Doing Not Thinking Challenge

This challenge originated with Kathie at Two Frog Home, and it's been so neat watching the progress of all the participants!

OK, this one didn't go like I thought, due to my inconsistency. I could have done better. But there have been results! :)

But here's where I am compared to where I was before the challenge...

Weight loss:

I have no idea how much I've lost since the challenge because I forgot my starting number ;-)

And there is NO way that starting number was getting published (ha!)

But I will say this -- at the beginning of this year I weighed 17 lbs or so more than I do right now. As of this morning I'd lost another pound...can we say Yay??? And that's with retaining water and being hormonal the past few days. We've cut out some bread and rice and all pasta as a result of my hubby being told by his doctor to lay off them or else. But we still eat pretty much what we want, just better food since much more of it is slow food cooked here at the casa. I have SO much more to lose. But a journey of a thousand miles...blahblahblah and all that.

Well, Yay!!!

Consistently doing what it takes to locate and acquire our homestead property:

Yes. This has been happening. Evvv. Errr. Yyy. Week. Shall report details when I am able to have good news. It's too much of a roller coaster to give the blow-by-blow and I get too wrapped up in it emotionally, but rolling along it is :)

Saving up loose change for Kiva.org lending program to boost self-sufficiency of individuals in poverty:

This went well. I had a dry spell there for a long time where I was not working outside the home, and so had no cash that I was using other than the tightly-budgeted grocery amount. I cooked at home, so we seldom ate out, and this proved to me how much money we lose the more we rely on eating elsewhere in addition to the actual cost...the change really adds up!

I have at least $20 in change I've collected, though, even then. It may be even more. I hope to apply it before the end of this month and get the ball rolling using whatever coinage is the final count.

Though it's a very small amount, these are micro loans, which makes them easy to give out when a few people pool their resources, and makes them low risk. The nice thing about it is that when the borrower pays it back to Kiva.org, I can just reapply the amount to someone else listed on their site in need of a micro loan. These loans help buy a family goat, or cow, or seeds, or fabric for handmade goods, etc...something less regulated in many areas of the world and able to meet the needs of a family as well as having something for them to sell and make a business from.

The nice thing about having a change jar we've been putting coins into is seeing how it does add up, whether quickly or slowly. Now we can be deliberate with what we use the change for...either more Kiva money or some other modest goal.

I've been bad about not reporting consistently on my DNTC progress. But this is the summary of what the results have been.

Any results are better than none :) So....Yayyyy...some good things got done!

Thank you Kathie for facilitating this!

Don't Throw Away Those...Onion Trimmings

Don't you love how those cooking onions shed their flaky, papery bits here and there? I seem to always find them lurking wherever I store my onions. I used to throw them away, but now I've stopped fighting the incoming tide, and I gather them instead.

Those dry outer onion skins are said to make a beautiful natural dye, ranging from pale beige to warm gold to golden brown. I think the mordant would be vinegar or alum, and in skimming the recommendations here and there online, it says wool takes the dye better than cotton. I have yet to try this, but it's on my Later On list of To-Dos. Meanwhile, I've got a 5 gallon bag full of the skins, and everytime I chop another onion, the skin goes right into this bag...



We're also experimenting with saving the trimmed-off roots...here's a pic of some just-trimmed onion and leek roots. We're just sticking them back into some pots with decent soil to see if anything sprouts from them. If so, we'll either have a perpetual onion, a smaller snack-sized onion, or compost...ha!


We did have some onions take root from the simple trimmed ends...not sure about the leeks yet, though. These leek trimmings remind me of sea anemones...

Here's one of the onion trimmings, replanted, with some regrowth...

Little bucket of experiments...

Here are a couple Jack brought in from the garden. They looked kind of rough, but after peeling down the top couple of layers, they were smooth and delicious underneath...we love fresh green onions with meals!

Uses for Onion Trimmings:

The Papery Skins --

For natural dye-making. Yellow onions yield ochre and brown-toned dyes. Purple/Red onion skins yield dyes in the redder range. These are good natural dyes with vinegar or alum as the mordant. They are said to effectively dye wool. They are also used in some traditional and non-traditional ways to dye hard-boiled eggs for craft projects. I wonder how they do in paper dyeing?

The Tough Outer Skin --

The part you have to peel away because it's too tough to chop ...these are good (washed, of course) for throwing into a ziploc freezer bag along with other veggie trimmings...carrot tops, beet tops and tips...any other veggie bits to include in making soup stock later. When you have enough, it can all be boiled and then strained off after the stock is done.

