Bloom Where You Are Planted - Simple Style

The Simple Kids in front of the Simple House - April 2010

We bought our home in 2002. It was new construction. It has 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a large family room, and a tiny kitchen. I was thrilled with the house (well, all but the tiny kitchen, but since it was just Me, Mr. Simple, Flower who was 3 at the time, and Jelly Bean, who was 6 months at the time, it didn't seem that tiny), especially since we were moving from a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom condo. That was built in 1982. I was so NOT in the Simple Life back then. Well, that's not true. I did cloth diaper. And I liked the idea of cooking.

By 2003, I was no longer working Full-Time. I was frugal because I had to be to survive (this is still a lot of the reason why I am frugal LOL) But I still wasn't really thinking about food storage. Or gardening. Or getting rid of stuff I hadn't used in 10 years.

By 2006, I was starting to get on the Simple bandwagon, but it was very hit and miss. By 2007, I was hardcore. And all I could think about was how I couldn't wait until the day that I could move out to a hundred year old house with 50 acres with goats and chickens.

But by 2007, things were starting to unravel in the housing market. Just as we were considering putting our house up for sale, things really went downhill. We decided that it would be best for us to ride things out in the current house. For awhile.

But that didn't stop me from dreaming of that house anyway. And being quietly mad that we couldn't move RIGHT now.

By last year, I decided that well, maybe if I can't have 50 acres, maybe a 15' x 20' plot behind our church might be enough to grow a few vegetables. So last year, I started planting a garden. But I still thought of it as temporary.

I put some herbs in a small raised bed at our house. But I still thought of it as temporary.

I started to get more and more aggravated with my house. It was new, but poorly designed. Especially the kitchen. The kitchen was definitely not built for someone that is starting to get excited about preserving food.

And then I started to realize that I didn't have to be miserable about not being able to move to the country.

There were still PLENTY of things that I could do right here. Right now.

1. I could keep gardening at the church AND I could put in more raised beds at the house. We don't have a huge yard at all, but we have room to put in three beds.

2. I can sew just as well here as there.

3. I can get a CSA for meat and eggs from my friends who live less than 5 miles away. They have a small farm and they have chickens. By getting a Meat and Eggs CSA, it is almost like having the chickens myself without any of the work and start-up costs.

4. I can fill in my produce with food from farmers' market. I can easily walk to the one in my community.

5. I can get wheat and grind my own flour just as easily here as out in the country.

6. I can plant culinary herbs as well as medicinal herbs at my house. And salad fixings (in those 3 beds.)

And there are some real positives to staying here in the city:

1. I can walk most places. Church, groceries, pharmacy, library, museums, friends, etc. are all less than 5 miles away. That would not be true if I lived in the country. I would put a lot more miles on the vehicle, as well as spend a lot more money on gas.

2. I don't have to go to the work to sell the house right now.

3. I don't have to buy a lawn tractor. Or goats. Or chickens.

4. I have lots of neighbors. My neighbors are a very nice bunch. We help each other out with our yards, shoveling, and watching each other kids bike in the alley. We give each other treats like canned pears, just because we had extra and thought it would be nice to share.

Now I at the point where I am not sure if I will move when/if the day comes that we can afford to move. I've learned that much of my idea of Simple Living can be done right here. And I'm starting to really appreciate my little Simple Life In The City. Well, except maybe my kitchen.

Quotable Sunday

Haven't done one of these in awhile. I should. I have tons of stuff bookmarked. This quote, however, isn't from something I have bookmarked. I was off to Prompt Care this morning (diagnosis: pink eye. I think I'm trying to set a world record for a person who has got pink eye the most times in their life. I've had pink eye at least 15 times. Most of that has been in the last few years.)

Anyway, I was waiting at Prompt Care, and reading an issue of Country Living, and there was this quote on one page, and I really liked it. It said:

"People are always saying Time changes things, but it is actually up to You to change things."

-Andy Warhol

Oh, I gotta have these at Thanksgiving this year

Picture from Simple Bites

Over at Simple Bites today, they have a recipe for Dinner Rolls in a Jar.

