Home, Sweet 351-square feet

I have always wanted to live in an efficient, environmentally friendly home. In recent years, this has started equating to small, homey, and efficient uses of space. I have been further inspired by this couple, who had a large home and after a fire decided to modify and live in 351-square feet.

Here is the article on that story.

Food, Food, Food

I can’t tell you how much I love food. Mmm, food. Baked, fried, charbroiled, grilled, sautéed, pureed, or however it comes, I love it. Lately, on Pinterest I have been finding a ton of vegan friendly recipes that I adore. I’m not vegan myself, but I wandered down that rabbit hole and came out with a million recipes to try. Here is a link to my Pinterest for Food and Diet.

Some recipes I REALLY must try soon:

1.      Steamed Chili Lime Tofu with Steamed Collard Greens and Quinoa

2.      Bloomin’ Bree Bowl – yes, like a bloomin’ onion, only with bread and bree!

3.      Matcha Mochi – especially for John’s sake

4.      Bread and Eggplant Lasagna

5.      Veggie Gyros

6.      Black bean and Butternut Squash Burritos

Those don’t even include the fruit tarts, the brownies, or the cupcakes. That is just “real” food, and not junk food. There is a link there for 30 vegan fall recipes. Mmm, I want to try them all.

I would fear turning vegetarian if I wasn’t so in love with meat. But I will say that a friend of ours posted about mushroom and spinach naan pizza, and now that is a favorite to make in our household, plus all the Indian cooking I have been doing in the last year. There is nothing like fresh naan, or cilantro mint chutney to round off a week. There is much baking and cooking in my weekend future, I see it, along with some nice Wood Chuck’s Winter Cider or maybe a Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale. It’ll have to do, at least until we can make our own cider, and more mead and beer.

While I already walk to and from work, I really want to exercise more, but let’s be honest, I am not the best at exercising. I’ll never go to a gym, I’m not interested in tapes long enough for them to matter, and classes make me uncomfortable. I used to fence, but don’t want to fence with the A&M team, and I currently ride horses every week, and occasionally (a lot less than I like) I do archery. Still, I need something more, even just a little bit more. So, again with Pinterest, my current obsession, I found two quick workouts that even I can probably do each day. Probably being the operative.

The first is the 100 Workout:

100 Jumping Jacks

90 Crunches

80 Squats

70 Leg Lifts

60 Jumping Jacks

50 Crunches

40 Squats

30 Leg Lifts

20 Jumping Jacks

Run for 10 minutes

The second is just a series of workouts on the wall that help your butt, thighs, and stomach to be stronger. Simple, easy, no fuss, no gym, no equipment. Now to motivate myself.

My mother-in-law’s birthday is today, and we went last Sunday to have dinner with her since we don’t have time this week, and she lives in Waco. All went well, and we had a good time, but on our way home the Camry broke down and had to be towed. Luckily, we were in a safe place with a wide shoulder, David was home and near a computer so that we could get the number to a tow company, and we weren’t too far from College Station. John was also great and quickly noticed that the car was overheating, plus he thinks he knows what the issue is. If he is right, which he usually is, he should have it fixed by the end of the week. I love having a mechanically inclined husband. Actually, he is inclined to anything he puts his mind to: blacksmithing, brewing, archery, car repair, cooking, shooting, hunting, reloading, writing, science, okay everything, and I am jealous, but it is just part of why I married him.

In turn the car being broken down may prevent me from seeing my brand new niece. My brother’s daughter was born yesterday evening at 6:40 p.m. Her name is Kaylin Victoria Bullard, and she is 8 lbs, 21 inches long, and is very healthy.

We have two cars, but John has to work the opening of deer season to measure antler spreads at the local sausage market for Texas Parks and Wildlife. I will also in turn miss David’s baby shower, and I haven’t seen him in some time.

House Cleaning the Natural Way

I recently ordered a few supplies from Mountain Rose Herbs, see my links on the sidebar. Today I can across their blog on green cleaning for your home. I was impressed to find many things that I myself want to replace in our household when they run out, such as a replacement for Comet, Murphy's Wood Oil, and so on. I have always worried about the chemicals I use and their effects on the environment. As these harmful chemicals run out in our household, I find myself making substitutes myself, though using up these chemicals takes some time, as we don't use a lot. See Mountain Rose's Blog here.

Also they have a post on Cold and Flu Remedies.

A salt scrub, massage oil, and bath salt recipe in this post.

Holiday drinks here.

You know what, just read the whole blog, it rocks. Lots of ideas for cooking, herbal infused drinks, honeys, soaps, household care, etc. They rock, I love Mountain Rose. If you want a more local store use Garden of the Ancients (Manor, Texas), whose link is also on the sidebar.

Make it Yourself - Laundry Detergent

In the last year I have been getting into making a lot of household products myself. Offbeat Home was the first to inspire me to do this, though I had already wanted to, but never had a quick and easy jump-start to it all.

So, I started with Offbeat Home's suggestion for laundry detergent. It really is super easy, super cheap, and wonderful. Plus it doesn't pollute the ground water like commercial detergents, and is better for your skin. Fels-Naptha no longer uses a horrible solvent it was once known for, and while Borax can be bad, it is better than what you find in your regular soaps. There are alternates such as vinegar and baking soda to these ingredients, but I have yet to try them. Below is my quick summary of what you will need:

Homemade Laundry Detergent
3-5 gallon bucket
bar of Fels-Naptha (you will only use 1/3 each time)
Borax
Washing Soda

I ordered everything through Amazon, but I later found that except for the Fels-Naptha, I could find the Borax and Washing Soda at my local HEB grocery store on the laundry aisle. The bucket can be found at Academy in the fishing aisle or probably at Target. It doesn't necessarily have to have a lid, but I suggest it does, so that the liquid in the soap doesn't evaporate over time, or bugs don't fly into it. You might also ask your local restaurants for their pickle buckets, which are the same things as what you buy at Academy or elsewhere. If you are just that strapped for cash, and know me personally, give me a call, my father owns a sandwich shop and has so many buckets he would love to give them to someone.

The first time I made this laundry soap I was concerned about the Fels-Naptha having a floral scent, as I hate floral scents. The smell is strong while you are making it, but once the soap is made, and you use this on your laundry, there is no smell at all. I've heard you can also add a few drops of essential oil to make your soap smell like anything you want, though lavender, tea tree, and citrus scents are suggested.

I was also a little bit perturbed by the gelatinous nature of the soup, but if you stir it up really well, it becomes a smooth water-gel type consistency. This too weirded me out at first, but I got used to it, and I haven't seen any residue on my clothing after washing, and I use about 1/2 cup per average size load. Average size means medium to full load in my mind, for a standard, non-front loading washer.

I must admit I thought my clothes smelled bad after the first time washing with homemade laundry soap, but that wasn't because they still smelled of sweat or dirt. It was because I was so used to the heavily perfumed Tide detergents that no smell seemed like a bad smell. This was silly of me in hindsight, but I grew up with Tide, and now I know better.

If you want to be environmentally friendly, and not poison our aquatic friends, but not make your own laundry detergent either, try Dr. Bronner's Sal Sads Soap, which can not only be used with laundry, but pretty much everything else, including carpet.  They are an incredible company all around, and I cannot recommend their peppermint bar soap more.