Daybook - November 25th

I've seen these daybooks on other blogs, and I've thought about starting to add it to mine, but never have. Also, it is supposed to be done on Mondays, and today is not Monday. So I'm not going to commit yet to doing this every Monday yet, but I'm going to give a try today . . . and on a Tuesday.

***
Outside My Window ...

It is sunny, windy, and cold. I really need to clean out the gardens and the annuals from the front. There are a few toys and pieces of outdoor furniture that needed to be gathered up and put in the garage.

***
Towards rhythm and beauty ...

I am grateful for the rhythm of the seasons. I've really tried to embrace each month and appreciate the earth and how everything in it is growing and changing every day. I'm looking towards Thanksgiving to appreciate all that I have in my life and all of the wonderful things, and people, around me.

***
I am thankful for ...

the lesson that I've learned this year that people do care about me. I was never sitting around and wondering if they did, or trying to figure out how many friends I had, or anything like that but it has been illustrated to me over and over again this year that my family and I are in people's thoughts and hearts, and people show it to us through their actions.

***

From the learning rooms ...

For the preschoolers, it is letter sounds, counting pumpkins, and creating things out of materials on the art shelf. For Flower, she is on her 2nd month of studying the Ancient Greeks, and wants to do more. She started building a replica of the Trojan Horse yesterday. And lots of painting, drawing, cooking, and reading. And math, because I ask her to.

***

From the kitchen ...

I am happy that the pantry is mostly stocked, and that we should be back to our full three month supply by Friday. I am grateful that my children love to eat soup in the fall as much as I do.

***

I am wearing ...

a periwinkle hoodie, t-shirt, yoga pants and slippers. I usually dress a little nicer, but I've been feeling under the weather for a few days, and I wanted to be warm and comfortable.

***

I am creating ...

lots of Christmas presents! We are making or buying homemade gifts this year for Christmas. It has been so fun to see the children's creativity!

***

I am going ...

to Jelly Bean's school in a little while.

***

I am reading...

a little from all the books listed on my November bookstand over there. I read primarily non-fiction, because I enjoy it more, but also because I can read from lots of different books at one time, and because I can read in little snippets. When I read fiction, I have to stick with one book at a time, and I have to read it all in one sitting. Fiction just doesn't in my lifestyle right now.

***

I am hoping...

that I will find more peace in my life.

***

I am hearing ...

the quiet. The baby that I watch is off with his parents for the holidays, Flower is at choir, Jelly Bean is at school, and Super and our other little friends that I watch are sleeping. This is a RARE moment of quiet.

***

Around the house ...

I am trying to get the house straightened up. I've been under the weather for a few days now, and I've been doing essential tasks only. But this afternoon, I did manage to get Super's room and the playroom tidied up today, and the laundry into one area.

***

One of my favorite things ...

is teaching. I used to be a trainer, I teach at church, I teach the preschoolers and Super and Flower, and I try and teach all my children every day to be a good person and live a good life. Teaching brings me joy.

***

A few plans for the rest of the week ...

Getting ready to go out of town on Thursday, working on lesson plans for December, working on gifts, trying to get back to feeling better, and making a dr. appointment for myself.

***

Here is picture thought I am sharing ...

Super chasing bubbles

Daybook created by Peggy at http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

I Heart Goodwill

I would love to have my family wear 100% natural, homemade clothes, but it is just NOT going to happen around here anytime soon. We are on a very strict budget and it does not allow for purchasing even enough 100% natural fabric to make our clothes, not to mention, that I do not have the time to do it. So the next best option for me is to make sure that we are reusing clothes, and so I buy 90% of our clothes at Goodwill. I honestly don't shop often for myself - I have mostly have enough in my existing wardrobe, but when I have a need, I will always look there first.

