Time to change focus, apparently.

 Nope, I'm not leaving this blog. Since '07, I've been attempting (and kinda failing) to run a tarot reading business through Keen. They have made a lot of changes over the last year and a half. Y'all may remember the last time I said fuck Keen it was over a platform change that screwed over my access to my client base. Well, they've done it again in a bigger way. I'd go into detail over it, but I suspect the fact that I have even mentioned Keen on here means that I'll be on their radar and get a nastygram over it. Suffice it to say, long term advisors are getting screwed, again.

This business has changed hands at least two or three times in the last few years. Each time, things have gotten worse. And the people who are supposed to suck it up and take the hits are the advisors. We're being treated like we're employees, except we don't work for Keen. We're not even affiliated beyond the fact that we're using their platform to connect with clients. Customer service for advisors has gotten atrocious and I know that the advisor side of the platform has been hacked at least once (I tried logging in and the firewall popped up to block malware about two weeks ago.).

I was planning running the Keen thing I had going on as a part-time business in a serious sense. I was doing that before my brain went explody. Now that I have that semi-resolved, I see here that Keen is fucking around again. I love reading tarot cards. It's been a hobby of mine since I first started back in middle school (against my parents' permission). My aunt suggested last time this happened that I look into another platform like California Psychics. I am angry and, honestly, kinda hurt by the position I am in.

At the same time, I don't have the spoons to meet the workday requirements of these other platforms because of my disability. The reason I was on Keen was because I could set my own hours and not be penalized if I wasn't on there for an extended period of time. I can't do this bullshit anymore. My anxiety is ratcheted up. I feel like I'm working in a call center and failing at my job because the job requirements keep changing and I don't pressure sell anything because I have a sense of ethics.

What I did on Keen was read cards and give people an ear to listen when things got rough. What I did on Keen was read cards and give people advice on how to fix their marriage. What I did on Keen was read cards and treat all my clients like they were old friends. I can't do that now. I can't with how they've got things set up. I can't because they're getting to be more like the other platforms with their demands upon advisors. I don't have the spoons to dance and be Keen's puppet and pay them for the privilege of it.

So, fuck Keen. I'm just going to focus on my writing now. If you know me personally and want a reading, cool. We'll get in touch and I'll do one for you. But this hobby, I have to put it down because I don't have the energy to get into a big fight with the people who are screwing me over. I'm angry, I'm sad, and it didn't have to be this way. Because what Keen had was working for over 20 years. They got greedy and wanted a bigger bite, and then wanted an even bigger bite. They can choke on my $10 in that account. I know they're going to close the account when I don't go back after a year. So be it. I have other shit to do with my time. I'll find another way to make a side gig work and fund my writing work.

I'm not even going to go on Keen and post a 'good bye' blog post because they won't show it. They'll edit the blog feed and it won't show up. Anyways, their blogging platform is stuck in the 90s and a pain in the ass to use.

This sucks.

Thinking about finding a therapist.

Image from Kat Jayne at Pexels.com

 My psychologist has declared me to be one of his most stable patients. That's a big deal because a few years back my mood cycling was really bad. This Vrylar stuff had done wonders for sorting out my mood. I spend most of my time in a low level depressed state but the lows are not as bleak as they were before and the highs are not as unhinged. He's really proud of the effort that I have put in and how well I am doing.

So, some good news there.

At the same time, he has noted that I'm coming up on about five years with out a therapist. He knows about my medical conditions. He's aware of the struggles that I've been having over the last year with trying to get my blood sugar under control. Between the stress and anxiety that comes with having diabetes and the fact that Covid-19 has a rather high death rate for people with diabetes, my psychologist has strongly encouraged me to find a therapist to talk through the anxiety that I've been dealing with.

This year, the trauma anniversaries have been a bit more intense. I think it's because of how much I have been isolated. It makes for a weird parallel to my youth when I spent a good amount of time isolated to avoid people who were harmful towards me. The doctor is of the opinion that a therapist would be helpful in getting me through all of the emotional flashbacks I have been having over the last few months.

The problem is my health insurance. There are therapists in the city who take my insurance. But my insurance dicks around on paying them. So, I have been turned away from people who could have helped me. I will never darken the doorstep of the county mental health facility after the hell they put me through. I have been attempting to do what I can with journal writing and using prompts that I find on the internet. It's been rough and I often forget to write in my mental health journal. Last year, I had three entries in there for the whole year.

My goal is to have three entries in there per week. I'm going to treat it like I'm back at college and I have writing homework. I am doing a lot of writing across various platforms. I have scheduled time for this type of work. I just have to stay on top of my schedule to get it in. I don't have a therapist but I have over a decade of experience being in therapy so I have a pretty good grasp on how it works. So, I sit down and write like I'm talking to a therapist. I'm going to call my health insurance company to see if I can make arrangements to have a list of approved providers sent to me. I fear that most of them are off in Buffalo, which is a 2 hour drive away from me and that they're not going to take me because of Covid and/or the games that the insurance company keeps playing in trying not to pay people for the services provided.

I'm angry because I want to be on the better health insurance that is accepted pretty much everywhere. But, I can't change providers due to my preexisting conditions. So, I'm stuck with this second tier insurance that isn't going to get me much help with my mental health stuff. I am sick and tired of mental health (as well as dental and eye care) being treated as a luxury. It's necessary for us to be well and get the help we need to function as best we can. Especially during a pandemic. But, what difference is that going to make to the people who are counting numbers and don't see the members as people but as income sources.

Better the Devil you know.

 So, I have investigated different platforms. I looked into if I had the capacity to set up my own site and such. In the end, I've decided to raise my rates and go back to Keen. I'm still not happy with their business practices. Platform fees eat about 80 cents of each dollar that gets made each call. This is not how they were doing business before. I didn't want to pass the cost on to the customer, but I can't sit there making 20 cents on each dollar spent on the call. I raised my rates and informed my past clients of this fact. I'm keeping my fees for email readings flat this way they still have those options to go for.

I'm still of the opinion that this is a predatory business practice but Keen is the only site where I am allowed the flexibility to be a responsive parent and handle things like sudden schedule changes. I've set up a schedule where I do my writing work in the morning and my Keen stuff in the afternoon. Today, I attempted to keep that schedule. I had a hard time writing this morning but that was because I'm stuck on how to finish up a scene.

During the time that I would have been on Keen taking calls or chat messages, I was setting up my schedule and doing some planning for blog posts on there. I can't cross post Keen posts because Keen reserves all rights to what is produced there. Basically, if I write it on Keen, they own it. As such, I'm not doing serious fiction or similar work on there. I'm pretty sure that my serious fiction work would get me into trouble on Keen, to be honest, because of their strident policies about what can get posted.

So, I post things like random recipes that I have kicking around. I'm going to get back into daily posting across all of my blogging platforms. It is going to be a fair amount of work, but I look at this as training for the larger, long term writing that I have going on. Last NaNoWriMo, I wrote two and a half novels. I am trying to finish that third novel. Then, over the next month, I'm going to edit them and send them off to the friend that offered me a working arrangement based off of the fanfiction I wrote about their game system. (Yes, I am that nerd. I may not LARP anymore, but I still love the characters and will write about them. Now with the game creator's blessing and encouragement with the prospect of turning a profit off of it.)

I sat down and looked at it all real hard over the last few months. I realized that the income from Keen is good seed money to invest in my writing. Reading tarot cards is something that I am damn good at. If I have learned anything, it is if you're good at something don't do it for free (except in special cases). So, I am digging out my box of tarot decks and getting back into it. It is also a hobby that I enjoy and important socialization during the time of Covid-19 isolation. I'm going to start promoting my Keen stuff across different platforms.

Previously, I only advertised it on my Veiled Witch main blog. That is going to go back up along with a post similar to this one, explaining my logic and my reservations about this. Now, I am going to do things like note when I am on Keen when I go on Facebook and Twitter. I am going to link back to blog articles on Keen that pertain to psychic stuff on my witchy blogs and on Tumblr. It's going to be a fair amount of work, but this will help me learn the skill set I need to promote my books. Because just relying on Keen to advertise my service isn't enough. They've proven that over the last few years. So, I am going to learn how to market my work and advertise it across various platforms.

I am also going to make a point of reengaging some old blogs of mine as marketing platforms too. Those blogs are going to start getting content again. It isn't going to be the same as the others, but I am going to do my damndest to make this work. I can smell trouble in the wind and I have a feeling that I am going to need these skills in the near to immediate future.

The challenging part of all of this is going to be keeping myself motivated and working despite depressive episodes and working around schedule shifts that may come due to the school going to remote learning. 2020 was going to be the year that I made this happen and ... well, 2020 happened. Now that I have a little experience under my belt for how to handle the remote learning situation and such, I think I can make Keen happen under those conditions with minor changes to my schedule and approach.

