Wool Dusters vs. Swiffer Nation, and other old timey cleaning suggestions

It's Monday and I have the strange sense that going back to work is actually going to be like taking time off. This weekend I embarked on the great journey that is Spring Cleaning.

For the uninitiated, spring cleaning is different than your regular ho hum sweep-and-mop cleaning. It is moving everything (yes, including the couch and the dresser), getting the dust out of the corners and high-up places, throwing stuff out, reorganizing closets and pantries, and really getting the settled winter grime OUT! Two days and two absolutely exhausted evening foot baths later, my living room is still upside-down, books are sprawled everywhere, the fridge is pretty much empty, and the cat is utterly confused about the new state of things. however, the floors are spotless, the pantry is finally sensible, all of the winter's mouse holes in the walls are stopped up with steel wool, and I finally have enough drawer space for my clothing upstairs (read - my clothing's default home is no longer on the floor).

Over the weekend I have, unfortunately, discovered that the world no longer believes in proper wool dusters. Apparently, everyone uses Swiffers now. To be honest, I only know what Swiffers are thanks to a year spent living in college dorms, but I know them well enough to know that they are tacky and disposable, so I am opposed to them on principal. Nothing, in my experience, has ever worked so well as a proper wool duster (on an extendable pole for high-up windows or under the bed). The duster just needs a good shake outside to clean it, and it's good for a generation or so with no need to replace anything. The Swiffer, on the other hand, is just a ploy to get us to buy baby-wipes for the bottom of a fake mop that "dusts" while releasing noxious "Hawaiian Breeze" scent into an otherwise decent-smelling living room. My grumpy old lady tendencies aside, suffice it to say that I truly regret the sacrifice of useful and long-lasting cleaning tools to the god of profitability in the form of disposable parts. If I can't find a nice wool duster at my local barn sale, I'm going to buy myself one at Lehman's, a lovely Mennonite catalogue, and I'll still be using it in 20 years, thankyouverymuch.

For those of you who are about to embark on that gratifying and hilarious task of spring cleaning, I have a few suggestions:

Cleaning Sinks
The best way to clean a sinks while keeping drains open is with that great marvel of second great science experiments - baking soda and vinegar. Scrub down the sink with a good helping of baking soda. Add some extra soda to the drain for good measure, then upend a quarter to a half gallon of cheap, white vinegar over the soda, rinsing it off of the sides of the sink and down the drain for a good ten minutes. In the mean time, boil a full kettle of water. After the bubbling has stopped, dump the boiling water into the drain. I clean out my sinks this way every other week, rinsing with very hot tap water instead of boiling water. I reserve a double course of boiling water for thorough cleanings once a season or when my drains start backing up.

Brooms
It was to my utter surprise that I discovered that proper broom corn brooms are quaint and old fashioned (a good friend let me know by laughing at my broom as if my life were a quaint caricature of old timey living). For those of you who use plastic brooms instead of proper grass ones, let me tell you, you are missing out! Nothing sweeps like a good, wide broom corn broom (it's called broom corn for a reason!). They last longer and are much more effective than their plastic alternatives when paired with a standard dustpan and small dust broom (or a whisk broom if you are so inclined - though even I use a plastic broom for my dustpan). Store your broom by hanging it off a hook or nail or standing it upside-down. if you stand any broom on its sweeping end, it will bend and become useless very soon. If you vacuum rather than sweeping, I highly suggest trying out sweeping. It's quiet, calm, and just as fast and effective. Vacuuming is an assault on ears and the senses. It was invented by that horror that is wall-to-wall carpeting which should really be ashamed of itself for all of the horror and tackiness it has brought into this world. Go and get out some tension by hanging your rugs on a line or over a sturdy tree branch and beating the hell out of them with the broom handle. It really is the best part of spring cleaning, especially if there's someone you'd rather beat the hell out of for not helping out enough.