Oh, and I should say before I go too much further, that I really try and limit the amount of clothing that we have. It makes it so there are less clothes that I need to buy, and less clothes that I need to wash, and less clothes that I need to store. I usually go with the 7 rule - 7 shirts, 7 pants, 7 sweaters, 7 underwear, 7 socks The girls tend to have a mix of 7 skirts and dresses. For shoes, I do 1 pair of gym shoes, one pair of dress shoes (one for spring/summer and another for fall/winter), and Super usually has two pairs of dress shoes (one black and one brown), and one pair of boots. The season before, I look to see what each child has and what they need, and put it on a list and carry it in my purse so that if I'm out, I can look for what we need so I don't end up with lots of bottoms and no tops or whatever.

Back to Goodwill - I usually hit Goodwill once a month, generally the first weekend, but not always. I do spend at least an hour there. I will look through the housewares and add to our cloth napkin supply, look to see if they have any bedding that we need (I want to get flannel sheets for everyone. So far, I've got one set.), then I look through all the trays, baskets, wooden items, vases, etc. for preschool. I find the BEST stuff for preschool here. Then I look at clothes for the kids, shoes for anyone, clothes for me, and then the children's books. I've really filled out the Montgomery Academy Library this way too. I've found some classic, out of print, hardcover books here. I almost felt bad as I paid them under 50 cents for it since I knew that it was worth much, much more.

We have other thrift stores here in town and I probably should check them out too, although I think that for right now, it does suit our needs to just do thrifting once a month. I think that if I shopped more often than that I would end up buying things that I didn't need.

I also try to do my part to donate to Goodwill too, or at the very least to give our clothes and other things to others that can use them. I'm hoping that if I keep giving, that I'll keep finding great stuff. So far, my theory is holding true!

Thanksgiving Farmer's Market

I go to our local Farmer's Market, held outside in the town square, almost every Saturday from May until October. I've been missing going out and looking at the vegetables, touching them, trying to decide what I want to eat this week, looking at the flowers and spices, talking with the farmers. Well, I saw in the paper that they were having a Thanksgiving Farmer's Market today from 10 am - 2 pm held inside the sports coliseum, so of course, we went. We had a great time - we saw many of the "regulars" and a few new people. We tried samples of local cheese, roasted brussels sprouts and chestnuts (YUM!), chicken noodle and minestrone soup, and pumpkin almond bars.

They were selling turkey, beef, chicken, eggs, spinach, apples, sweet potatoes, potatoes, salsas, ornamental and squirrel corn, garlic, turnips, honey, and cheese and there were several craft/art tables too. I came home with ornamental corn (I mentioned that I was a preschool teacher, and I use the corn as a tweezing activity. I wasn't looking for him to give it to me for free, I was just having a conversation, but then he said to just take as much as I wanted for no charge! I took two and thanked him!) honey, garlic, eggs, and sweet potatoes. I was tempted to get some cheese curds, peach salsa, and a pair of earrings, but I resisted the urge.

So while still basking in my naturalness, I decided to go to the mall. LOL. Those people that know me know that I'm not a big fan of going to the mall, but I wasn't in the mood to go home yet, and it was close and it had been a LONG time since I'd been to the local mall. I ended up getting some great deals - a plum pullover sweater at JCPenney for $3.43 (with tax) and 4 shirts and a pair of socks at Old Navy for $5.82. When I can get those kind of prices at the mall for new clothes, then I don't feel quite as guilty for spending the money and shopping isn't quite the torture that it usually is for me.

I must admit that I went shopping a few weeks ago and it WAS pretty tortuous until right near the end when I ended up in Gap Kids (which I haven't been in in probably 5 years) and I was looking at the clearance rack, and they also had an additional 30% off that day. I ended up buying 9 pieces for $60.03. It is all for the Simple Kids for Christmas presents. I felt pretty good about that deal too.

So in case you are worried that I live a completely natural, simple, organized life all the time, I don't all the time. I'd like to do a better job with it, and I write about it here to motivate myself, and to write down the things that we are doing in case it can be helpful to anyone else. But I have days when I'm stressed out, days when I'm completely disorganized, days when the house is a mess, and days when I don't feel like cooking, and days when I am crabby. Hey, I even went to McDonald's today!

