"Eat it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or go without."
~A Pioneer Sampler, by Barbara Greenwood~

Pioneer Woman at Heart

One Flourishing, Frugal and Fun Family!

One family learning to live off the land, cut back on expenses, and to live a simpler and a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Monday, December 30, 2024

Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year!  

I'm excited about a new crochet project, and it is a sort of a motivation tool for something else.  I'll be posting later about it.  Overall, it will reduce my time wasting internet scrolling, pointless social media scrolling (looking for recipes, patterns, exercises are all good scrolling minutes, he he!), procrastination station, and endless him-hawing.  Not to change the subject, but I mean some scrolling is needed to avoid endless days of shopping in stores looking for something my husband suggested we buy.

I found one close to what he feels we need at Harbor Freight, but it's wall mounted, and runs on batteries.

Does it even exist?  I'll be searching for it, but we may have to buy battery charged or a rechargeable light.  He wants a solar chargeable, motion sensor, small table light (sort of the brightness of a nightlight) for the bathrooms.  We lack outlets by the toilet, and do not want to put in a floor strip light, or wall mount solar lights.  Most motion sensor lights for indoors run on batteries or or rechargeable.  We want the motion sensor, so the light only comes on at night if needed.  I'll update later on this, after we have located and made a decision.

Okay, back to the post....



(sunrise 12-26-2024)

Sunday it rained all day long.  Last year we had warm enough weather the same time in December, that I was washing bedding and putting it on the clothesline.  We are pretty much flooded this year.

We decided together, that it was a good weekend to take down our Christmas tree.  Normally, we would leave it up for New Year's Eve.  The holidays this year hit mid-week, and I would much rather have help with it, than wait for an entire week to take it down and put it all back in storage.  

Well, the tree is still up, ha ha!  We had a few returns to take care of, some grocery shopping for fresh vegetables and fruit, and other errands.  I forgot to look for a plant for my planter, but we are also very limited with selections in the winter time.  I may be planting an herb for indoor winter cooking. 

Before decorations get packed back up, I decided it was time to toss out some very very old Christmas decorations, and donate others.  I added one book to the newest donation box, as my husband gifted me a new book too.

My husband gifted me a new bathrobe, so the old one was literally tossed out (not even worth donating ha ha!).  Sort of feels good to go into a new year with so many completed home projects, and a more organized homestead.



It's been a year since we have baked cookie cut-outs, so when I dug out the container, I purged those before returning them to storage. Good gravy!  I had cutters from when the kids had birthday parties in elementary school.  Whew!  Someone will be enjoying those, as they are being donated.

 



January is my month to focus on my health even more than ever.  It will be a long wait to see the doctor, but I thought about that too. It gives me a month to do specific exercises.  I really did a number on myself when I tripped twice later, after my stairway fall back in April of this year.  Anyway, every day I work on myself, is one day closer to back to normal or even better than normal.  Per a conversation on the phone with the doc's nurse, I am to avoid "heavy lifting" and have been the last two weeks.  It's a tough one, as a bag of chicken feed is not light weight.  I have learned how to lift more properly, so there is that.

I am already feeling signs of muscle improvement, less pain, and more flexibility, so doing these stretches may be a permanent addition to my daily/weekly fitness routine.

I need this body in good working condition, as I have ordered a tool to help start the next home repair project.  The kids left tape, those 3M sticky tapes, and other adhesives on the walls upstairs, and some in the higher to reach walls in the stairway.
It'll be a project for sure, but needs to happen before it's painted. After seeking advice, we need to buy some drywall mud, as the kids (and past hired help) put large gouges in the plaster walls.  It would be great to get this job knocked off the list by the end of January, so we can start working on the stair project (stair project is an entirely new project of it's own).


Speaking of health . . .

Hummus people, I have a quick question.  Do you ever add turmeric to your hummus for added health benefits?  I'm wondering if it tastes good in it, and how much to add?  We love the garlic in ours, so I'm not sure about adding it to our hummus just yet.