Menu week of 10/22/17

I'm working on pre-cooking some things for the week. I found a recipe for how to make a big batch of scrambled eggs in the oven. I'm going to be starting on that in a few minutes. I will be cooking up a small beef roast tomorrow in the crock-pot to be used in making pulled beef for enchiladas tomorrow evening. I'm also going to store some of that pulled beef in the freezer for another dinner on another night. The guys all seemed to enjoy bbq pulled beef last week. (I was going to make the pork roast and discovered it had gone bad in the time I thawed it to when I was going to cook it, a few days later. Thus, I pulled out the beef roast and cooked it.)

The teriyaki meatballs are going to be made with Grandma K.'s recipe. The stuff using ready made meatballs and teriyaki marinade is ok. But Grandma's version is better. So, I'm going to make a big pan of meatballs and save some for later. I also have a partial bag of meatballs from the store that I'm going to use on Saturday in the spaghetti. At some point during the week, I will be making spaghetti sauce. Ever since I got the 1.5L crock-pot, I've been making things like soup stock and sauces. The salsa came out a little too salty, but I think I can fix that by cutting the half batch I have in the freezer with a can of crushed tomatoes. I have been using the McCormick spaghetti sauce spices with crushed tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. It came out really well and made dinner last Saturday a lot easier.

I'm beginning to think that pre-cooking things for the week may be a habit that I want to cultivate. I still have to finish cooking down my chicken stock. But, as I work at it, my plan is to turn that into the base for a pot of perpetual soup over the next several months. Stealing an idea from generations before me and what not. End results of the change I have made thus far in how I handle how much I am cooking has helped me cut down on food waste and how much we spend at the grocery store.

Date	Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner
Sun	Eggs & kale / donuts	Sandwiches	Naan Pizzas
Mon	Pop-tarts & donuts	Kids - School Beloved- Spaghetti Me - spring rolls	Hamburgers, carrot salad
Tues	Cereal	Kids - School Beloved - Turkey sandwich & chips Me - Salad	Beef enchiladas with beans & rice (tossed salad?)
Wed	Eggs / Pancakes	Kids - School Beloved - burrito bowl & hard boiled egg Me: taco salad	Sweet & sour pork roast with quinoa and garlic green beans
Thurs	Cereal / pop-tarts	Kids - School Beloved - cuban sandwich & chips me - bbq pulled pork with mac & cheese (non-dairy)	Teriyaki meatballs pad thai & Thai chicken coconut soup (peanut noodles for kids)
Fri	Eggs / pancakes	Kids - School Beloved - leftovers Me - leftovers	Sloppy joes with biscuits & tossed salad
Sat	Eggs & hash	Leftovers / salads	Spaghetti & meatballs

Monday Menu.

No picture this week because I'm just tired of trying to find good lighting for pictures and stuff. It's a bit frustrating and I have been having enough stuff making me annoyed and frustrated. I have been having a difficult couple of weeks. So, I'm just going to make this post completely simple.

Sunday was scheduled to be pizza night, but the weather was too humid and warm. I just picked up some pre-cooked pulled pork and made Cuban sandwiches for lunch. I am probably going to be using the leftover pulled pork in Beloved's lunches this week.

Monday morning is going to be French toast with fruit. Lunch is going to be sandwiches for the guys and a salad for myself. My goals is to get back into the habit of eating salads for lunch. Dinner is going to be hot dogs with potato salad and fresh veggies. I'm tempted to cook them in the crockpot with some chili sauce. I'm not decided on the matter.

Tuesday is going to be a cereal day for breakfast. Beloved is going to be having sandwiches for his lunch (he requested turkey). I am going to be having some leftovers (if there is any) and a salad. If there are no leftovers from Monday's dinner, it will just be a salad. I may possibly do the spiced eggs on a bed of kale. It depends on how motivated I feel to be cooking tomorrow afternoon. Dinner is going to be hamburgers with tater-tots and a tossed salad.

Wednesday is going to be the leftovers from the french toast or I'm going to do something with eggs and toast. Beloved is going to be having another sandwich for lunch. It may be ham or it may be turkey, it depends on what he is in the mood for. I'm out of the sandwich style cut dill pickles but I don't think he'll mind much.  I am more of a fan of pickles than he is. I will be having a salad. I am going to try to make that thai chopped salad that I have on my cooking page on pinterest. I keep meaning to make it, I think this week is going to be the time I finally make it. Dinner is going to be chicken curry with rice, naan, and saag paneer.

Thursday is going to be waffles for breakfast. I have some fruit filled ones that I'm looking forward to. Apart of me says I should have whipped cream, but I think I'll be just fine with out it. My lunch is going to be a salad, or curry leftovers. Beloved is definitely getting curry leftovers. I'm going to do my best to make sure he has an extra portion of saag paneer. Dinner tonight is going to be crockpot tacos with fresh salsa an guacamole.

Friday's breakfast is going to be pop tarts. Lunch is going to be a taco salad for myself and sandwiches for Beloved. I'd try giving him something like taco salad but I know that's not exactly his thing. I may throw some corn chips and guacamole into his lunch though. Dinner is going to be pasta salad with teriyaki meatballs. I found a recipe for how to do it in the crockpot. Though calling it a recipe may be a bit much. It's premade meatballs and teriyaki sauce cooked on low for 6-8 hours. I'm also going to have fresh veggies out to round out the meal.

Saturday is going to be another morning of scrambled eggs. The kids apparently seem to love them. Cuddle Bear was six different kinds of proud of himself for helping me cook them for breakfast yesterday. I think he's going to be real happy to help out next Saturday too. Lunch is going to be something take out when I am out doing grocery shopping. I have a feeling that there are not going to be any leftovers from dinner Friday night. Whenever I make meatball anything, it goes really fast because the guys love 'em. Dinner is going to be macaroni and cheese. I'm going to give the kids apple slices to go with it. Beloved is going to be out doing social things that evening, so I won't be worrying about dinner for him. And the kids don't get to pick out dinner things that often, so this is kinda a special little 'mom and me' kind of thing.

One thing I have to add, menu planning has cut about $50 out of my grocery bill when I first started out doing it. As I have refined it over the last several months, it has lead to the bill going down to about $100 less than what it was towards the beginning of the year. Making Beloved's lunches for work has cut down a whole lot on food waste, which made me pretty happy. It has also helped cut down on how much money gets dropped into buying lunches and food from restaurants.

My goal is to get my total food budget down to $200 for the month, on average. This requires making some changes to how I am handling somethings. I have discovered, however, that packing lunch for Beloved is not as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I am cautiously optimistic that I can apply that type of preparedness to summer meals when the boys are home from school. I also want to do some food preservation this year. While the initial investment may be requiring some planning, I think if I do it right, I can cut down on some of our winter food budget and maybe even limit how much off-season produce I buy. And, when it is winter, off-season produce is kinda expensive even at stores like Aldi's.

Make do and mend.

I have taken up my needle and thread to mend clothes rather than running right out to buy replacements for stuff that is a little worn. As such, I have been doing things like letting out hems on pants as the boys get taller and patching worn out knees in blue jeans (on an almost weekly basis). I also have been fixing the hems on my dresses as the stitching starts to wear and reparing Beloved's slacks when they have issues.

I started out using those iron on patches. They are an ok temporary fix. I then started using the patches that are sewn on. I tried sewing from the right side of the fabric and from the wrong side of it. I tried doubling the patches over. They kept ripping out. I tried fabric glue, but that doesn't work too great.

Then I started darning the holes in stuff with some of my yarn remnants from the last year of crafting. As a result, I am finding that the mending actually is lasting longer. I did one with dishcloth cotton yarn. And I have done one with double knitting weight worsted acrylic. The dishcloth cotton was worked on the right side of the fabric and the acrylic was worked on the wrong side of the fabric. Of the two, Snuggle Bug has yet to pick a favorite.

I also repaired one of my favorite pairs of mittens. It is a commercially knit pair of mittens that are partly fingerless gloves and they have a flap for the mitten part to go over the fingers. The join where the thumb meets the back of the hand was coming apart. So, I took out my red acrylic yarn (the one with the smooth texture rather than the scratchy one) and darned that. I learned from when I had to darn one of the boy's mitten's last winter, when I do the weaving go over it initially in that plain weave of vertical and horizontal. Then, do another weave through it at a 45 degree angle before weaving in my ends. It makes for a much more solid fabric.