The recipe sounds simple enough, and I've got jelly jars that have been emptied of their peach and strawberry jam-ness. (We still have a few jars of peach and strawberry jam but next year, I'm doing more. It appears that I need at least 24 jars of each to get us through the year.)

And they are just so cute! Not that I'm usually into "cute" food, but I love these!

Fall Projects for Your Home, Yard, Body and Mind

The Simple Kids at an Autumnal Celebration last week

I'm hijacking a post title from Simple Mom again. But I'm putting mostly my own ideas. But I do like what she said at the beginning about fall.

"Fall is a season of celebration and goodness, full of apple picking, baking and enjoying the crisp autumn air. Sometimes I forget that I should also be “storing up for winter” during all of the fun.
But the days are coming when it gets dark early and we spend most of our time cooped up indoors. There are things we can do to prepare our homes, yards, bodies and minds for the winter season. Make your list now so that you can do a little bit at a time and still enjoy the changing leaves and seasonal fun."

Home

1. Change your filters now. I remember one night in late fall (it was a Saturday night too) and it was a cold night and I decided to turn the heater on. I flipped the switch and . . . . Nothing. I made some adjustments on the thermostat. Nothing. Great. I put an extra blanket over everybody and decided to call someone on Monday and hope that Sunday night wasn't too cold. On Sunday, I thought I'd go down and look at the furnace and see if I saw anything obvious. (Not likely, since I am not exactly Mrs. Handyperson, especially not Mrs. HVAC) I saw some extra filters sitting by the furnace and on a whim, decided to change the filter and see if anything would happen. I went up and turned the heat on and like MAGIC, it came on. Saved myself some money and embarrassment.

2. Check the seals on your windows and doors. I need to replace the weatherstripping on the back door. And caulk by that door too. And weatherstripping on the door to the garage. The door has been letting in water when it rains/snows, etc. into the garage for at least a year (blush). Simple Mom also suggests putting drapes up to keep the heat from escaping through the windows. We have blinds downstairs, but in the winter, I put a fleece blanket up to keep the heat in. It looks slightly tacky, but only we see it, and I am being uh, resourceful with our spare blankets.

3. Test your smoke detectors (October is Fire Safety Month!) and carbon monoxide detectors and change the batteries.

Garden

1. Put your garden to bed in October. Remove any weeds, and pull any remaining plants and put them in the compost pile (if you haven't started a compost pile, it is easy to start one with fall leaves and plants from the garden.) Leave the soil alone for a couple weeks, and then do a light raking. Mulch with straw, grass clippings, dried leaves, etc.

2. You can leave some vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, turnips, rutabagas, Jerusalem artichokes, celery and cabbage, kale, spinach and chard) in the ground. The caveat to this is if you are in a heavy snow or frost area, you need to do some preparation in the fall. Before the first hard frost, check that there is soil covering the crowns of the roots. Leave the leafy tops uncovered. When cold nights are frequent, cover with a layer of mulch (6" in an area with little or no snow, but for areas with snow, mulch at least 12 inches and cover everything).

3. Plant garlic about 4 weeks before fall frost. Choose a spot with full sun. Plant individual cloves. Using a hoe, make a two-inch deep furrow. Plant the bulbs pointy end up. Space the cloves four to six inches apart, and two inches deep with rows twelve inches apart. Top with six inches of mulch. Green shoots will appear after 4-6 weeks and then cease to grow during the winter months. It will be ready to harvest next July or so.

Body

1. Plan winter menus now. In my area of the country, there are no winter fruits and vegetables available (except vegetables that are still in the ground), so my menus need to depend on food that I've preserved or fruits and vegetables that I get at the store. For fruits and vegetables that I purchase, I try to depend on canned and frozen food from the store instead of fresh produce since all produce during the winter has to be brought in from other states (although I do purchase fresh apples and oranges during the winter.) I do depend on more meat, eggs, and cheese during my winter menus too.

