Think I am getting a cold.  It will really make me angry since I will have broken my 4 year record.  Guess I should really be grateful, but Thanksgiving is coming and I have a heck of a lot of work to do.  For the past three weekends, I have done minimal housework and spent the rest of the time cloistered upstairs working with my weaving and knitting to get a lot done before Christmas.  Our Christmas is generally composed of mostly handmade gifts with a few gifts coming from elsewhere.  Always hard to remember what I knitted last year for each member of the family although I promise each year to make a list to help choose this year’s projects.   I generally start in October, but I always end up frantically hoping that I will have all done in time.  Here it is basically one month to Christmas and I am not even halfway there.  In a way, that is a wonderful situation to be in—to have family and friends that I feel so strongly about that I will stay up late and get up early to get it all done.  But, after all, what do we have but time---certainly not money!!

          Back to the threat of a cold.  For years I have promised myself to build upon the medicinal herb knowledge that I remember from my grandmothers.  I have always used my kitchen herbs copiously both for cooking and for minor medical needs – for bites, burns, colds, stomach aches, etc and have grown and dried my own, but I am going to gather my collected books, my bookmarked websites and my ancient sources and begin to study again in earnest.  The medical field is just too expensive and a little too much on the ‘surgery and pill pushing side’ and because Americans are so hesitant (read ‘downright nuts’) in not following more forward-looking nations regarding universal health care (even though after World War II, we were the ones who set up universal health care in Europe and Japan), we probably need to look to ourselves more to help ourselves.  Remember the old saying ‘Physician, heal thyself.’  So, with my anticipated retirement from the University in the next few years, I have yet another project to make my time count. 

Husband—digging all of our potatoes to put in storage and listening to a race on the radio in the barn while he puts them in net bags.  Me—finishing a bathroom rug, starting mug rugs for holidays, grabbing needles, yarn and patterns to do gifts for the same.  I think I got the better deal.

          These are the crisp fall days we all think about when someone says autumn.  Still warm enough to hang my clothes to dry on the line (I consider it a challenge to see how long into the winter I can line dry my clothes) and cool enough to dig around in the winter garden and not wear out due to heat.  Got a big clothes basket full of kale, Chinese cabbage (Napa) and swiss chard yesterday from the winter garden.  Beautiful, crisp and green.  Also got a great surprise—growing where we had planted spring turnips was a huge patch of beautiful green leaves.,  Upon closer inspection (and tasting), I realized that these were turnips that were going to seed when Mike went over that patch with the tiller a few months ago.  Now I have turnip greens that are just delicious and took no labor at all!! 

          This morning, I made a big batch of noodles that are now drying in the kitchen.  Have a few orders that I need to finish .  I also made my 2-month supply of  wash detergent.  This is so fast, easy and cheap and it does a fantastic job—even with my hard well water.  I am now making the detergent for my two older daughters who both have high-efficiency washers.  Works great.

          Got a DIY tip that I have been doing for 2 months as a trial. I do not have a dishwasher  (by choice), so I do use a popular dish liquid (read more expensive than the bargain brands that you generally end up using twice as much anyway).  I have found a way to stretch the expensive stuff and still have all of its good qualities --- lots of suds, grease cutting, etc.  Here’s the deal.  Divide one bottle of your dish liquid into 2 dish liquid bottles (save the last one empty one).  Into each bottle, add 1 Tablespoon of Borax and fill to the top with white vinegar, turn up and down to mix thoroughly.  That is all there is to it.  You will put in a bit more than you normally do in a dishpan of hot water, but even with that, it stretches it to almost twice as much with ½ the cost. 

          As Thanksgiving gets closer, it is a good time for us to recognize that some of our people are going to be hungrier due to the food stamp cuts that just went into effect.  If effects all of us, whether or not we need food stamps.  If you know of or are related to anyone who could use a little help, think of what you might be able to do for them.  And next year, at election time, remember those who erroneously think that the recession is over and that the only reason people are poor is that they don’t work hard enough.  Remember that most of them have no money worries and certainly wouldn’t know what to do if they did.  Enough said. 

 

A lot left to do today.