Image by ali edwards My love affair with coffee began at the tender age of 13. I started making myself a small mug after my Dad had his cup first thing in the morning. Soon I graduated to Iced Frappuccinos and Tim Horton’s English Toffee coffees with my high school friends (I know the Americans …
Upcoming… Healthy Holidays Eats and Sweets Carnival
I love Christmas food! Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet or mashed potatoes (or both), hot spiced apple cider, “sugar” cookies…There is something about holiday food that is incredibly festive and celebratory, and so very familar and comforting as well. Unfortunately, holidays often tend to be a time when many of us fall off of the …
Upcoming… Healthy Holidays Eats and Sweets CarnivalRead More
Eco-Friendly Grocery Shopping at its Best: Moukisac Review and Giveaway
I’ve been using cloth shopping bags for the last couple of years whenever I go out grocery shopping, and I just love using these sturdy, reusable bags to avoid the usual plastic offerings. Still, I wasn’t happy. I may have been avoiding some waste, but my beautiful fresh produce was still sitting in (what else?)… …
Eco-Friendly Grocery Shopping at its Best: Moukisac Review and GiveawayRead More
Making Healthy Changes When Your Husband Isn’t on Board
Image by nutmeg There are a lot of things that my husband does that I know very little about. For example, buying and installing more ram for our computers. Or writing a marketing proposal and presenting a sales pitch to the CEO of a company. Or how to set up a set of drums, much …
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1 Minute Survey
Ladies, I have a quick favor to ask of you… This is something I should have done ages ago. For me to be able to continue serving the needs of my readers, it would be so helpful for me to know some more exact demographics, rather than just guessing (because guessing is kind of fun, …
Homemade Cough and Cold Syrup
Since mentioning and tweeting about this syrup I made, I’ve had many requests to share the recipe, so here it is! It comes from a book I mentioned briefly before called 10 Essential Herbs by Lalitha Thomas. This is a rare (I believe because it’s out of print) book from 1996 that my mother-in-law stumbled …
Conserving Water: Why It Matters and Ways to Do It
Image by Joe Schlabotnik While I wouldn’t say that I’m completely unconcerned about conserving water, it hasn’t been a large focus for me in my desire to simplify our home and practice better stewardship of the earth that God has given us dominion over. I had heard and read bits of information here and there …
Carrying Burdens That Don’t Belong to Us
Image by grame_newcomb Are you feeling overwhelmed? Is it possible that those burdens you’re carrying were never yours to carry in the first place? When we get off course, God is so faithful to intervene and use any number of ways to gently guide us back to where we ought to be. In my case, …
Nourishing Crockpot Carnival: My Crockpot, My Friend
She may not see as much use in the summertime, but come fall and winter, my crockpot is my very good friend. I think my favorite thing about using a crockpot is that all it takes is a small time investment in the morning, usually as we’re finishing up breakfast and I’m tidying the kitchen. …
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Getting Sick= Good Practice with Herbs!
Wouldn’t you know it, that within days of posting on garlic and all of its healing properties, we would come home from a weekend away with several sickies (including myself)? I’ve spent the last 4 days on a computer fast, as suggested by my wise and loving husband. He knew that I was a bit …
A Year of Herbs: Garlic
Image by Muffet In light of flu/cold season, garlic with all it’s wondrous antibacterial properties seemed like the perfect herb for kicking off the real, official start of A Year of Herbs! (Okay, I sort of started it already with Herbs for the New Mama and Herbs for the Fussy Baby. But this time, I’m …
Forum Highlights- November
Wow, the forum is really hopping these days! I have been so blessed by the way that so many of you have just jumped on board with the forum, starting new topics, answering other’s questions, introducing yourselves… it’s really phenomenal to me. It is creating exactly the type of community and resource that I had …
Goals and Plans for a Slower Season
Image by PhotoVandal There’s something about fall and winter that makes me want to shift gears. To cozy up in my home and just slow down a little in general. Much as I absolutely adore summertime and warmth and sunshine, the change of pace can sometimes be a welcome thing to me. After what has …
Winner of the Excalibur Dehydrator!
Well, we all knew someone had to win it. 🙂 I’m pretty sure there were about 500 women crossing their fingers (and toes) this weekend! Just so you know, there were almost 1000 entries in this giveaway. Wow! There were 514 comments, plus 322 previous entries from those who completed the survey for our family’s …
One Mom’s Guide to Avoiding Swine Flu Naturally
I say one mom’s, because we’re all different. We each have different ideas of what natural prevention even looks like. I’m not trying to tell you that I totally understand everything about swine flu and that I know exactly what you should do to prevent it. I don’t. What I do know is that I’ve …
Simple Dinners: Making Meals that Work Together
I am all about simplicity in the kitchen. If there is a way that I can make my meals work together and save myself time, effort and dishes, I am all over it! One of my favorite ways to do this lately has been to coordinate the meals within my weekly meal plan. By this, …
The Annual Organic Gardening Carnival 2009
I know of very few gardeners for whom everything comes easily. Certainly it didn’t for me. Gardening, though something I’ve become passionate about and have learned to truly love, has required a lot of work, study, experimentation (and yes, both failure and success), and learning from others. I don’t think I’m alone in that. For …
Reflections on Another Year of Gardening
I love gardening, I really do. This was a bit of a different year for me, though. I went into the spring already late in my 2nd trimester of pregnancy, and finished up the summer with a newborn baby (plus two other children under 5). Ambitious as I am, this proved a challenge for me! …
The Carnival I Almost Missed and Other Important News
Well, I may be able to pull off a mean baking day but I’m still forgetful at heart. 🙂 In the midst of preparing for baking day and then spending all day yesterday actually doing it, guess who completely forgot that it was supposed to be the Organic Gardening Carnival today? Oh wait, that would …
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Baking Day Comes to an End
**Mmmm… delicious granola bars I made this afternoon!** Phew! I am tired after a looong day in the kitchen (not to mention being up late the night before, grinding grain and getting everything soaking!). No energy or time to post up pictures, but just wanted to share the final outcome of the day. This was …
Baking Day: Making Progress!
So far, so good! It’s almost 2pm and I’m on a roll with baking day. Just taking a quick breather to nurse the baby/eat cold leftovers/blog and tweet where I’m at. Here’s my progress so far: 2 loaves soaked, yeast bread (from Sue Gregg’s grains book)- in the oven as I write! Double batch of …
Baking Day: Filling my Freezer with “Convenience Foods”
Filling your freezer with food isn’t just for having a new baby or to get by during morning sickness. It’s a wonderful tool that helps real mamas make real, nutritious food during regular seasons of life, without going insane. Especially those days where there just isn’t enough energy and/or time to pull anything real together. …
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Diary of Nursing a Low Milk Supply
Struggling with a low milk supply can be tough. It’s disheartening to know that you’re not making enough milk to satisfy your baby and it takes real work to bring that milk supply back up to where it needs to be. The encouraging thing is that it can be done! Since this is exactly where …