Mama's Medicine Chest: Onions and Garlic

One of the wonderful things about working with herbs is that you can always learn more. I learned about this cough syrup from a friend about a week ago, just in time to help kick the lingering cough floating around our house. She said they have such great results with it that they share it with everyone. My friend learned this technique from her pediatrician. Here are the very complicated directions. Chop an onion. Layer it in a jar with honey or sugar. Let it set at room temp until the juices start coming out of the onion. That juice is your cough syrup.
I was really curious how this would taste, but I found it smells a lot worse than it tastes. Ours mainly tasted like water downed honey...though I do still have a cold right now, so it could have an effect on my taste buds. I would use sugar if you are making this for a little one too small to eat honey. If you are using honey it will be worth your time to find a local source of unpasteurised unfiltered honey to make this with, as it will help with the cold. If you have trouble locating some try looking for a nearby bee keeping association, or asking at your local health food store (not a chain store, a local owned one). My mother-in-law says she remembers her mom making a version of this and putting it in their chest too. Sounds pretty messy to me, but I would try it if I was desperate.
This second remedy is a garlic salve that I learned on-line called GOOT...I've not seem WHY it's called GOOT, my guess is Garlic Olive Oil Treatment, but I don't know. I really love this stuff. And since I learned it I try to always keep about five heads of garlic in the house, since I don't want to make a special trip to the store when I need it. I like to make this up in small batches whenever an illness hits. It can loose potency if it gets old. If all of us are sick at once it's best to make a larger batch. These instructions are pretty flexible; I don't measure, but just guess. I use about a tablespoon of coconut oil, two large garlic cloves, a teaspoon of olive oil, 7 drops of oregano oil, and 10 drops of lavender. I mash up my garlic in my little mortar and pestle. If you can't think of any way to smash it just chop it as fine and small as you can. Put your coconut oil in a jar and apply some low heat to melt it. It melts at 76 degrees so I set it outside or in the car or by the woodstove in the winter. I wouldn't microwave it, but I don't microwave anything. Then mix in the rest of your ingredients and let it chill in the fridge. I apply it to our feet and cover with old socks. I also apply it to any swollen lymph nodes on the neck.

Garlic is a natural anti-biotic, anti-fungal, anti-viral, and anti-cancer. It's as powerful as penicillin, but with no side effects, except smell. I understand it works best taken orally, but that's hard to get a two year old to do. You can chop it fine and cover it with honey. I like to chop it pill size and swallow. If I'm very sick I set a timer (or else I will forget) and take a clove every hour. Oregano is anti-bacterial, and some people say an anti-biotic. It helps break up congestion. You can find wild Mediterranean oregano to be taken orally at your health food store or on-line (I would call to see which is meant for oral dosage). The Man and I take it under our tongue. It is VERY hot, and needs a quick chaser. I saw on-line where one lady had taught her 5 years old and older children to drink some water and hold it at the back of their mouth and she would drop some into their mouths in the water and them tell them to swallow. You don't want to use this remedy if you are pregnant. Lavender is an anti-septic and helps people relax, lowers fevers, and it smells much better than garlic. These are the reasons I've included these things. It helps to know the why, because then you know better how to use them. For instance, if there are a lot of colds going around you might want to do a lot of cooking with garlic and oregano, even if your family isn't sick.
I love how simple many of these remedies are. Another wonderful thing about these particular remedies is that I have personally found them to be very effective, but they are gentle enough to be used on very small children. Because of the things I have read, and that these remedies are food based, I personally would feel comfortable using them one of my children at as young as three months, though you need to seek your own advice and prayerfully make your own decisions on these things.
May God grant you wisdom and knowledge as you help keep your family healthy! c

Read other posts in this series:
Blackberries- tummy trouble

Mama's Medicine Chest: Black Berries

I have learned a LOT in the past year about ways to take care of my family's health at home, not just proactive, but also during times of illness. I used to think I just need to 'let things take their course' if I wanted to treat something naturally, and I've put my health in danger following that philosophy. I have since learned there are lots of ways to help our bodies do the things they were designed to do by boosting our immune systems and even using naturally occurring antibiotics. By using these front line defences I haven't yet needed to take my children to the doctor, through there is certainly no shame is using other types of medicine when they are needed. I thought I would start sharing some of the things I have learned now, while most of us are not experiencing colds, so you can thinking about investing in a new medicine chest for yourself a little at a time before the cold season hits. Some of these things are SO inexpensive and easy to do, and today's suggestion certainly is.