All of the darning I have been doing this evening has been done with a blunt tapestry needle. It was a bit more work to push it through the denim but I think that the long term pay out of having the yarn for the patch rather than thread is worth the passing frustration. Also, doing my mending by hand right now is cost effective. I have a Singer and an off brand miniature sewing machine (intended for kids). The Singer needs to get repaired. The off brand miniature machine doesn't have the strength to punch through multiple layers of felt. I don't think it would have the gusto to go through denim, never mind the additional work I would have had to do in opening up the seam, the repair, and then restitching the seam. So, I am darning things by hand.

Life Hack #2 - Recycling old clothes.

If you're like me, you may feel a bit bad when the clothes get worn out and you are in the position of having to throw them away. I look at all that fabric and think that there has got to be something environmentally better to do. I also feel bad about that financial investment going out in the garbage, even when I have gotten my money's worth out of the clothing. While donating clothes to the local community outreach program or sending them off to the thrift store is an option, it really isn't cool to send them completely worn out stuff. And, let's be honest, there are only so many rags you can use for cleaning. (I recommend using worn cotton t-shirts for your cleaning rags.)

So, what do you do with it? There's a lot of really great things you can do with recycled fabric. One of them is to make a rag rug with it. If you use t-shirt material, it comes out really great for in the bathroom. If you use denim, it is super effective for in a high traffic area of your house. We did this in my parent's house when I was growing up. In the end, we had a really interesting looking rug that stood up to years of use long after the clothes were no longer useful.  (If you are someone who does latch hook rug making, you have yourself an instant source of scraps!)

You can also cut up the old clothes into uniformly shaped and sized pieces. This you can sew together into a patchwork item. You can get a quilt top out of a bunch of old shirts pretty quickly. Use an old flat sheet for the bottom layer and an old blanket for your batting. Patchwork denim makes an amazing bag that you can carry a good amount of stuff in, provided you make your seams nice and strong and use a good, heavy weight thread for your stitching. You can also use those pieces to patch other clothing. (I will confess, I have cut off the good sections of the kid's worn out old pants to use to patch the knees in their newer clothes.)

Old clothing can also be used to make things for your home aside from that rag rug or patchwork everything. With a box and an old pillow, you can use a t-shirt to make a hiding spot for your pet. You can make rag dolls for the children in your life. You can also make puppets. Obviously, you can make clothes for dolls or the puppets out of pieces of your old clothes. You can cut out the logos from old t-shirts and make a display for your wall with a little ingenuity, a staple gun, and old picture frames. If you cut the leg off of an old pair of pants, you can stuff it with fabric from old clothes and stitch the ends shut. Boom! You now have something to block drafts from blowing in around door frames. Sleeves of long sleeved old shirts can make smaller ones for on the sill of your windows.

Old clothes don't just need to get thrown away. You can use a little creativity and make lots of useful things out of them. Expanding the life of your clothes can take on a whole new meaning with projects like these.

Considerations.

I just peeked at my account at Triond. Apparently there is twenty-one dollars and change sitting there waiting for me. I need to have fifty dollars before they send me a check. I looked over the statistics for the last year and noticed that my posts were starting to get readership over the last few months. As in, one post had over a hundred hits. It has me considering if I want to start posting on there again. I know the format is still somewhat buggy.

Still, there is potential for making a little money via posts. I know that I have about seven blogs I have out on the internet. I am seriously considering combining a few of them. I also am looking at what I have been producing and trying to decide just where I want to go with this. I know that I tend to write very specialized stuff. It lands me in niche markets that don't get very wide readership.

As I look at the trends that pop up on Facebook, I am wondering if I should start writing things to those trends. I am unsure of how to approach this. If I start posting again on Triond, I don't know how much readership it will get because Triond isn't very high ranking. I don't want to argue myself out of this but I want to make the right decision. The fact that I have a little money waiting for me at Triond after not writing anything on there for a year makes me think that perhaps I should resume writing for that format again.

I want to write stuff that gets read but I struggle to figure out where my efforts are best focused. I think that if I am going to write for Triond, I am going to stay within one subject area. The scattered shot focus that I had before contributed to my frustration with Triond. I want to get my work out there but I can't figure out what to do. My fiction is where a lot of my strength lies but it is hard to get much readership with out having a recognizable name behind it. I just can't figure out what to do. And that is a big part of my problem.

Why am I so tired?

I thought that with the beginning of school, I would magically have more energy. Instead, I have been feeling more exhausted than I was during the summer. I was so tired I was stumbling this morning when it was time to put the kids on the bus. I took the opportunity that was presented by the kids being at school and fell back asleep as soon as Beloved was out the door and on his way to work. I slept for 3 hours and awoke feeling a bit groggy but no longer like I was going to fall over my own feet.

After I woke up from my nap, I took a short walk. I thought it would be refreshing. Instead, it was just taking a walk and not really anything else. Once I got home, I started cleaning. It took me about 2 hours to get the kitchen mostly clean. I had the boys clean up the living room and their bed room. It was like trying to bathe a cat. All but impossible and extremely frustrating. Right now, they're screwing around and being loud. I just looked over and saw that they dumped out their toy box. The room was clean for literally 15 minutes until they dumped it out.

A part of me wants to weep with frustration. I have been trying so hard to keep this place clean enough so that I could walk through with out stepping on something. But as soon as it is clean, the boys dump stuff out and I'm stepping on things again. I try to stay on top of the housework but I get so tired, so worn out and feeling hopeless, that it just piles up as I stare at it and quietly wonder how I landed in this situation. I suppose you could describe what I'm feeling is quiet desperation, though I don't know what I am desperate for.

I applied for disability a little while back. I got their decision in the mail today. It was upsetting and I keep trying to look for a bright side but I can't find it. They denied my application. They said that the information from my doctors wasn't enough and that my four hospitalizations didn't count. And they've said that I am beyond the window of time where I could apply again. Basically, Social Security said no and they're not going to talk to me. I am trying to take it as a sign that I'm not as bad as I could be. But I just come away feeling defeated and upset.

It didn't help that it happened while I wasn't feeling well. I know I should be seeing my therapist more often but even with the fee reduction, we really can't afford my going as often as I was. Right now, I still have a past due amount of almost $200 from when they initially did the rate change and I was in limbo not knowing if my application to have my fee reduced was going to be applied or prorated to include the time I was on the hook for the full amount.

I feel like I need to do something to bring in more money. Beloved tells me that my not having a job out of the house is not the problem. He tells me that I save us tons of money being home with the kids and taking care of all the household stuff. I try to remember it. But then I screw up the check book and suddenly we have huge overdraft fees and the balancing game of paying the bills gets completely screwed up. When my student loan was forgiven at the end of last year, I knew it was going to change how much our health insurance is going to cost. Because we are not going to have that debt hanging over our heads, the amount of credits given to us to help reduce the cost of the health insurance are going to go down. I am afraid that the cost of the insurance will double and we won't be able to afford it. The mess that is the ACA health insurance stuff, I was burned a bit by it last year. I was with BlueCross/BlueShield last year. Then, when it was time to renew my premium suddenly jumped to $800 a month compared to the $50 it was before. I am afraid of that happening again.

With out health insurance, my medication is prohibitively expensive. We burned through all of our savings on the cost of medications. We're trying to rebuild that but it is slow going. There is so much about this mess that I just don't understand, other than everything is expensive. I panic some when I think about it. This is one of the things that keeps me up at night. I wish I wasn't so afraid of interacting with unfamiliar people or of rejection. This way I could get my foot in the door on professional writing stuff. Gods, I hate my anxiety. I wish it would just go away so I could do stuff like I did before this Bipolar business began. At least then I could manage it somewhat. Now, it shakes me around like a terrier with a rag doll.

Me vs Food.

I have a confession to make. I'm now down to 179 lbs from being at 199 lbs a little while back. I wish I could say it was do to good clean living, healthy food choices, and robust exercise. The truth is, I'm down 20 lbs from my previous weight because I've been eating less. Some would say that is the point of a diet, to eat less.

If that is how you feel about it and think that what I've done is healthy, please stop reading right now and go do something else. The point of a diet is to change your eating habits to something conducive to the state of health you wish to be in. This might mean smaller portions, cutting out certain foods, or replacing certain foods with different ones. Or some combination of the three. That's not what I've been doing.

I have a problematic relationship with food. When I was younger, I was borderline anorexic. I starved myself because I felt it was the only way to make sure everyone in the house had enough food to eat, at first. I started that when I was about six or seven. As I got older, I felt less and less in control of my own life. Thus, I controlled how much I ate because that was one thing I could tell I had absolute control over. Additionally, I thought that not eating certain foods (ie fatty ones) would make my 'zits' go away. And, I was ashamed to eat in front of other people because my build was different from theirs. The harassment that I got for being so thin was awful and it has taken a very long time for me to become comfortable eating in front of people again. On my good days, I just have no problem with it. On my bad days, it is a real struggle to make myself eat because I feel that I am repulsive whilst eating.

