Gasoline Prices - I'm going to do something about it - finally

I have told my husband that for my birthday in a few weeks, I want some kind of cart to hook onto my bike.  I want to use it for when I go grocery shopping or when I want to haul something somewhere without taking my car.  He laughed.  Perhaps he was laughing because it had been snowing today and we are still in the middle of a storm warning.  Obviously, I wouldn't be riding a bike today.   I told him I was serious. 

I started looking at Amazon today and saw a cart that is kind of like what I would get,  but I am going to do some research on this. 

I need to look further on line at the reviews and such before I would purchase a cart.

It is the in town driving that kills me on gasoline as that is the majority of the driving that I do.  You don't get great mileage with all the stops and starts.  So it's time to make a lifestyle change and really think about using the bike more for shopping trips. 

So, I'm curious, do any of you have a cart to pull behind your bike?  Any suggestions???

Fried Macaroni - A Memory from My Childhood

My father worked in a factory for 33 years.  He retired in 1981.  He packed radiators and was a member of the UAW.  Many times he did not really like being a member of a union as the union would vote to strike and my father never wanted to strike.  My dad knew that when you went on strike, it meant lost wages that you would never get back.  One strike lasted 9 months and during that time he took on odd jobs at farms picking apples, cherries and even grapes.  He was allowed to bring home some of the fruit that was not deemed worthy for sale and my mother canned everything he brought home.  My mom went to work cleaning houses and during that 9 months they never missed a mortgage or utility payment. 

My sister and I knew not to ask for anything, but I also remember that my parents, though worried about their financial situation, did their best to give us a happy home life.   We would come home from church on winter Sunday evenings and my home would make homemade hot cocoa and cinnamon toast.  Yummy.  We played board games on the weekends.

The strike that lasted 9 months brought my parents to the point of stretching and coming close to all but depleting all of their resources.  Normally we would purchase half a hog and a side of beef from a local farmer for our meat for a year or so.  My parents didn't have the money the year of the big strike to purchase a large supply of meat at one time.  There was meat left from the previous year so we made it last.  My mom was able to get some meat each week at the grocery store as sales would allow.  Also, we qualified for some food assistance. We would go to the government food surplus store each month and we would get institutional sized supplies.  I remember we would get one large block of processed cheese, rice, macaroni and peanut butter.

My father's favorite hobby was gardening.  We lived in a small city in western New York.  We had a big yard but my parents didn't want to put a big garden in our backyard as we kids loved playing in our backyard and my mother always hung the clothes out in the yard to dry.  My father was able to rent a small plot of land from a widow who lived just outside the city limits.  As I recall it was a minimal sum of money as my father would also do some chores for this elderly lady. 

The garden was big and he raised potatoes, tomatoes, onions, broccoli, corn, peas, green beans, pumpkins, squash and melons.  That year we lived off of our garden produce, the food from the surplus store, sales items from the grocery store, the meat in the freezer we had left from the previous year and extra produce from farmers where my dad worked off and on.

My dad was born in 1917 and my mom was born in 1930.  So, my dad  was born in the middle of World War I to a very, very, very poor family and my mom was born in the midst of the Great Depression to a poor family.  It was from their years of growing up poor that they gleaned the skills necessary to keep our family fed and the bills paid during those 9 months.

Up until that 9 month strike, the longest strike my dad experienced was 3 months.  So when the strike went into the 4th and 5th month, my parents really started to get nervous.  My mom started to look at our food supply and even though she was serving frugal meals, she started to serve some extremely frugal meals at different times during the week.

One night my mom served us Fried Macaroni.  She cooked up some macaroni.  While it was cooking she browned some diced onion in some oil in a frying pan.  She added a little garlic.  Then when the macaroni was done cooking she drained it thoroughly and added it to the frying pan.  Instantly the macaroni started to crackle and fry.  She was careful to cook it on medium heat and let the macaroni brown and get crispy before turning it over.  The result was a crispy fried "pasta."  Okay - I'm trying to give it a "rich" label here.  The key here is she took very minimal ingredients, cheap ingredients and made a tasty filling meal for us. 

When my sister and I tried it, we gobbled it down.  It was delicious and filling.  The fried macaroni actually had a pop corn like taste.  We loved the crispy, chewy texture and flavor.  The onions and garlic also gave it more flavor.  Even after the strike ended and things got back to normal, we would beg my mom on a Saturday night to make Fried Macaroni. 

Okay, I'm not going into the healthiness of this meal. If you were faced with feeding your family on very little, you would find something that would fill their tummies. She not only filled our tummies, but she filled our tummies with something that was very tasty.
One night I made this for my kids.  They loved it.  If I were to make it today (and I think I will this weekend), I would make it with whole wheat macaroni and use olive oil along with the onion and garlic.  I would also serve some marinara sauce on the side.  Actually, think about it, fried ravioli is on appetizer menus everywhere now.  My mom was ahead of her time.

What can you learn from this?  Necessity definitely is the mother of invention.

Spring is here!!!

I have gone a little A.W.O.L. on blogging for the past week.  It has been in the 80's in our area of the country and the warm weather puts me in the mood to get housework done. 

