I have tried . . . but

I have tried to blog, but I find I don’t have much to say. I wish I did. Maybe if I keep at it I will find more to write about.

So it seems my intentions were bigger than my motivation once again. Ugh! My mortality fills me with angst.

Here’s the best I can do today:
I stopped watching the news again, about a year ago. It never proves profitable to my spirit. More often than not it fills me with things I would rather not know. About 2 years ago, I stopped watching most  (not all, but most)  TV altogether. Fred bought these cool headphones that wire up to the TV and then he can watch it with the headphones on and mute the actual TV proper. That way I don’t have to listen to it at all, I just get my peaceful silence.

In return I have been using an e-book reader with a backlight. This allows us to keep the bedroom dark for Fred (he can’t stand the light on when he’s trying to sleep), while still allowing me the necessity of reading myself to sleep at night.

I can’t even explain how much these two pieces of technology have eased our relationship. We’ve been doing it this way for over 2 years now and I can honestly say, I don’t know how we lived without them. Funny how small things can be so annoying, such as the noise from a TV and the light from a lamp. We’ve worked it out though, and as long it works, I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

ON the website update front, I’m getting closer, but am not finished yet. Also, I’d like to blog some more about headcovering, but I’m still working out what I want to say.

Greetings to cousin Chris from all the VA family. Everyone just talks about you all the time and how proud they are of you for being so brave and facing your dragons with faith and strength. Hugs & Love—M

OFE Questions & Comments

I’ve made this thread (which I will check as often as possible) for questions and comments regarding my Old Fashioned Education site. I will answer as best I can. Hope I’m able to help.

Maggie

Still on Vacation.

more cat pictures

 

Just an update to let everyone know we’re all fine. Will be back in a few more weeks.

Watch for shrinking packages

Every time food costs go up, food manufacturers reduce the size of their packages while charging we, the consumer, the same price. Pound sized packages drop to 14 or even 12 ounces and then advertise “Now! 3/4-Pound in Every Box” like they’ve done us a favor by giving us more, when in fact they’re giving us less. Our favorite sunflower seeds were $1.19 for 12 ounces, now they’re 99-Cents for 7 ounces. the Package tells me that now they’re only 99-Cents which seems like it costs less. Only they’re giving us 5-ounces less in the package, so the company is actually making a lot more, while pretending to be a friend of the consumer. Really they’re just being a friend to their own greedy interests. Since the sunflower seeds are no longer the good deal it used to be, now I’m buying them from the bulk bins at the Natural Foods Co-Op. They’re $2.59 a pound and never NEVER trick me with packaging.

America’s Shrinking Food Wraps–YahooNews–Article about this very topic.

Feeling the Pinch

For those who don’t yet know, my family leads a “Feast & Famine” lifestyle. Our paychecks fluctuate by as much as a third.  March was a feasting time for us. We were finally able to buy several things we’d been putting off and to tell the truth we really celebrated the abundance.

Then we got paid again last Friday and it was less than we expected. About the lowest check we’ve gotten in 2 years. So we looked at it to see why, and the company has now doubled the amount they’re taking out for Health Care. Ouch! Big fat blistering ouch! So Fred will have to work an extra (12-hour) day every 2 weeks to pay for it. As it is he’s gone more than he’s home. This will eat into the short time he has here at home with us.

He works for the railroad, driving the choo-choo trains as an Engineer.

(singing) Whooooo-Whooooo! Chugg-etta, Chugg-etta, Clickity Clack. Going down the railroad tracks. Whooooo-Whooooo! Choooooo-Chooooo Train!(end singing)

I used to sing made-up onomatopoeia songs for the guys when they were little. They loved it then. Now they holler when I even try to sing it. My nephew Douglas on the other hand, is about 18mos and he LOVES it! when I sing to him about the choo-choo trains.

