Holy Week Count Down

Here's the plan:

Monday - attend outdoor Stations of the Cross with local homeschool group.
Tuesday - See the new movie about St. Paul
Wednesday - shop for Passover, Easter breakfast and dinner, go to confession at night
Thursday - attend Holy Thursday Mass
Good Friday - Fast, attend Adoration of the Cross, dye Easter Eggs
Holy Saturday - Host Passover for family; go to vigil (which starts at 8:30!!!)
Easter Sunday - hunt for Easter Eggs - eat matzoh brie and other things (have to be gluten free), relax, roast the lamb shoulder and do all the fixings for an early dinner. 

I am sure this is going to be complicated by B's rehearsal schedule and community college classes. 

Date Night and Planning Our Anniversary Trip!

Rick and I haven't had a real date in a while.   Lately, we just seem to run errands together and call that a date.  But last night we actually made reservations at a nice restaurant and then went to the movies afterwards!  Dinner was very nice at Sweetwater Tavern.  And then we saw Darkest Hour, which was okay but not as good as I expected it to be.  It was rather contrived and they really dumbed down Winston Churchill.  However, it wasn't horrible and I am fascinated with that time period in history.  So it was an enjoyable evening.  AND we started planning our 30th wedding anniversary trip. 

I'm a bit suspicious so I'm kind of nervous about planning this far in advance.  One never knows what may happen between now and then, but you only have 1 30th anniversary, so we decided to plan anyway.

So here's what we are thinking:

Leave home on Saturday, 10/27/18 on a night flight to London - nopstop. 
Arrive in London around 7 a.m. their time Sunday.  Spend the day going to Mass, some gentle sightseeing (maybe one of those city tour buses), some resting and relaxing.
Next morning take an early morning flight to Tel Aviv where hopefully our tour group will pick us up and get us to Jerusalem where the tour starts.
Then we spend the next week seeing Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Petra, Wadi Rum, Eilat, Negev Desert, Masada, the Dead Sea, Galilee and Nazareth.
We'll spend the last day (11/5 - our actually wedding anniversary) as a free day in Jerusalem.
11/6 we'll fly back to London and have that evening and the next two days to poke around London.
Fly home on Friday so we have the weekend to deal with jet lag.

I'm excited!  I hope this works out!

I'm thinking of starting a vlog

This may be a dumb idea.  I'm thinking of doing it for several reasons.

1) It would be to commemorate in a different way, my last year of homeschooling (so it wouldn't start officially until August or something).
2)  I would have to learn new skills which would be kind of cool.
3)  The blog world used to be hopping!  But now it has kind of died down, at least in my obscure corner of it, whereas vlogs seems to be more popular now.
4)  I think having an external, visual record of things would help me get over my extreme laziness/burn out in terms of keeping things tidier around here.  If I know the camera will be on, I think I'll be more intentional and on top of my game so to speak.  At least for a while!

I'm thinking I would still call it Household Diary and there would be different sections I'd sort of 'report' on maybe 2x a week.  I could have clips on: 

Bits and pieces of our current homeschooling
A retrospective on the last 20 years of homeschooling
My philosophy of homeschooling
My favorite read alouds and resources over the years
Zero waste living
Cooking
Gardening
Housekeeping
Books I'm currently reading
Nature/parks we visit
Prayer and spirituality/liturgical year

I keep thinking of other ideas too, for clips.  I don't think others in my family would figure heavily in this, as they are not keen on being on camera especially. 

Gardening without Plastic

I am getting really excited about my new garden.  We have to wait on the garden planning folks though.  Since we need a major redesign on our whole yard we called in the experts last fall.  But they can't get started until April. Sob.  Though, the guy assured me he was going to try to make it so I can get my tomatoes in not too late.

I wish I knew how to turn this photo!

I ordered a bunch of seeds from a North Carolina company called Sow True Seeds.

And I'm thinking I will turn my dining room into a seedling factory for a while.

We are in zone 7a, as far as I can figure.  And the last frost date is some time in late April or occasionally early May.  So my general target date is May 1st.  That means if I want to start tomatoes, I should probably do so about six weeks in advance (I think I read six to eight, but since I am not even sure if my raised beds will be ready quite that early, I'm going with six weeks.)  So I am aiming to start all this the week after St. Patrick's Day.

