Sox

I'm not a fan of socks. If I could wear sandals year-round, I would. And sometimes I do, if the winter isn't too harsh.

But I have friends. And those friends know I knit. And they know the glory that is handmade socks. And since I'm seeing one of these said friends in a couple of weeks, I've decided to jump right in and make a pair of genuine, sock-yarn socks. Something I've never done.

So far, so good. I've actually finished a sock and am about halfway through the second one. I'm using Ann Budd's Getting Started Knitting Socks as a general guideline for the gauge I've got. It's been useful, particularly with the tips about percentages of any sock divided among stitches.

I really like the yarn, and I've even made a sock blocker of my own. It's cardboard, but considering how many socks I knit, it should suit my needs just fine. I got the yarn (Into the Whirled Gloucester Sock) at the Second Annual New England Fiber Festival this past fall.

I wish I enjoyed knitting socks more. I wish I found more of a purpose for them. But there's always Chris and there are always cold feet out there!

Do you have something you actively avoid knitting or crocheting??

Headlong into Summer

From the beginning of May until just before our (busy) weekend, I've been working a lot more than I usually do. Everyone went to a conference 3,000 miles away, and I was left with a lot of place-filling in their collective absences. I was working 10-hour workdays for a while there.

But finally, I've got some free time at the end of my work days, and I can catch this space up with all the wonderful things we've been doing around here.

I'll start with today, since it's here! This morning, we had our original picture window replaced in the living room. When I say "original," I mean 1953. Sometime in the 60's, the owners put in an exterior storm window, but it looked like crap in 2012.

The folks who installed it only spent about 2 hours prying out the old window and popping the new one in. The foreman, Mark, even finished off all of the trim for all three windows, not just the picture window. It looks like it's a whole new set of windows for the front!

One project at a time, this house is really starting to shape up. We're considering finishing the basement, pouring a new concrete patio, renovating the breezeway and possibly landscaping the backyard in a manner that isn't stress-inducing every time we set foot on the patio!

We've definitely kept busy with graduations, spring cleaning, spring clean-up in the yard, and getting the garden going.

How have you all been holding up this season?

Garden Rebuild

When I first built and started my raised bed in April two years ago, I didn't get treated wood with which to construct said bed.

Two years later, I wanted to tear it down and build bigger and better beds. We could only just squeeze about 6 tomato plants into the previous bed. We tried a few different vegetables in there, but we find most use with tomatoes.

So this year, we tore down the little bed and we used the dirt to fill in the "pit." The pit, in case you hadn't read about it previously, is the place where the previous owners had an above-ground swimming pool. It was filled with gravel and sand when we bought the house. We've since put all sorts of things into it, trying to bring it level with most of the yard. Nothing seemed to work, including a truckload of topsoil.

This year, I dumped the rich soil from the bed (complete with worms) into the pit, bought a few cubic feet of garden soil, and put the tomatoes in. I built a twine grow-cage kind of thing for the tomatoes so they won't need cages.

Grand total for tomatoes in the ground? Twenty-three. It would have been twenty-four, but we have a casualty. :( I hope they're spaced alright, and that the pit has finally found a good use.

I can't wait to see how much sauce I'm going to have to make to keep up with production this year! (I will be reinforcing those weak-looking bamboo sticks later... when they're needed.)

30 Minute Tomato Sauce

I hope I didn't shock anyone into thinking I already had a huge crop of tomatoes in, and that I was started to put them up already. Sadly, no; our tomatoes haven't even gone into the ground yet. It's been too cold, believe it or not! And just a few weeks ago, people were putting in their ACs because the weather was 90F+!

I did however find a whole treasure trove of Roma tomatoes on sale at the local Price Rite. They were around a dollar a pound, so I picked up about 4 pounds (I think) and decided I could spare some time to cut them up and reduce them into something delicious.

This afternoon I had some extra time between tasks to take the opportunity to do the sauce. I'm never sure if I should season before or after canning the sauce, so I always err on the side of caution and go with seasoning afterwards. I reduce just tomatoes and I can only tomatoes. The acidity levels are what prevents me from adding anything else... I know what tomatoes alone require, but I'm not about to test PH after adding onions, so I don't bother.

The process of making your own tomato sauce from strictly tomatoes seems to intimidate some people. Some people mess with blanching the tomatoes, stripping the skin, canning whole but quartered tomatoes.... I can see why someone would be intimidated. I've tried most of these things in the past. I find them entirely useless.

What I do is just take each tomato, one by one, and chop off the end where the tomato was connected to the vine, then I cut the tomato in half. I do this with all the tomatoes I have.