For the past couple of months I have been in a little bit of a "funk."  I love being home, however, being home alone during the day and looking out the window at a few feet of snow or rain or just general dreary, gray days can take a toll on a person.

I had every intention after Christmas to dig in deep and go through closets, deep clean the house and get some rooms painted.  Instead it seemed the only thing I could accomplish was basic cleaning, laundry, cooking and baking.  I didn't get a lot of the extra projects that I had wanted to get done.

Enter sunshine.  We have had several days of beautiful sunshine and warm weather.  It has been glorious.  My DH and I walked around the yard and noted all the work that needs to be done - the picket fence needs painted and several pickets need replacing, the brick foundation of the house has places that need tuckpointed, the house needs to be painted and more.  We joke that it would be easier to say what doesn't need to be done to the house than what does need to be done. 

There were other things we noticed such as the trees are budding along with the forsythia bushes, as are the raspberry and blackberry bushes. 

The birds were feeding out of the birdfeeder and getting drinks from the bird bath.  We have survived the winter and so has the wildlife.

For the first time since we bought this house 13 years ago, I really feel like it is my house.  I have spent years working and coming home at night to cooking dinner and cleaning up and then either going back to the office or working from home.

I can honestly say that this house has never felt like my home.  I have put off doing things such as a lot of decorating as I just didn't have the time.  Now I have the time and it is a joy to clean, renovate, decorate and manage. 

One thing I have learned about this path I have been on is that I don't want to screw anything up for us financially that would require me to go back to the work place.  It's not for me.  That part of my life is over.

Last week in the middle of doing laundry I made a cup of coffee and sat out on the back porch and watched the dog run around the yard.  Just sitting there in the warm sun and looking at our yard made me feel like the luckiest and richest woman in the world.

Agrarian Lifestyle Wannabe

If given an opportunity I would love to try an Agrarian Lifestyle. This would mean to me that we would live on a small acreage, grow our own fruits and vegetables, raise chickens and goats.  I'm not sure if I would homeschool or not - that has never appealed to me.  What I am looking for is the ability to gain more independence in my life by not relying on a grocery store for our food supply and to frankly live a more simple lifestyle.

Now, I am not foolish, having a garden and raising animals for food is very hard work.  But our food would be cheaper and healthier.  Simple to me means getting rid of the distractions in our lives and focusing more on family. 

My DH is not even interested in this lifestyle at all.  So this is not going to happen for me and that is okay.  I love my DH and wouldn't impress upon him a lifestyle that he has no interest in living. 

What I am doing is bringing elements of an agrarian lifestyle into my "little old house on a corner in a small town".  Our yard is too small for a garden, but my plan is that by the summer of 2011 I will have a couple of raised beds to grow tomatoes and other vegetables. 

I am making my own laundry soap and dishwasher detergent.  As soon as the weather is warmer, I will hang the clothes out to dry on a clothes line.

I bake our own bread and buns.  My next step is to save for a wheat mill so I can grind wheat into flour. 

I am relearning a skill I had as a teenager - sewing.  My goal is to make most of my clothes.  I plan on sewing curtains and other items for our house.  No more searching stores and the internet, I will make my own.  A future goal is to make my own patterns too.

I want to learn to knit and crochet and would love to make my own pillowcases and embroider on them.  My mother used to make rag rugs for our house and I would love to learn to make these also.

Making my own soap and candles has always interested me.   

All of these skills I can use in our "little old house on a corner in a small town".  (Yes, when I was growing up I watched Little House on the Prairie.)  I can add these elements of the agrarian lifestyle without pulling up roots and actually moving to the country and homesteading. 

I have a friend that has a large garden and grows her own vegetables.  She and her DH have planted fruit trees so they have plenty of apples, cherries and pears.  Last year she added chickens to her plan.  Now she has plenty of eggs and when the time comes - chickens to eat.  She runs her own business in town and on the weekends and evenings she lives on her little homestead on the edge of town.  I'm sure that down the road, she will want to pull back from her business and invest more time into her homestead. 

Last year I came across a website about the West Ladies.  This is a family living out the agrarian lifestyle in Tennessee.  I ordered their dvd's - Homestead Blessings.  These are wonderful dvd's of a mother and her grown daughters sharing different skills such as:  Herbs, gardening, bread making, cooking, canning, candle making, soap making, sewing and dairy delights.

I am drawn to the way this family interacts with each other.  They work together and have such a close relationship that is easily visible. 

Via Netflix this week I ordered and watched "Inherit the Land" and have on my queue  "A Journey Home."  Inherit the Land profiles several families that have left their busy city lives for the country and the agrarian lifestyle.  A Journey Home continues that theme by focusing on one family. 

Both of these movies and the Homestead Blessings dvd's are produced by Franklin Springs and are available on Netflix.  Unfortunately Netflix does not carry all of the Homestead Blessings dvd's. 

I love the feeling of being in an old fashioned homestead type of home.  I love antiques, old houses, old fashioned aprons and skirts, good down home cooking and simple things.  It makes me feel happy and secure.