2. Make plenty of stock for soups. Nothing is better on a cold night than a bowl of hot soup. Except maybe hot chocolate. :)

3. Plan for how you will exercise in the winter. I loved being able to exercise outside this spring, summer, but my recent Meniere's diagnosis has me exercising at the gym now so that if I have a drop attack, I'm not 5 miles from home or something. However, I had planned on exercising at the gym during the winter anyway, so I'm trying to look at it as getting used to the gym a couple months early. I'm hoping that by Spring, I will have a better handle on my medical situation and will be able to return to the outdoors.

4. Look at the winter clothing for your family. Since my children are still growing (especially my 11 year old! She can't seem to stay in a shoe size for longer than a couple months lately!), we usually need to get new snow boots every year. By looking now, you can put the necessary items on Christmas lists for relatives or pick them up at when you see a good sale. Or start crocheting or knitting now for needed winter items.

Mind

1. I have a couple of Holiday Planning books that are most helpful if I read them now instead of in December. And I have a couple of "Keeping the Holidays Simple" that are more helpful if I read them now than in December. Make a list of any books, magazines, etc. about the holidays that you want to read in the fall.

2. Make a list of books you'd like for gifts. I always a huge list. LOL And the selecting of the books is at least half the fun.

3. Think of someone that your family would like to help this holiday season. This blog talks about how she was given an Advent basket the year after their family lost a child to stillbirth and how she now gives one to another family. Or you could give a monetary gift to someone. Start saving $10 a week now and you'll have $100 by Christmas.

Garden Update - Early October

So there was one more eggplant that I harvested a couple nights ago. They were predicting frost, so I wanted to try and get out to the garden one more time to pick things.

So I picked one more eggplant (although there are SEVERAL small ones on the plant. I will probably leave the plant alone and see if I get anything else to salvage in a couple weeks) and I picked the last of the tomatoes that I'm going to pick. All told, I got less tomatoes this year than last year, but I think it is because I wasn't quite as on top of harvesting in August as I should have been. But I'll still end up with about 24 pints of tomato sauce, so that will go quite a ways for us. Definitely through the fall and winter anyway. I also picked all the peppers off the pepper plants. A couple were "regular" sized, but I picked the small ones too, so in total, I picked about 8. I plan on making stuffed peppers with the big ones, and chopping up the smaller ones and dehydrating them.

I'll go clean up the garden in a couple weeks, and then I'll give a big ol' end of the season report. Well, not that big.

So next year, the weekend following the Autumnal Equinox

I am totally doing this.

I can't believe I never have done it. Me, who loves all things seasonal and local. And of course, parties.

In fact, I'm going to start before that. I'm going to have a Winter Solstice Party. Since Christmas is on a Saturday after, and then New Years after that, I'll have it the Saturday before the actual Solstice. December 18th. If you are local and want to come, comment on this post. And of course, I will do a general shout out too when it gets a little closer to the date.

Maybe a party celebrating Winter will help me enjoy the season more??? I can only hope.

Thank you random person . . .

who donated a dutch oven to the thrift store a few years ago. I saw it and bought it. I have used it almost every day since then. (Dutch oven on the left. The lid is on top of my cast iron pot.) I use it to make soup (that's what in the pot there), spaghetti, and for making jam. And lots of other things. I've also taken it camping. Worked like a charm.

And while I'm at it, thanks to the person who donated

this spice rack. I love it! This spice rack holds all the spices that I use when I make spaghetti sauce. All the green ones (parsley, oregano, basil) are from herbs that I grow in the back yard.

And thank you to the person who donated

this bread slicing guide. We can finally have "regular" slices. I'm not good at slicing homemade bread freehand. I either cut them too thick or completely crooked. Now, after the loaf has cooled, I cut the whole loaf and put it in a bag.

And finally thanks to the person who donated

these glasses. It is a set of six but one of the glasses was in use at the time of the pics. (Uh, and one of the glasses is being used to hold Super's acorns. I picked up the set of six for $1. Gotta love that. The kids use these glasses. I love how they are glass, but thick and sturdy. And I love how they remind me of jelly jars.

I also got a 4 glass set of tall drinking glasses on the same thrift trip, but they were ahem, not ready for pictures at the time. (They were on the counter waiting to be washed.)