Collect and dry black berries, and black berry leaves. I just let them sit out on the counter in dishes to dry then put them in a container to wait till the winter. Use this to make a tea for diarrhea. Some other things you might consider adding to the tea are fennel seed and mint or chamomile for taste.

Here are some other ideas of things you can do for diarrhea, the root cause of the diarrhea will determine how affective these things are.

• Drink rice water- Soak 1 part rice to 2 parts hot water, pour off the water and drink. I mix it with something else, like a yogurt smoothy with black berries to make it easier to drink for the girls. You can still cook the rice and eat it, which is also good for a torn up tummy.
• Drink juice with a few drops of Grapefruit seed extract in it, which helps kill any bad bacteria in your stomach.
• Put lots of raw garlic, a natural antibiotic, in your system. You can cut it pill size and swallow whole, buy capsules, or make a very easy quick garlic salve called GOOT (I'll give directions for it next time) and put it on your feet. Sounds crazy, I know, you should have seen the look on The Man's face when I started this. One of the girls had run a  fever for a day while we were out of town. The poor thing looked like a wilted flower. I mixed this up and an hour later she was up and around playing, and The Man was a believer. This is the BEST cheapest front line defence I have found. You put it on your feet because the pores are some of the largest in your skin and it is most quickly absorbed there. It's also a good place to put your Vick's chest rub. 
• Eat lots of yogurt (the natural kind of a culture listed on the label Dannon is the most common store brand and propiotics. This puts good bacteria back in your stomach.

One great free resource for more information on home remedies is a forum called WellTellMe and a book well worth putting in your library is Be Your Own Doctor.
May God bless you and yours with good health! c

Read other posts in this series:
Onions & Garlic

For those of you who like baby slings

Here's a free promotional code I recieved. The shipping comes to just under $12 which isn't bad for a cute baby sling. You can take the exchange insurance out of your cart to lower cost too. Enjoy!c

1. Go to SevenSlings.com.
2. Click on "Shop Now" and select any baby carrier you like. Be sure to goto the sizing page to get the correct size.
3. Once you have selected your size, you'll automatically be directed to the shopping bag. Enter the promo code " CUPID " and we'll deduct 100% of the cost of the carrier - all you pay are the shipping fees!

Remember: the promo code is " CUPID " and you can use it more than once - just open a new browser window each time you do.

These Baby Carriers make great gifts.
Selections dwindle quickly, so get yours today!

