10% Off!

Who doesn't like to see 10% off?  Unless, maybe,  20% off is available.

I'll admit it right now.  This post is totally a brag.  It is not really relevant to homesteading, or frugality, or raising kids. . .  It's just me being proud.

Because as of this morning (Monday is my weekly weigh-in and take measurement day), there is ten percent less of me than there was six months ago.  I am almost to my "I'd settle for weighing twenty pounds less" weight.

When school started up for my daughters in September, I realized that for the first time since school started in 1996 (DS1's 2nd grade year, when we switched from public to private Christian school), I did not have to load anyone into my car/minivan/suburban, and make sure they got to school.  Nope, I could say "see ya later" and they would get to school without me.  I no longer had to spend 30-40 minutes driving my offspring to school every morning Monday through Friday.  Not to mention a similar amount of time picking them up and returning them home every afternoon.  How liberating it is to have my youngest in high school!
 
So, in celebration of that fact, and to reward myself for my fifteen loyal years of pseudo bus driving service, I decided I would take that new found time and do something for myself with it.  Something like workout, get back into shape, and hopefully lose the weight I'd been trying to lose, then gaining back, for over a decade.

I weighed, at the beginning of September, approximately three pounds more than I'd weighed on the day in October 1997, that I went into labor with my youngest child.  To still be carrying that pregnancy weight --plus three pounds!!--nearly fourteen years later was a mental burden to me.  I'd always been trim, active, athletic.  Okay, prior to baby #3 anyway.  I really did not like myself as unfit, flabby, and carrying way more pounds than I wanted.  More pounds than I'd ever weighed pregnant!  That fact alone was a heavy burden to my self-esteem.

I'd heard that for every child a woman bears, she keeps ten pounds of her pregnancy weight.  Well, I was nearly 65 more than I'd started as, and given 10 pounds times four pregnancies, I 'should' only be 40 more than I'd been before conceiving that first child.  So to be my highest pregnancy weight plus three pounds was just a depressing state. 

I began to do a 30-minute workout DVD every morning while my kids were in school.  I got sweaty.  I got winded.  I got sore muscles.  But I stuck with it. I even worked out when they were on breaks from school, trying to ignore their comments on how the house was shaking from my jumping jacks and how funny I looked panting and groaning.

I stuck with it because I discovered that it felt good to be soaked in sweat and out of breath.  I discovered  that I had more energy after working out than I prior to working out.  More stamina.  More strength.  I could even sing better in choir, holding notes for as long as 8 beats without having to stop for breath!  Not only that, but my mental state got a boost from working out too. A few months into my new life of working out, I read that regular exercise can help with depression. . .  Who knew?
Anyway. . .

I'm not quite to 20 less pounds yet.  It's been slow going, but it's been steady.  I have not regained a single pound, not at Halloween, not at Thanksgiving, not at Christmas, not at New Year's or even the Super Bowl.  There has been no yo-yoing in these last six months, unlike every time in the past I tried to lose weight by changing just my diet (side note:  I eat the same food I've always eaten, I just try to eat one serving instead of two, and make sure I get my 5 30-minute workouts in every week). 

I've plateaued a few times, holding the same number for three or four weeks in a row before dropping two pounds and continuing my slow descent.  But today I broke through the 18th pound.  I now weigh 10% less than I did when the school year started. Ten percent!  Eighteen pounds lighter, and am smaller by nearly nine inches (I measure waist, hips, rib cage and bust every week).  My waist is four inches smaller than it was in September. I think that's pretty darn good. 

It feels pretty darn good.  I'm so much more energetic and my endurance level has gone up a lot in six months.  I can kick over my head again.  I have one chin again, and it's getting pointy (my face used to be heart shaped, then it just became round.  I like heart-shaped better).  I'm starting to see my collar bones again. I can honestly say I have abs; not rock hard yet, but they are coming.  I like me.  I like feeling athletic again.  Who says being a mom means your body can't do the things you did before you had kids?  Who says just because I had four babies I'll always have a flabby belly and a "matronly" figure? 