Or, if you like, off to the compost pile!

The onion tops --

If they're crunchy and tender enough, they can be used like chives as spice or garnishes. If they're little green onions, leave on the part that's tender enough to be noshed on, and only trim the very tough parts off.

The toughest parts of the onion tops can be saved with other veggie trimmings for making soup stock (discarded to the compost pile after straining off the liquid), or thrown into the compost pile.

The roots --

Well, we're experimenting with simply replanting them in pots. We've not done enough to be able to tell if this will work well every time, but we've had enough survive to create little green onions, albeit rough looking ones, that can be peeled down a couple layers and trimmed to eat in-hand as an accompaniment to sandwiches, or meals like beans and cornbread...mmm!

Let me know if you use your onion trimmings in other ways, and I'll add it to the list :)

Don't Throw Out Those...Citrus Peels

My grandparents seldom threw out anything. Odds and ends were neatly stored in re-used glass jars of every description...everything from buttons, to rubber bands, to tea bags to twist-ties...each one had its place.

I thought of it as "pack-ratting." But it was not a mess, it was a collection of all those many things my own generation is so used to throwing away. My Grandpa's workshop was a glorious collection, too. He had collected out-of-date machines, and he used them for his woodworking whenever the newest and latest model caused his workplace to sideline an older version...he picked them up either free or for a very modest expense. They were built to last, and use them he did, right on through retirement. His workshop was a feast for the senses...barrels of different sawdusts stacked along the walls, the fragrant drifts of curly sawdust bits spilling from the tops. There were other barrels of unique woods...some planks, some odd bits, some long sections stacked neatly, awaiting use in one of his restoration projects. His tools were hung on pegboard along an entire wall flanked by a sturdy wooden worktable built along its length...vises and gloves and glue and other frequently-used items standing toward the back. When you walked in there, it was a symphony of fragrances, both pungent and heady, and motes of wood dust danced in the light filtering in from the windows. In winter, woodsmoke from a Franklin stove added its incense, and you could taste the air like a wine with its ever-shifting terroir.

A side table held a makeshift table of plywood balanced solidly on a series of sawhorses, its surface stained in ring shapes from the reused tin cans doubling as receptacles and mixing containers for stains, varnishes, and turpentine. There was always newspaper covering at least part of it. It's funny how memory hones certain images in sharp relief, while others are their blurred foil. Within that blur, there were so many reused items, and all this was normal and everyday to them...not extraordinary.

Fishing for rubber bands, or brads, or paperclips, or pennies has never seemed quite the fun when dug from the bottom of a handbag or junk drawer as they were to us children in those days from their designated glass pimiento or jelly jars, or canister. Wrapping papers were saved, pressed flat and folded, and had many reincarnations back and forth through different gift-giving special events. There were boxes of yarns, fabrics, tissue papers, styrofoam shapes, plastic bags, netting, empty gift tins, aluminum cans... you name it...all stacked in the rafters above the car in their garage.

I don't manage my possessions the same way my grandparents were in the habit of doing then, mostly because I've had to downsize the quantity so that it doesn't drown me in minutae and clutter...isn't that a western phenomenon...to have so many things you can't even store them?? I've cleaned out a lot of that, changed many habits so that there's not an incoming clutter trail, and I have a long way to go in cleaning up the plenty I still have to manage. I'm embarrassed to say that this will probably be an ongoing task (organization), yet I'm so glad I downsized! The reason my grandparents never had to downsize is because they weren't in the habit of spending the same way people do today.

That said, I have noticed that I want to use my grandparents' sort of frugality to fully utilize the things we do have (we are more deliberate these days about any purchase, and food falls into that category as well)...the things we do want around. Why should I have to go re-purchase string, rubber bands, twist-ties, etc, when I could be more deliberate in saving them?

I need to balance frugal saving so it will fall somewhere between extremes.

I need to find multiple uses for certain things, namely foods. As we tiptoe into the world of growing our own foods and making many things homemade, I want to be sure we've used them as fully as possible. Sure, we can grow a food we like. Does it have only one use, or many?

I'm starting a "Don't Throw Those Out" series as I run across things that may have uses beyond the point I'd normally have thrown them away. In most cases, nearly all food products can be composted in some way, if nothing else. I've been surprised at the interesting and unfamiliar-to-me ways our resources can be transformed into multiple products before they are considered Done For.

That said, I'll begin with citrus fruits.

