love life

"If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of."

 ~ Bruce Lee

sometimes it's so easy getting caught up in the mundane of life that i forget this. i can waste hours of my life online searching for and reading random things as well as searching for things that pertain to my work. i struggle with finding a balance between doing all this work and having time to spend with my family. how do we find the balance? 

i am bursting with ideas and plans for herbal roots but life/time is not on my side. my thoughts dwell, perhaps a little too much, on how to solve this problem. perhaps if i spent less time dwelling and more time doing, i would achieve more? part of my problem lies in having the tools or knowledge to do what i want to do as well. 

networking has helped a bit but i still flounder...trying to upgrade my website and add elements/graphics/etc. to make it flow better is very frustrating for me...researching costs for creating audio-cds leads to having to design the cover of the damned things! leads to me getting frustrated over not having 1 stand alone logo for herbal roots that people can learn to recognize, a sort of branding of sorts...time, that is QUIET time to actually record the cd's is scarce and generally at the time of day when i'd rather be sleeping...late at night or early in the morning...money to invest in published books, calendars, binders and other elements i'd like to add to the business....these are all things i waste time pondering....

i have spent 3 days re-vamping the sales page and i'm STILL not finished with it. oye! i just can't figure out where to get or create the graphics i picture in my head. maybe i'm just too much of a perfectionist?!

what have you given up for good?

rhonda over at down to earth posted this question and i thought it was a good reflection. this list is a list of what i've personally given up, even though other family members may still be resistant to it. these are choices i alone have made. this is a list of things i will choose to never purchase for my own use again:

1. paper products: toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, moon pads and tampons, wrapping paper
2. laundry detergent and chemically laden cleaning supplies
3. feed lot meat and caged eggs
4. bottled water
5. soap

are there 5 things you've given up good? let me know, i'd love to see!

creative feeding update 2

it's been 1 month since i've started my personal creative feeding challenge. overall, we've done pretty well, with the exception of greg going out and buying steak and pork chops. agh! (he's on a low carb diet to try to lose weight).

our winter larder holds red skinned potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut squash and still to harvest are turnips and sunchokes which we harvest as we use.

i'm craving red meat like crazy, i've never been a big chicken fan and all these chicken meals are not that appealing, especially since the chickens are old and have to be stewed to be any good. i'm hoping greg is able to get a deer this season...it would make me very happy. :)

i'll be needing to place a bulk order soon, mostly for flour but possibly some oats and beans too. i need to check my stocks.

i'm heartened to see others are challenging themselves to not buying as well. kathie at two frog home has issued a challenge for herself to not shop for 6 months!! i think that's terrific. her exceptions are similar to ours: milk/cream, butter, coffee and eggs. while we have an endless supply of eggs, my dairy goats are drying off so that's the last we'll see of the milk until my does start freshening in late february, early march. next year, i hope to have them staggered enough that i can milk year round. we don't drink a lot of milk, but the kids love yogurt and cheese. greg's the coffee drinker and i buy it in bulk from trader joe's. i think we have about 1-2 weeks left and then i'll need to go to tj's to get some more. i'll probably break down and buy bacon there too since they are the only ones in the area that sell nitrate/nitrite free bacon and a bit of bacon can flavor so many things, including the dreaded chicken dish! greg's been trying turnip greens and i think a bit of bacon in there will make them taste even better.

trader joe's is about 40 minutes away from us and i only go there about once every 2 months. it's been 3 since i've been so i need to plan accordingly. i generally buy good things there that i can't get around here: preservative free jerky (great for taking in the truck when we have to drive to pick up the older kids from their dad's house for a snack), butter, yogurt (for culture...this i freeze and use as needed), bacon, coffee, a few bottles of $5 chilean red wine which is delish!, cashews and almonds, cream cheese, chocolate chips....my goal on my next shopping trip is to avoid buying all the 'junk' foods we enjoy as well: pirate booty type corn puffs, miss meringue cookies (my addiction), cinnamon scones...

the worst part of the no shopping rule has been not getting fruit for the kids. we got some free pears from a friend and they devoured them. i have to say, those were the best pears i've ever tasted in my life...they were from an old pear tree on her land and they were crisp and sweet, almost like an asian pear but shaped like a bosch/bartlett mix. interesting. she has no idea what kind they were but says they stay crisp until they go bad and then they immediately turn to mush. i'm hoping to get back down to her place soon to pick a bucket or two to bring home. there just may be some pear jelly in my future!

this necessary no shopping month has been great and i hope to continue it as much as possible. besides the upcoming tj trip and bulk food order, i plan to stay away from the grocer except to go and ask for the thrown out produce. i'm still working on that one!

