Spring Cleaning While Channeling My Inner KonMari

This^^^^ is my homemaking, homesteading, homeschooling, nerd uniform……

My closet was a mess. Like you couldn’t get into it mess. I dug deep, channeled my inner KonMari and tossed out twelve bags of stuff. Below is the link to KonMari’s very tidy website to learn more.

https://konmari.com/

Something about changing seasons creates a magnetic pull from the universe to make you do shocking things…. Like totally clear out your closet with the intent of keeping only 1/3 of what was there. It was the great purge of material constraints that were holding back my souls peaceful potential. In other words too much junk makes me grumpy so I tossed it.

I’ve heard that too many choices can overwhelm people and create anxiety. We prefer to pick from eight colors rather than a hundred and eighty four colors. There is even a name for it “Overchoice”. The link below goes into more depth on this fascinating subject.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/more-tech-support/201011/the-burden-choice

At first glance this appears to be a very first world problem reserved only for self-centered shopaholics. The truth is it is a symptom of a much more sinister problem. Collectively people of all economic levels have a limited quantity mindset. In a nutshell people hang on to things for longer than they should because they don’t feel like they will always have enough no matter how much they have or don’t have.

Millions of dollars have been made in books, seminars, and such trying to convince people that we should all adopt a attitude of abundance. We’re told the world has plenty of everything all you have to do is order it from the universe. I don’t know if all those universe prime members were very impressed with Covid. I am currently not very patiently waiting for Samsung to catch up on production of the phone I need to replace because it was dropped in the toilet. The universe seems to be a little backed up at Wal-mart right now because, Covid…..

Every option you are given with every choice you make comes with a whole story you have to create of how that option will play out in your life. A few stories are no big deal but anything over ten and your writing the follow up novel to war and peace. When we force our brains to work overtime it creates stress which creates cortisol. Cortisol literally slowly kills you so it is a true statement to say you are “Choosing yourself to death.”

The truth is that our very DNA instructs us to build reserves just like a squirrel collects nuts in the fall. In fact they are studying how certain chromosomes may be responsible for hoarding. The feeling of needing multiples of the same item is a basic survival knee jerk designed to keep us prepared for leaner times.

I had four pairs of black flats, two of which hurt my feet but I kept them so I could wear them if I knew I didn’t have to walk too far because I felt the need to have many options just in case the availability to black flats was limited in the future. It sounds like madness but 2020’s breakdown in production systems has completely reinforced this madness. Keeping clothing or other personal items because you have a strong sense of lack of abundance or just because you feel bad for giving it away is madness and I am a hundred percent guilty.

When I first heard about the KonMari method I was totally into it. I have long been a fan of “The Minimalists” so I naturally lean towards minimalism but my husband leans towards reality show worthy hoarding. I find his bad habits occasionally rub off on me and I wind up with a crazy amount of non-essential personal items.

“….From simple living, decluttering, and finances, to passion, health, and relationships, Essential is for anyone who desires a more intentional life.” – The Minimalists

Figuring out how to tackle the mammoth task of cutting your belongings down is big business these days. Everyone has a method that is guaranteed to work for you. Some of the methods are:

Just do it – Rip it off like a Band-Aid, bulldoze through and toss anything you haven’t touched in 6 months. Pro: It’s very immediate and results will be seen quickly. Con: You can make overemotional decisions in the heat of moment that you may regret and will turn you off from cleaning in the future if you can’t look back on it as a positive experience.

15 minutes day – This method is basically set a timer and start in one spot and do what you can for the allotted time Pro: If you are limited on time or easily distracted from tasks this might be just the commitment level you can do at any one time. Con: With the mess I had this could take months and I get bored with tasks so I need to see results to keep persevering.

Declutter in groups – The basic premise here is declutter things of similar nature all at one time and then move to the next group. Start with shoes and move to shirts, then pants, then jackets, and so on. Pro: You can see how many multiples of the same item you have which may help cull the stuff. Con: This approach can really add work to the task if you have everything spread around and not in one location.

I choose the declutter in groups method. Most of my personal items are grouped together so it worked out easier just to go to one area and clean then move to the next and so on. It did end up becoming a several day project only because I have littles and when I go in my closet their little radars detect it and they raid the fridge or pee on the floor or generally cause mass destruction or all three at the same time.

