Yum! Look at those green beans!

This is the summer I decided to start learning how to can! Preserving food at the height of freshness....well, it's a very frugal and green thing to do. I finally convinced my mom to show me how. Both my grandmothers canned when they had children and even when I was a little girl. You used to can because if you didn't, you wouldn't be eating in the winter! Of course now we've got fairly cheap canned goods we can buy, but it's just not the same as home-canned foods, and this way we know what we're getting---which is organic food grown either at hom or at a small family farm where we buy some things.

So far we've just canned the green beans, but there's more to come.

And I'm back....

So I've been away for about 7 months. I really want to be inspired enough to keep this blog going.

I finally startd participating in Freecycle. I've been a member of a few local lists for a while now but never put anything up for grabs. Well, now I'm on a roll. lol So far I've given away 10 recordable VHS tapes, a truck box, a treadmill, and a bunch of packing supplies. Next I'll have clothes to get rid of, and then who kows what as I keep looking around my house and finding things I just don't need!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas. Everyone did a pretty good job of giving what I like to refer to as "a crapless Christmas." This means not using little cheap junk to fill in when you couldn't think of anything else to buy. One of our well-meaning family members grabs on to the idea that you like something, then runs with it for the next 10 years. I am not kidding. The problem is that she buys a whole bunch of things centered around that interest, then doles them out over many years. By the time eveyone's tastes have changed, they've stopped collecting a certain item, or they just really don't want any more of that particular item. My husband stopped collecting a certain item years ago (and never really wanted to collect little statues of the thing--just enjoyed taking pictures of this item, visiting them when on vacation, etc.) Yet the family member is still going strong and giving him at least one of these items each year. This year it was a candle made in China and we put it directly in the donation box when we got home. Don't mean to sound ungrateful but there's no room for it and we're concerned about polluting our home with lead.