Laundry separation
As I'm sure you already know, there are 5 (not 2, 3, or 7) baskets for laundry needing attention in the bedroom (listed from largest to smallest basket) - colors, whites, hand wash, fix (for clothing that needs sewing or patching), and dry clean. It helps to also have a kitchen laundry area for tablecloths, towels, and napkins and a utility room laundry basket for rags (in my case, the "utility room" is under the sink). Despite this careful separation, I tend to wash my whites and colors together in cold water, reserving a "whites only" hot and bleached wash (though I use hydrogen perozide instead of bleach) once a year when things get noticeably dingy (the exception being new colored clothing - which tends to leach color and is always washed separately its first time). I also hand wash my dry-clean only clothes but this has more to do with the fact that there are no decent dry cleaning places around here than anything else.

Washing floors
I don't know who told anyone otherwise, but there is only one way to wash floors - mop, bucket, and soap (usually floor soup). anything else, including Swiffers or floor sprays are gimmicks and they'll probably kill your cat they're so toxic. The reason is quite simple - if your floor isn't wet, forcing you to sit still and not walk, it can't possibly be clean and you can't possibly take a break. Just make sure to sweep before moping (this should go unsaid, but with folks "mopping" with Swiffers I just can't trust what people know and don't know anymore) and carefully plan your route around the house so you don't mop yourself into a corner. I like to hang the rugs on the line, sweep everything, and then mop myself out of the house, thus forcing myself to beat the hell out of my rugs and then either hang the laundry or take a nice long break while waiting for the floors to dry with iced tea in hand. I've also been known to mop myself onto my couch during winter days, where i am forced to lounge while the floor dries. See? Swiffers really were made up by the devil - and they have such a tacky name!

Take a break
At around 6 o'clock, when you've gone through 3 handkerchiefs (translation = half a box of tissues) thanks to all that dust, but before you get terribly hungry, put on something simple to simmer for dinner (rice and green lentils with lots of onion and garlic is my favorite cleaning day dish) and get yourself outside! The fresh air and sunlight helps like nothing else. Just sitting on a bench outside with a cold beer or a pre-dinner bowl of ice cream does wonders to rejuvenate a dustier, more splattered version of myself than I am used to. Taking a break really gives me that kick of energy to follow-through on the dinner dishes and a little evening cleaning before I collapse into a foot bath with a post-dinner bowl of ice cream, tea, and a good book.


I would say this spring cleaning weekend has been a huge (if as yet unfinished) success. it has been utterly lovely, full of gratifying moments (cleaning out under the sink was momentous), and with only one break down moment where I questioned what the hell I was doing with my life, sobbing to a friend that I'm 23 and how can I possibly live such a dull and drab life that housecleaning is one of the most gratifying things I do? I could be traveling, or throwing money to the wind not caring about saving, or doing some other fun and youthful thing that other people my age do who don't even know how to properly mop a floor! I blame this breakdown on exhaustion and spending my whole weekend without company and without a single night later than 11:00 PM. After all, I am only 23 and would love to go out dancing or spend a late night with friends at least once a week. That being said, I have since pulled myself together and reminded myself that it's okay to genuinely enjoy spring cleaning and sedentary life.


In garden news, my ground cherries have started to sprout, tomatoes and peppers all have several leaves, and that's about it.

Spring Fever!

Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day that smelled like spring! And it really is the season. The sap is beginning to run in the maples, it's time to have started the onion seeds, you could have started your lettuce seeds already, and the hens have been laying for almost a month! I spent yesterday drooling over farm animals on craigslist that I could never afford or take care of. I also picked up some meat at a local farm and found out that they have laying hens I can buy for $15 a pop. Not a great deal, but definitely worth it, seeing as laying hens for sale are pretty hard to find around here - especially 6 of them!

As for me, I don't have onion seeds to start, but friends have started them about a week ago. Im going to start my lettuce seeds today, and hopefully tap a maple tree (if I can find one on the property that my landlord hasn't tapped already).