In winter I like wearing a black long sleeve thin wool shirt with jeans and black boots or black flats and on occasion I will dress it up with a seasonally relevant scarf and when I’m feeling really crazy I’ll wear the same shirt in Olive green or burgundy. In the summer I wear jean shorts with a black (occasionally burgundy or olive green) tee shirt or black (occasionally burgundy or olive green) tank top. So why on earth do I have a bright red super fancy linen sleeveless top? You can’t even machine wash it? I’ve had it for three years and never worn it. Madness I tell you, madness!!!

During my research on this subject I read a blog from a woman who made a very good point about the idea of keeping a minimalist closet, she said she tried wearing the same clothes and found she disliked seeing herself in pictures constantly wearing the same thing. That is absolutely not an issue for me but I know quite a few people who’s identities are completely entwined with their appearance. This isn’t a bad thing it just isn’t my thing. I have never been known for my stellar style sense in fact most people assume I’m going to a funeral or a job interview if I change my daily predictable black top and jeans uniform.

Whether we like to admit it or not we judge people all the time (yep even you) and the first thing we judge is appearance. Is this person clean? Is this person wearing a recognizable uniform? Does this person look like us? It is a tough time to discuss prejudice because if you admit to having any prejudice you are a bad person that has no place in our society and therefore you should be hung, drawn and quartered for your blatant humanity. But like it or not what we wear has a lot to do with how we prejudge people.

When I see someone wearing basic clothing, short nails (dirty or not) and sensible shoes I know immediately I’ve found a relatable soul. If I meet someone with really polished nails, super high heels and very expensive accessories I already know we are going to have a hard time finding common ground. I’ve been surprised before but it’s rare. We share signs of our values on our body like a badge to alert people that we are a part of a group that has certain values and made certain commitments that shape our lives. It’s the reason large professional groups wear uniforms like the military or medical professionals. This article voices an interesting perspective on how style can used as a uniform.

https://www.racked.com/2017/1/4/13982918/uniforms-cultural-history

Our days are filled with constant stressors and my goal is to eliminate as many stressors as I reasonably can to promote a clear peaceful frame of mind so I can devote my mind energy to the things I’ve chosen to be important in my life. Creativity flows so much easier when you have the time to practice wrangling it. For me removing chaos in my closet and complex style decisions in the morning is just what I need to allow my total focus for the things I value most in my life.

My mornings have been dramatically less stressful. I go in pick one of my black shirts, a pair of jeans, black boots, and off I go. No guilt for not wearing a colorful shirt or floral pants. Nope I know what I like and I’ve created a space to reduce my choices to a simple set of tried and true clothes I wear all the time that I love and feel comfortable in. No stress, no cortisol, and I get to live another day.

April 6, 2021 0

Cooking on a Wood Stove – Part 1

Almost everyone that visits our home is immediately struck that we don’t have a conventional electric or gas cook stove, we have a wood cook stove and use it exclusively to cook and heat our home. I have been cooking on my stove for over 7 years and love it. The model in my kitchen is a Prity 2P50:

https://prity-bg.com/en/products/cooking-stoves/prity-2p50/

When I started looking for wood cook stoves this model was perfect because of the basic look and the width but the oven height was a serious concern. The height of the oven feels very low but when its comparably measured to a conventional oven it is only about two inches shorter if you take into consideration the electric elements above and below. All my pans easily fit in the oven without a problem.

This is a Bulgarian wood cook stove so it does a have a few quirks about it. The temperature gauge is in Celsius which is an easy fix you can just get a free-standing thermometer that stands inside the stove that registers Fahrenheit.

The door completely comes off the hinges without any trouble. The door is light weight which makes it a one person job to connect and disconnect. I leave the door off unless I plan on cooking because loads of heat pours out of the oven heating my kitchen and dining room effortlessly. If you want the heat to stay on the cook top you can push a knob in that activates an internal damper allowing the heat to bypass the oven and stay intensely on the stove which is a great feature for summer.

One of the main things that threw me for a big expensive loop was that the intake chimney is a size 5 which is standard in some parts of Europe, but as with everything, ‘Merica has gotta be bigger. We size our chimney pipes size 6 in the US. The difference isn’t much visually but size 5 chimney pipe is exclusively special order anywhere you go which is French for: Le Pricey. We opted for just sizing up to 6 which makes the pipe look a little funny but this isn’t a show piece and functionality won out.

Re-reading what I’ve just written makes me sounds like a wood cook stove sales person, that’s not my intention. When I was searching for my own stove I could find a lot of information on measurements and what it looks like but nothing on the nuts and bolts literally. Cooking on a conventional stove is different to cooking on a wood cook stove but shopping for one is different as well.