Consider cloth diapers

I can remember when I first heard about cloth diapers. I was honestly unaware of anyone using cloth diapers in this day and time-in the US at least. Seriously, who would want to wash poop when you can just throw it away? Years later I had a friend who used cloth diapers and when I saw how many benefits there where I knew it was something I wanted to do too. And the funny part is that I actually love it. Weird I know. But I'm not the only one. Another mother told me, "I'm looking forward to having another baby so I can use start cloth diapering again." Sounds crazy, but I thought I would tell you about here just in case you had never heard of it either.
So. Here are the benefits of cloth diapering as I see them. The cost of disposables and wipes for twins till 2 1/2 years old I calculated at $3,400 and cost of cloth diapers for twins $400. Wow! This is the biggest selling point for me. It really gives me the feeling of doing my part to be a good manager and steward of The Man's money, which I believe is part of my job as a wife. Now I must mention that we do cloth diapers in the most simple way possible, but like most anything in life you can spend as much money as you want on cloth diapers. I figure a low average cost of disposables for a week for twins is $20. If the girls were perfectly potty trained by 2 1/2 (that's not my goal, just trying to drawl a line for comparison) the cost of disposable diapers would be $2,600. I don't know how to calculate the cost of wipes because I only use disposable wipes sometimes when we are out. It seems like a decent guess would be $800. Below is a cost break down for cloth diapering. The only cost that would increase if we used diapers longer would be the laundry detergent. Many of these items I found used, on sale, or were given to us but I'm counting the average list cost. You can click on the links to see items that I like and where i have bought things at. Remember these are costs for twins.
2 newborn size non adjustable diaper covers $15
4 small diaper covers $48
6 large diaper covers $102
24 flat diapers $24 (this was the cost when I bought them, evidently it's going up at this site)
4 snappis (modern diaper pins) $12
4 pocket diapers (for night time) $60
3 bottles of Charlie's Laundry Soap $75
1 Wet bag (this is to put wet diapers in when your out, you can just use a grocery bag or a zip lock, but I really like the wet bag) $16
Cloth wipes $.40 (I just cut 8"x8" squares out of four old receiving blanks bought at a yard sale for 10 cents each and did a zig-zag sew machine stitch around the edge
Wipes solution $12 (I use a little of this soap mixed with a generous amount of water and a drop or two of lavender oil. It looks like one bottle of each will last me for diapering both girls).
So the grand total is $364 and I would round it up to $400 for shipping. It is worth noting that I bought most things on this list below the prices I listed here. In addition to these cost savings most of the stuff I have bought I am keeping in good enough shape to use again for the next baby.
A lot of people worry about doing laundry all the time. I have to wash baby clothes pretty often anyway, and after the diapers are rinsed I throw everything in the washer together, so I don't end up doing much more laundry that I would otherwise. In addition most days I hang out the diapers to dry, as it helps them last longer. Hanging laundry as a new mom has helped keep me sane. It's a nice little QUIET time to myself with some sunshine and fresh air. I really love it.
Cloth diapers breath well and aren't full of chemicals. We use disposable diapers when we travel or are very busy, and the diaper rash problems we have had came from disposables.
Wow...this post has taken me days to write...little snippets at a time. I'll try to return to this issue in the future and give some more how to and technical information on cloth diapering. Until next time~
Blessings!c

Homemade Christmas...mainly

Between building a house and building twins, we are trying to save as much money around here as we can these days. So with my slowed down schedule I have been busy chipping away at homemade gifts.
Canned goods are high on the list this year: homemade apple pie filling, organic jelly (made from the peels and core left over from the apple sauce- stuff you might otherwise throw away- here's the recipe I used), and sugar free apple sauce (which is so sweet and amazing- we let the apples cook down for forever in the crock pot; it tastes something like liquid fruit leather). A neighbor of my parents had three high producing apple trees with the fruit just rotting away on the ground, so we asked if we could pick up anything that fell. You might think that we just happened to luck out with all this free fruit, but you could probably find a similar source next year, if you live in fruit producing country, if you just look. That's the key part, looking! I drove past the same places for years before I realized that there was a grove of pecan trees...that were going completely to waste, or a pear tree that year after year no one seemed to care about at all. You just have to get up the guts to knock one someone's door and ask if you can use what is going to waste. You can also look for gleaning opportunities. One year my mom and I were able to glean, for free, at the end of the strawberry season, before they tilled in the fields and planted something else. The fruit was all either over ripe or under ripe, but we picked away, and I have to tell you it made some of the most amazing strawberry preserves I've ever tasted.Knitted objects are high on the list too. Shawls, fingerless gloves, baby sweaters...all sorts of projects have been flying off the needles these days.
Used books and new from amazon and a magazine subscription also made the list. One gift that particularly stumped me was for my mother...she's always a little tricky. But I heard her saying how much she could use a binder full of those clear pockets that will hold a standard size piece of paper, to hold all the recipes she clips and prints from different places. So while she was out of town I made this (I used family pics with us eating in the collage too...copies of course not the originals) and gathered up all the stray recipes I could find in the kitchen and popped them into her lovely new book. So this one is an early Christmas present, waiting for her when she gets home.

Need some ideas for gift giving in this budget crunched economy? Check out these links for some great ideas!
http://gnowfglins.com/2009/11/18/chai-tea-gift-mixes/

http://www.thenourishinggourmet.com/2009/11/handmade-gift-carnival.html#more-2402

There are a LOT of things in these links... I can get lost looking at all the good ideas in these links!
http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=291

http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?p=653
The list for this year is not complete yet, so more ideas will be posted in this link. http://sewmamasew.com/blog2/?cat=25

