Pefection

Yesterday was one of those totally perfect days for me. Up early listening to Bach while grinding wheat for bread. In fact, I spent most of the day either food shopping or in the kitchen. Put up 6 cans of applesauce and 2 cans of honey orange slices. (Well, 2.5 cans. Something seems to be off in my measurements when I can and I have less than I think I'm going to have). Bought enough food to can up chicken stock, beef stock,and vegetable stock this week. Made a ridiculously tasty north Indian chicken curry and a potato/carrot/pea curry.

Finally went to "Lenny's Produce". It was just like my old grocery haunt on N. Beacon Hill. Yep, you definitely had to dig around and yep, sometimes you gotta just roll with what is there and take a pass on a vegetable you really wanted that just isn't going to work out. $11 gave me all the root vegetables I need to make stock and about 12 lbs of apples--so I'm a very happy girl.

Just started the "envelope method" for keeping our expenses low. It's been an interesting experiment. Started a price book this week as well so I can get a handle of what goes on sale and when. So far it is lookin' like Walgreens has the best sales on non-food stuff and then Lennys and Fred Meyer. Fortunately, all this is just making me consume less so while it is a total pain in the ass to write things down and deal with cash, that pain in the ass is making me a lot more frugal.

The new beds are finally built. It looks (almost) beautiful. I did create a 40' bed on the South fence line. The expanded garden has 1 large L-shaped bed, two 3x3 beds, and one 3x4 bed. I love it. Now if the ground unfreezes and stays dry, I can work it a little more. I've got to put down cardboard on all the walkways and then fill it in with about 2-3 inches of wood chips. I want to keep the grass and weeds away from the beds. I also have to fence those suckers in. I have some old metal fencing that I think I can use on the 40' bed and have the materials for a cruddy black plastic fence for the larger garden. I just need to keep the dang dog out.

In home-made beauty products:

I'm not sure if the baking soda shampoo is doing anything or not. I try to use it only once every couple of days. The suave stuff is so cheap that it is kinda hard to give it up (especially since I picked up some for $1). The suave stuff actually DOES wash my hair/scalp as well so--eh. Still, it's nice not having to shampoo with, uh, shampoo.

I've been using straight coconut oil as my lotion. I already had a large jar for cooking so I've just been using it after showers. My skin is seriously in love. It is not oily as I thought it would be. It's fine. The rough areas on my skin are starting to smooth out. And weirdly enough--my keratosis pilaris is almost gone. Before my wedding, I tried everything to get rid of it--tanning (as that usually helps), retin-A, beta hydroxy acids, different moisturizers, exfoliation, etc, etc. Nothing has ever helped. As of yesterday? No bumps at all. There are still red spots but they are fairly faded. I'm thrilled.

I'm gonna try a coconut oil hair mask this week for a few hours to see what happens. It would be so nice if I could just do a hair mask once a week and use the baking soda twice a week and just rinse my head the rest of the time.

I'm loving my staycation. I haven't been this relaxed in years.