I have been reading up on how to avoid those plastic seedling trays.  I plan to use cardboard egg cartons.  I saw a video that uses coffee grounds too.  I need to contact my compost service to see if I can get some nice composted soil from them.

Besides egg cartons, you apparently can use the cardboard tube from toilet rolls too!

There is also a company that produces biodegradable seedling pots.

My beginning collection of egg cartons and toilet paper tubes!

Now I just need to find trays that will hold any water, so I don't damage my nice dining room table.  I also need to make this whole seedling production thing portable because I am going to probably need my dining room table for Passover and Easter.  Maybe it will be warm enough I can put them outside on the back porch temporarily.  Or I could use the study but we still haven't cleaned it out - absolutely chock full of junk right now!

Public Safety and Guns

The gun violence public safety problem . . . . here are my thoughts.

Gun control folks, stop talking like you want to take guns away from everybody and stop treating the other side like they are idiots or evil.  You only make the problem worse.  You make people distrust you and dig in their heels against you. When someone is on the defensive, which is better?  To make them more defensive or to talk them down from their defenses?   There is an outcry after every mass shooting and yet nothing happens.  Why do you think that is?  Perhaps it is your own fault.  There is a whole 2^nd amendment culture out there that is very deeply ingrained.  It is counterproductive to scream at them in your rage.

Instead let’s find common ground.  No one, even gun owners,  likes the fact that our children are shot down by thugs and the criminally disturbed.  Most people I know who want guns, want them for PROTECTION from thugs and the criminally disturbed.  Guns sales GO UP after a mass shooting.  That’s because a) people are more afraid and want to defend themselves b) they are afraid this will be the straw that broke the camel’s back and the government will clamp down on their freedom to bear arms.

We need genuine dialogue to solve this problem.  To dialogue with someone, you first need to see their humanity and try your best to understand their point of view.  You don’t have to agree, but you do have to try to understand.  So instead of raging at the NRA, how about we all come together to mourn this horrible violence endemic in our culture.  Then let’s say to them:  My brother, my sister, let us work together in solidarity for the beloved memory of our dead.  Let us protect our children and our country.

For instance, what if we held gun manufacturers liable in some way for these murders. If you produce an inherently dangerous thing, you should do everything possible to minimize the danger.  If these corporations are held responsible, they may very well be incentivized to develop things faster like smart guns or other ways to diminish chances of guns getting into the wrong hands.

We don’t want to take guns away from law-abiding, responsible citizens who have the right to own them.  We can’t anyway, they have an established constitutional right.  And if we did, I really think it would be like prohibition.  Stop comparing us to other countries that do not have a 2^nd amendment culture.  It’s like comparing apples and oranges.  Yes they are both fruit and round but it doesn’t go much further than that.  What we want is to figure out ways to keep guns out of the hands of those who would misuse them.  Guns are highly dangerous and to misuse them is to bring on great tragedy.  The nature of a gun requires that there be a high standard for responsible ownership.  If you want the freedom to own a gun, you must be prepared to bear the burden of responsibility in owning such a dangerous weapon. 

I keep reading how one common factor for many of these attacks (barring terrorism, I think) is domestic abuse.  Most of these guys who take to shooting crowds of innocent people have some sort of record of domestic violence.  Let’s make it so you can’t own a gun if you have a habit of beating up your wife or girlfriend.   People who have proven themselves violent should have a super hard time getting a gun.  That just makes sense to me.

I know there would be a big issue with black market guns.  I know this is a really complex issue.  But maybe if we put more energy into brainstorming together as people with a common goal, we’d come up with a plausible solution.  Let’s rally around the fact that no one wants to be nervous every time they go to church or into a MacDonald’s or to school that some crazy person is going to start shooting at them.  Some people respond to this problem by wanting to arm themselves.  Other people respond to this problem by clamoring for change in gun laws.  They both want the same thing but have different ways of achieving safety.  We are all people with loved ones we want no harm to come to.  Let’s focus on that.