Blessings!c

Lots of little stuff

Here are a few money saving or free things I've run across on the web that I thought I would share.
http://www.printgreener.com/ This is a print driver that you can download, and there is a free download for one home licence. You know when you're printing something from the web and you get that wasted last page with the name of the website and the top and pretty much nothing else? Well this handy little print driver gives you a preview of the print before it sends it, and searches for waste like that and removes it from your print job. It also has functions where you can remove the images or text from a print. In addition to all that you can also print to PDF and save it to your computer. There is a little video at the top right of the web page which shows you how everything works.

http://www.retailmenot.com/ I just ran across this today. Its one place you can go to search for coupons, especially if your making an on-line purchase. They have all kinds of stuff, so it can't hurt to run a search before you process and on-line order and see if there is anything which might save you some money. I found things like codes for free redbox rentals too.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ I think I've posted links to Money Saving Mom a couple of times now, but I'll throw it in just in case you have missed it in the past. This is a young mom who posts about all sorts of savings on food and house hold items. There are usually four or more posts a day. Since we're pretty much not eating processed food any more a lot of it isn't useful to me, but I do have two free magazine subscriptions thanks to this blog.

http://www.oneplace.com/ministries/Homemakers_By_Choice/archives.asp If you've been around awhile, then you've heard me talk about Homemakers By Choice, and if you stick around you'll probably hear it come up again. I LOVE this podcast. I was listening to it for I don't know, probably a year before I met The Man, and learned all kinds of stuff, lots of which you have probably heard me unconsciously repeat here. Right now they have a five series show with profiles of influential Christians through the ages, like Luther, Amy Carmichael, George Muller, which would make for good road trip listening. OnePlace.com has lots of other christian pod casts

http://librivox.org/ I've also mentioned Librivox to most everyone I know, but it's one I just can't pass up :) Librivox is a non-profit who's goal is to have audio recordings of all the books that are in public domain which includes most things published before 1930-something....37 sticks in my brain for some reason. People volunteer to record their readings, and then upload them to the web sight. This is something you could do if you're interested. So one chapter might be read (in English) by a girl from Japan, and the next by a guy in Texas. Everyone once in a while this can be bothersome, if you're listening to someone who's voice grates on your ears, but for the most part I've really enjoyed it. For about a month I wanted to pick up my copy of Jane Eyre, and just couldn't find the time, but managed to listen to the whole book in less than a week. There are histories, novels, short stories, children's stories, poems, how-to books....something for everyone. There are also books in nine different languages.

http://www.hulu.com/ You probably all know this one, but if you have fast enough internet you can stream movies, documentaries, and tv shows to watch from your computer. You don't have to sign up for anything or download anything. There are just a few commercials. They even have one of my favorite movies, Saints and Soldiers.

Have any free on-line stuff you love that I didn't mention? Post a comment!

Cleaning: club soda

Okay- I officially love this stuff. It cost me 80 cents for a bottle (and that was at the pricey grocery store) and after one night of cleaning I have used over half the bottle. Of course I went to open it and it sprayed ALL OVER the place, including me, after being bounced about in the car...but I figured it was no loss since it's supposed to be good for cleaning stuff. I used it on the fixtures in the bathroom, the window ledges, the blinds, and the chair rail moldings, all with great results. I haven't tried it as a glass or kitchen sink cleaner yet, but it's supposed to be good for that too. BTW-One other tip I have learned from the depression era generation is to wipe down your mirrors with you cleaner and a cloth, but dry them with a crumpled piece of news paper. The news paper doesn't leave any fuzz or streaks on your glass. But it was AMAZING as a carpet cleaner. I had some stains which I had been trying for some time to get out. I had used a wet vac and carpet cleaners like Spot Shot. Nothing helped and the Spot Shot seemed to make it worse by drying with a residue and attracting more dirt. But I put club soda on it, let it soak for ten minutes or so, pressed out the moisture with a drag, and my rag was covered in dirty carpet scum. There was one spot I treated twice, but all of them came up! I've heard its best to use club soda in your carpet when it still has some fizz to it. But I found that it works best in a spay bottle when the fizz is gone, because the pressure makes the nozzle drip after every spray. I found some other great uses for club soda here. I was curious while I cleaned what exactly it was about club soda that made it a good cleaning agent, since I had only thought of it as a rather icky drink. Didn't find much...but you just have to look at what I did find, lol. I think I may have to change my mind about it as an "icky-drink" and try making some home made sodas with it. We've haven't been drinking as many sodas because of all the corn syrup in them...and they are generally bad for your health, so this would be a fun alternative to try.

