Cannery is almost 2 hours away, so this is where we go to stock up on bulk dry items. We got 50 lbs of hard white […]
Frugal Fridays #24 and a FANTASTIC deal!
Successes: I successfully stayed away from Starbucks. I don’t really go there often (once every other month … usually even less than that). But I was tempted by their Happy Hour. I resisted temptation and made some delicious iced coffee at home instead. I made homemade rolls for our pulled pork dinner. I hung laundry to dry in the beautiful sunshine rather than using our dryer. I harvested dandelions to make infused oil with. I’ll use that oil for a healing salve. I also plan to harvest more for dandelion jelly. I started some calendula infused oil (also for salve). I buy dried calendula here. For that fantastic deal I mentioned: I’ve been waiting for several months for Zulily to have a sale on ErgoBaby carriers. A friend of mine clued me in that they run the sale once a year or so after hearing me say that I’ve always wanted one, but couldn’t bring myself to pay $120+. I saw the sale today and purchased one for $69!! I can’t wait for it to come. I have been doing mega deep Spring Cleaning around here. I’ve been using a cleaning solution of water, vinegar, and lemon essential oil for just about everything. It’s smelling so fresh and clean around here! It’ll probably take me a month to get through my entire house because I can’t dedicate entire days to housework. I have kiddos to homeschool, munchkins to cuddle, and that precious newbie of mine to nurse (constantly). Not to mention the other daily stuff that we all do on a regular basis. I’ve been enjoying the All American Homestead channel on Roku for […]
2015 Garden Plans – Victory Garden Style!
This year I’m doing something a little different in my garden. I’m planting it Victory Garden-style. What is a Victory Garden? A Victory Garden was used during WWI and WWII in many different countries, including America. Its purpose was twofold: to help take the pressure off of commercial food production during a time of rationing and widespread hunger (due to the wars), and also to boost morale. It plain ol’ feels GOOD to produce some or most of your family’s meals right at home. The Department of Agriculture in America put out pamphlets, walking folks through how to garden. They used crop rotation and staggered plantings in order to make the most of a small gardening space. It was expected that people would pitch in and grow some of their own fruits and veggies. Ditto for having a flock of hens for your family’s egg needs, but that’s a different blog post …. Isn’t that ironic? We live in a country today where 45+ million people live in poverty, and 14%+ households are considered “food insecure,” and people in certain areas and neighborhoods still have to fight for the right to grow and produce their own food on their own property. Have we lost touch with the reality that was so apparent to our grandparents? It wasn’t that long ago. I realize I’m probably preaching to the choir here … I really enjoyed reading through this pamphlet that was put out by the Victory Garden Committee in Pennsylvania in 1944. I live in New York, so planting times are similar with just a few slight changes. I used this vintage Victory […]
Frugal Fridays #23
Confession time? Since the birth of baby #5 in early March, we’ve sort of fallen off the frugal bandwagon. Not to say that we’ve been living a lavish lifestyle. I’ve continued to do frugal things, but there have also been a lot more convenience purchases since I’ve been out of sorts while healing from the unexpected c-section. I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I recognize that it was something that I needed for a short season so that I could focus on my family, new baby, and my health. I’m just thankful that we were in a financial situation to afford it at the time. But now it’s time to get back on track. Successes: I purchased 4 tubes of toothpaste, 4 bottles of Dawn dishsoap, 2 bottles of multivitamins, and 2 bottles of ginger ale at CVS and only paid $10 out of pocket using ECBs and a 25% off coupon that CVS sent me in the mail. The original total was $35 before coupons. I’m sure I could have gotten it lower if I’d used manufacturer’s coupons. I’m happy with my purchase, though. I finally (!) pulled out the small sized cloth diapers to use on the baby. He’s 8 weeks old at this point and nearly grown out of the smalls, but better late than never, right? 😉 I finally (!) planted my carrots, onion sets, and transplanted some beet and snap pea sets this weekend. I still need to transplant the rest of the peas, kale, and shallot plants. I picked up some brussel sprout seedlings from the garden center at my husband’s request. Son #2’s birthday is coming […]