I'm still going to keep my goal of 20 pounds lost at the end of the school year. Likely I will hit it a school-quarter early.  That would be just fine with me.  Because I also have the next goal made: to be 20% less on December 31, 2012 than I was on September 1, 2011.  Thirty-six pounds.  That will put me in the weight range I really want to be.  The one on the charts that doesn't fall under the heading "overweight".  The one that isn't only ten or so pounds away from the "obese" portion of the chart.


I can do this thing.  I can be this skinny chick again.  I can be healthy, and energetic, and fit. 

Frugal Food #13: Dried Beans

I confess, there's a reason I made dried beans the topic of my thirteenth post on frugal food: a lot of people are scared of them.  There's just something about those bags of hard beans that strikes fear in the heart of most grocery shoppers, that keeps them buying cans of soft, precooked beans instead of the much, much cheaper dried ones.

Once upon a time, I too was afraid to take those dried beans home and cook them.  It sounded like such hard work--sorting out possible small stones and damaged beans, soaking them, cooking them, then seasoning them before putting them on the table to eat.  Oh, it was all so overwhelming!

Until I actually did it.  And found out it wasn't so difficult.  It was really, pretty easy.  Spend a few minutes inspecting the beans for dirt/stones/bad ones, rinse the beans, dump in a pan, cover with water, go to bed!  The beans soaked while I slept, absorbing water and beginning to soften.  The next day, I brought them to a boil, covered, turned the heat down, and simmered for a while (or shut the heat off entirely, depending on what type of beans they were).  From there, treat them just like kidney beans, or northern beans, or lima beans, or garbanzo beans from a can.  Add to favorite recipe, serve, and eat! 

Viola, chili that was suddenly much, much cheaper because I got a whole pound of beans--that cooks up into a big batch of chili--for less than one can of 'chili beans' (which makes only a couple servings of chili).  Baked beans that were much tastier than the ones from the can.  Hummus made with garbanzo beans I didn't have to wash syrupy liquid off of first--hooray!

And the variety of beans,oh my!  There are so many different kinds of beans.  Many, many, more kinds of dried beans than you can find ready to eat in cans. Each with it's own subtle difference in flavor.  Black beans, cranberry beans, navy beans, great northern beans, kidney beans, lima beans, garbanzo beans (aka chickpeas), pinto beans, jacobs cattle beans, the list is endless.

You can even grow them yourself, should you have the inclination.  Those bags of dried beans in the store, they are, yes, seeds!  Seeds that have not been treated to inhibit sprouting (obviously since you can't eat those chemicals and you can't peel the beans, lol), so therefore, they will grow if you put them in your garden.

Not only are the dried beans cheaper than ready to eat canned beans of the same variety, they are also full of protein.  A pound of dried beans is much, much cheaper than a pound of meat and will go much further in a meal too.  Substituting some meals of beans with a few dinners made with meat each month will help cut your food budget.

To help get you started, here's a link to a chart on soaking and cooking times for different types of beans:  http://www.recipenet.org/health/articles/beans_chart.htm

They're Here!

I've been watching the first scouts of the migratory birds return in the last few weeks.  A couple of bluebirds, a pair of sandhill cranes, a lone killdeer.  And I've been thinking "Okay, soon I'll see a robin."

Earlier this week I saw more bluebirds.  Several red-winged blackbirds.  Four more killdeer.  The crane pair landed in my marsh a few days ago and have been traveling the neighborhood since, stopping in again at this little place here this morning.

And I think, "Where are the robins?"

I also wonder what day I will see my pair of house finches, the ones that have been nesting on the curve of downspout just outside my dining room window for the last several years.  They always sit on the deck railing or the eaves and sing while I eat breakfast on spring and summer mornings.  They too should be arriving back soon.

Then, this morning, as I sit at the computer and check email on a blustery, cloudy day that follows a rainy night, I happen to look up, out the sliding door and into the backyard.