Then I developed an ovarian cyst. The doctors said that I was so underweight they were concerned about how well the surgery would go. Fortunately, I wasn't so underweight that it went poorly. That was when Beloved decided he was going to make me finish my meals when I was out with him. He didn't go so far as to put the food in my mouth but nothing else happened until I finished my meal. I tried being slick about it and ordering small meals. The folks at the restaurant we went to regularly realized what he was doing and I regularly got full sized portions when I thought I was getting halves. You know you have a problem when the guys running your favorite restaurant start helping your significant other put more food into you.

After a few years of that, I got up to a relatively healthy weight. I was amazed by this because I suddenly had more energy then I ever did before. I wasn't cold all the time. I didn't have times where my stomach randomly hurt for reasons I never put together (that I was hungry). With some therapy, I learned to identify when I was hungry and how to take care of myself on that front. When it was time that we were attempting to have Cuddle Bear, I was actually ten pounds overweight. With some vigorous exercise and skipping extra sweets, I dropped down to 150 lbs and conceived shortly there after (with some medical assistance).

This was also the story of how Snuggle Bug was conceived. After Snuggle Bug was born, I thought my issues with eating were resolved. I did my best not to think about how 'fat' I looking in the mirror and focus on eating healthy foods. When I gained weight from my psych meds, I got even more depressed and felt I was hideous. Mind you, when I was grossly underweight, I felt that I was hideous then too. My weight yo-yoed a bit as I tried to get more exercise and return my weight to what I felt healthiest at (150 lbs). A part of me says I should be pleased with the fact that I've lost 20 lbs over the last month and a half.

That equals about 3lbs lost a week. It's a bit high but in the relatively healthy range. The problem is that weight loss didn't happen over the course of those six weeks. It happened in three. That makes it 6lbs a week. That is a sign that there is a problem. I know exactly what the problem is. I'm skipping meals again. I started skipping meals when I got anxious over the budget. This lead to my being anxious that we were not going to be able to afford to keep the pantry stocked and our family fed. While money is tight right now, I know that we've got resources we can turn to for help. We're not going to go hungry.

Rational thought, however, doesn't enter into this. My PTSD has been problematic for several months now, to the point where I was having nightmares every night. After my medication got adjusted, the nightmares stopped, more or less. But the feeling like my life was completely out of control and I was helpless to do anything about the problems we were facing was very powerful. Thus, I skipped meals. I would tell myself that I didn't feel hungry or that I would eat 'later'. Next thing I knew, I hadn't had breakfast or lunch as I was sitting down to dinner.

I only came to the realization that this problem has come back up today. I don't know what I'm going to do about it. I don't know how I am going to regain a sense of control over my life. I feel like my PTSD and bipolar are running everything. I feel like my arthritic knees and PCOS are a time bomb waiting to go off. I look in the mirror and I find myself looking at my eczema and picking at it again, like I did in high school. I feel helpless right now. And that is creating major problems for me, again.

Ramblings and stuff.

I have been plugging away at life in the hopes of getting ahead on a few different fronts. Somehow, though, it keeps going a bit sideways on me. I can report, however, that I have finished that shawl I was working on since last August. I knew it was going to be pretty big from the pictures that went with the pattern. Once I got it off the needles, I was kinda left in shock at the size of it. Still, I have it finished and ready to be given to my sister in law.

Beloved has been searching for a hat to wear in the sun. I had been searching for a hat for him as well. I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. I picked up some space-dyed blue/white cotton yarn and crochet him a bucket hat. The first attempt was waaay too large and basically made him look like Cobra Commander, if Cobra Commander's hood thingy was in multiple shades of blue and white. We laughed and then I got to work on my second attempt. I am pleased to say that the second attempt was successful and his hat fits just right now.

I have been struggling with my writing. Part of the problem is the fact that I haven't felt well for a while now. Part of the problem is I haven't been sleeping well. And part of the problem is the fact that I have been very anxious of late, which turns writing time into worrying time. All of this interference has made it very difficult to focus enough to keep up with my blogging, let alone work on any of my books. I wish I didn't get so upset and panicky that I couldn't think when I have sat down to write of late.

It's been hard because the financial situation smacked me in the face recently. I knew that things were tight. After going over the budget to fill out a form to request a reduced rate at my therapist's office (they've made changes to their billing structure and my old form didn't meet their new requirements), I quietly sat at the kitchen table and did my best not to start shaking and freaking out. I am hoping that we'll hear something from Social Security regarding my second attempt to get disability in the near future.

Until then, it's creative budgeting and pinching pennies. I have been having difficulty socializing, which makes being logged into Keen torture. So, I have been avoiding it because I break out in a cold sweat at the prospect of talking to someone unfamiliar of late. My therapist is of the opinion that this is partially due to my high stress levels. I just want to get back to where I was mildly uncomfortable talking to people I didn't know rather then quietly panicking over the idea that they might attack me for daring to even exist.

I'm sure that my panic would be pegged as a variant of paranoia. I just know that it sucks and I want it to go away. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be doing that right now. My psychiatric provider has adjusted my medications again as of last week. We'll see if this resolves issues for me or not. I am hesitant to say that it has helped me sleep. Last night was the first night of no nightmares since August. I am daring to hope that tonight will be just as nightmare free. I would like to get back to where I am not afraid to go to sleep.

I am just trying to keep things moving forward. I don't feel like I'm making progress but Beloved assures me that I am. The gods tell me that everything will be ok and I should persevere. So, I've put my shoulder to the proverbial boulder and been pushing with all my might. Either things will improve or I will find a better way to cope with it all. Something is going to change if by nothing more then pure force of will.

Tarot reading jitters.

I'm logged in over at Keen. I'm on line to do readings via the chat client there. I don't trust myself not to have a coughing fit right now for doing readings over the phone. Honestly, I am a bit nervous because it has been almost half a year since I was last logged in at Keen.

I am doing my best not to let my nerves scare me off from doing readings but it is a bit hard. I just had a quick chat session with someone and I don't think I did very well. Still, I'm going to keep this going until the kids get home from school. Then I am going to switch off from being logged in for readings via the chat client to being logged in by phone for a few hours in between doing some housework. My goal is to stay available for readings while the kids are at school.

The last several days have been somewhat rough around my house. We caught that awful flu that has been going around the neighborhood. It started Christmas with Cuddle Bear coming down with it. All the poor kid wanted to do was sleep once the afternoon hit. We figured he was just tired from spending the day running from my side of the family to Beloved's parent's house. The next day, he was just as exhausted and didn't have much interest in playing with his new toys.

Then the coughing started. Goodness did that little boy have an awful cough. By the time he was starting to feel better, I came down with it. New Year's Eve was spent sick in bed, again. Fortunately, Beloved managed only to get the sniffles from this horrendous bug and he was able to manage the kids over the last four days. I was not doing well and for a little while I was worried that it may have been turning into bronchitis.

Thankfully, I am doing much better and the kids are just about fully recovered. We've got a bit of a lingering cough, but it is nothing like what it was a few days ago. I would be doing readings by phone but I don't trust myself not to have a coughing fit while on the line. I slept most of this morning because I was still pretty exhausted but now I'm feeling pretty well.

I've been spending my afternoon trying to get things set up to make a little money with my writing and listening to music from my youth. As silly as it may sound, I've been enjoying listening to stuff like Genesis and Bananarama. I have also revisited my affection for Peter Gabriel. A lot of this music was big when I was in my early years but it has been pleasant to listen to anyways.

Saturday Check In Week # 1

In the hopes of posting more frequently and consistently on here, I'm going to make a point of posting something every Saturday. It's probably going to be a recap of how the week went and with how my life goes, I'll probably be hit or miss about it. Still, I'm going to give it a shot.

We've all been sick with this horrendous bug. I spent most of yesterday and today in bed when I wasn't coughing to the point where I honestly wondered if I needed my inhaler. The kids seem to be mostly recovered from it except for a lingering cough. Beloved has had the sniffles and a headache. He has been taking care of the rest of us for the last few days. Namely, minding the kids while I have been a zombie.

I have set up a new spreadsheet to track how we spend money right now. I'm not terribly pleased with how things went last year. I feel that we spent more money then we needed to and if we get a better handle on things like how much we spend on our groceries, then perhaps we can rebuild our savings a little bit. Not in our favor is the fact that we don't have health insurance for this month.