Anyway, since March was the first feasting time we’ve had this year, Fred and I did not squirrel away any of the extra cash. We paid all of our bills (yay!) and then went sort of nuts with non-necessities. I collect dolls. Fred collects firearms. Our oldest is into exercise equipment and our youngest is into Wii video games. (they saved up their birthday and christmas money to buy the Wii, I would Never (never) buy one for them because I think they eat children’s brains, but that’s another story). So we each indulged in our respective collections which was marvelously satisfying. But now we’re feeling foolish because we should have added to our savings, and we didn’t. Sigh!

So anyway, in an effort to free up any money I could, I went through my expenses. We get paid every fortnight (2-weeks) so that’s how long I budget for.

• Prescription meds for everyone–$80
• Gasoline–$80
• Groceries–$300 (includes catfood, dog food, over the counter meds (asprin, acne cream etc.) shampoo, toothpaste, paper products, cleaning products, laundry, bath and dish soap)
• Miscellaneous–$40-$50 (Doctor Co-Pays, clothes and shoes (thrift stores & good-will), library fines (eek!) and a biscuit from Bojangles every now and then)
• Total–about $500 to $510

At the present moment I cannot tell if this is a lot or a little. Since everything I buy costs more now, (even the Good-Will raised it’s prices!) I no longer have a sense of what is cheap and what is expensive. Flour almost doubled in price! Flour of all things. Something I use everyday.

Also, while Fred and I were feasting in March he convinced me to do low-carb, sugar-free stuff. And he’s right. I do feel much better when I give up sugar completely. I did Atkins for 3-weeks and got back down to 200 pounds, I had jumped up to 210. Now of course, there’s no way we can afford to keep that up, Atkins is about the most expensive diet on the planet, even if it does work. So anyway, at his request, I have added poultry back into the family’s diet, and am trying to continue to modify our carb intake a’La Sugar Busters, South Beach or Glycemic Index. I don’t follow any of them exactly, but sort of make them up as I go along.

So I am eating artificial sweeteners again, in case anyone is interested. I go back and forth with the sugar vs. splenda thing. I was firmly in the “no artificial sweeteners” camp, but for now I’ve jumped ship to the other side. Not that it makes so much difference one way or the other. I do try to keep all of my theories and philosophies aligned with some sense of integrity though, and that’s why I share.

As for eating poultry again, I have lots of mixed feelings about it, but the family is really thankful for ground turkey right now, and that is a wonderful thing. In times past they have been fussy about ground turkey, but since they’ve been eating love-burger (TVP) for so long, they’re tickled pink to have ground turkey back on the menu.

So anyway, I’m back on the wagon of spending as little as possible. I did good in January and most of February. And hopefully I can do just as well in April and May. In addition I’m trying to address Fred & my dietary requirments more aggressively by increasing animal protein and choosings carbs with a low glycemic index, also using non-nutritive sweeteners (albeit with mixed emotions).

And that is the state of the Fred & Maggie union.

Quick Question. Has anyone ever sold homemade doll clothes on e-bay? I’m pretty good at sewing doll clothes, and am thinking about selling them, either on e-bay or in a small section of one of my web-sites. Any advice? Since things are getting tight for everyone right now, it seems to me that there is probably less of a demand for luxuries like doll clothes.

For the record, I can make them for 18″, 14″ & 7″ to 8″ dolls. I can do anything from exquisitely accurate historical items to fast and fresh modern ensembles. Does anyone know which are more popular or would have a better chance of earning cash?

Stock-Market Insecurity

Chaos on Wallstreet

Paulson to Propose Financial Market Overhaul

Parsing Paulson’s Proposal

The government is talking about making the Federal Reserve bigger (much, much bigger) so it can better regulate the stock market. I hope it doesn’t come to fruition. My personal belief is that making gov’t bigger is seldom the solution. Making it smaller and putting individuals in the position where they have to behave with integrity or suffer the consequenses is.

I’m not sure how to transfer this philosophy to health care. I have many friends and family members who simply go without health care currently and I see how drastically it affects their quality of life. We’re lucky. We have health insurance through Fred’s employer. They recently doulbed the amount they’re taking from our paycheck though and we’re feeling the pinch.

