Three Books To Read When You Can’t Garden Yet
Getting lost in a good book next to the fireplace is the perfect way to pretend it’s not freezing and snowing again outside.
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Save on Groceries Without Skimping on Nutrition
I’ve found that when I apply these principles in my kitchen, cooking healthy and filling meals for my family is easy-peasy, and keeping the budget on track is totally attainable.
5 ways to beat the winter blahs
Are you starting to feel the “bleak midwinter”?
I am.
The weeks before Christmas are filled with anticipation. Decorating! Cooking! Gifting!
The few weeks after are filled with a flurry of “new”. New year! New stuff! New resolutions!
But come late January, things can start to feel stale.
Crunchy snow is hard to play in, everyone has just a hint of a sniffle, and you’re even getting tired of cocoa. (Maybe not so much that last one)
This time of year I have to make a real effort not to stay in my pajamas and just “blah” the day away.
Here are 5 things I like to do to keep spirits up midwinter.
1) Plan the garden
REALLY plan it. I always have a vague idea what I want the place to look like going forward. But this year I got out my tape measure, graph paper, seed catalogs and worked out my plans on paper. To scale. Because nerding out on the garden just makes me happy. I’ll admit though, the arrival of each new seed catalog has me tweaking the plan to fit “just one more”.
I also couldn’t resist picking up some live herbs at the grocery store the other day. The fragrant pops of green at my windowsill brighten my day each time I pass by.
2) Get a jump on Spring Cleaning
This one comes courtesy of Marie Condo. Thanks, Marie! I couldn’t take they hype without finally tuning in to find out about the magic of tidying up, and before the first episode was even over, my daughter had purged her drawer. Talk about motivation! The next day hubby and I did ours, and we’ve continued to to a bit of purging here and there since then, which is exposing long-cluttered corners and allowing me to dust, scrub and organize. It feels great to get a fresh start even in one area.
3) Open a window
I always wait till hubby is out before I do this, because open doors make him batty. I know it’s freezing out there, and we can’t afford to heat the neighborhood. But it’s stuffy in here! I turn off the heat if I’m going to air out the downstairs and open the front door for just five or ten minutes. I like to open our bedroom windows while I’m making the bed, and if it’s a nice day I’ll leave them open for an hour or two. It just makes me feel better.
4) Take a walk
Even if its cold out I try to take at least a couple walks every week. Every day would be better, but in winter I like to walk at our local park because our city park maintenance guy does a great job keeping the walking trail clear for us–Thanks, Patrick! I typically walk while my middle daughter has music, (and I have to be in town anyway) which is only every third day. My husband doesn’t mind hiking in the snow so he heads for the hills four or five days a week.
5) Get Together
The children’s song says the more we get together, the happier we’ll be, and it’s true. We don’t pass on many invitations this time of year, and we don’t hesitate to host when the opportunity arises. Bonus points for outdoor gatherings. Nothing raises spirits like gathering with friends around a bonfire with a warm pot of chili, taking in huge lungfulls of crisp air while laughing from your belly.
And know there’s a light at the end of the tunnel!
March is typically spring around here, and that is only 5 weeks away! We won’t be able to trust the weather entirely by then, but we can certainly be preparing garden beds, nursing seedlings, and spending days outside, even occasionally tossing aside our jackets and shoes.
Keeping busy to evade the blahs can be essential to making it through the winter with your spirit intact. I admit I have a hard time not pining for spring, but it’s important to realize winter has its purpose. In nature it’s a slower paced season, a time for rest, and it wouldn’t hurt us to embrace that a little more too. So make time for that nap you’ve been wanting! Get lost in a book. Finally sit down with that quilt you’ve been meaning to finish. Call up a long distance friend to chat.
How will you spend the last weeks of winter?
Season Extending: A New Skill For The New Year
Okay, we’ve established that I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in learning new things and improving on the old.
Easy Fix For The Dumb Corner Cabinet
Almost every kitchen has one of these dumb corner cabinets. and it’s worth putting in the effort to find the right solution for your space.
Happy New Year!
Our New Year is off to a lovely and productive start and I hope yours is too!
I’m not a huge one for making resolutions, but when I do they’re usually along the lines of “I’m not going to suck at growing tomatoes this year”.
This year I’m not so much making a resolution as an effort to tighten my focus on making the most of what we have. Let me expand on that.
I’ve always had the dream of starting from scratch on bare land and really “pioneering it up”. I saw us making our own food, digging our own well, and generally being self-reliant. (Although not totally self-sufficient. In my daydream I walk into town to trade my fresh bread and eggs for the things we can’t produce, you know, just like Ma. Even though I have a car. Ahem.)
For a while I’ve let that dream cause me to feel discontent with our real life. But a few weeks ago I sort of woke up and realized that many of the conveniences I’ve been feeling like a fraud for using are actually things that the pioneers worked pretty hard to put in place on their bare lands.