eta: i forgot to add, although this has nothing to do with food, it has nothing to do with money: we sold a friend our extra buck and although we initially set a price and they paid it, while they were here visiting, i mentioned i was going to have to buy a new washer because mine is literally falling apart (our basement is moist and the washer has rusted through...the frame has come off from the insides and it's going to fall into a pile at any moment). they happened to have an extra washer so i suggested we trade our goat for the washer. sweet! they got their $$ back and we got a washer. we all agreed we'd rather barter than use money anyway. i'm happy that it was a win-win situation for all of us.

creative feeding update 1

it's been a little over two weeks since i originally wrote about making do with the food we have available. since then, we've gone to the grocery store once and i bought 1# butter, 3 pints of cream and greg loaded up the cart with some whiskey and rum for medicinal purposes. (we each have our own ideas on how to treat colds). other than that, it's been food in our pantry and garden.

i've butchered 3 times for a total of 12 chickens/roosters. we are now out of broilers and i'm working on the layers although there are quite a few roos to cull as well still. the layers are tiny compared to the broilers. 2-3 layers equal one of them. sunday after butchering 5, i threw 4 hens into the stock pot (the 5th was the final broiler, he went in the freezer for later this week) and stewed them down. i deboned them yesterday and today i'll can the broth for this winter's use.

we've had chicken pot pie, chicken stir fry (with onions, peppers, kale and carrots), chicken and turnips, chicken caccitori, garlic chicken and chicken salad. for all the chicken we've had (i've repeated some of these a few times), no one seems to be sick of chicken yet.

sweet potatoes are about ready to be harvested so that will give us some more variety. i've gotten broccoli from the farmer's market by swapping goat's milk. we have lots of potatoes and butternuts and sunchokes will be ready to dig soon too. we are almost out of red meat, i think we are down to 2 chuck roasts and 3# ground beef. i'm hoping we can get a deer this fall. a friend of ours like to hunt and in exchange for letting him use our land, we get one. i hope that happens soon as i am an avid red meat eater!

creative feeding

due to a serious deficit in our checking account, i'm playing the game 'how low can you go' with our pantry and challenging myself to see how long i can stay away from the grocery stores.

we have a endless supply of chicken at our disposal, i just need to butcher as needed. so, we'll be having a lot of chicken dishes.

in the garden, we have lots of tasteless tomatoes (thanks to a cool, wet summer) that i'm hoping will improve with cooking. we also have a lot of bell peppers that i'm waiting to ripen, right now they are all green. the newly planted kale and chard are ready for small pickings. we've harvested a large amount of potatoes, butternut squash and onions and soon jerusalem artichokes will be ready for winter digging.

greg planted turnips in with the clover/alfalfa seed mix for the new pasture. the goats aren't crazy about them so i'll be harvesting them as needed to add to the mix.

add lots of milk and a few eggs to the mix and that's our basis for meals. in the pantry, i have limited amounts of olive oil, flour, rolled oats, brown rice, garbanzos, lentils, red, black and pinto beans, cornmeal and sugar. plus, about 3 gallons of honey from our hives.

in the freezer, we have about 4 chuck roasts, 3# ground beef, 3 packs of bacon, 3 packs of shrimp, 1 pack each of tuna and salmon, 2# butter, 1 1/2 gallons of blueberries and 1 gallon cherries.

the challenge is going to be getting creative with the chicken and disguising it in other things so that we won't get tired of it. we could eat steak daily around here and never tire of it but chicken gets boring really quickly.

here's my short list of meals:
chicken fajitas
chicken burritos
chicken and dumplings
chicken caccitore
chicken noodles
chicken pot pie
chicken lasagna
barbecue chicken
stewed chicken
chicken with pesto and noodles
baked chicken (this might not be so good, the hens are old and have to be stewed off the bones first before using)

i'm figuring for every 3 chicken meals, we can have 1 non chicken meal. going like this, we should be able to stay out of the grocery stores for 1-2 months. hopefully by then, something will come along financially to let us breathe a little but personally, i'm looking forward to the challenge. this summer has been a huge slump for me and i'm looking forward to something new and different.

i will most likely have to go once or twice to stock back up on butter and half and half (for greg's coffee) but those trips will be few and far between and the kids will not go with me to negatively influence me in the purchase of unnecessary junk (ice cream, chocolate, candy, gum...). getting all the kids broken of the nightly ice cream habit will be nice because that alone costs us a fortune (a quart a day at $4.29/quart adds up pretty quickly). now i'm trying to come up with alternative nighttime snack options. so far, winners are:
homemade pretzels (the large kind)
popcorn
cookies or brownies (frozen and doled out a few a day)

this is definitely going to put me back on the slow life track! i'm looking forward to the lessons to be learned from it.

what's the longest you've ever gone w/o going to the grocery store?

when i need inspiration...

i read rhonda's blog.

here's some food for thought.

refashioning: how i'm slowing down my wardrobe

we (mostly) have enough clothing to keep us going for several years thanks to thrift shop finds. there are a few gaps i'll have to fill, but i should be able to handle most of them with what's lurking in the corners of our house:

>i love sewing dresses for jaden and she loves for me to do so. i'm milking it for all it's worth. i often take old work shirts of greg's (a colored one) and pair it up with some patterned material. lots of fun options there!