The NRA was founded to teach gun safety.  Let us encourage it to go back to its roots.  How can we ensure  law-abiding, responsible citizens their right to bear arms and keep those arms away from unstable or violent people?

For the sake of our children, let’s stopped being so polarized and entrenched in our positions.  It renders us impotent. Let’s try something different.   Let’s reach out our hand and join with others, even those we disagree with, and try to find solutions that are acceptable to both sides.  It will take self-control and patience and the ability to really listen to each other.  Let’s get started!

Stumbling Along

This gluten, dairy, soy free diet is a killer!  Couple that with trying to be zero waste and you really can't eat most things!

My new way of making scrambled eggs which used to have a bit of milk mixed in and cooked up in butter (Yum!) is to mix in a tiny bit of water and then cook up in olive oil.  But now I season the eggs with salt, pepper, a pinch of garlic salt and some sweet smoked paprika.  It tastes pretty good!

I've taken to buying those Applegate sausages.  They are a quick thing to cook up, filling, and you can recycle the boxes - no plastic or anything. 

For a quick lunch or snack, I've been bring in my own cleaned out peanut butter jar to either Mom's Organics or Whole Foods, getting the tare weight and then grinding my own.  I eat this with banana or apple and compost the peel or the core. 

Monday night we had meatloaf, roasted potatoes and salad.  The ground beef was from Whole Foods so it was wrapped in butcher paper that is compostable. I have 1/2 lb left that I need to cook up for tonight's dinner.  So we might have pasta with a tomato-meat sauce.    Last night we had hot dogs from The Fresh Market.  You can buy them directly over the deli counter so I brought my own container.  I was barely functioning so we just had the hot dogs and then I sliced up two big ripe mangoes.  And that was all I could muster for dinner last night!

A few not so zero waste things I've been doing for B's sake, so she doesn't starve to death.

Daiya mac and cheese.  Mac and cheese was something B ate at least twice a week.  It was her comfort food.  She's ok with this substitute.  It does have an inner packet that goes to the landfill. 

The other thing is gluten free Rice Krispies.  This is a quick breakfast or snack which she eats with unsweetened vanilla almond milk.  She likes it.  We also bought marshmallows (in plastic bags) to make rice krispie treats for her AHG meeting.  Because there are always lots of cookies and cake there for the girls to eat and B can't eat any of it.  This coming meeting though I think I'll just make a big bag of popcorn right before we leave and she can munch on that.

We've been relying a lot on Cava Grill and Chipotle for lunches. 

I can bake 3 loaves of bread out of this one package.

We still love Pamela's for homemade easy bread that both gluten free folks and regular folks enjoy eating.

Alas, this does have a plastic inner lining.

And the King Arthur brownie mix keeps us from being too depressed when we realize ice cream is no longer a thing for us. . . .

Last week, S had the flu that has been going around.  He had a fever for a couple days and then was really congested.  One day he got this craving for spicy Indian food.  So we ordered take out from a restaurant that we'd never eaten from.  We ordered a ton of food and it cost a million dollars and it all came in plastic.  BUT I swear it fed us for three days.  And I didn't have to worry about cooking.  Those who do not do Indian food simply ate elsewhere I think.  I'm not sure what they did.  We had a lot of workmen coming in and out to deal with our huge basement flood so I wasn't focusing on much.  It's all kind of a fog to me.

I feel I am repeating a lot of this food information, but I'm too lazy to go back and see what I've posted about in terms of this diet and my paltry attempts at being zero waste. 

We had a speaker at our parish give a talk on zero waste and the Catholic faith.  She was a wonderful speaker.  Check out her blog!  She had a display of some of the everyday things she uses to avoid generating trash.  One of these was this!  I just ordered some to try out. 

I didn't give up You Tube!

While I am trying to curtail my time of facebook (I was quite weak on Saturday about this!) and I stopped twitter all together, I am still watching videos on youtube.  I just thought I'd share my favorites right now:

Fouch Family Off Grid - this one has been a constant favorite.  I met Esther at the Homesteaders Conference.  I read her book What Falls From the Sky.  Wonderful read!  The Fouch family is Esther, Nick and their three children.  They moved out into the woods of Idaho to live in a yurt for 3 years while Nick built their home out of wood he milled from their own property.  They are funny, smart, eloquent, gentle, loving, hardworking, principled, great-hearted people.