I started out feeling pretty good about the 'Obamacare' health insurance because we could actually afford my medication. Then some things went wonky over the course of the last month and we suddenly went from having no premium to having an $850 premium over night. Frantic phone calls and my narrowly avoiding an anxiety attack resulted in us having health insurance starting next month for $50 a month. We still have to find away to cover the cost of my medications for this month but I think the GoodRX site will help a great deal with that.

I have had some problems with feeling anxious when I was awake today. I think part of this is because my nerves are a bit shot after all of that frantic last minute wrangling and part of it is I'm worried that this awful cough is developing into bronchitis. I've told Beloved that if I haven't improved by this time next week, I will schedule an appointment with the doctor. It is my hope that I will be on the other side of this bug come next Saturday. Partly because I have a social engagement that I want to attend and mostly because I really don't want to have to go see the doctor.

I don't know what I'm going to be doing tomorrow. If I am feeling well enough, I will probably be working on taking down the tree. I have a feeling that the ornaments that Beloved's sister gave us may prove too many for my box. I hope that isn't the case but I'm eying them with some suspicion. Every year, she gives us some and my box is getting very full. I am running out of places to put them. I don't think she is going to be happy next year when I tell her not to give us any ornaments.

Homespun Holidays: Valentine's Day

It is Valentine's Day and you forgot to get your sweetheart a gift. Don't buy a box of chocolates and call it a day. Take a few minutes and make this year's celebration something memoriable by adding some personal touches. A few minutes of effort goes a long way.

Write them a Love Letter
Love letters have been around for as long as there has been some form of writing. In today's world of text messages and internet memes, there is something to be said for the romance of an old fashioned pen and paper letter. Sometimes it is difficult to put down on paper what you wish to say. It is very easy to get caught up in the temptation to give up on a letter because you feel like it is poorly written. While there is something to be said for good grammar and proper spelling, the real heart of this exercise is to put down what you feel for the person you're writing.

Allow yourself to be as wordy or as brief as you wish. Sometimes a few short lines will do a better job of expressing what you feel then what a novella could. Three important things to remember about your love letter to be successful are legiblity, honesty, and emotion. When you write your letter, use your best handwriting. If this means you write out a draft and copy it over, do so. You want your beloved to beable to read your words of admiration and esteem. Honesty and emotion go hand in hand.

As awkward as it might feel to be emotionally expressive, let those feelings of love pour out on the page. The fact that you were willing to put down in black and white what you feel will mean the world to the recipient of the letter. It speaks of the high degree of trust to allow yourself to be so vulnerable with them.

Make a Play List
Shakespeare once said "Music be the food of love." Music has a very strong emotional pull for humanity. You have several options for when you produce a play list for your beloved. One is to put one together of music that reminds you of them. Another option is to assemble a play list of music that evokes special times from your relationship. An example of this would be a play list that included the song that was playing when you met, the song that you shared your first dance to, and the music from your children's first birthday parties.

Love Coupons
If you have a stack of blank notecards and a pen, you can make a quick and simple Valentine's Day gift that can add some smolder to your special day. On one side of the card, write down something special that you could do for your sweetheart. Decorate the otherside with hearts and then wait for them to take you up on your offers.

Imagination means that the sky is the limit with these 'coupons'. You can list anything from a nice relaxing foot rub to picking up household chores they hate to do to more intimate things.

Stick Figure Lovestory Comic
Just because you're not an artist doesn't mean that you can't make a creative little comic to celebrate your love. By using the most basic of stick figures, you can tell the story of your relationship by drawing out the major events that lead up to the present day. Speech bubbles that capture memorable statements and thoughts can help make the story more detailed. If your stick figures are colored in with various colored markers, it will add to the naive look of this simple gift. For extra sentimentality, put your comic into an inexpensive frame and give it to your beloved wrapped up in fancy paper.

Read Poetry to them
There is an amazing number of love poems that have been written. Indeed, works from antiquity into the modern day that address virtually all forms of love are available. Pick two or three that you feel best describe the tone and nature of your relationship. It is always a wonderful touch to have the poems printed out for them to read along with you.
Valentine's Day is a wonderful holiday for celebrating love in all of its many forms. A few minutes of time and a little creativity, it is possible to take even the most mundane of potential gifts and elevate it to something truly special.

Homespun Holidays: Birthdays

Ah, birthdays! As children, we often anticipate a fantastic party. The part of the birthday that we focused on the most, however, were the presents, right? When we get older, we often feel a desire to revisit the wonderful fun of our childhood birthday parties at the same time we rebel against the idea of getting older. From age 2 to 92, there are a few simple rules to keep in mind with birthday presents:

• The gift is from you to the recipient. Don't hesitate to put your unique twist on it.
• The best gifts truly are from the heart.
• Gifts that are practical as well as fun/beautiful will always be well received.

In the case of a young child, the birthday gift that is heavily focused upon the practical is not going to be enjoyed immediately. It may even provoke some anger. Gifts that are toys or related to the currently popular trend for the age group can draw the ire of parents. Gift giving to children can be a fine line to walk, but success is not entirely impossible!

If the child has a favorite activity, it is possible to incorporate this into the gift. For example, my eldest child loves trucks. He has enough toy trucks in the living room that walking from one side to the other can be potentially lethal in the middle of the night if they're not all put away at the end of the day. His birthday is coming up and there is a very real need to have a better method of putting his toys away.
A little glue, a few magazines, and a range of different sized shoe boxes are all that is needed to make an excellent gift for him in the course of an afternoon. Cut out pictures of cars and trucks, as well as construction related signs, to fix on the boxes and you have a fantastic storage solution. It also makes for a bright and colorful addition to his room. With a few pages of paper, a hole punch, more car pictures, glue, and some string, it's possible to make a flip book of cars to slip into one of the boxes.

Now, this may sound to be a fine gift for a toddler, but older children may be offended by this simplistic gift. The same creativity applied to a slightly more sophisticated version brings the gift into the school age realm. An old tool box that has been cleaned up, primed, and repainted in the child's favorite color can make an excellent place to store school supplies, craft materials, or the odds and ends that are treasured possessions of the child in question. A large piece of plywood can be transformed into a place to hang hats and sweaters, even as it is continuing the theme of the child's favorite interests.

My eldest neice loves the color pink and has started learning to cook. She is one of the infamously fickle 'tweens' who are nearly impossible to shop for. Here, it's good to encourage the learning of a life long skill (cooking) even as we acknowledge her tastes. Cutting out and sewing an apron from an old flat sheet is simply a start. Taking the fabric and tie-dying it adds dimension to it. This can then be further enhanced with iron-on embellishments, fabric paints, or sewing on interesting buttons. The excess fabric from the sheet, dyed to match the apron, can then be used to cover an inexpensive note book which will be a cooking journal.

The concept of a matched set of cooking gear is one that can be applied for teens and adults. The same can be said for gardening or similar activities. In this case, the apron and journal set could possibly be expanded to include matching hot mitts or hot pads by cutting out and sewing the excess fabric around some batting or an old towel cut to size. When the person's interests fall outside of the home or simply can not be accommodated in such a simple fashion, the challenge then turns to finding something that connects you to them.

I believe the best example that I can think of to solving this dilemma can be found in the gift that my husband gave his mother for her birthday this year. It was the gift of his time. My husband volunteered to help her with her gardening this summer. His mother is an avid gardener with arthritic knees. To say the least, she was delighted by the offer and next month will be putting him to work planting a rosebush. This type of gift is perhaps one of the best to give when viewed in the light of the economy.

Giving your time and effort doesn't just have to be in the way of giving your friends and family free labor. It can also reach into frivolous and silly things. I had given one of my nieces the gift of my being her personal storyteller for a month. It taxed my imagination to come up with a month's worth of stories about pigs, but it is something that she deeply appreciated. The trick in giving the gift of your time is to make sure it is done in a way that you can carry out the commitment. Scheduling and knowing your limitations is always important.

Most of all, however, taking the opportunity to tell the birthday person how much you love and celebrate them is vital. While you may feel that taking your 96 year old grandmother out for ice cream on Sunday afternoon is the most foolish gift you could give and that it should have been that fantastic massaging chair that was well outside of your price range, I assure you that your grandmother will be happier with spending time with you. Birthdays are about celebrating the person and expressing your good wishes for the up coming year.

Homespun Holidays: Mother's Day

Ah, we all love Mom! She's done so very much for us that we love to express our appreciation. Sometimes, however, Mom is the hardest person to shop for. If your Mom is anything like my Mother-In-Law, her answer to the question 'What would you like?' is usually 'Oh, nothing. I'm just happy with you doing so well!' Don't let that answer fool you, because Mom loves to get pampered and be surprised with gifts. Mother's Day, her birthday, or Christmas, these ideas can help you put together one of the best surprises for Mom this year with no need to go to the store and buy something.