Once they're all trimmed and halved, I get a big bowl and push out all of the seeds and watery bits of each tomato. I put each tomato half aside with skins attached until the whole mess of them is done.

Now that all the tomatoes are cleaned out, I get my food processor out. It's a tiny little thing that I find very useful for making all sorts of things! I don't know if my tomato sauce would be this quick and this easy without it. All you need is something that eviscerates the tomato, skin and all. My blender also does the trick - so may yours!

Throw maybe 6-8 cleaned tomato halves in that processor and go to town! Blend it down until it's just a pink, frothy mess. Take the tomato frappe and put into a pot of your choosing. I find that dutch ovens do the best job for tomato sauce as they retain the slow, low heat.

Bring the sauce to a boil. Once it starts bubbling up a little bit, mix it, and reduce the heat to low (on a scale of 1-10, I keep mine around 2-3)

Let it sit and simmer for a few hours, uncovered. You want to reduce the water content so covering it wouldn't be that useful. Mix it occasionally. You'll know it's done when it's a deeper red and it has a consistently that you prefer.

All in all, without the simmering time, it took me less than 30 minutes to do this. You could theoretically do it on your lunch break if you should want to. The simmering down is a hands-free process.

I should also like to mention that it takes a lot of tomatoes to get a big pot going. Once you're done, you can choose to can your sauce, freeze it, put it in the fridge for use tomorrow, or use it right away.

If you have any tips or tricks, I'd love to hear them! Happy cooking :)

Micro Living

To jump straight into it, in a conversation with a friend, it occurred to me that I don't actually need all the "stuff" in my house or life. Most of it I don't touch on a daily basis. Some of it I've even forgotten I have!

I was thinking of just selling a lot of it. Who needs it? It's taking up space, it's just crap I'll have to move around, and a lot of it just gets in the way.

The next logical step in my mind was "why do I need such a big house with so much space for more stuff?" Our house is actually not that big at all; approx. 935 sq ft. not including the basement. We have a lot of stuff stored in the basement, too.

When thinking of the house, I think of what the next place we'll buy and live in will be like. We have a very good idea of where we want to be, but it's really out of our present price range. I've got to squirrel away a lot more money and stop doing so many improvements on the house we've got now to put down on a house in the ideal living place.

And then, after a long day at work and reading my blogs, a thought occurred to me while staring at cabin porn: we don't need to buy a bigger house. Hell, we don't even really need 900 square feet! We could survive, just us two, very nicely and very affordably in a cabin in the woods. (The photo at the left inspired the idea of our living there)

I don't think Chris is the kind of guy who would want to give up amenities like running water and modern heat, but after watching a documentary about Les Stroud making an off-the-grid home for his family in Canada from the skeleton of a barn, I get inspired.

Of course to most people, my family included, this is just some hippie commune bullshit. Oh, sure, you're going to sell your house and run off into the woods to lead a "simple life." Well, yeah. Don't you think it's about time we all did?

We could live on a small piece of wild land in the place we want to be. We could have that land to live on and cultivate, and while it would be a definite challenge, so is living in the world we all think we need to be a part of.... high mortgages, acquisition of more stuff, fast food, commutes, pollution, and minimum contact with nature. It's overwhelming!

I'm an idealist, though. I get teary-eyed just thinking about doing it. I just don't think I'm brave enough. I don't know if it's fair to drag my husband (and eventually, my kids) into it. I wish I could try it, risk free, for a year. Just to see if it's something I could actually do. Realistically. How amazing and how proud I'd be if I could manage!

Do you day dream about giving it all up for a small chunk of land in a place of your choice? Do you wish for simpler living?

The Life of Lye (Soap)

Grandma's lye soap set up?

Lye soap. Your grandmother probably used it when she was a kid. In Appalachia, they've used it forever using the trees they had to collect drippings from certain trees to eventually make lye. Suffice to say it's been around a long while. Only recently have I noticed that a lot of soaps these days are sold in stores and have left the home entirely.

Well, anyone who reads anything here on a regular basis knows that if I can do it, I will do it. I love being autonomous, particularly in times where there are so many harmful chemicals floating around everywhere that we don't seem to even consider anymore. And let's not even talk about the cost-effectiveness yet!

Alright, enough gabbing. Lye soap. It works. There's no film or soapy residue that stays on your skin. It'll even wash your hair. I know, I know. Some people out there are really repulsed by the thought of washing your hair with dirty old bar soap. But this isn't Dial or Irish Spring, folks. This is lye soap. It's natural. It's organic. There are no detergents, there are no preservatives, and excuse my French, but there's no bullshit in this. You can make it yourself and you can see how well it works, I swear. And don't let the "lye" part of this scare you, either!

