Getting ready for Simeon

So another non-food blog post here. I finally finished my sweater I have been working on for about 3 weeks. And I also finished my first wrap style diaper cover. I've got to sew the buttons on the diaper cover, after I decide where they should be placed. The sweater seems big and the diaper cover small. I'll have to try the diaper cover with the newborn prefolds I ordered on a tiny baby before I make more. I'm 30 weeks now and I'm feeling more pressure to get things done. I have a feeling the next few months are going to fly.

Laundry updates

I know three posts in one day, so I should be good for a month right? I attempted to take a picture of our newly extended clothesline and my soap making supplies.

Truth be known I am not a cheap person. I never have racked up massive debt, but let's put it this way. I have a taste for quality. But since going more natural I wanted a simplified laundry detergent without all the chemical additives. This recipe is 3 ingredients: a bar of laundry soap (zote is my personal choice), borax, and washing soda (not baking). The Zote I buy at Brookshires, and the borax and washing soda come from Kroger. If you are interested in making your own laundry soap here's a great resource: http://www.soapsgonebuy.com/category_s/24.htm.

I do have people ask me about this since most people don't make their own cleaning supplies. I make the powdered version because of my tendency to make messes in general. The worst part is grating the soap. Thankfully the weather is nice here this week so I sat outside on the porch grated away while watching a really corny 80's movie on my laptop. Now I know that there are many busy people out there who don't have time for this. Please don't feel guilty for buying laundry detergent. This is just a way that I can save my family money and since I contribute no actual income to the family it is important that I find these money saving opportunities.

I absolutely love my clothesline, it makes me feel like I'm harnessing some of our natural resources (lots of heat in Mississippi) and saving $ at the same time. But the line was too short so after consulting with my handy husband he instructed me on how to double it's length. A drill and a screw in hook later we have enough clothesline to dry an entire load at once.

Bean of the week club

So for those of you who have been around my husband for more than 5 minutes lately you can tell we are really into Dave Ramsey right now. We have always had a budget and tracked it, but we haven't always tried super hard to stay within it's confines. Well little baby on the way has changed that.

Thankfully we agree on most areas of the budget, but our grocery budget has been a point of contention. Before we got married Daniel spent far less on groceries, but he also ate lots of frozen cardboard pizzas. Blah! SO in comes Elizabeth with her exotic tastes and love of heirloom and organic foods. Yeah real budget blower. This year I've been trying really hard to still buy healthy but still stay in the budget. We've been eating lots of potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and lettuce (most of the time organic). I will occasionally throw in the more expensive veggies. I recently discovered the secret to cooking great cabbage, like my granny can. It's generous amounts of butter and not overcooking. I shop the organic meat and dairy case for clearance items. I get wonderful fresh eggs locally for a great price. I bake our own bread, can jam when we have free fruit. And my dear husband still thinks we spend to much. So I asked him what he would like to change about our diet to bring the money spent down.

So Daniel told me about this article he read about some guy that ate healthy on a low budget. His secret- stretching the meat out with grains and legumes. I'm not sure how much dairy he ate, but I'm not giving up my organic dairy yet. So I told him I'd try to start cooking more beans if he'd eat them. And Daniel has been very good natured about it all, as he usually is. Last week I made pork & bean stew, with green bell peppers, sweet potatoes, onions, christmas lima & pinto beans, nice hunks of pork, and a little yummy organic pepperoni to spice it up. The recipe came from the Joy of Cooking. We have one more serving, but I did put a bunch up in the freezer. Now that my freezer is back to normal function I can start stockpiling meals. It is so nice when I don't feel like cooking.

I'm really glad that Daniel has pushed me to cook more legumes, I really like them. I guess I haven't been cooking them out of laziness. I'll get Daniel to take a pic of our bean of the week today, a favorite Caribbean black bean stew and brown rice.

My new non-food hobby

Yeah my new hobby isn't photography obviously. But you get the idea right. I have taken up knitting and I'm totally addicted. Just ask my poor husband, he just wants me to put my needles down and really watch a movie with him. But the baby clock is so ticking down. I'm already 28 weeks! This picture is of a pair of wool "soakers" or a diaper cover I made for Simeon. Daniel isn't so sure about the "sweater on his behind" look. But I of course love most anything that looks old timey. This was my third knit project, and my first soaker. Since we're going to be using cloth diapers, I need to make more soakers. But the next few will be knit with a thinner yarn producing a trimmer soaker.

Back to Reality

So Daniel and I were gone last week on a wonderful trip to the beach. We were in St. Augustine, Florida for a friend's wedding. We decided to make a week out of it and shared the beach house with some good friends. It was a good time for our spoiled dog to get used to being abused by children. He passed most tests with flying colors. I thought this picture was ridiculous and I couldn't help myself from posting it.

We had a good trip and I feel refreshed and ready to get back on the frugal wagon. Spending time with Holly was fun, she's really into couponing and has inspired me to search for coupons for products we regularly buy. As much as I'd love to be entirely self sufficient, we aren't nearly there and saving money on my favorite organic brands is a big help.