OK, if I want things to run well around the house

I simply need to get my children to help around the house every day. My children are 9, almost 7, and 4. They are all old enough to help around the house, even Super, although he needs closer supervision usually and sometimes a little assistance, and LOTS of positive encouragement.

Here are our DAILIES:

Everyone

• Make Beds
• Tidy bedroom

Mom

• Wipe bathroom sinks/counters/toilet
• Wipe Kitchen sink/counters
• Plan/Cook Dinner
• Tidy learning room
• Vacuum a main room (either the Family Room or Living Room)

Flower

• Vacuum a main room (whatever room Mom isn't doing)
• Tidy a main room (alternate between Family Room/Living Room)
• Kitchen Job (either set/clear the table, unload the dishwater, or sweep the floor)

Jelly Bean

• Dust a main room
• Tidy a main room (whichever one Flower isn't doing)
• Kitchen Job

Super

• Tidy shoes
• Sweep the entry way or Clean windows
• Kitchen Job

We tend to stay with the same daily jobs for awhile, but I know that many families change it weekly or monthly. We tend to change every other month or when it seems time.

Menus - An Important Part of Stockpiling

I think creating a monthly rotating menu is key to storing food. Most of the food that I stockpile is not ready to eat, so I need to be able to have a variety of things that I can make, and I don't do well to just make it up on the fly. It also helps me so I rotate through the food that I have. I have a montly menu (link to it in the documents section) of just general items.

Then, weekly, I get more specific (like if I list Chicken for lunch, I decide the week before what I'll make with chicken, like Chicken Noodle soup or whatever.) I look at recipes (I generally use Betty Crocker and Pantry Cooking and a few of recipe handouts that I've collected over the years. I look through the pantry, cupboards, freezer, etc. to make sure that I have all the ingredients for the recipes (at times, I will need to buy a vegetable or spice that we don't generally have on hand, although I've been known to substitute instead of buy something else.)

I try to cook things the night before, or get it thrown in the crockpot, or at the very least, set out the meat to defrost. Some days I do better at this than others, but I'm always grateful when I do. This month, I haven't been so good at doing this, and my family has had spaghetti or eggs or pancakes more often this month, and we have also eaten out once, which we REALLY try to avoid. Things just go smoother all around when I cook ahead of time. Sometimes it is just hard for me to remember that the night before when I want to relax, but I'm always kicking myself the next day at 4 pm when I've got kids coming and going, and we are trying to get ready to go to one of evening activities.

Updated the Simple Blog list

Just a quick post to let you know that I added some new blog links to the Simple Blog list. Check them out!

3 months worth of food or stockpiling - updated with pics

A couple of years ago, I started getting interested in living a more self-reliant, provident life. Up until that time, I had never had any extra food or other supplies around our home. I never thought that we had the money, or more importantly, the space to store extra items. I have a small, compared to most American homes, kitchen, with a small pantry. I used the pantry to store dog food, larger pots, light bulbs, etc. Things that needed a home, and I decided that the small pantry was a good place to store them. But I decided that if I was going to live a more self-reliant life, that I probably needed to be able to live for longer than a couple of days off the food that was in my house.

A view of my kitchen from the back door.
Pantry door is behind the back door.

View of the pantry door - to the left of the dishwasher.

So I cleared out the pantry and found a new home for all of the things. Next I cleaned out a linen closet that I wasn't really using. And I started storing food, or as people tend to refer to it these days, I started stockpiling. My first goal was a week's worth of food, and then a month, and finally 3 months. I've seen people a lot of people who build their stockpile with coupons and spending very little money. I didn't do that. I'm not saying it is a bad way to build your stockpile - I just knew that it wouldn't work for us. Part of the idea to moving to a more self-reliant, provident life also meant eating more natural, simpler food, and many of the coupon items were for ready-made boxed food, food we didn't eat, or for name brands that I could get cheaper when buying the store brand.