They're here!  In the tree closest to the house are not only three big robins, but a pair of house finches!

a trio of robins

Hello, my friends.  Welcome back to your summer home.  :0)

Mr. Finch, on the eave

Mrs. Finch, in the tree

To Tap (Trees) or Not to Tap

That has been my burning question for the past three weeks.

This winter has had such up and down weather I could have put taps in my maple trees any month since December.  Now that it's tapping time according to the calendar, I'm wondering what this year's sap run will be like, and if I even want to tap.  I have plenty of syrup left from the 2011 season.  I don't need to tap in order to have enough syrup for this year. 

However, that part of me that got bit by the syruping bug two years ago wants to tap. 

Then, the realistic part of me speaks up again and says "Yeah, but it's a lot of work, and will you have time to do it right?  Besides, you still don't have a real set-up for boiling off.  Do you really want to use the turkey fryer again?" 

Then the addicted part of me counters "But it's tapping time.  And what if next year is a really bad year?  Then I'll wish I had made syrup in 2012."

I decided maybe I'd just tap a few trees.  Enough to make a little bit of syrup this year, but not the whole 14 taps I had in last year.  Five or six sounded like a good number.


So,in late February I started saving up milk jugs as we emptied them, washing them out well and trying to amass enough to hang on trees when the prolonged weather forecast said it was going to be perfect weather for tapping.  Tapping in this part of Michigan usually happens in late February or early March.

Then we got a cold snap, and the high temp for several days was not above thirty degrees.  Then it warmed up, straight to fifty degrees yesterday.  Today it's supposed to hit 65 (and it feels like it will).  The buds on the maple trees are looking pretty swollen.

I might not have to decide whether or not to tap trees.  Looks like our forecast has only three days with nights close to or below freezing in the next 10 days.  The trees might be too far budded out after this afternoon to even mess with setting taps to get 2-3 days of sap before the temps get too warm again and the trees burst their buds.  Apparently I should have set taps on those warm days in January and not worried about the trees being too healed by the end of February to get sap during the traditional tapping time.

DIY Popcorn

Yet another thing you can 'do yourself': popcorn!

Every couple of years I buy a packet of popcorn 'seed' and plant a little patch of popcorn.  Why not just save my own seed?  Well, because I don't put my popcorn patch far enough away from my sweet corn patch to avoid cross-pollination.

Anyway, I grow a little block of popcorn, let it stand in the garden until the kernels are hard and dry (say sometime in October, when the farmers are harvesting their ear corn), then I pull the ears from the stalks and bring them in the house.

I finally got around to 'shelling' my popcorn the other day.  About a 1/3 bushel of 'Japanese hull-less', and a few dozen ears of the small 'strawberry' popcorn. 
  
                                

strawberry popcorn, obviously named for it's resemblance to the red fruit

a "big" ear of strawberry popcorn, with deck of cards for size comparison

Shelling it isn't hard to do, although it does make your hands kind of sore and I recommend wearing gloves.  Pretty much just wrap your hand around the ear of popcorn and twist.  Once you get some of the kernels loosened up enough to fall off, the rest can be rubbed/twisted off.  Of course, you could buy a little gadget called a corn sheller to do this, but I all ready own hands and carry them with me whereever I go.  :0)

Make sure you do the shelling over a bowl or other receptacle with a wide mouth. 

the 'Japanese hull-less' all shelled out

 Now you just need a nice breezy day to take your popcorn outside and winnow the chaff out of it.  Take a couple large bowls, go outside, and pour the popcorn back and forth between the bowls until no more debris flies away in the breeze.

At the end of shelling, and winnowing, I have organically grown, locally raised popcorn, LOL.

I do have to say that there is a factor I haven't messed with much so far, and that is the moisture content of the popcorn at harvest time.  It does affect how light and fluffy your popcorn pops out to when you make it.  So far, my white popcorn always is a bit starchy and tough.  I really need to learn more about this moisture thing as I'm the only one in the family who doesn't mind the more toothsome popcorn we grow.  Everyone else wants soft fluffy stuff.