Our friend's little girl wore a beautiful silk dress to the wedding, and her mother was lamenting the horrible dry cleaning fees. I shared this page with her. I have used these techniques to clean wool, silk, and rayon with no casualties yet. I thought the article did a good job of explaining why you can't throw these items through a regular wash cycle without damage. This is the product I use. Even though I used my homemade laundry detergent for most items it is still cheaper to use a cap of this than to pay outrageous dry cleaning fees. I try not to lament all the money I wasted dry cleaning before stumbling upon these tips.

I will have some food posts soon I promise, as soon as the sun comes back out I'll take a pic and do a little garden update.

Being producers not just consumers

So I'm really excited about me and Daniel's new project. I have blogged about in the past about how we're trying to live a frugal and healthy lifestyle (not frugal- eat value meals from McDonald's everyday!) One of the things we try to do is be producers rather than only consumers. We all know we live in a very consumeristic society. In my grandparents days they had their own cows, pigs, chickens, gardens, made their own soap, clothes... I'm interested in this, but not ready to forgo all modern conveniences. Using a clothes line part time has made me grateful for my washer and dryer. People had in rough, they really worked hard back in the day.

Anyway, my neighbor cut a tree down in the side yard beside our garage so we decided we had enough light for a little garden. My brother sent me a link to a site with detailed instructions for building a raised bed. My friends at the market who have very successful gardens swear by raised bed vegetable gardens for many reasons: good drainage, less insect problems, you can easily create a little area of great dirt among a clay yard (ours:), and there are probably other reasons too.

So Daniel got some wonderfully beautiful cedar boards for me; I love cedar- the smell, the knots, mmmm. You could use pine like my more frugal brother did, both will probably hold up well. But the wood needs to be untreated. So Daniel didn't exactly follow the lady's instructions, but he is very handy so we have a lovely bed. I can't exactly give you instructions, so follow the pioneer woman's. Me and Barley tried to help, but we were definitely the dumb labor:) After the bed was assembled we put some cardboard down to kill any weeds (or grass if you have a lawn, not a weed bed). We dumped some leaves in to facilitate drainage and compost down. Daniel then dumped out all the potting soil we had in unused pots, and it was a lot. We then disagreed about what to fill the rest of the bed up with. My farmer friend told me to put compost, we don't have much compost yet. So Daniel wanted to go get a truckload of cheap clay dirt, trying to be frugal. I on the other hand, know from my years of working at the yard and garden center that if you use crummy dirt, you will get crummy plants. So we were in a gridlock, not wanting to spend a fortune on good dirt but wanting to have good dirt for our seeds. I went to my friends at Callaway's Yard and Garden center where I worked for half of my life. We asked for broken bags and they cut us a good deal. Frugal tip: ask for broken bags at smaller yard and garden centers, they're messy but will save you some bucks.

So after our dirt dilemma was peacefully resolved we started some seeds. I bought some heirloom seeds from the health food coop, any seeds would do. I want to save my seeds from year to year (assuming I actually produce any fruit), and heirloom vegetables usually taste better and are more disease resistant. We used cardboard egg cartons, punched little holes in the bottom, used seed starter (special little bag of dirt), and kept moist. Our seeds have been going for about 3 weeks, other than the few honeydew melon sprouts Barley decided to snack on they are doing great. We are in the midst of a cold snap, 40˚ this morning! But hopefully we'll plant the seedlings soon. My farmer friend says as soon as they have their second set of leaves and it is warm enough. I stocked up on organic fertilizer and bug treatments from the coop, so we'll see how my organic garden is going to progress. Hopefully the future posts won't be as late coming as this one. I hope my garden produces well, I feel like I have much to learn!

Ask for it

So I'm feeling a little empowered today. With all the craziness in our world I feel like I have gained a little control over a small portion of my life.

What did I do? What I think everyone else should do. Bargain. I went to the grocery store today to pick up a few potatoes for supper, I needed a quick starch after Daniel and I ate a loaf of bread in record time. And being I refuse to buy bread, potatoes seemed like a good option to go with my clean out the fridge quiche.

So after finding my potatoes, being I am not a man and I don't shop like one I meandered around a bit. I headed to the dairy case (my favorite place in the grocery). And what did I find? Cream top (pasturized, but non-homogenized milk), I was so excited. I have been wanting to try some of this milk but it is hard to find, and after searching for a few weeks I gave up my search. But here were 2 pretty glass bottle with a nice creamy layer on top of the milk. Unfortunately the bottles had an expiration of today, so I asked to talk to the manager and asked for a deal. Guess what? I got a great deal.

In my experience of grocery bargaining, grocery stores are so busy trying to turn over stock they loose track of items nearing expiration at times. So if you see something you want past its peak, ask. Warning: not every store manager is going to care. Some mega store employees don't care about anything but their paycheck.

By the way I decided to make yogurt with my almost expired milk, cultured dairy lives a lot longer. Plus I had some yogurt starter I needed to use up.