So what I did was make a list of the vegetables that we eat on a regular basis (corn, peas, beans, and carrots), the fruits we eat on a regular basis (applesauce, pineapples, tomatoes - diced and sauce, and peaches), meat/protein that I could buy canned (chicken, tuna, beans), pasta (we like elbow, egg noodles, spaghetti, and penne), cereal (we eat oatmeal) and other things that I would need to build meals (brown rice, chicken and beef broth) condiments & sweeteners & sandwich stuff (ketchup, maple syrup, honey, peanut butter, jam) baking supplies (flour - wheat and white, cornmeal, sugar, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cocoa, chocolate chips, yeast, vinegar, molasses) spices (minced onions, basil, oregano, garlic powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and Worcestershire sauce.) and paper items (toilet paper, paper towels, trash bags.) For vegetables and fruits, I buy about 2/3 canned and 1/3 frozen.

Then I went to Aldi's to price out the items, and to Kroger to price anything that I couldn't find at Aldi's. I tend to buy almost everything for our stockpile at Aldi's, and then do my weekly shopping at Kroger and just a few items that I couldn't find at Aldi's. Weekly, I buy milk, eggs, and yogurt, some of my produce (I limit it to two types of vegetables and two types of fruit), and some meat if it is on sale, and generally chicken and ground turkey. I buy my organic produce at a natural food store.

Then I made a list of each item and how many I needed to have a three month supply (or a week supply of dairy and produce) and then a bunch of sheets that had the same items listed but a blank quantity. Then I can just look at the shelves and decide how many of each item I need to re-stock and write it in the blank spot. Then I take the sheet with me shopping so that I know how much to buy (I can also then, if I really want, figure out exactly how much I'll be spending on food this month. I did do this the first couple of months, but now I can pretty much tell how much it is going to be.)

I use the pantry upstairs to hold a couple weeks of canned food and the linen closet for the rest. I store the paper products in the garage, and the frozen vegetables/frozen fruit and baking supplies in the freezer. I also keep a month worth of meat in the freezer (8 pounds of ground meat, 8 pounds of chicken breasts, 8 whole chickens, 8 turkey breasts.)

The pantry closet - almost all of the contents are pictured here

This is the linen closet - about 2/3 of the contents are shown here.
There are two shelves not shown in this picture. This closet is narrower but the shelves are closer together and more shelves available, so I can get more in it than in the pantry.

I have another large closet (10 feet deep x 8 feet tall x 5 feet wide) in the basement that is currently holding our seasonal decorations and out of season clothes. In the next year, I plan on finding new homes for those items and putting shelves up allow one wall, and storing wheat, pasta, honey, and water. I'd also like to store the dehydrator, canning supplies and a hand grinder down there, as well as anything that I end up canning.

Of course, as always, this is just what is working for us, and you may come up with a totally different system that works better for you.

But if you think can't do it, really, you can. I had thought about it for years and always had reasons why I couldn't do it. And then one day, I decided to try. I started small, and then gradually built it up. I also concentrated on just the essential items for our family. My family wouldn't enjoy eating tuna fish every day for three months, but we would eat it once a week. I didn't get an endless variety of things either, just our favorites.

And although I do try and keep it stocked, there are times that it isn't kept completely stocked because we need grocery $$ to fix the car or get someone new shoes or whatever. (Right now, I only have a two week supply of corn and carrots. I had let the supply run down a little bit and it cost a little more than usual to replinish it, and I only had a certain amount that I could spend to build it back up. However, I should be able to get them restocked too next week.) It helps us to be able to accommodate those little bumps that appear out of nowhere in the budget, and I don't have to worry about not having enough money to feed everyone that month. It also helps me to be able to realistically budget our food money since I know how much each can/bag, etc. costs and how many I need to fill in.

Tomorrow, I'll add pictures of my pantry and my "food closet" (which is what the kids call it LOL). And in a day or two, I'll try to add a copy of my food lists. And in another post soon, I'll talk about my monthly menus. This is an intregal part, for me, to having a three month supply. It doesn't do me any good to have all this food around if I don't have a logical plan of how and when I'm going to use it.