Citrus fruits that are grown without pesticides or chemicals are good beyond their use as a table fruit or juice. Many times we just toss those peels away, and sometimes they don't even make the compost pile if we have too many of them. (But they make it back into the soil somehow...)

Our Meyer Lemon and Persian and Indian Sweet limes produced for the first time this year, and it has been such fun juicing them by hand and adding them into foods or making them into simple, refreshing drinks. Originally from Tennessee, the novelty of being able to pick my own lemons and limes has not worn off...I feel exotic and spoiled! I also feel a great sense of waste in throwing out those fragrant peels for no other reason than not knowing quite what to do with them. My challenge to myself is to begin thinking like my grandparents would have, were they blessed with a bounty of fresh citrus peels. Here are some things they may have done with them...

1. Zested the peels into small strips and dried them, to be stored dry and used as spice

2. Candied the zests by boiling and preserving by rolling them later in sugar.

3. Doing #2 and dipping them into dark chocolate for addition to a festive dessert or treat tray at holidays

4. Using the imperfect peels (spots, etc) as a freshener for a garbage disposal (even though they didn't have garbage disposals)

5. Slicing, drying, combining later with cloves and cinnamon in simmering water as a back-burner room freshener

6. Zested and steeped in an interesting bottle of vinegar...or kept in a small container of sugar as a specialty baking addition

7. Scrubbing elbows, heels of feet, and any other area of skin prone to blotchiness or discoloration

8. I use lemon peels to scrub my veggie-chopping work area after working with really pungent things like onions...it seems to neutralize the odors so they don't penetrate so easily. Works great with baking soda for scrubbing sinks and tubs, too!

9. To polish copper or scour stainless steel...just dip a used lemon half in kosher salt and scrub, then rinse and polish

10. Clean orange halves that have been juiced can be scraped of pulp remains and used as a fragrant container in which to chill individual servings of cold chicken salad, fruit chunks or chilled pudding

11. Good citrus fruits with skin imperfections can be made into pomanders by studding with cloves and rolling in a fragrant spice blend and allowing to dry.

12. Fresh, undried zests can go right into cakes and other baked goods. Fresh orange zest turns ordinary teriyaki sauces into extraordinary, and pairs well with honey or brown sugar for a glaze for roasted/baked winter squash/pumpkins.

I look forward to posting about other ordinary things that have further use before being discarded.

How do you use your leftover citrus peels?

Mixed Reviews on Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs

I was sent one of those Forwards in my email In box, and it sounded typically exaggerated. It was about the alleged dangers of energy-saving Compact Fluorescent light bulbs and the fact that they all contain mercury. The email supposedly quoted a woman who broke one of her CFL bulbs and was told by her local EPA that it would take a team to remove the contamination, to the tune of $2000.

I didn't pay much attention to the email at first because it seemed sensationalized.

I did want to look into the matter a bit more as time allowed...

First, it made me feel a bit slow that I never knew fluorescent bulbs of any description contain mercury.

Secondly, I became aware that there is a mass-marketing of these CFLs, and they are touted as a real green energy-saver for the average household. We have them ourselves, all throughout our house.

Thirdly, I noted the widespread, but largely unaddressed, concern about disposal of the bulbs once they've burned out. Mercury is a contaminant even in very small amounts, and once it hits groundwater, you're talking the most serious of birth defects or sterility issues, not to mention many other serious ailments.

Fourthly, I noticed the preponderance of "patting down the concerned"...something I'm beginning to become less and less happy about. I see this being done by the mainstream in so many other crucial health areas, I am now suspicious whenever the rhetoric runs to phrases such as "when handled correctly" or "health concerns are exaggerated" and so on. In any normal household, lightbulbs get broken, and many times by children or in areas that would be virtually impossible to guarantee spotless cleanup. It's not like these are stadium lights, up and out of the way of the normal Joe. Any normal boy with an overactive Nerf football could overturn a lamp, break the bulb, and try to hide the evidence...and that's just one such situation.

Fifthly, who are the "experts" who "assure" us that NO mercury can be leached, vaporized, or in any other way become a particle that pollutes our home if these bulbs are used regularly...or as in our household, used exclusively? I trust faceless experts and their statistics less and less these days. (If I didnt, I'd think Monsanto is the answer to world hunger and is staffed with boy scouts...)

If it sounds like I'm a skeptic, I want to be a healthy skeptic rather than a reactionary. But two things bother me about this. First, make a product that doesnt try to solve a problem by creating a solution with newer and graver problems. Mercury contamination is no laughing matter. Dont give me the hooey about one coal plant causes more mercury pollution than X number of CFBs. Don't sell me a problem by stating that it's a better problem than the old problem.