The basics of lye soap is mixing a fat or oil with lye and water at the right ratio to produce soap. That's it! I mean, there's a little more to it than just throwing it all in a bowl and calling it a day, but that's the basic idea.

Here comes the penny-pinching part: I use lard because it's cheap. I can get a pound of lard at the local discount grocer for under $2. Three pounds of lard used in soap making should produce enough soap to keep you and yours going through many months. You can buy a freakin' pound of lye for $5. That's cheaper than the lard! I get mine at ACE Hardware.

There's a nice lye to fat ratio table using all different kinds of oils and fats, and even combinations of them. Note at the bottom the amount of water to be combined with lye. You do that first, before involving the oils or fat. The heat generated from the chemical reaction of lye and water is incredible - something you should be aware of. I was surprised no one mentioned it when I made it the first time.

Once you get your lye and water mixture dissolved, you slowly pour it into your oil or fat and stir until you get "trace" (lift your mixing implement and let some mixture dribble into the bowl. The dribblets should not readily go back into the mixture - you should be able to see the dribblets stand out. If you still don't know what I mean, google image search "soap making trace.")

Now that you've got trace, you throw it into a mold and let it set for a few weeks. Getting to trace is probably the worst part of soap making. It takes a while to get there, even with a stick mixer - about 20 minutes of non-stop mixing.

You can get crazy with your soap and add exfoliants like ground oatmeal or brown sugar. You can add oils to make your soap smell good. You can do pretty much anything you like, including throwing in glitter and bathing every day with princess soap. WHO KNOWS.

I urge you to try it. See if it works for your house. It's so cheap and it's so much fun to use things you made with... wait for it.... your own bare hands. You don't have to use it for just bar soap either! It's great if you have allergies to the detergent soaps out there, and you can use it in your laundry (I'll post about that later)! Some folks say that insects don't like lye soap; it can repel them. You can even use it in place of shampoo and conditioner (which I recommend!).

The cost-effectiveness, eco-effectiveness, and use-effectiveness should sell you on this, guys. It's a great solution.

If you do decide to make it, please use a more thorough website than this for any instructions. I fear I was a little too simplistic about it all, and I don't want to be blamed if you burn yourself on the lye or something. (Lye is pretty dangerous, use protective gear.)

Something to Share

It should come as no surprise to so many of us that there are some not-so-friendly chemicals in our shampoo and other detergents we use on our bodies. The main offender that I know of off the top of my head is sodium lauryl sulfate - a known skin irritant at the very least.

Sodium lauryl sulfate is a "foaming agent" in... well a lot of shampoos and conditioners out there. While there have been mixed responses about the healthiness of using sodium lauryl sulfate, I know just reading what could be is enough to scare me into using all-natural products.

I've sung praise for this shampoo before, but for over 2 years, we've been using J.R. Liggett's shampoo bars. Unfortunately, they often get pricey and they're not something you can pick up at the local grocer. We order about 20 bars a year. (On an unrelated note, I'm set on figuring out how they make this shampoo bar, too! It's really nothing more than lye soap with varied oils as the base. I make lye soap at least 3 times a year and it's all we use in this house. When I figure it out, I'll share it here!)

The one thing I noticed with prolonged use of this shampoo is that my hair needs a little conditioning. The other day, I decided I would try something that I had tried before, but change it up a little bit: I would use apple cider vinegar as my conditioner.

In the past, I had used raw apple cider vinegar, undiluted. I know. I'll give you a minute to gasp and think that one over. It hurt. Needless to say, my hair was left in an unbalanced, greasy mess. I decided those chicken ladies didn't know anything and gave up on the concept of conditioning with vinegar. Until recently.

I ran out of bottled conditioner that I had been milking for about a month. I used the bottle (score one for recycling), put in about half a cup or so of apple cider vinegar and filled the rest with water.

I used it with perfect. success. The most wonderful, most natural conditioner I've ever had! The shampoo bar and the vinegar solution have honestly made my hair the happiest it has ever been. No joke.

I want to urge you to try and find an alternative to sodium lauryl sulfate. There are a lot of mixed messages out there about what's good for your hair, what's bad for the environment, and what should have never ever been put on the shelves to begin with. I don't think it would hurt to try and curb our habits, even if the chemicals are up for debate. (Myself, I try to avoid as many chemicals as I can on principle. As close to nature as I can get without too much effort. Sometimes, chemicals are good.)