We’re talking about stuff like running water here. Most of the world considers it an asset and I’ve been over here wishing I was dipping my water from a icy-cold stream. How ridiculous is that?
So this year I’m trying to see our half acre through the eyes I had when we were home-shopping and it jumped off the page as the perfect place for us. I’m going to focus more on blending that pioneer daydream with real life, and being thankful for the parts that don’t have to be a struggle. Just run a hot bath and sink in? Yes. Yes, please.
So I have a washing machine. That means I can spend my time weeding the garden, or heck, reading a book. I don’t have to scrub the undies by hand.
Hooray!
Yes, I have running water. Good. As it turns out developing a water source is kind of a big task, and I’m thankful someone did it before we got here!
So we only have half an acre. Awesome! I can be to the chicken coop and back in about a minute and a half.
Our life is so stinkin’ good!
So instead of not growing a really productive medium sized garden because if it’s not an acre it feels like it doesn’t count, I’m going to focus on making our garden a living classroom for learning and teaching the kids what works here, where we are, in the life we actually have, and enjoying the fruits of our work as they come.
With seed catalogs starting to roll in I really have the gardening bug right now. It’s genuinely too early to start planting (except maybe some greens and herbs in my window!!) and I don’t have my seeds yet. But it’s been a mild winter so far, so I got the greenhouse set up. I put in a 2 x 5 foot compost bin, which will hopefully heat up in time to give my early seedlings a cozy start in February or March.
I’m very excited about finding ways to blend our modern life with my pioneer daydream. Maybe some day we’ll outgrow this place and move a little further out where we’ll have to rough it a bit more. Maybe not. For now we’re going to grow where we’re planted.
What have you got up your sleeve this New Year?
I Make My Kids Leave Me Alone For An Hour Every Day (And So Should You).
As a homeschool family we spend a lot of time together. And frankly, sometimes it gets to be too much of a good thing. I know if they are getting on each other’s nerves, and on my nerves, then I’m probably getting on their nerves […]
Safety Vs. Independence. Can We Give Our Kids Both?
Facebook is so neat sometimes! The other night I was having a hard time falling asleep so I grabbed my laptop and started scrolling. That was a mistake. Not only was I looking at a huge blue light source, but I was on Facebook. Not […]
Halloween Costumes: DIY VS Buy
Despite the fact that little signs of fall are popping up everywhere, and we are fully aware that Halloween is just around the corner, we will likely be scrambling to pull together last minute bits and pieces at 3:45 pm Oct 31. We do it every year.
It’s mostly my fault.
The biggest issue is my own personal conviction that buying a Halloween costume is LAME. I mean, anyone can Prime up a picture perfect Medieval Princess, or Luke Skywalker.
Boring.
Let me see you craft and cobble that light saber from cardboard and papier maché.
I’m also super frugal, so even if the perfect costume is only $20 I still get drawn into the idea that I can do it cheaper with a quick run to the craft store.
Friends, let me save you the trouble.
The inexpensive and Pinterest Perfect DIY is largely a myth.
Unless you already have an extremely well stocked craft supply room, or an old outfit that provides the bones and body of the costume you’re probably better off dropping the twenty. You’ll probably save yourself at least the equivalent to what you’d spend in time, frustration, gas and glitter.
But there are times when DIY does make more sense:
- The costume you’re looking for isn’t something you can find online or in stores. I’m thinking about the year my daughter wanted to be a juice box. In that case we had to DIY. Luckily my kid wasn’t too hard to impress in those days, because she ended up wearing a cardboard box we draped in a green plastic table cloth. Zero points for accurate portrayal, One Zillion points for not buying a blue snowflake gown like all the other eight year-old girls did that year.
- You already own the major foundation pieces or materials. If you’re thinking of being a cheerleader and you already have a pleated skirt and sweater, you probably don’t need to do much agonizing between buying a whole costume or just getting some pom-poms and tossing your hair up in a ponytail. Same goes for scarecrow if you already own jeans and a flannel. And nobody with white sheets should ever buy a ghost costume. Just don’t.
- You just really enjoy the process, have the time, and aren’t worried about the cost. Hey, some folks just really love this holiday, and are willing to put in the time effort and money. That is 100% okay and if that’s you, awesome! Enjoy your groove! There are years when this is me, but they are less and less frequent.
Whatever you decide to do remember it’s supposed to be fun!
Don’t spend so much time or money that you have a holiday hangover and don’t want to do it again next year.
My kids are getting to the ages where they have their own money and their own ideas about what makes a cool costume, so I’m letting them them have some creative freedom and trying not to get involved with my crazy DIY gene. It’s win-win. They are free from my wacky frugal/creative insanity/genius, and my time is a bit more free to cook up my own fun costume ideas.
That’s right, I still dress up for Halloween.
And I don’t plan to stop.
Three Moms, Five Kids, And Four Days On The Trail
I am so blessed to be friends with some pretty badass women who encourage me to think and go bigger than I would on my own. Each year we try to get our kids out on a nature adventure and this year my youngest was […]