I happen to know those bulbs, likely many of them broken, are in our landfills right now.

And I'm frankly ticked off. I'm thinking of whether or not I've ever handled a broken CF bulb myself. I didn't know better...I wasn't the person buying them at the store and reading the label before installing. In fact, I rather hated them...I don't like fluorescent light at all anyway. The reason we changed was to be frugal and to save money.

I'm becoming more jaded about our "needs" for "improved" things. I'm the one who's perfectly happy with a candle, anyway. Or just a light bulb, and keeping all the other lights turned off. Or, radically...how about just letting it be light when the sun shines and dark when it goes down?

(lol...ok, you knew I was on the edge!) ;-)

Am I just getting old and crotchety?? I'm annoyed with just one more "dire warning" spam letter in my email, and even more annoyed to find that I'm unsettled after looking into it a bit more. The general consensus seems to be "oh, those CFLs are our best option, even though it comes with some conditions and probable exceptions."

I'm tired of one more product being so widely accepted and finding out it has to be disposed of in "a special way"...creating a demand for more mercury to be used in production but no real responsibility in keeping it from junking up our surroundings/environment/groundwater/soil/air with just one more "necessary" toxic contaminant.

It's official. I'm becoming one of those crotchety old kooks that just won't shut up...

Grass, water, sky, soil, babies with the correct number of limbs and digits. Those are the things I'm feeling awfully protective of these days.

I'm considering ditching the CF bulbs completely. After I get fully suited up in my Hazmat suit, that is, and find some federally-approved disposal facility that will take them (she says, tongue-in-cheek....sort of...)

I'm about technologied out. I can tell I'm about at the end of it. That's where my grandparents were right about the time of the invention of VCRs...they'd had enough of Progress. Mine happened right about the Ipod and the MP3. I'm a throwback. I get more and more stubborn the more and more innovations are marketed as necessities.

Hmmmm.....

told ya...

old and crotchety!! :)

Simple Changes: Breadmaking -- Additional Comments

Uhoh...I think I expressed myself wrongly in my recent breadmaking post!

First, I meant no offense at the whole "I'm a woman now!" part...it was just my shoot-from-the-hip way of verbalizing the relief I felt at the time at having FINALLY made a loaf of bread rather than a leaden lump of disaster...which has been more or less my TYPICAL result! No implications were meant by it...and I still have more disasters than I'd like! Please forgive me if the post came off as offensive in any way...

Secondly, I'm hardly an expert. In fact, I'm simply a very stubborn and lucky amateur, and I anticipate remaining in that category for pretty much the rest of my life. I am a little relieved to have SOME successes, and it's probably due to the fact that the recipes are quite forgiving...and I don't have an expert here examining the end result. I'm intimidated by people who seem to be good at a lot of things and just have a natural flow from task to task, never botching anything grandly. Well, that's NOT me!

And there we are...I'm not hot stuff, not actually an expert at anything except not giving up, and didn't mean to offend anyone. Hmmm, maybe I'll post soon about some of my disasters?? :)

Simple Changes: Making Our Own Bread

This is my second entry under the category "Simple Changes," as I document some of the small changes we've already made toward a streamlined and simpler way of living. One of our goals is to become less dependent on outside sources for our foods, and to bypass processed and pre-packaged foods as well as ones with preservatives and ingredients of unknown origin. The result? More and more, we're making our own, eating at home more, and satisfying ourselves with the basics. Bread has entered the picture here as something easy to make and easy to appreciate. Breadmaking is one of my simple changes.

Last week I made the batch of bread shown in these pictures. I had wanted to try another recipe that had caught my eye, only this one required 2 risings before the final rise in the loaf pans. I committed to the extra time involved, and was glad I did...it had a fine crumb and made robust loaves and rolls. One recipe made 3 hearty loaves and 8 or so large rolls. I froze one loaf, gave one to a friend, and we ate on the other loaf and rolls for a week. The rolls doubled wonderfully as hamburger buns, if they survived long enough. (Some were eaten hot with butter and honey, wherein they immediately set up cellulite colonies on my hips...ha!) The cost couldn't have been more than a couple dollars all told, and that's pretty darned economical in proportion to the finished product.

