A photographer friend of mine whom I see rarely and who also lives alone, invited me to the Highland Games (Scottish folks celebrating their Scottishness) She had to shoot pictures of men in kilts throwing very heavy objects and I’m always up for that. She drove 3 hours from where she lives in Massachusetts and […]
I was holding off writing about this until I got further along with my experiments, but things keep getting in the way. I found John Humphrey’s directions on making a Carpet Bag in Scientific American Supplement #531 (Oct 1886) and figured ‘how hard can it be?’ Originally published in the Amateur Work magazine, Humphrey’s directions are targeted to […]
My second iteration of Eliza Leslie’s Travel Reticule. It reminds me very much of something we made back in girl Scouts 45 years ago, basically a ditty bag with pockets inside. From Eliza Leslie’s. The House Book: Or, A Manual of Domestic Economy, Carey & Hart, 1840. “A Traveling Reticule. A reticule for travelling may […]
I just spent an entire day looking for the only car key ….INSIDE MY HOUSE. In the end I found it, but in the mean time I was imagining my life going forward not being able to afford to replace it right away ($120 JUST for the key and more for the fob) and what I would […]
I haven’t read a large quantity of the post apocalyptic books hat have been written in the last 20 years. For the most part they seem to involve lots of struggles between groups of humans for dominance. And that’s just not enjoyable for me, my idea of survival situations is problem solving usually cooperative. Until […]
I’ve been slowly examining all my purchasing decisions…and something that rattles around in my head every time I walk into a grocery store is Malcom Gladwell’s TED talk On Spaghetti Sauce, where he describes in detail the exact moment in the universe where we went from having a hand full of products different from each […]
When I looked for a house, I specifically wanted SOME growing room. This yard is very small and I was a bit worried, there was a lot of trees and shade and the previous owner love putting plants in the ground, but didn’t understand plants or landscaping. I spread all the heavy lifting out over […]
Over the last 10 years I have sculpted a lifestyle which fools my ego into thinking that my thrift based decisions are actually electives. I try incorporate many disciplines: frugality, minimalism, homesteading, low impact, decluttering, preparedness, recycling, scratch cooking, repairing, gardening, etc. AS we know, my life can get complicated all on its own, so […]
The fallout from my post defending Dollar store shopping showed me once again that people only read or hear what they want to hear. A post about allocation of funds was misread as a post about the comparitive pricing. I was also not very surprised at the responses that assumed I was advocating buying items […]
Among the skills I wished everyone should learn when they are young, are knitting socks and baking bread. It sounds like I am trying to promote a chop wood carry water ethos by recommending those basic skills, but that’s not my reasoning. These are real world tasks that incorporate many disciplines, one can immediately SEE […]