From the Kids

We may remember giving Mom a fistful of dasies from the front yard or covering the refridgerator with artwork in Mom's honor. These time honored gifts of appreciation from children are going to always have a special place in Mom's heart. Sometimes, we want to get children into the spirit of giving Mom a nice surprise but it's hard to pick what the best thing is because of the age of the child in question. Using that fantastic natural creativity and imagination, kids can do some truly amazing things that will be cherished for years.

Babies, Toddlers, and Pre-schoolers

The youngest member of the family doesn't need to be kept out of the fun of surprising Mom. Very young babies lack the motor control and coordination to do any art work, but with a little help a lovely gift can be put together. A dab of non-toxic water washable paint can be spread across the baby's hand (or foot) before being pressed to a sheet of paper. That hand (or foot) print can be framed when dry with a printed poem devoted to the special bond between Mother and baby.

A little creativity can also turn foot prints into butterflies and hand prints into turkeys with a few strokes of the brush or gluing on a few snips of colored paper. This creates a special work of art that not only honors Mom but is a precious keepsake of a fleeting time of life. Older babies (1 to 2 years old) can take more independent action with art supplies. Large crayons and finger paints, when supervised, can provide a great deal of entertainment. With any art activity at this age, it is most likely going to be messy and you need to make sure that the child doesn't ingest their art supplies.

Toddlers and preschoolers (3 - 4 years old) have enough skill to begin making their own artistic masterpeices. This is where a little bit extra effort can make the special gift drawing stand out from the myriad that have taken over the refridgerator. Purchasing an inexpensive picture frame, decorating it, and placing the drawing into the frame elevates that picture out of the pile and into the something special category. Making a batch of salt-dough and baking it to give the sculpture of your budding Michelangelo permanence. Artistic efforts of the littlest ones need not be the only gift available from them. Having the child pick out their favorite picture of themselves with their mother and a frame is also an excellent option.

School Age Children

School age children are generally more independent and self-reliant than their younger counterparts. The benefits of this fact far out weigh the fustrations that come along with this fact, especially in the gift giving department. Take time to talk to your child about the special occasion for Mom, because their ideas may be far better then any of the suggestions here. If you and your child are at a loss for ideas, consider the following:

• Mommy Time Coupons - Take a stack of 3x5 cards (or colored paper cut to size), colorful markers, a hole punch, and a length of string. Punch several cards and tie together. On each card, write: This card entitles the bearer to ______ minutes of Mommy Time to be used at any time. Fill in on the blank a length of time that seems reasonable. 15 to 30 minutes seems to be popular with the school age children that I know. Mommy Time is a special block of time that Mom can have un-interrupted.
• Flower Cookies - Using a basic recipe for sugar cookies and a tulip shaped cookie cutter, make a dozen cookies. Frost with brightly colored frosting and wrap with clear plastic wrap. Secure the plastic wrap on the back/unfrosted side of the cookie with a small peice of freezer tape. Tape a popsicle stick to the back of the cookie. Gather the cookie flowers together and place in Mom's favorite coffee cup for presentation.
• Dinner Delight # 1 - Have the child help in preparing Mom's favorite meal for dinner and setting the table. When the meal is finished, have the child help with clean up. The more effort the child put into helping cook, the less they should do on clean up this way they don't feel like they're getting all of the burden.
• Dinner Delight # 2 - Have the child help plan and prepare a special dinner for Mom.
• Special Helper Coupons - Similar to the Mommy Time coupons, the Special Helper coupons are for the child to give Mom the gift of their time and effort. On the coupons write: This card entitles the bearer to 1 Special Helper to be used at any time. Similar coupons can be made for household chores that the child can complete on their own but are not usually part of their assigned tasks.

Teens and Adult Children

Teenagers want to take on the world like the young adults they are. The gifts they give to show their appreciation of Mom should reflect this. While it may not be possible to go out and buy Mom a stunning diamond tennis bracelet, there are plenty of options available. In giving jewlery or any other very personalized gift, like perfume, it is important to keep the tastes of the person recieving the gift in mind. If Mom hates the color yellow with a passion, getting her something that is yellow may not be the best idea. The same holds true for clothing (setting aside the challenge of making sure it's something that would fit right).

A good option is to choose something that reminds the giver of the person who is recieving the gift in a flattering way. It truly is the thought that counts in gift giving, not the price tag. Homemade gifts are almost always near the top of the list of favorite gifts recieved. Consider the many simple and quickly assembled gift ideas available in your home. A special pillowcase with a unique design drawn on to it with fabric marker is just as lovely as a batch of decadent homemade brownies.

Many times, the biggest and best gift that can be given to Mom is a heartfelt letter telling her how much she is loved and how thankful you are for her. It may not be half as fancy as the two dozen roses in a crystal vase or the luxurious weekend away at a stylish spa, but it will be something that she will treasure. Hand delivered or sent by mail, the letter describing your love for Mom and some of your favorite memories featuring her from your childhood will make you a gift giving hero.

Homespun Holidays: Gifts for the Gourmet

With the holiday season beginning at Thanksgiving, it can be a little hair-raising to see what gifts are touted for the gourmet cooks in our lives. The various gadgets and wondrous cooking devices that strangely resemble Medieval torture devices to the untrained eye are usually priced high enough that they may as well be equipment for making a poor soul suffer unspeakable agony. Fortunately, however, there are a few simple gifts that are always well received by any cook, gourmet or not.

Flavored Vinegars & Oils

For the cost of a few pretty bottles and herbs, it is possible to put together a gift that appears to be far more expensive and is virtually effortless. When making flavored vinegars or oils, it is best to allow them to cure in a separate jar before bottling. This eliminates mess and allows you to strain your liquids before bottling, thus ensuring a clear fluid in the bottle 90% of the time. Prior to making any of the following items, be sure that all of your equipment is scrupulously clean.

Rosemary Vinegar

Rosemary is one of those lovely potted herbs that are available for sale just about everywhere right now because it is popular to use for a live Christmas tree. Make sure that you are getting Rosemary, if you're choosing to use sprigs of fresh Rosemary from the plant itself. (I highly suggest this as the bush is wonderfully fragrant and an excellent investment if you do any herbal gardening!) If you are not purchasing the plant, it is possible to buy sprigs of Rosemary from the grocery store's produce section in most large grocery stores. Failing this, take a small steel tea ball and put one to two pinches of whole dried Rosemary leaves in it.

Fill a 2 quart jar with white vinegar and place two sprigs of Rosemary in (or your tea ball). Cover with the lid and place in a cool dark location until shortly before Christmas eve. (Roughly 1 month.) At this time, retrieve the vinegar and pour it into a bowl. Strain the herbs out of the liquid and discard. Pour your vinegar into your cleaned and sterilized bottles, cap, and seal with a bit of wax dripped on top.

Attach your label with a ribbon and you've finished the gift. Fine bottles to use for giving flavored vinegars are wine bottles. Make sure, however, that you have cleaned and sterilized the bottle, as well as removed the label. A sprig of dried Rosemary can be added to the vinegar at the time of bottling for decorative purposes or tied to the label.

Chili Oil

Chili oil is quite versatile and can be a wonderful accompaniment to many savory winter dishes. Make sure that the dried chilies that you choose are well cleaned and not too hot for the person you're giving this gift to. In a cleaned and sterilized 2 quart jar, place two chilies. If you would like for the chili flavor to be even stronger, add three. Cover tightly and place in a cool, dark place for two weeks at minimum. As with bottling the Rosemary vinegar, strain the chilies out and discard. Keeping the chilies in the oil will add greater amount of the volatile oils within the chilies (the sources of the flavor) to the oil and make the flavor more pronounced.

Bottle, cap, and seal as with the Rosemary vinegar. Thread a chili onto the ribbon affixing the label to your flavored oil.

Chili HoHo

This is a Colonial style vinegar and is quite potent. Completely fill a clean bottle dried pequin chilies. Then pour in enough white vinegar to cover the chilies. Cover and place in a cool, dark place for at least two weeks, shaking occasionally. Once the liquid has taken on a rich red color, you are now ready to seal and label your gift. This can be made using gin, sherry, or vodka in place of vinegar. Be sure to warn the gourmet cook receiving this gift that it should be used sparingly. As the Chili HoHo is used, more vinegar or alcohol can be added.

Spice Sachets

A square of cheesecloth, a length of butcher's twine, and some of the spices in your kitchen leads to a basket full of additions to soups, stews, and roasts that will make your chef smile in appreciation. Using dried whole herbs rather then powdered is best. Given below are some spice mixtures for you to use.