It was only last year that I successfully made bread by hand, for the first time ever. Not that I'd never tried before, but I'd never stuck with it long enough to have an edible product without the help of a bread machine. Oh, and by the way, I do consider bread made by bread machines real bread! Whatever it takes, if it turns out bread, it works! :)


I needed to learn the skill without a bread machine due to the likelihood of not having one in the future ...since I don't have one now, ha :) (I used to, and loved it) I can't describe it, but every time those raw ingredients morph from flour and liquid into a kneaded yeasty living dough, it just feels so downright womanly. My first few attempts never quite achieved that, though, and the resulting compacted wheaten doorstops dampened my enthusiasm for further tries...for a long time. But last year, something clicked, and lo and behold I made real bread!! It was a challah, and as my daughter ate it hot from the oven, I kept pointing to it and saying "look..REAL BREAD...I made that! I'm a WOMAN now!" (laughing!) Well, don't know exactly where that came from, but it felt primal...

We're not a family that needs bread as a daily staple, but I've noticed that we do buy it at the store regularly enough to warrant making it at home...to fill in for occasional sandwiches, especially for toasting cheese on in the oven. Open-faced cheese toast hot from the oven rounds out a salad nicely, some raw veggies, or cup of soup. It's also nice when studded with a few garlicky green olives or any other addition that's a hint of savory or herb-ey...with a little chopped basil, green onion, or mixed herbs. So...the bread does come in handy, and I'm less and less able to justify buying breads with those long lists of ingredients, most of which I've never heard of. At least when I'm baking my own, I know what's in it -- and the nice thing about most breads is that wonderful results can be produced from the most basic pantry items.

I mentioned in a recent post that we'll slowly explore gluten-free breads for health reasons. I do feel that we'll utilize breads with wheat flour, however, enough for me to try to master some good basic recipes.

Some day I hope to have a grain mill so that we can grind our own flours/meals. But until then, it's just measure, pour, and get my hands right into things...and that part is as fun as mud pies used to be as a child.

It's affordable, filling, and the best house smell in the world...fresh baked bread!

I'm trying some different basic recipes, and will include some great ones suggested by readers here. This is the second bread I've tried in the last couple months. The bread pictured here is a basic white bread I found instructions for in a Tasha Tudor cookbook. I'll include the recipe on an upcoming post in her memory...she was a remarkable woman.

As we move further into simplifying things, breadmaking is one of the basics. Simplicity has never tasted better :)

Simple Changes: Glass Bottles Instead of Plastic

Like many others, we are trying to change some of our basic habits, for varying reasons of frugality, practicality, sustainability, and simplicity.

I'm slow to change, but I want the good changes to be lasting.

Sometimes I think I'm way behind the curve in comparison with others who have either been living differently than we have for a longer time, or who are just more savvy overall. But I am inspired by seeing ways in which we can continue to improve, and I'm heartened to see that these changes often come in very small packages. Sometimes, it's the little things that add up in the bigger picture.

My Grandma and Grandpa lived simply and well. Many of the changes we've adopted in the past, or simply habits, have been a result of remembering how my grandparents lived. I've noticed that same sensibility in other folks' writings on the web...a longing for the way our forbears did things...simply. Sometimes "simple" means carving out time differently and slowing down to do something that initially takes longer, but produces a better product or saves money. Sometimes it's just a different way of looking at the same set of challenges and applying the widsom of our elders.

At any rate, I'm starting a series here of small changes we're making that we're trying to incorporate as habits. This is open to everyone, and if you have one you'd like to include, I'm happy to post it here as well :)

Small Changes: Glass Bottles Instead of Plastic

This is something my Grandma did. She saved glass jars of every sort.

Selecting store items packaged in glass not only cuts down on plastic in landfills, but is a better all-round reuseable storage solution for anything small. I like to use mine for storing dried pantry items such as pastas, rice, seeds, nuts, etc. They are also great for organizing nails or screws, buttons, office supplies, and sewing items.

I have to wash my jars a couple of times, and often I'll just leave the label on. If you need the label off, it'll take some soaking in hot water and possibly working the sticky glue off with a soft scrub pad. These are some jars after their first washing...


I have a friend who uses Mason jars for hearty drinking glasses. She rinses a few clean jars with water, and while still damp, puts them on an empty shelf in her freezer. Her husband works really enjoys any beverage in those icy cold frozen Mason jars when he comes in from his long, hot, days as a painter. They are really refreshing!



They are also fun for projects with children, whether as temporary housing for interesting insects, storage for found rocks (I loved collecting those with my Grandpa!), or for making sand art by layering different colors of sand or soil and then making designs by running a broomstraw down the sides for different effects.

What do you use your glass jars for?