Art and Bri - this is the youtube channel from a small farm in the mountains of North Carolina.  Art works as a nurse at a nearby hospital to help support their homesteading endeavors.  They bought a ramshackle old farm and are trying to revive it.  They have a cow, pigs, chickens, etc.  They grow a big garden.  They have 4 children and Bri is about to have their 5th any day now.  They also are gentle, thoughtful, hardworking, and lots of fun to watch.

Homesteady - this homestead is up in Connecticut and the couple with their children (maybe only two or three?) are a hoot!  They make really funny videos about lots of things going on. I think both work outside the homestead but they are also focused on making money from the homestead as well.  They love their cow and pigs!  Austin also does a podcast on the homesteading lifestyle.  He just did a great series on making your own maple syrup.  He's also experimenting with aquaponics which I find really interesting (mostly because I can see Rick kind of getting into that).

Bobblehead Homestead - Jeff somehow got $5000 to buy an old piece of property in the boonies of Arkansas.  He lives in a gorgeous area but his property was not well treated which is why it was so cheap.  He is living in the abandoned trailer home and slowly trying to revive the place.  His dream to sell cut flowers to the local markets.  Because as he says, even out in the country, high schools have proms and there are weddings and funerals, church services, etc that all want flowers.  Most flowers in this country are foreign grown and shipped here, which if you think about it, is really silly.  Jeff has Parkinson's disease but the world's best attitude.  He takes care of some feral chickens and stray cats he befriended on his property.  Again a gentle, hard working, joyful guy.  He always gives a shout out for another you tube channel to check out, trying to help others get more viewers.

White House on the Hill - this couple in Missouri is the most generous couple.  Their videos are mostly about other people's youtube channels or they post stuff to help other businesses.  They recently did a video on comparing the prices and ordering process from three different popular seed companies.  Their last video was an interview with another homestead, St. Fiacre's Farm in Oregon where they make artisan teas.  WHOH also regularly does a top ten compilation on things like the best chicken breed or who has the funniest homesteading channel, that sort of thing.  They are kind of ambassadors of good will, in my mind, to all the homesteading you tube community.

The Awesome Homestead - this is a young couple who are a hoot.  They mostly just goof around on camera and make each other laugh.  They moved from Oregon to Missouri and they love the country.  I just like that they are doing this back to the land on a budget thing with gusto.  They just had the one year anniversary of their homestead.  They no longer have to drink creek water!

Off Grid with Doug and Stacy - This is the premier youtube homestead channel.  These are the rock stars of the movement.  And they do want it to be a movement.  Their channel has a little bit of everything. It's encyclopedic in its breadth of content.  I love Stacy's cooking videos but there is tons of information presented in this channel.  Doug and Stacy are two nice, savvy, generous, enthusiastic people who are trying to help others on the road to self-sufficiency and health.  These folks are also in Missouri.  I had never given Missouri a thought before but apparently it is a great place to homestead.  Idaho also seems to be a great state to homestead in as well.

And a couple homesteaders outside the U.S.A:

Little Mountain Ranch - I just started watching this channel.  Chelsea is amazing!  This is a little farm in British Columbia.  She and her husband had two children and then adopted nine more, mostly special needs.  They homeschool them too.  Chelsea is the most down to earth mom and homesteader out there.  She obviously loves her life full of children and animals and nature, even if it is tiring and busy!

The Swedish Homestead - this is another steady favorite, though Simeon has not been blogging as consistently lately.  He and his family live on a compound with his parents and at least one other brother and his family.  His parents are from Germany and bought the land when he was young.  Simeon's wife is American.  So he speaks German, Swedish and English all fluently.  He is very into permaculture and Joel Salatin.   He's a hardworking, enterprising farmer.  He and his wife were mostly selling eggs and vegetables at the farmers market, but he has decided to go into the hatchery business and he's taking us along as he figures out the best hatching machines and business practices.  It is a very interesting channel to watch.

The one thing I love about homesteaders is just how hardworking they are.  Instead of watching them so much, I should try to emulate them and work harder myself!