Boquet Garni

• Basil
• Parsley
• Thyme
• Bay
• Tarragon
• Peppercorn

Italian

• Rosemary
• Basil
• Marjoram
• Thyme
• Oregano

Equipment Boquet

Every cook knows the value of a good wooden spoon. We also know that eventually, our favorite wooden spoon is going to break, our rubber tipped spatula will look like it was used by a poodle puppy for teething, and the wire whisk is going to rust. As such, buying the cook in your life a few good quality wooden spoons, a spatula, and one or two other commonly used cooking implements will be appreciated. Tied together with a pretty ribbon and given in an inexpensive vase, large jar, or pretty and inexpensive oversized mug not only gives them replacements for when their cherished tools are used up but a place to keep them.

A Cooking Journal

One of my most treasured possessions is my cooking journal. It's different from a mere cookbook because I not only have recipes in there but also menus, shopping lists, and my notes as to what food allergies my family has. Nothing is more helpful then knowing what your neice will absolutely always refuse or that your sister-in-law is deathly allergic to shellfish when you are planning a dinner.

If you choose, it is possible to make the cooking journal a little more wonderful then a tab-divided notebook. With a little bit of time and creativity, the journal can be made to look more like a scrap book with pictures and pretty details. If you choose to take more of a scrap book approach, I highly advise you go the distance with it. Purchase page protector sleeves and use either an actuall scrap book or a three ring binder to hold it all together.

I, personally, would opt for the binder because it will be less expensive then trying to locate a pretty and yet durable scrap book cover. If you wish to personalize the cover, use a three ring binder with pockets on the covers and bindings which will allow you to add your own artwork to it. The sleeve protectors will make it easy to keep the cooking journal/scrap book in good condition as well as they're incredibly easy to wipe spills off of.

Your Own Cookbook

If you are like me, half of the family clamors for about half of the recipies that you have made. Make a list of those recipies and sit down at the computer, folks! You've got the makings of a quick and easy cookbook. Type up the recipies, throw in a few cute pictures from clip art, and fire up the printer. Binding them with staples is the easiest thing in the world and your gift can be done in an hour. If you have decided to give some one a cooking journal, it is possible to add your cookbook to it by simply punching the pages and slipping them into the binder.

Reject the Holiday Hype

    I suppose I should warn you, I don't like having holiday advertising everywhere. It's not so much that I hate the holidays as it is that I hate the hype. Last I checked, the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving was as much of a myth as the Tooth Fairy. Oh, that post-card perfect Christmas, complete with everyone dressed in red velvet with white trim? That's not real except for as a picture, so don't get sucked into it either.

     I'm not sure why everyone is bombarded with demands from advertising campaigns everywhere that we buy mass produced garbage... erm, truck loads of the latest toys for the children who are even remotely in our lives. I'm not sure why there's something assumed to be wrong in your relationship if your significant other doesn't give you some exotic and incredibly expensive gift. If you're a woman, you're supposed to be draped in diamonds and other precious gemstones, wearing cashmere and generally looking like something out of a high end luxury catalog. If you're a man, you're supposed to have all of the fabulous and fascinating gadgets available this season.

     I don't know about you, but these unwritten rules and the laundry list of others that get thrown at us every year by the advertising campaigns are crazy. Actually, crazy isn't the right term and the one which comes to mind as I sit here writing this is far too vulgar to use, so we'll have to just leave that there. I find it incredibly demeaning to see this high consumerist and spoiled self-entitlement attitude being promoted everywhere you turn.

     This year, we are getting a reprieve, so I can't say it's as bad as it usually is. There is one good thing that has come out of the insanity of the current economic crisis and the political ugliness of the campaigns leading up to the election earlier this month, they didn't start bombarding us immediately after Columbus Day with advertising. With Thanksgiving coming up, however, we're hearing the ads singing the praises of spending like it is going out of style for 'Black Friday' creeping up.

     As we move into the holiday season, folks, let's do our best not to get sucked into the hype. Don't feel guilty if you can't afford that deluxe widget for that overpriced thingamajig that you gave the guy in your life. The same item that has sat on the shelf in it's original packaging ever since it got unwrapped on his birthday. Don't assume that you need to give the kids those outlandishly expensive toys that need forty billion batteries and about eight different sizes.

     The whole hype is a scam. Your holidays are perfect as they are because you put love into them. You may not have the 'perfect' family portrait or a pile of gifts that reaches up to hip height in the middle of the room. That's ok. Your Thanksgiving turkey may be a little bit over cooked and the stuffing on the dry side. This doesn't matter. What matters is you are with the ones you love and that you celebrate the bonds of family and friendship, not the image of the holidays that gets forced down our throats by the advertising campaigns.

(I originally posted this back in 2008. I think it still is relevant.)

Homespun Holidays: Gifts from the Kitchen

    Isn't the kitchen a wonderful place during the holidays? Filled with the wonderful scents of baked goodies, fantastic dinners, and (at least around my place) about half of your guests who want to visit while you're cooking. (If you're evil like I am, you may even put a few of them to work too!) The kitchen need not only be the place where food is prepared, dishes and pots washed, and the staging area for all holiday gatherings in your home. If you simply can not afford to go out and buy all the gifts you wish to give, you can make them in between cooking up a storm in there.
 
     Some of these projects may require a bit of time, but the results have always proven worth it for me. If you have small children, you will find that some of these projects are ones that you can do with them. Please, please take the time to do so if you can. Among my most cherished memories from my childhood are the memories of making Christmas presents for my extended family. This may also be true for the children in your life.

Salt Clay Ornaments & Baskets

     If you have ever used the play-clay that's out on the market you already know how to use salt clay. There are quite a few variations to this wonderful kitchen creation. The recipe that I am giving you is for baking in your oven however if you add a few tablespoons of cooking oil it can be stored in an air tight container and used for play-clay for several weeks.

     In a large mixing bowl, combine two cups of plain flour, one cup of salt, and two cups of water. Mix this together until a stiff dough is formed. Turn this salt clay out onto a counter top or other flat surface and knead a few times. Once the dough is smooth, you are ready to begin making your ornaments.

     Roll out your salt clay until it is roughly a 1/4 of an inch to a 1/2 inch thick. Thicker then this and your ornaments will crack as they bake in the oven. Using cookie cutters, cut out your desired ornaments. With a pencil, poke a hole where you wish to hang your ornament. Then place the ornaments upon a foil lined cookie tray, making sure they are not touching. If your ornaments are a 1/2 inch thick, you will want to prick them all over with a fork to ensure even drying when they bake.

     Heat your oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake for one hour or until the ornaments are golden colored and hard. Remove the ornaments to a cooling rack to allow them to cool enough that they can be handled comfortably. Then paint, spray with varnish (Hair spray can be used in a pinch!), and, when everything is dry, thread a ribbon or a length of yarn thru the hole you made with your pencil. Your ornament is now ready for hanging up or giving.

      If you wish, spices can be added to the salt clay to scent it or food coloring can be added to give the clay itself color. The use of food coloring to color the salt clay is not very effective if you are making ornaments as it fades significantly upon baking. When using salt clay with children, keep an eye out as to how much they may try to eat. While salt clay is non-toxic, it will still give your child a stomach ache if they eat it. (Though I don't know why they'd eat it because it tastes horrid.)

     If you have bowls that are oven safe, they work quite well for the next project. Take your salt clay and cut it into several narrow strips. Then coat the out side of a bread pan (or a bowl) with non-stick spray. Place strips of salt clay over the pan's widest portion on the bottom. Weave thru them a sufficent number of strips of salt clay to allow space for weaving along the narrower dimension of the pan.

     Taking the remaining strips of salt clay, weave around the bread pan until it is covered. When you require strips of greater length then what you have available, it is possible to join two strips of salt clay with a small amount of water and a little kneading. Once the bread pan is covered with salt clay, bake in the oven for an hour or until golden colored and hard. As with the ornaments, this basket can be painted and covered in varnish.

Cookies in a Jar

     Everyone loves cookies. While it may be wonderful to give a tin full of home made cookies as a gift, not everyone has the time to bake them. Here is where a little bit of recycling and a little bit of cooking collide. Take a two quart glass jar and clean it well. (Depending upon the brand of spaghetti sauce you buy, it is possible that you have canning jars in disguise! If you don't have one, canning jars are incredibly inexpensive and available at most grocery stores.) It is a very good idea to soak the label off of your jar while you are cleaning it.

     Measure out the dry ingredients to make a single batch of your favorite or most popular type of cookie. Layer them in your clean and dry jar. Screw the top onto the jar. Cut out a small piece of scrap fabric (or a piece of wrapping paper, but fabric works better) large enough to cover the top of the jar and part of the sides. On a 3 x 5 index card with a hole punched in the corner, write the complete recipe down. With a length of butcher's twine, tie the fabric to the top of the jar, slip the recipe card onto the twine, and then tie with a pretty bow.

