A Few Accomplishments

Thanksgiving seems to have marked the end of my favorite season. There is still technically about a month left but my husband and I returned from visiting family in another town to certain signs of frostbite on my plants. Fortunately, the frost showed on my warm weather plants and every plant I hope would

survive (ie: the ones I think are hardy for the winter) have survived

and even thrived. My window of Autumn has officially moved on, but thanks to the mild Central Texas climate, we will enjoy highlights of beautiful weather from time to time until February.

Since this blog is primarily about our life as we journey through a simpler way of living, I thought I would share some highlights of my journey in this post. I recently read in a book, Radical Homemakers: Reclaiming Domesticity From a Consumer Culture by Shannon Hayes, that people love to read about mistakes while reading blogs. I have certainly had my fair share of those while on this

journey, so rest assured I will share them as time goes on. For now though, here are a few highlights of our successes in the past three months:

v Took a soap-making class with my friend Candace and successfully made another batch with my mom to give away as Christmas gifts. My favorite type of soap so far: Herbal Goats-milk soap with Oatmeal and Lavender Essential Oil.

v Finished knitting two baby blankets with a third and fourth on the way. If my friends would stop having babies so close together, I might actually give these gifts on time. (Note to self: Give quicker knitted projects to friends and family during baby season.)

v Successfully harvested, toasted and of course devoured my Mammoth Sunflower seeds.

Lot ofwork=Lot of reward.

v Husband and mom took on their first turkey ever. Thanks to the World Hunger Relief Farm, my extended family enjoyed a delicious free-range turkey with a great recipe compliments of Alton Brown. Props to my mom and husband for a successful first round poultry endeavor. I was

busy with the bread. Next year I’ll get my hands dirty.

v Roasted and puréed some delicious

pumpkins. I did this last year as well but this year, I grew the pumpkins! We have also gotten better at freezing our surplus, so there will be more delicious pumpkin soups and breads to be had in the future.

And here are a few things I hope to accomplish in the near future:

v Learn how to preserve various foods by dehydrating, freezing, canning, etc. The Big Book of Preserving the Harvest by Carol Costenbadder should come in handy for this endeavor.

v Make two batches of soap at one time and without making a huge mess.

v Learn how to change chords on the guitar without pausing for thirty seconds to make sure my fingers are on the right strings and frets. (Thank you dad for the quick lesson and especially for the guitar loan!!)

v Post more regularly than every 2-3 months.

Until next time...