As of now, over half of the detail cleaning at the house is done. I'm hoping that two more evenings of work, one cleaning and one painting will finish everything up. I met with out new agent and the difference was like night and day. I finally have a good feeling about selling the house. I feel confident that the house will sell when it's the right time, and if I ever feel a little inclined to freak I just remind myself of that. Please keep it all in your prayers though. Blessings!c

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

P.S. I've been meaning to mention that I encouraged a friend of mine who's dryer was taking forever to set up a clothes line and she saved $80 on her electric bill the next month!

P.P.S. I just found out that Lindsay over at passionate homemaking has a free give away on a really cool type of natural laundry detergent. Click here to check it out.

Cleaning

Thankfully I'm out of bed and feeling better. With the help of a few friends I've been hitting the house and packing and cleaning in out my spare time. Recently I've run across quite a few different ideas for making your own non-toxic cleaning solutions, which also as it turns out can save you a lot of money. I have stains in the carpet at the house which I'm going to be dealing with and two different ideas I've heard recently are club soda or peroxide, put directly on the carpet and then soaked back up. I also have grout which needs to be cleaned, and heard today that Listerine with whitening agent works really well (though I don't really think this would be a money saving solution).

Check out these places for more ideas:

• Homemakers By Choice pod casts from 5/28 and 5/29/09 have lots of tips. The shows only stay posted for a limited about of time, so go to their web sight and send them an e-mail request for these shows if you missed them.
• Visit the Passionate Homemaking blog to learn how to make your own dishwasher detergent or laundry soap. Poke around on her blog; she has lots of great money saving "natural" ideas including how (and why) to make your own tooth paste...which I've been thinking about trying it.
• Here are some easy concoctions for cleaning agents, which this blogger turned into gift baskets for her friends.
• I ran across this adorable book on-line. I don't know if it's any good but for $5 I think it must be worth it just for the hand illustrations.
• Few cleaning rags seem to be as versatile at cottage wash rags. I've been wanting to give this one a try. Check out the rest of her sight, while you're there for lots of other ideas on home cleaning agents, soap making, and homemade beauty products.

Blessings!c

P.S. Keep praying that we get the house back on the market smoothly and it sells soon.

struggling

There is so much going on these days. When The Man and I got married I told him that it felt like we were marrying at the start of The Great Depression...not knowing what is coming next. I know people who are doing just fine, maybe scared but just fine. I also know people who are pounding the street looking for a job, who's businesses are falling apart, who have lost their house or who might soon. Sometimes these problems are because of choices they have made, and some times they are not. My heart hurts for these friends and my prayers stand with them. Yet, I see so much spiritual hope in hard times. I've been reading through the life of David in the past few weeks, and I was struck with the fact that he seemed to stand closest to God when everything in his life was falling apart. He fell farthest from God in a time of great success and personal security.
The friends I know who are living though hard times right now; they really love the Lord, and as I watch them I see them walk away from their problems with great spiritual riches. I seem them blessed by the loving care of our Father.
I've also been thinking of some stories of great hope I have read these days. I like to read a blog of a mother of 15, well the 15th is on the way. She tells the story of how her husband was out of work for two years, in which time they got pregnant with their 15th, and God always provided. She also tells another story of how when they were a family of 11 they all happily lived in a house under a 1,000 square feet, and she home schooled at the same time. As Americans we often need reminders of the simplicity of contentment. You can read her stories here and here.
I mentioned a while back that I had been reading The Trapp Family Singers. I was reading it when I found out I was pregnant, and was at the time rather freaked out by how much baby things cost and the fact that The Man didn't have any regular work at the time. Then I read chapter VI in that book, which talks about how after they had escaped Europe to America after Austria was taken by Hitler they were refused renewal work visas, much to their surprise. So, their family of 12 (nine children, one priest, and two parents) used the last of their money to buy passage back to Europe, and managed to get a few concerts booked, but that's all they knew. Maria says, "From the day in March when we left on the Nornamdie to that day in October when we set foot on American soil again we learned a lesson, the greatest of them all. In Bible English it is called:" Be not solicitous," and translated into everyday language, it means: "Do not worry"...And this half year was set apart for teaching us this lesson, that we should never forget it in the future. There we were, a group of twelve people and a little baby who, for the next seven months had no home, and except for six concerts which would provide for three weeks' living, did not know the answer to the question: what shall we eat, what shall we drink? The political horizon was filled with dark clouds; the outbreak of the war seemed imminent, the atmosphere in Europe was full of suspicion and mistrust; we didn't know a soul in the Scandinavian countries, not any of the languages; the permission to stay was carefully restricted by every country to the time necessary to give our concerts...It would have been easy for God to show us the plan for this period, as He had it all fixed up, how there would be enough concerts, enough money, extensions of our stay, helpful people, generous invitations, new friends, and new love. But then we again would not have learned that most valuable lesson, so He left us in the dark, and gave us only one thing at a time. We always spent the cent before the last before we got a new engagement. "

