1. Groceries: We had another no-spend week for groceries. Sorry people, this is getting kind of boring!
2. Cooking: I roasted a duck this week. We had roast duck, baked potatoes with duck, duck quiche (with duck meat and duck eggs!) and I made duck broth with the bones. I also ground up some dried chili pepper to make chili powder.
Tuesday was a rainy day, so I decided to make some soft, chewy molasses cookies. They were kind of REALLY delicious. We ate some, and later I took some to a church event. I learned that apparently molasses cookies are old-fashioned. That's more proof that I'm an old soul.
During the course of the week I was thinking about Julia Child's kitchen, which I saw at the Smithsonian when we were in D.C. earlier this year. What surprised me most was how messy it looked. Cluttered. She had put pegboard all over the walls to hold kitchen implements and tools. So not only did it look cluttered, but it looked like the inside of a garage.
The thing is, she actually USED her kitchen tools. How many of us buy fancy kitchen tools, just to use them once and then shove them away in a pantry somewhere? I know I'm guilty. Then you forget that they're even there, which means you use them... never.
So, this week I did a little kitchen rearranging, Julia-style. I didn't cover the kitchen wall in pegboard, but I did put up a bunch of small nails to hold serving spoons, stirring spoons, cutting boards and even my canning supplies: funnel, lid-lifter and jar lifter. Doing this cleared off some of my scanty counter space (previously a lot of these tools were in a vase on the counter). I put some duplicate tools in a "donate" box, and threw away the garlic mincer that didn't work. I really like the new look and feel of my kitchen space. Seeing all of the tools out makes me want to use them more.
3. Gardening: Some of my tomato plants aren't looking too hot. So I transplanted some (and hope to transplant them all, sooner or later). I also put together some more frames for my beehive!!
4. Personal Care: We have been slowly using up our stash of hotel shampoo and conditioner. One thing I noticed is how many washings I seem to get out of those little bottles- especially the conditioner. With a regular size bottle I just use a whole glob- the more the better, right? But I'm going to try putting some of our normal shampoo and conditioner in pump bottles, to see if I can get away with using less. I haven't done it yet, but that was my personal care "idea of the week".
5. Sewing: I worked on April's newsletter giveaway. 😃
Big News: I Quit Facebook!
6. I deactivated both my Facebook and Instagram accounts this week. Why? A collection of events and thoughts over the past two weeks compelled me that it just seemed to be the right thing to do. I didn't delete my accounts, just deactivated them for the spring and summer months- April through August. When September comes, I'll reconsider getting back on. During the warmer months there is just so much to do outside that I feel like Facebook and other social media would distract me from those things.
Quitting Facebook has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. You know something is habit-forming when it's hard to leave it be. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't on Facebook all that often; maybe 30-60 minutes per day, mostly at night. But it provided me with a (false) sense of community, a place to share my brilliant thoughts every now and then or get an unofficial public opinion. Plus, I confess, I enjoyed the occasional "stalking" session. What would I do if I met someone at a party and didn't have Facebook to see who else they knew, what their political opinions were or how their summer vacation went? How would I know when someone I last talked to ten years ago was getting married or having a baby? HOW could I live without that?!
I guess we'll see how I live without it.
Til next time,
-Bethany
2. Cooking: I roasted a duck this week. We had roast duck, baked potatoes with duck, duck quiche (with duck meat and duck eggs!) and I made duck broth with the bones. I also ground up some dried chili pepper to make chili powder.
Tuesday was a rainy day, so I decided to make some soft, chewy molasses cookies. They were kind of REALLY delicious. We ate some, and later I took some to a church event. I learned that apparently molasses cookies are old-fashioned. That's more proof that I'm an old soul.
During the course of the week I was thinking about Julia Child's kitchen, which I saw at the Smithsonian when we were in D.C. earlier this year. What surprised me most was how messy it looked. Cluttered. She had put pegboard all over the walls to hold kitchen implements and tools. So not only did it look cluttered, but it looked like the inside of a garage.
The thing is, she actually USED her kitchen tools. How many of us buy fancy kitchen tools, just to use them once and then shove them away in a pantry somewhere? I know I'm guilty. Then you forget that they're even there, which means you use them... never.
So, this week I did a little kitchen rearranging, Julia-style. I didn't cover the kitchen wall in pegboard, but I did put up a bunch of small nails to hold serving spoons, stirring spoons, cutting boards and even my canning supplies: funnel, lid-lifter and jar lifter. Doing this cleared off some of my scanty counter space (previously a lot of these tools were in a vase on the counter). I put some duplicate tools in a "donate" box, and threw away the garlic mincer that didn't work. I really like the new look and feel of my kitchen space. Seeing all of the tools out makes me want to use them more.
3. Gardening: Some of my tomato plants aren't looking too hot. So I transplanted some (and hope to transplant them all, sooner or later). I also put together some more frames for my beehive!!
4. Personal Care: We have been slowly using up our stash of hotel shampoo and conditioner. One thing I noticed is how many washings I seem to get out of those little bottles- especially the conditioner. With a regular size bottle I just use a whole glob- the more the better, right? But I'm going to try putting some of our normal shampoo and conditioner in pump bottles, to see if I can get away with using less. I haven't done it yet, but that was my personal care "idea of the week".
5. Sewing: I worked on April's newsletter giveaway. 😃
Big News: I Quit Facebook!
6. I deactivated both my Facebook and Instagram accounts this week. Why? A collection of events and thoughts over the past two weeks compelled me that it just seemed to be the right thing to do. I didn't delete my accounts, just deactivated them for the spring and summer months- April through August. When September comes, I'll reconsider getting back on. During the warmer months there is just so much to do outside that I feel like Facebook and other social media would distract me from those things.
Quitting Facebook has been a lot harder than I thought it would be. You know something is habit-forming when it's hard to leave it be. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't on Facebook all that often; maybe 30-60 minutes per day, mostly at night. But it provided me with a (false) sense of community, a place to share my brilliant thoughts every now and then or get an unofficial public opinion. Plus, I confess, I enjoyed the occasional "stalking" session. What would I do if I met someone at a party and didn't have Facebook to see who else they knew, what their political opinions were or how their summer vacation went? How would I know when someone I last talked to ten years ago was getting married or having a baby? HOW could I live without that?!
I guess we'll see how I live without it.
Til next time,
-Bethany
RSS Feed