Unfortunately, if you don't like talking about health and beauty products (yeah right I know you do), I'm going to address lye soap and the wonderful things it's done for my life next. Stay tuned!

Busy~

Oh, I've been awful lately, haven't I. Even my garden and seedlings have been neglected during this strange and abnormally warm spring. We haven't had a good rain in a while, but all of nature seems eager to blossom!

I apologize for my absence. You see, I've been caught up in making these silly rugs for a craft show that I promised to vend at with my good friend Crysta. The show is on May 6 and I've known about it since mid-March. Since I agreed to do the show with her, I've done nothing but work on all sorts of things to sell at the show. Every waking moment apart from my employment and housework has been exclusively devoted to this show. It's completely ridiculous of me!

Just as a quick update: my mother gave us the living room furniture from my grandmother's house. Before this beautiful set, we had 2 really ugly $20 couches that we got at the Salvation Army. They were very comfortable couches, and they served their purposes well. It breaks my heart to have to get rid of them, but the living room is so much more together now, it's hard to think about going back to those raggedy old couches.

I've also been banging away on her vintage sewing machine. There are knick-knacks, old records, and kitchen goods strewn throughout the house that I get to use and think of her, now.

I haven't been knitting as much as I'd like, which is sad to me. I haven't completed anything in a long while, and my hands are starting to get that familiar itch. I have so many things I want to make in my queue, but it'll just all have to wait until after the fair!

A Little Shameless Self-Promotion!

I really dislike spotlights, but Chris and I have hopes of maybe getting a new deck this summer, or maybe a new bay window, or how about forgetting the deck and re-doing the patio? Maybe expand the kitchen counter top? Even better, built a breakfast nook into the kitchen for more space? No, no, we should gut the backyard and landscape it all!

You can see we're not sure what to do, but we want to do something. Our house has come a long, long way but we're still not there! Our backyard is now where near what I'd like it to be, and there are a lot of upgrades we'd like to do in the house.

After dropping almost $2000 on some repairs for my aging Jeep, I figured I could recoup some costs by making these silly rugs. I'm lucky to have a job where I sit at a desk at home and work when there's work to do... but sometimes, I find myself knitting while listening to the radio or something.

So I'm taking the opportunity to make and sell these rugs in my Etsy store. The pricing is mostly based on my asking Chris what he thinks they should sell for (not just Chris, but a few family and friends, too). If it was me, I would charge $5 for shipping and call it a day. Clearly, that won't help us meet our reno goals, so maybe this is reasonable? I have no idea. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

A Little Wisdom

I'm getting antsy for spring, so I've been thinking a lot about when I should start my plants this year. I'm not one who believes in the Zodiac. Let's get that squared away first and foremost...

...But some things make me wonder... not deity-wise, but Earth-wise.

For example, successfully planting a crop by the signs. It seems like an archaic practice, but some folks swear by it. I believe the Farmer's Almanac still uses signs in it's published material.

Here are a few old "myths" that I wish I could test and know for sure. I found them very interesting, and I hope you do too!

• Planting is best under the "fruitful" signs of Scorpio, Pisces, Taurus, or Cancer.
• Don't plant anything during the "barren" signs; instead, do all your trimming, deadening, and destroying during those signs. (Leo, Aries, and Sagittarius - Sagittarius is reportedly alright for cucumbers and onions, but best for business affairs.)
• Set your plants out in a water or air sign.
• Don't graft or plant on a Sunday as this is a hot, barren day (the sun's day).
• Don't transplant in the heart or head signs (Leo or Aries, respectively) as both are considered "Death Signs." This one cracked me up!
• Plow, till, and/or cultivate in Aries

There are a lot more rules, but that's just a taste of the gardening arena. Here are a few more generalized rules that I never had a clue about:

• Paint houses or cars in a dry sign like Leo or Aries
• Set fence posts in the "old of the moon" (last quarter) to prevent loosening
• Quit habits on the second day that the moon is in Sagittarius, on the new moon, or in Pisces
• Cut your hair in Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius, or Pisces; it will grow stronger, thicker, and more beautiful.
• Hunt in Taurus
• Lay foundations in Capricorn
• Destroy weeds, kill trees, and turn sod in the barren signs Gemini, Leo or Virgo, particularly if the moon is in the last quarter.

You don't have to believe in these - I don't even know what to think of them. People have used them for centuries successfully, but who knows! Maybe you folks out there can give some of these a try and see if they work!