I could talk, or type as it were, you’re ear off all day about cooking on a wood cook stove so I’m going to break the blogs up so its a little less overwhelming. If you’re interested in hearing more follow along as I discuss setting the fire in the fire box, keeping it going, and cooking things without burning them.

If you’re still reading this and you’re still interested feel free to comment or email. A wood cook stove isn’t just a huge purchase it’s a lifestyle and finding people that are as excited about it as I am is like finding a needle in a haystack. I can’t wait to hear from those who have stoves or just want to know more.

April 4, 2021 0

Farm Fresh Gluten-free Biscuits

Gluten-free Biscuits

Servings: 9-10
Time: 35 mins
Difficulty: medium
Print

Dry ~
2 1/2 cups Gluten-free flour
1 Tbl baking powder
2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda

Wet ~
4 tbls cold butter (1/2 stick)

1 1/2 cup cold milk
2 Tbl white vinegar

Mix 1 1/2 cup whole milk and 2 Tbl white vinegar, place in freezer.
Mix dry ingredients well.
Cut in cold butter into dry ingredients
Mix cold milk mixture into dry ingredients.
Scrape mixture out of bowl onto floured cutting board. Dust with flour and mold into round flattened mound about 2 inches thick. Use biscuit cutter to cut out 9 – 10 biscuits. Place on baking sheet and cook at 450f for 15 – 20 mins or until golden brown (For wood Stove cook at high heat and turn twice).

Note : You can add any dry ingredients such as raisins or cinnamon sugar, wet ingredients will require more flour.

http://www.TheMeadowCroft.com

This is my own personal recipe and I think they are the best gluten-free biscuits. We eat them with homemade strawberry rhubarb jam or sausage, egg, and cheese.

This recipe is pretty forgiving so you can easily get creative and add all sorts of things to spice it up. The only things that are really important for success on this one is flouring your surface and preheating the oven. This is a sticky dough so flour will help tame it and if you stick them into a cold oven they will just melt into a thin biscuit mess.

April 4, 2021 0

White Bread From Across The Pond

Gluten-free has been chalked up to a trendy new diet fad but for some it’s the way we have to eat for the rest of our lives. Finding good wholesome gluten-free recipes is key to emotional survival when you’re committed to a gluten free diet. Our household is completely gluten-free which is nice because there is no threat of cross contamination but difficult because feeding a family of 5 gluten-free is expensive!!! This recipe is relatively inexpensive and easier than most.

I find it pretty easy to add stuff to this bread like nuts and seeds, sharp cheddar cheese shredded, 1/4 cup honey but you must add 1/4 to 1/2 cup extra GF flour play with it it depends on your elevation. He says he likes to use a spoon to mix but I use a mixer because I’m lazy (this is a reoccurring theme in my life) although the spatula at the end is prefect don’t try anything else.

The whole letting it rise in a box thing is a little too much work for me because, you guessed it…..I’m lazy and don’t want to buy a box just for rising bread so I put parchment paper in a large size bread loaf pan and loosely covered it with cling wrap. He says it will rise in 30 mins, 30 to 45 mins seems about right but most of the real rising movement happens in the last 10 minutes so if you don’t see anything just keep waiting, if you still don’t see anything at 45 mins move it to a little warmer spot to rise. This is not the kind of bread you can leave untended for hours while it rises, it will explode and make a colossal mess. This is a bread to make and let rise while you’re doing dishes and cleaning up the kitchen.

When you pull this out of the oven let it rest, fresh warm bread is hard to resist and everyone wants to dig in but this one really needs to meditate and come to terms with the fact that its now a loaf of bread, 30 mins at least. Cut the bread upside down it will save you from smooshing it too much, trust me.

You can except the bread’s freshness to last about 3 to 4 days after that it really starts to get a vinegary taste so if it won’t be eaten in that amount of time consider cutting it up and freezing it. Like I’ve said before baking gluten free anything is tough, you are defying physics so give your self time to get the rhythm of each recipe. The 100th loaf will be so much better than the first.

Quick note – Save the left over egg yolks in a bag in the freezer. Mark the bag with how many are in it, you can use them for custard or tanning sheep hides we will talk about both another day.

April 4, 2021 0

I Made Gluten-free Bread……Good Gluten-free Bread

https://theloopywhisk.com/2020/04/02/ultimate-gluten-free-bread/

Saw dust, dry, crumbly, sad, more butter makes it better, all words and phrases used to describe the taste and texture of gluten-free bread. I have Celiac so “cheating” is never an option. I am at the mercy of cheap yucky gluten-free bread or extremely expensive, hard to find OK gluten-free bread….Until now baby.