"And as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. As for that in the good soil, they are those who, hearing the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience."

May you be in good soil. Blessings!c

Crackers

Knowing that I was making my own cheese I had a sudden fit to make my own crackers too. Crackers are so easy to make. The only part which takes some time is rolling and cutting them. If you've wanted to try making bread, but your intimidated by it, give crackers a try first. One cracker recipe I have tried before, with great success I might add, is here. The olive oil and rosemary give a wonderful flavor.
The recipe below is my most recent attempt at crackers. I have a very bad habit of scanning instead of really reading a recipe, and I was half way though this when I realized that it calls for a food processor, which I don't have. So I mixed the whole thing up with my hands in a sort of squeezing kneading fashion. It worked just find, though I felt like I had been going some sort of hand exercises by the time I was done. I also found that they taste best when they are rolled very very thin. Looking at the heavy dough I was afraid I was making some really time intensive dog biscuits. But these guys amazed me. They have an amazing cheesy flavor! Almost exactly like cheese-its. Obviously they look nothing like them though. I am certainly going to make a batch with some grated cheese and a little chili powder in them. Shew, they would be amazing! Again the cost savings are pretty good here too. It took less than $1 worth of flour, and I already told you how cheep the yogurt was to make. I get real butter every time it's on sale for $2 or less and keep it in the freezer, so that was $0.50 or less. And I bought a pound of sesame seeds ages ago for a couple dollars which I also keep in the freezer. So you're saving money, and eating a food that you know doesn't have crazy chemicals and preservatives in it. Give them a try. Blessings!c

Whole grain crackers (from Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon)
Makes about 5 dozen

2 ½ cups of freshly ground spelt, kamut, whole wheat or rye flour, or a mixture
1 cup of plain yogurt
1 teaspoon sea salt
1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sesame seeds, toasted
8 tablespoons butter melted
unbleached white flour
Mix flour with yogurt and leave in a warm place for 12 to 24 hours. Place soaked flour, salt, baking power and 4 tablespoons of melted butter in the food processor and process until well blended. Add sesame seeds and pulse once or twice to blend. Roll out to about 1/8 inch on a pastry cloth, using unbleached white flour to prevent sticking. Cut into squares with a knife or rounds with a glass. Place on a buttered cookie sheet, brush with remaining melted butter and bake in a 150-degree oven (or a dehydrator) until they are completely dry and crisp. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

btw- I'm going to try and blog about this soon, but check out this link to learn some about the great health benefits of soaking your grains, like this recipe before baking.

I do it myself!