I’ll write more about how we’re feeling the pinch later today or tomorrow.

For today, I’m watching the stock-market. I don’t have stocks, but I think it’s one of the indicators of how our economy is doing. I suspect things will not go well today, one way or the other.

Old Fashioned Education

I’ve received several letters about my homeschool site and thought I would set things in order.

 I did delete the Yahoo Group. I’m honestly not able to keep up with it. I would love to be able to devote the attention to it that it deserves, but that simply isn’t possible. Posts were getting out of hand and realizing that I could not fix it, I let it go. There was probably a more graceful way to do it. I am not always as graceful as I’d like to be with these things and I apologize to anyone I’ve hurt or surprised or caused grief to through my decision.

The official Old Fashioned Education site is still up and will remain up for years to come. The Yahoo Group I started several years ago has been deleted.

A new Yahoo Group has been started that seems to be affiliating itself with Old Fashioned Education. I did not start that group and do not know who did, but am in the process of finding out more about it.

If you have started a group or message board that uses OFE and would like a link from my main page, please share the url addy in a comment and I’ll check out your group. I think several groups are a great idea so that people can choose the ones that are best for their methods.

I’ll update as soon as I know more. 

Please feel free to post your questions, comments (and even rants, frustration or well justified anger) to this entry. I promise to daily take the time, read and address comments from now until Easter. I will make it a high priority so that everyone who needs to be heard can be.

Thank-you–Miss Maggie

Computer Crashed

Greetings all. Our computer crashed. I lost everything. Yup, everything. I have back-up copies of Old Fashioned Education, dated copies. But nothing of the new Frugal Abundance site. So I’ll be rebuilding it from scratch. If you have any articles or recipes on FA that you love, please copy them in the next 2 weeks, because they will be going and I don’t know how many of them I’ll repost.

I’ll start rebuilding the beginning of March, when the computer comes out of the shop. Until then my internet access is somewhat limited.

Thanks for understanding.

The Politics of Food

Ever since I read Frances Moore Lappe’s book “Diet for a Small Planet” in the mid 1980’s I’ve been aware that my food choices have political ramifications. She points out that some foods, like beef, require a lot more resources than they provide in return, making it a luxury food. To make a pound of edible beef requires about 20 pounds of grain. She suggests bypassing the cow and eating the grain ourselves, which will feed a lot more people than a pound of beef. Especially when you consider that grain increased it’s weight and volume when cooked, while beef decreases in both. She recommends eating lower on the food chain. While she’s not against eating meat on a philosophical level, she has chosen not to eat it herself. She goes on to explain that poultry, chickens and even turkeys, require fewer resources to make a pound of edible meat than larger animals such as cows and pigs. Thus choosing poultry is better for the environment and frees up more food for the rest of the population. Choosing a vegetarian diet uses up even fewer resources but some folks aren’t willing or even interested in taking that step, so instead we choose what’s best for our comfort zone and what’s best for our family. Like so much in life, it’s all about choices.

Well, anyway, after reading Diet for a Small Planet I tried to make better choices, more humane, more responsible choices, especially at the supermarket. The only problem is that I’m a perfectionist and I quickly realized that choosing a “perfect” diet is just about impossible. There are too many variables. A “perfect” diet would have to take into consideration all of my family’s likes and dislikes. All of their health requirements. The suggestions given to us from health agencies such as the ADA, AMA, AHA, NHL&BI and the Pyramid. Plus I’d have to condense all of the recent nutritional advice regarding the Glycemic Index, low-carb, high-carb, good-carb, bad-carb stuff. Then I’d have to choose our sweetener, which is another can of worms. Regular sugar has all of these terrible things associated with it. Sucanat, which was supposed to be a great panacea, is now claimed to be processed using less than natural methods because different batches are combined to create a more uniform product. Rapadura is now the only granulated sweetener that meets ethical and moral standards.