Feast your eyes on the above picture ^^^^^. I stumbled on this gem and gave it try this bread is amazing. I have never been an avid bread maker but between the cost and scarcity I’m teaching myself out of pure desperation.

I have tried several so called easy recipes and my take away is this: Making gluten-free bread is hard and needs exact science to work, no pinch of this or that allowed. I enjoy being in the kitchen and the fact that my entire family is gluten-free helps keep me motivated to soldier on and find the very best bread recipes.

The link below will take you to the link of the original recipe I used. I substituted the potato starch for corn starch, because its cheaper and it’s all I had and I didn’t want to drive the 50 mile round trip go to the store. I was also very lazy when it came to rising the bread. Wrangling three littles determined to destroy my home means I can’t always stop at the exact intervals of 1 hour on each rise so my rise times ventured more towards the 2 to 3 hour mark, whether that helped or hurt I’m not sure but it worked out either way.

I cook on a wood stove exclusively (more on that later in this blog) so I like using my antique Dutch oven for anything I can it just seems to work so well in the wood cook stove like peas and carrots. For this recipe I used the Dutch oven and put around 5 ice cubes in the bottom under the parchment paper. She also explains the water pan in the oven method but that’s a lot of work and as we have already established I seriously lean towards the lazy side.

Anytime you try something new it doesn’t work quite as well the first time as the 100th time you do it, luckily for me I’m not a perfectionist so I just keeping do things all the while genuinely surprised when they get better and better. This recipe is one of those times were the 4th loaf was so much better than the first.

I’ve heard that different people can make the same bread recipe and it tastes different even if they all share the same skill level. I personally think it has to do with the kneading, for some reason you get into a rhythm and it’s like putting your signature on it. If it’s your first time or your pretty new to making bread be patient while your finding your groove.

April 4, 2021 0

Make Your Babies Tiny Hiney Smell Like Roses

Rose Baby Wipes

Time: 10 mins
Difficulty: easy
Print

1 Roll of Bounty Whole Sheet Paper Towels

2 cups Boiling Water
1 tbl Coconut Oil
1/2 tsp Rose Castile Liquid Soap

1 Gallon size freezer zip lock bag

1 – Cut paper towel roll in half with non-serrated knife and pull out brown roll, wipe any fuzz off
2 – Put the half roll cut side down into freezer zip lock bag pull the middle towel out to get it started
3 – Put 1 tbl Coconut oil and 1/2 tsp Rose Castile soap in a bowl pour 2 Cups boiling water over it and stir until liquid
4 – Pour mixture on top of half roll of paper towels in zip lock gallon size bag, smoosh bag and close. Be careful it is HOT use a towel if needed or wait until it cools down a bit.
5 – Mark date made on bag. Wipes keep fresh for up to 6 months

***Pro-tip: If you get the larger Bounty rolls from places like Costco or Sam’s add an extra 1/2 cup boiling water. You can use any smell or no smell castile soap. Don’t use these on windows or things that you wouldn’t put oil on.

http://www.TheMeadowCroft.com

Changing poopy butts is not one of the highlights of parenthood. Not only is the smell a misery but diaper rash and cranky babies makes it worse. I find even fragrance free commercial wipes are just to much for my kiddos sensitives parts so after trying lots of failed DIY wipes I found these to be the best. They help with the smell and protect sensitive little butts. You can use whatever castile soap with whatever smell you like. They are thinner than commercial wipes which can be annoying but I just double them up and they are fine for me.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1a-hiney-cutting.jpg

1 – Cut paper towel roll in half with non-serrated knife and pull out brown roll, wipe any fuzz off

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1a-hiney-cut-into-two.jpg

2 – Put the half roll cut side down into freezer zip lock bag pull the middle towel out to get it started

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1a-hiney-ingredients.jpg

3 – Put 1 tbl Coconut oil and 1/2 tsp Rose Castile soap in a bowl pour 2 Cups boiling water over it and stir until liquid

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1a-hiney-pouring-into-bag.jpg

4 – Pour mixture on top of half roll of paper towels in freezer zip lock gallon size bag, smoosh bag and close. Be careful it is HOT use a towel if needed or wait until it cools down a bit.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is 1a-hiney-smushed-down.jpg

5 – Mark date made on bag. Wipes keep fresh for up to 6 months

April 4, 2021 0