More and more these days I've been discovering the pure joy of doing things myself. And this is my latest discovery: making yogurt in the crock pot! I've read about yogurt making for over a year now. But I was caught in a tough spot. One, I was completely intimidated by the process; heat the milk to x temperature, let it cool for x amount of time keep it and x constant temperature in the oven for...EVER. Two, I am completely against expensive kitchen appliances which take up room and don't multi task, so that meant a yogurt maker was out of the question. But this recipe looked SO easy, and it WAS. It pretty much makes it's self. I had heard that making your own yogurt saves money, and I was pretty skeptical about that too. But it does! I got a gallon of organic milk for $5, I used half of that for this batch of yogurt, and a small container of organic yogurt as a starter for $1. (I won't have to buy that for the next few batches, I just use some of my own, but at some point I will run out of the yogurt cultures and have to buy another container of yogurt). Out that I figured I got over 30 oz of yogurt, and a half cup of cream cheese. Yup, I made my own cheese. So easy too! The yogurt had a lot of whey in it (you know that watery stuff in your yogurt), and I don't like runny yogurt. So, a took a small bowl, and set a sieve in it. Then I laid a piece of cheese cloth (they call it this for a reason) in the sieve, and I dripped some of the yogurt and all the whey I could find into the cheese cloth and let it drain. After most of the initial water came out I tried up the cheese cloth with a rubber band and hung it on one of the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, and left a bowl below it to catch the whey as it dripped out. The next morning I had cream cheese! And it's pretty tasty too! I found out the whey is incredibly healthy for you, so I put it in a jar in my fridge and used it as part of the water needed when I baked bread. So I used everything! How great is that? I feel like I'm three again and just proudly learned to dress myself, lol. You've got to try it. Oh, and by the way, my yogurt did taste different than store bought. It was less tangy and tart...more mild. I had some with fresh raspberries for breakfast :) Blessings!c

Life

I'm still trying to adjust to our new daily routine. There are so many chores to get done in our short evenings, and I'm trying to adjust to seeing The Man less in the evenings. So life is busy right now but good. I have to say that I love working at home. I love that the things I do are so wrapped up in this man that I love so very much and not some money grubbing corporation. I would love it even more if I could find the time to sit down and knit a couple of rows after work and before I start all my home work, but The Man is scheduled to be gone for schools a lot during May, so before I know it I will have too much time on my hands. In doing some of my 'home work' the other day I started thinking about some of the little decisions we have made which have helped us save money and live more sustainably. I find it fun to see how little decisions starting adding up to lower bills or a whole new way of life. So I thought I would share some of these little things; you have probably thought of them all, nothing earth shattering for sure, but if you have ideas which aren't on here post them in the comments. Blessings!c

• As you can see we try to hang out the laundry. It drys SO fast here in the south. We don't live in a place where we can leave our line out, so sometimes there just isn't the time to string up the line. Oh and they smell so good, and there are no wrinkles in the sheets like my dryer gives them.
• I filled up a 2 liter with water and placed it in the water tank of the toilet, so it doesn't take as much water to flush and fill up the tank.
• I unplug all appliances but the refrigerator and the wash/dryer when I am not using them. This includes the TV, VCR, computer, radios. I was amazed to see my electrical bill drop from this.
• The Man has a job so close to the house that he can bike to work.
• We kept the heat at the mid to low 60s in the winter (and wore sweaters and the crocheted house shoes my grandmother makes) and the cooling at the upper 70s in the summer. We would adjust this to accomidate any guest we had over. The blinds stay open during the day in the winter and closed in the during the day in the summer. This really does make a big difference if your place is in the sun. If the days are hot and the nights are cool I open a few windows at night, one downstairs and one upstairs. I put a box fan blowing out of the house upstairs, so the cool air gets pulled all through the house from window downstairs and out the window upstairs. It would probably work better if I had two box fans.
• Ceiling fans make a world of difference & if you use the switch on the fan you can actually make a room feel warmer in the winter by using them, since hot air rises.
• I try and use the oven for more than one thing at a time, like baking cookies and roasting potatoes at the same time. A baking day is a good idea so you get a lot of things done, but you only have to preheat the oven once.
• When a bulb goes out replace it with one of the new Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. A buy them when they are sale. Also look for coupons; I've run across a few in our paper.
• Compost. You can build a bin, buy a fancy one, and just start a "pile" like we had when I was a kid. Anything biodegradable goes in there: banana peels, egg shells, apple cores, coffee grounds, grass clippings, leaves, etc. In the fall or spring mix it into your flower beds or vegetable garden for a natural cheep fertilizer.
• Bring your own bags to shop. I have had the WORST time forming this habit! I finally have remembered to bring in my own bags by writing it across the top of my grocery list.
• Check the weather stripping around the doors and the windows for drafts and replace or caulk if needed.
• We bought a SIGG for each of use and fill up with filtered water at the house before we hit the road. We've been using them now for a little over six months and really like them. These bottles and others are supposed to be good for you since they don't leach any weird stuff out into your water like the cheep plastic bottles do.

Well I know there must be other things, but I can't think of them right now!