>my 2yo is going to be needing some more undies soon. awhile back, i bought some brand new xxl boxer shorts at the thrift shop because i liked the pattern (why is it that boxers have the coolest print patterns???). i plan to sew him a few pairs of boxer shorts this spring using those boxers. i need to work out a pattern, i believe i've seen patterns online, i just need to scale them down to fit his cute little butt.

>greg is hard on his wool socks. i'm going to start darning them! i found a great tutorial on youtube (of course) so i plan to try this. first, greg has to make me a darning mushroom. he has actually requested i darn them which shocked, well, the socks off of me! so, again, i'm going with the flow here.

>nina needs a nice jacket/sweater for an uncoming model un conference. i hope to use one of my old suit jackets from my office working days and slim it down for her. i have to get on this asap as the conference is on the 26th. of this month.

>i already mend greg's work shirts as much as possible using the iron-on type fabric patches. i also mend his jeans, usually sewing on fulled up sweater scraps. i recently bought some tear mender type fabric glue and i'll try gluing on jean patches as well.

>for myself, i have plenty of clothing but my problem is my kids tear them up. anyone else with toddlers out there that experience this? all my skirts are stretched out and ripping because they pull on them and all my shirts are stretched out at the neckline mostly from curious hands while nursing and curious hands of weaned kids who still like to check to make sure the boobies are still there, even though they don't have a use for them anymore. i need to be more conscious of only wearing 'good' clothing when i go out and be more vigilent about taking them off immediately upon returning home. that will help them last much longer!

anybody else stretching their budget by crafting their wardrobe?

slowing down

encouraged by a lack of incoming financial flow, i am working on slowing down our budget to a crawl. that means re-upping my previous commitment to 'the compact' lifestyle. a blog i recently discovered calls it a slow year/life. check out her left hand column, she's got loads of great ideas on how to get started.

i am trying to do this for 2 reasons: 1. so that we can live on the little amount of income we have at our disposal and 2. so that we can start saving up for our future plans.

so, first off, no more 'joy' trips to the thrift shops. yes, stuff is cheap, but when you drop $60-80 each time you go, it adds up pretty quickly, usually on stuff i didn't really need but couldn't pass up because it was such a bargain.

stay out of other stores: department stores, grocery stores, etc. only shop when necessary, with a list and with a budget. a set amount to go in with and no more. no exceptions.

cut that grocery bill down. make more foods from scratch. learn to make crackers so that the kids like them (i've made them in the past but they were not a hit). grow more food that we eat and learn to store it in a manner that is pleasing to the crowd. be more conscious of what is on hand and what's in the fridge to minimize waste (something that i've always justified by saying 'it's being fed to the chickens so it's not really wasting.' it is because we don't feed them any less feed when we give them the scraps. it's waste. period.)

be an electrical natzi. i used to be good at this and i've slacked off. back on the electrical meter!

when purging items, instead of just dropping them off at the thrift shop, sort through them and find items that can be sold on craigslist and ebay. for instance, we have a dvd that works fine but the remote is busted. i'm inclined to take it to the thrift shop but i bet anything i could sell it on craigslist for $25-35. not a lot but throw all these sales into a coffee can and before we know it, we've got savings!

as for gas consumption, i'm currently stuck driving at least once a week to go pick up my older kids at their dad's. that's on tuesdays. i try to combine all my other errands for the week such as the library, grocery shopping, etc. but things do crop up. when shop-n-save has their $10 off day on thursdays (but not every week), i try to jump at the chance to do my shopping then to get an additional $10 worth of groceries for free. last week, i just squeaked by, my total before taxes was around $50.25. i mentally calculate all the items as we go through the store, which i might add, is no easy task when i'm pushing those silly race car shopping carts (have you ever tried steering those things?!) with two cranky kids who want everything i'm definitely NOT buying...i consider it a way to keep me mentally fit (HA!).

although there are a few people in the house still not on the cloth wipe bandwagon, i have converted about half our household to using them. that's half the amount of toilet paper we have to use. however, everyone uses them for everything else since i don't buy paper napkins or paper towels. we have cloth napkins and cloth wipes that are larger for general use. i have a stash of old chinese prefolds that are great for mopping up spills.

i'm constantly on the look out to see how we can cut our budget. i dropped the cell phone monthly plan and switched to trac phone almost a year ago now. i love it. i use it for emergency type calls only and spend about 1/8 of what i spent before for the same purpose. we will keep a landline because of the business/farm and same for the internet. 80% of my sales are internet based so i need that access, plus to update websites and whatnot, it's important to have it close at hand, not to mention for homeschooling. it is an invaluable tool for that.

there are many other ways i am or have cut back that i haven't listed here but i still know i can do better. what are ways you are cutting back to relieve your budget?