I'm already planning some new ideas for next Christmas, as we were so delayed by home repairs/renovations that had to happen.  I follow Betsy on Simple Lift of a Queen blogspot and, she mentioned exchanging advent gifts with her grand daughter.  Betsy, if you are reading this, I would love to know how to prepare the advent gifts.  Do you just wrap each one and place them all in a bag or box with numbers for the day of the month?  Or do you prepare them another way.  My brain is already chugging away at creating new traditions next year.

Also, Betsy where can I find the "Every which way filet" baby blanket pattern?  Thanks!

Sorry for the long boring post to start out this new week.  My kitchen is once again a hot mess from lack of being home, but it'll be spic and span clean this week.

I hope your weekend was good.  I may not be back to post, until the New Year, so Happy New Year!

Saturday, December 28, 2024

Chit Chat

Sort of a boring post today.  I know not everyone can afford "organic" groceries anymore, but wanted to share some things.

 I have been reading the ingredients on the black eyed peas in stores here, and we cannot buy "organic" canned in any of the stores in the area.  

The non-organic cans of these beans contains an ingredient I was not familiar with - diosodium EDTA.


I did some searching on google (I know it's not the best resource), but I did find this information.  I am reading it is mostly used in cosmetics.  Anyway, I found organic black eye peas do exist, but I have to order them online.

Organic canned black eyed peas do not contain the Diosodium EDTA.  In the brand we found, it contains Kombu Seaweed.

By the way, you can buy these dried, and soak and bake them yourself. I am looking into that variety as well.  I found another "dip" recipe that calls for black eyed peas to try, but I think we love the last one we found (in moderation with other healthy foods).

The holidays usually involve a lot of cookie baking, candy making and other comfort food making.  One is the traditional "Chex Mix" recipe that most people love.  Over the years, we stopped buying the three Chex cereals, and my Mom (when she was with us) started making it with just Crispix cereal.

It was Mom's favorite holiday treat to eat.  I have found a way to make it, but with organic/non-gmo ingredients.

The cereal we used this past Christmas, was Cascadian Farm multi-grain squares.  By the way, of course we could not find this in any stores in the area either.  I had to order it.  It was about as expensive as Crispix cereal is, but with no shipping cost.  It's a once a year treat, so I did order it to try.  By the way, it was kid tested too, and we all agree it was a good swap. 

I buy a non-gmo nut mix, which is also hard to find, but I can buy them in an area store.  There are no added bad oils in these deluxe mixed nuts.  Many nuts sold in stores have bad (unhealthy) oils added to them, and most people don't read the labels, because they think it's just "nuts" in the container.


And finally, you can now buy organic/non-gmo pretzels in stores.  They are sold in many stores here actually. 

That brings us to the last ingredient - garlic bagel chips, rye chips, or rye bagel chips.  You cannot find them organic anywhere, but you can bake your own sourdough rye bagels and make your own bagel chips if you prefer to add them.

As for the seasoning, I make my own onion powder, garlic powder, and our own homemade seasoned salt.  You can
 make your own butter as well, but we buy organic.


I have a question for sourdough bread bakers. . .

Do you have a recipe for sourdough rye bagels?    Is there such a thing?  Or can you direct me to a resource that has a recipe?  I have been looking online and have not been able to find a recipe.   I have not located a recipe book with such a recipe either, and our stores do not sell a sourdough rye bagel.  Or even just a rye bagel recipe maybe?  I don't mean a rye bread recipe either.  A bagel recipe.  Crazy request, but I thought I would ask here first.

We have a friend who is a sourdough baker, and she is just now experimenting with rye.  I may be visiting her for a sample yet.  We are just exploring more on the bread department of our diet.  She has offered me a sourdough starter, and I just might take her up on the offer.

As for more boring news, we took down the outside Christmas lights yesterday.  The weather is very warm this weekend, but rain is in the forecast for the entire day Sunday.  We have been talking about taking our tree down this weekend as well, and packing up the Christmas decorations.  I hope to be back with a more interesting blog spot next time.  Have a great weekend.  Enjoy the joy in every moment.

Chit Chat © December 2024 by Kristina at Pioneer Woman at Heart