roses

roses

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Good Evening, folks.

Honestly, the last few days have gone really well. (With the sole exception being this nagging bit of a cold that I have, which I am on the mend from. I'm quite pleased with the fact that I didn't lose my voice today. Mayhaps, I'll be recovered tomorrow?)

My experiments in the kitchen have been bearing fruit. My sourdough starter made for a nice loaf of bread yesterday. I goofed up the measurements and screwed up a loaf today, but this is a learning process. My sauerkraut is beginning to smell like sauerkraut. I think it will be ready in the next day or two. I'm looking forward to trying it out.

I tried out the crock pot oatmeal recipe and discovered it made a huge mess in the crock pot. I then used one of those disposible plastic liners and made another batch. Clean up was a breeze. The oatmeal was tasty and I enjoyed it quite a bit. The kids, on the other hand, didn't feel like having any. It's going to be a bit of a process getting them converted to 'whole foods'.

My goal over this year is to transition away from packaged foods as much as possible. I see here that it will actually save us money if I do this. When I went grocery shopping last weekend, I only spent about $60. Unfortunately, some of the planning that I did blew up in my face. (Apparently, I am the only person in the house who will eat cabbage in any form. And the boys do NOT like corned beef.) In my efforts to get us 'back to basics' in our diet, I am working to revive some heritage recipes and techniques.

The way I see it, I am a housewife. I should have the skills that my foremothers did. Can I launder my own clothes? Can I preserve food? Can I cook from scratch? All of these things are skills that I feel are very important. While we're living in an apartment and I can't exactly go full bore on this stuff, there are things I can do.

In the course of my travels tomorrow, I plan on picking up a little wooden drying rack. I'm going to trade a bit of housework for the use of my neighbor's laundry machine. I figure I can put the drying rack in the tub and let stuff drip dry in there. I can't do a big huge load but every little bit counts. Flylady figures a load of laundry a day is what is needed to keep a household running smoothly.

My goal is after I get our laundry caught up (mid-week trip to the laundromat is in order here) that I just do that one load a day. Then on the weekends, I do what ever is left over. If I don't have to spend three hours at the laundromat to carry my own weight (and then some) in laundry around, that would be fantastic. Sure, you could say that I could walk down to the laundromat and do the wash. If I were doing that everyday, however, it would make it hard to keep up on other things. Though I suppose that is one way for me to start work on my training.

Yep, that's right. I am in training. I have decided that I am going to run in a marathon next year. I have given myself a year to train and get ready. I think I can do it. Right now, I am just doing exercises in the house because the weather and life haven't really been encouraging me to go out and attempt to start running. This summer, I plan on getting myself up to running a mile regularly. It means that I am going to have to get good sneakers and some appropriate clothes.

I don't have a scale to measure my weight loss. So, I am going to do so on the basis of what my measurements are. I am also going to try to write down my walking/exercise time for every day. When I see my doctor next month, I am going to bring up this stuff that I am working on. Who knows, maybe he'll have some suggestions for me.

But, that's what's up here.

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