     The same principle for Cookies in a Jar can be used for Soup in a Jar. Instead of the dry components for a batch of cookies, fill the jar with an assortment of dried beans sorted by color and then attach a recipe card with directions for how to make bean soup. It is a good idea to layer the beans by color but if you desire a more mottled appearance, don't sort them but rather fill the jar with the beans at random. Always check your dried beans to make sure that your beans are free of stones.

Kitchen Devil

     One of the little things that has proven amazingly popular in my gift giving experience is a kitchen devil. I know this sounds like a funny name for a bit of string with dried chilies attached, but who am I to argue with tradition. Some people like to use just dried chilies while others also add small bundles of cinnamon sticks to the string as well. If you are giving a kitchen devil as a gift, it can be paired with a jar of kidney beans and a recipe for chilli. When doing anything with chilies, be careful not to touch your face and make sure you wash your hands.
     The active agent in chili peppers is the basis of that pepper spray used to chase away muggers, wild animals, and charging drunks. Even though your peppers are dried, the oils are still present and they should be handled with care. There is a wide range of chili peppers that can be used in making a kitchen devil. The variety that I have found most popular are the jalapeno peppers. They are also more mild then some of the other peppers available and generally less expensive as well. Make sure that the person receiving the kitchen devil is aware that they should hang it away from the stove, the sink, or other places where a great deal of moisture is present. This helps preserve the kitchen devil longer.

Homespun Holidays: Gifts

It is almost time for the holiday madness to begin. Some people will start putting up their decorations as soon as the last of the trick-or-treaters leave and others will wait for the day immediately before their celebrations. With a little bit of planning and a little bit of effort, it is possible to avoid a large amount of the anxiety for which the holiday season has become infamous for. My family are a bit tight on money this year, like many others in the face of the economic 'crisis' that is often talked about in the news today. Between bills, basic needs, and the financial obligations that come with parenthood, there isn't much money left over for holiday spending.

Fortunately, however, it doesn't need to take a lot of money. One of the biggest sources of anxiety is the matter of gifts, especially gifts for children. Using inexpensive materials, it is possible to make gifts for the children in your life with the amount of effort being quite simple. Stopping in any craft store, it is possible to put together a small basket for scrapbooking for under thirty dollars. It is also possible to obtain the materials to make gifts for more people for the same amount of money. The question is how much work you wish to put in to it. Given below are three craft ideas that use common household objects in an innovative fashion to produce a lovely holiday gift.

Personalized Picture Frame

This picture frame is decorated with a process known as decoupage. This process can be used to decorate just about anything that the glue will stick to. If you desire, you can add bits of fabric, rickrack, beads, and other materials. It is best to leave the addition of 3-D objects such as beads until the final layer of images is completed. If you don't wish to use hair spray to seal your frame, there are commercial sealants for use on paintings. This will also work well, though it will cost more then the generic can of hair spray in your bathroom.
Items Needed:

1. 1 inexpensive medium sized picture frame with a moderately wide, unfinished wooden molding
2. An array of magazines with photos
3. Scissors
4. Liquid white glue (also known as school glue, not to be confused with rubber cement)
5. Paintbrush
6. Small container of water
7. A can of hair spray

The first step in this project is to select pictures from your magazine that remind you of the person whom you are making this frame for. Depending on how you wish to present the frame, it is possible to use small or medium pictures for this project. One can use portions of pictures for this project and no harm will be done. This is a creative work and your artistic discretion is paramount.

In your container of water, mix your glue and water together until it resembles skim milk in appearance. Disassemble your picture frame, placing the backing, glass, and any matting material aside. Using your paint brush, apply a thin layer of the glue mixture to your frame's molding. Assemble the first layer of images on your frame. Allow the glue mixture to dry. Usually, this is for an hour if you used a thin coat. A thicker coating of the glue mixtures requires a longer period of time.

Once the frame is dry, apply another coat of the glue mixture over the paper. This needs to be a thin coat to prevent weakening the paper or otherwise degrading your images selected from something such as having the ink from printing them run. When the frame is dry, apply a third coat of the glue mixture and assemble your next layer of images. Allow this to dry. Continue the layering process until your frame is covered in the selected images. With each layer, add another hour of drying time prior to adding more to it.

When your layering is finished and dry, spray heavily with the hair spray. Set aside and allow to dry. The hair spray works to seal the glued images to the frame and help resist atmospheric moisture, prolonging the life of your gift. Upon completion, re-assemble the frame and insert any picture you wish to give. If no picture is to be given, just the frame, wrap the frame lightly with tissue paper and place into your gift bag.

Yarn Dollies

Nothing says homespun more then classic children's toys. Yarn Dollies are definitely one of the oldest and easiest children's toys to make. There are countless variations appropriate for different ages. Dolls can be used by children of either gender (Because that's what those action figures really are!) and are wonderful tools for development because they encourage imaginary play.
Items Needed:

1. 1 skein of yarn
2. Ruler and a pencil
3. Scissors
4. Cardboard

Determine how long you desire for the doll your making should be. With your ruler and pencil, mark off this length on your cardboard. Cut your cardboard to this dimension. Take your skein of yarn and wrap it once around the cardboard. Tie a square knot to secure the loose end and then wrap your yarn about the cardboard 100 times. This determines the thickness of your doll. If you desire thicker or thinner, adjust the number of times you wrap your yarn accordingly. Tie a square knot to secure your final wrap of the yarn and cut free from the skein.

Cut a length of yarn from your skein long enough for you to be able to tie around the wrapped yarn. Pick one edge of the cardboard and tie your yarn together into a bundle there. Secure this with a square knot. If you desire to have your yarn remain looped, fold your length of cardboard enough to remove the tension on your loops of yarn. This will allow you to slip your yarn free from the cardboard. With a second length of yarn, tie another knot about the bundle of yarn roughly an inch down from the knot holding your looped yarn in a bundle. This forms the head of your doll.

Divide your yarn bundle into four separate smaller bundles. The two bundles to the outside of the arrangement need to be tied close to the lower knot forming the head with a separate length of yarn for each. A third of the way to the ends of these bundles, the bundle needs secured here as well. This roughly forms the arms. The arms then have the excess yarn cut off after the lower knot. Additional lengths of yarn can be knotted to secure the arms additionally, but this is not required.

At roughly the same distance from the head of your doll as the ends of the doll's arms are, secure the two inner bundles together. This forms the body of the doll. The legs are then formed in the same fashion as the arms. If you desire for the doll to have a 'dress' the legs need not be divided and secured. If you are so inclined the arms, body, and legs can be braided prior to knotting. If you are giving this doll to a young child, the braiding is a good idea as it helps prevent the child from accidentally pulling the doll apart and eating some of the yarn.

Tin Can Tea Light Lantern

This project is slightly more difficult and oriented towards an adult or teenager construction. I've done this project several times in the past and I have had favorable reactions. I strongly advise that when constructing this project, hold the can still with a pair of blocks or something else that is safer then your knees. If a vise is available, use it but be careful not to crush your can. Use caution! The designs best suited for punching are geometric. Think about the star patterns on the old steel and aluminum colanders, they are great sources of ideas!

Items Needed:

1. 1 empty 10 oz steel can, washed, dried, and label removed
2. Masking tape
3. Pattern template
4. Hammer and 1 ten penny nail
5. 4 in length of steel wire and pliers
6. Safety glasses and leather workman's gloves

With your masking tape, secure your pattern template to your can. Using the hammer and nail, carefully punch holes into your can as indicated on the template. Take care to avoid punching the nail completely through the can. As you work, the can will deform slightly. This is to be expected and using your gloves, you can return the can to it's proper shape with some gentle pressure. If the can has sharp edges at the opening, carefully tap the rim until the edges are blunted and turned inwards.

If a hanging hook is desired, a length of wire can be cut to form it. Taking a pair of pliers, bend an end of the wire into a button hook shape and slip through a hole near the top of the can. Secure the end of the wire by twisting it around the length left free. Make sure the sharp end of the wire is pointing down into the can, if possible threaded through the coils created by wrapping the wire. Repeat this at the opposite side of the can in a hole at approximately the same place. This will give your tin can lantern a bucket like appearance.

Use this lantern with care because metal conducts heat. Painting the lantern is not a good idea because the heat from the candle can potentially scorch the paint. It is wise to make sure that the wire used for the hanging hook is of the same material as the lantern itself. If you have an aluminum can, do not use steel wire. Aluminum encourages the corrosion of steel in the presence of moisture and you will eventually develop rust streaks down the aluminum.