I debated giving up this blog and just keeping my other two but I have missed sharing about our garden and neat finds for living a more organic life in a more direct format, so after a little break I am back to writing here too.

I liken this lifestyle to a more “old fashion” life and I mean old fashion in a good way.  I think we are trying so hard to be so “fashion forward” that we are filling our bodies and our homes with crap.  I have been posting on my family life blog about cooking better and by writing about what I am cooking it is helping me to watch what goes in our food.  Plus the most amazing thing is that I am finding my love of cooking again.  I always loved to cook and bake but put that on top of loving to craft, run our book business, go on field-trips with friends and especially home-educating our children and something has to give and for so many years that was the cooking and baking.  Baking has made its way back into my life because my daughter loves to bake and so I am motivated to teach her and show her family recipes.  Cooking has taken a bit more time.  I found it easier to order pizza on Friday nights than to make it from scratch and sometimes it was so much easier to throw noodles in a pot and a jarred spaghetti sauce in the pan and go.  I was even too lazy to make a salad.

As we began growing our own food I found I was more excited to cook it, even shopping at the Farmers Market gave me that excitement to cook fresh foods.  I can cook when I want to put the effort in and really it has just taken me time to get to the effort part.

You can see what I have done the last week here.  I am so enjoying the flavors of the food and the smell that permeates through the house.  I have had mostly positive feedback from the family.  I know you think because they are my family that they will be easy on me, ha! Fat chance.  They see no reason to hold back on the criticism because if it is something they don’t like and they don’t tell me I will make it again thinking they liked it, so they know better.

In addition to all this I am making time to exercise and be very conscious of what goes into my body and on my body.  I have tried to get my family to change along with me but am now working on baby steps and things that they can’t complain about (ie they like certain shampoos, deodorants, etc).  So I started with making all my own cleaning products since I am the main cleaner and whether they work or not only effects me.  So far I love what I have made, especially the laundry detergent.  My next move it to begin working on body care recipes with my friend who has breast cancer and wants to rid herself of all chemical products.  I do purchase the chemical free facial care, shampoo, etc but making my own would hopefully save me money.

As I make my next round of cleaning solutions I will write down what I put in and I will share my recipes with you and any recipes I find elsewhere.

Okay now to share a few pictures of our garden in progress.  My dh expanded this year and I am so excited to have more room.

Our three original boxes we built 2 years ago.  Right now we have tomatoes and asparagus (won’t get any asparagus until next year) in one, potatoes and onion are in another and one is waiting to be filled.

Here is our new addition.  Love this set, dh did a fantastic job.  We have onions  at the top, broccoli in another row, carrots and lettuce in another, not sure what is in the bottom row but something new was seeded yesterday.  The other set of boxes is waiting.

This area was here last year but dh expanded out and also added  that larger bottom row.  In here so far we have peas.

Plus we have a mound that has strawberries and I just got two blackberry bushes.

Happy, healthy living to you.