In order to use any animal products I would have to personally tour the farms/facilities where the animals are raised and make sure they are meeting my personal standards of humane treatment. Since a perfect diet means everything’s fresh I’d have to eliminate all food preservation methods and only eat fresh food. What about spices and seasonings, they’re usually dried? What about pasta, it’s processed and then dried. What about bread? No frozen veggies. No frozen fruits. No canned goods. Good grief, there is no end to it all!

So, for me and my family, there is no such thing as a perfect diet. We aim for something I like to call Good Enough. Do I meet all of my family’s nutritional requirements at every meal? Nope, I don’t. If I’m worried about it then there are chewable children’s vitamins in the medicine cabinet and they are welcome to take one whenever they like.

Do I buy local most or all of the time? Nope, I surely don’t. Is that because I’m a bad person? Is it because I don’t care about my fellow man or because I want my local economy to fall apart? Nope that’s not the reason why. I don’t buy all of my food locally because it’s usually too expensive. If I did buy mostly or only local then I’d have to choose which meals we would omit from our weekly budget because I couldn’t buy enough food for the entire week. My kids are willing to eat low on the food chain, but I am not willing for them to go hungry 3 or 4 times a week.

The bottom line is that I am allowed to keep food and politics separate. Every choice I make at the market doesn’t have to be a political one. It’s not putting my head in the sand. It’s setting emotional and political boundaries that allow me to keep grocery shopping, budgeting and preparing 21 meals a week manageable. I don’t vote with my grocery budget. I vote with my ballot. Other people can afford to vote with their food dollars. I cannot and I won’t be pressured into believing that I must.

So in my own way I’ve tried to keep food buying as simple as I can. What can I afford? What are my family’s likes and dislikes? How can I use up leftovers and reduce wasted food? What are my family’s nutritional requirements and how can I meet them while maintaining my budget?

These questions are more easily answered than the larger political questions. You know how in airplanes the flight attendant explains that if the oxygen masks drop down that the mother should affix her own oxygen mask first, and then her child’s? I see grocery shopping like that. First I have to make sure my own family is nourished, then I can help others achieve the same goal. If my own family isn’t well nourished then I’m not in a solid position where I can assist others.

I understand hunger. I lived it. I struggled, counting how many meals I could get from what was left in the cupboard, worrying about how we’d make it through the week. I’ve prayed daily, sometimes hourly, that the Lord show me how to make the best I could of what He provided. For me, sharing this knowledge with others, teaching them how to eat well on an itty-bitty budget, contributes far more to reducing hunger than doubling my grocery budget (yeah right! as if that’s even an option) so that I am buying locally grown, fresh, organic, humanely raised, pesticide free, politically correct groceries.

Combining politics and food is an expensive luxury. Just like my family lives with out a lot of luxuries that other people seem to consider necessities, we can live without the luxury of combining food and politics. Price, not politics, determines my food choices and that is a perfectly legitimate position to take.

Miss Maggie, I have this recipe . . .

I get literally, hundreds of offers of recipes every year. In the past I was unable to keep up with them. I’ve received so many over the years, that they sometimes seem more of a burden than a gift. I know that sounds mean, and truly I do not mean for it to. I find it overwhelming though, and can’t see the forest for the trees.

So I’ve been thinking about ways to handle that. In all honesty I am interested new recipes. Of course I am, I LOVE new recipes. I can only appreciate them within certain boundaries though. 

So what I’ve decided is that each month I will accept recipes on a specific subject, and I will only accept them on my blog, not through e-mail. I don’t do this to hurt anyone. As a matter of fact, I am trying to find a way to recieve and appreciate more recipes from my readers, and I think this method might do the trick.

I’ll make a new post later tonight with the current subject. I would apprecite it if you could post your recipes on that blog post, because it will be easier for readers to find your recipes in the blog archives.

If I try and love a recipe so much that I want to publish it on my site, then I’ll credit it to whoever posted it.

Thank-you sooooooo much for understanding. And I sincerely apologize for any feelings I’ve hurt over the years by not begin able to accept recipes with more grace.