The strawberry popcorn, however, came out pretty close to what you expect popcorn to be like.  And it has a pretty red color in the centers of the popped corn too.

The Bluebird of Happiness. . .

. . . came and sang for me this morning.

I was lying on the living room floor, on my yoga mat, bathed in sweat, panting and enjoying the euphoria of being finished with my Monday morning yoga session with Jillian, when I heard the sweetest sound coming in from the open window beside me (cuz I always have to crack the window a few inches when I'm working out, even if it's below freezing outside).

Slowly, carefully, I raised into a sitting position and peered out the window.  In the maple tree nearest the house, sat a male bluebird, singing his head off.  He sang and sang, perched on a skinny limb, oblivious as I crept away, got my camera, and crept back to the window.

Blue sky, bluebird song, and getting my butt melted off by Jillian.  A great start to the week!

DH on the Road Again

DH has been traveling for work again.  Four days in mid-February, then home for a week (3 days of which he was sick with the flu that he brought home with him), then gone again for 7 days the last week of the month/beginning of March.

I will not lie.  By the 27th of February I was sick to death of his job.  I was happy for the paycheck, yes, but how I hated the fact that DH was not home with me, that I had to settle for a quick 2 minute phone call after days of having texts that said "call you when we stop for lunch" and he didn't have time at lunch, or "call you when we get to the hotel" and then they got in hours later than planned and he had no time to call, or "call you after the meeting" but by then, because he's on the west coast and I'm in Michigan, it was after midnight here so he didn't call.

I had enough stuff to deal with at home, what with a local tragedy taking place less than 24 hours before DH flew out, and trying to be a sounding board for my daughters as they grieved and tried to make sense of the loss of a schoolmate. 

I had enough stuff to deal with keeping the fire stoked (normally DH's job), every afternoon slogging through wet muddy ground carrying logs bigger around than my thighs and stuffing them, one at a time, into the wood boiler.  A dozen trips to the woodpile and back, one or two big heavy chunks of oak at a time.

I had enough stuff to deal with, trying to ward off that flu DH brought home from his last trip, illness that was stuffing up my head and making me have chills.

I had enough stuff to deal with, what with me not being all that technologically savvy and having the router die exactly one day after DH left for the airport.  I so nervously researched and chose a new one, praying I had gotten the kind we needed and for a good price.

I had enough stuff to deal with when the owner of the farm where I keep my horses (and work off their board) informed me that my co-worker might not be able to work much longer due to health issues and she would need me to be there to feed at both 7 a.m. and 5 p.m. seven days a week until at least summer (uh, not happening; DH & I have a few child-related trips planned I will not miss out on--I told her she would have to hire another person.  Did not go over well.  Add stress to my all ready burdened shoulders).

So, I did not fare well mentally during this latest work-required trip of DH's.  Especially knowing that come April, his job will keep him away from home nearly the entire month straight.  No, no, I was not the strong, capable woman I wanted to be.  By day four I could feel myself falling down the pit of depression.  I didn't want to do the things on my daily schedule, the structure of which I crave.  I did not want to get out of bed in the morning to go through another day of not being able to see or talk to him, of taking care of everything and everyone here when I just wanted so badly for someone to take care of me.  I was nearly a blithering idiot, trying so hard not to cry when he wasn't able to call, and trying to not take it out on DH when he did call. 

Traveling is stressful enough on him, lots of pressure to do the job, and missing out on his children's lives, not to mention not having a wife in his arms at night.  He never sleeps well when he travels.  So I will not burden him.  I take it to God instead.  Who wraps me in His arms, who makes me stronger, who keeps me safe while my husband is gone.  And I find something enjoyable to fill the lonesome hours, like piecing together quilt blocks, or working on a counted cross stitch, or putting together a 1000 piece puzzle.

This time of trial shall pass, it's just not always easy to remember that when I'm in the thick of it.