I felt so jipped when I learned the history behind Valentine's Day! What's with the candy and lame cards, when we could be enjoying this time of year the way people used to back in the day??? Valentine's Day actually claims to celebrate several individuals (considered saints) who were murdered for their kind actions, because the ways in which they helped people violated Roman law at the time. Several of these saints were named "Valentine" including a Christian Priest who was performing miracles, and an Italian Bishop who was marrying couples in secret. The irony of this holiday is, that it is now celebrated around the same time of year that the ancient Romans would celebrate with the feast of...
Six more weeks of winter, said Punxsutawney Phil (the groundhog)... Out here we call them marmots, and they are all currently asleep... I don't think this rule really applies in the Wyoming dialect of Groundhogese... they all just assume the weather will be too cold to bear until May, and they stay safe and warm underground... no shadow-dance necessary. So as we hunker-down in our own burrows and grumble at the windiest part of the year settling down upon us, what better past-times than to cook, to garden plan, and to dream of Spring... What does your Spring Dream look like? Mine includes my biggest garden yet, and a summer/fall full of canning. I have truly missed canning and growing...
I made an interesting discovery this week... It has been a crazy/fun/humbling learning curve- raising Peter so far, as I'm sure it will continue to be! One thing that has been ever-changing is... my diet. I did not realize that Peter would be so influenced by my diet already. Most days he is so happy and mellow, but some days he would wake up screaming and would just seem so uncomfortable for hours and hours. It was horrible! Nothing I did was helping to relieve his pain. It was making me so sad and helpless to see him suffer without the ability to help him...ugh! Luckily, it is easy for me to know what I have eaten recently because I...
Danggit! Not Another one! Yet another sour-brick! I could build a small house with all of the sour bricks I have baked in the past few years... I SUCK at making sourdough bread... I have been trying for years to make the perfect loaf and the soft, bubbly, loaf of my dreams still evades me. But you know, I seemed to be able to procure eggs and bacon in the middle of winter this year- somehow... That got me thinking. A lot of the books I have read recently have talked about the concept of reciprocity. That for everything we take, we must give back in some way. In the book Braiding the Sweetgrass, the author sums it all up in...
I have learned so much about cleaning this past year! I have cleaned as a side-job since I was in college, but it wasn't really until I became pregnant with Peter that I really started to increase my awareness of the ingredients in cleaning products I was using. I have gradually become aware of more and more additives and chemicals that are being found to have negative side effects on our health. So, naturally when I found out I was pregnant, I wanted to minimize exposure to any of the unneccesary toxins I could which, surprisingly, is actually pretty difficult when it comes to cleaning products. In fact, some really common brands produce several products that have been found to...