11 Weeks before the Last Frost
Start Onion seeds (if growing onions from seed)
Tap maples
Start lettuce seeds (just put 2-3 seeds under 3-4 millimeters of moist soil and keep warm and watered until they sprout, then thin to the best one)
prep the coop for hens (if you're me)

Tapping Maples
Tapping a maple tree is fairly easy, and if you have cheap anything to boil the sap on for days, it's a great way to make maple syrup. Maple sap runs when nights fall below freezing but the days are above freezing. That's now, so get started!

Materials
A maple tree that's 10 inches in diameter or more (one tap per 10 inches, no more!)
A drill and bit that's 7/16" (or 1/2" if that's what you have)
Grimm spouts with hooks (or see cheap alternative below)
gallon plastic bottles or buckets with netting to keep insects out
A nice big pot for boiling water near an open window - it's going to get steamy!

The process
The best trees to use are sugar maples, but silver maples and a few others are good to tap. Make sure you have the right tree! It's best to mark your trees in the early fall when they still have leaves. If not, consult a good guide book with bark identification (such as the Audubon guide to North American trees)

Drill a hole with the bit that is angled slightly up at a height that makes sense for you to hang the bucket/jug at. If you have a grimm spout all you have to do is stick it in, hang the bucket off of the hook and let the spout empty into the bucket (on top of the netting is fine), or force a hole into the side hanging jug so that the spout empties into the closed (and therefor bug-free) jug.

If you don't want to buy Grimm spout, here's a cheap alternative - but you're going to lose some sap, so it might be worth investing in the grimm spout and hook - which is pretty cheap as things go. Cut a soda can (or a sardine lid or something similar) to about 4 inches long and 1 inch wide. Roll this into a half-tube and stick this tube into the hole you drilled into the tree as tightly as possible. hammer a small nail into the tree just about the makeshift spout and hang a bucket or jug off of the nail so that the spout runs into the jug or bucket.

Check your sap buckets daily and empty them. If you're not going to start boiling immediately, keep the sap refrigerated. Simmer the sap, being careful not to burn it, until the sap condenses to become as sweet as you want it - it takes about 32 gallons of sap to yield one gallon of syrup - so that boiling will take a while! You can add sap as you collect more in the early stages of the boiling, but once the sap starts boiling down, I'd transfer the syrup to a smaller pot and keep it on a low simmer until finished. YUM! Keep finished syrup refrigerated. any mold that forms can be taken off the top of the syrup which should then be boiled before using.

Make sure to try some raw sap! It tastes like magical water.

Curing an Ear Infection

I woke up this morning so dizzy that it took me 5 minutes to slowly, slowly, get out of bed. I am, unfortunately, ridiculously prone to ear infections. So much so that dizziness doesn't even worry me anymore. However, waking up with such a sudden and intense onset of dizziness is pretty bad, and I have a packed weekend ahead of me. Not being able to focus at the opera tonight or not being able to dance at the David Bowie tribute tomorrow would be a real shame!

Of course, I completely forgot to take care of my ears this morning, so it looks like there will be no way to get around using this smelly, all-purpose fix to ear infections tonight, when I have a date. How embarrassing! (actually this is a lie - given who it is, it's not embarrassing at all - just a bit smelly. It's great to fall in with people who are great and as diy as me - if not more - omg I'm doing the thing I swore to myself I'd never do on this blog).

Now, I unveil the horror! It feels great, but trust me, you do not want to do this for a date

Garlic ear oil
Curing an ear infection is fairly simple, but it doesn't smell good. All you need is a clove of garlic and olive oil (1-2 tablespoons should be fine) and a small pan. heat the olive oil while mincing the garlic. drop the garlic into the hot oil, turn off the heat, and let it sit until it's warm to the touch. scoop some oil into your finger and drop 3-6 drops into one ear. rub it in well, and lie on that side for 30 seconds or so. Then repeat with the other ear. Do this 2-4 times a day.

To save the oil, strain out the garlic. I would make a new batch each day though. When using cooled oil, make sure you rub your ear thoroughly to heat the oil and your ear up.

Some people use mullein-infused olive oil to heat the garlic in - but unless you happened to infuse olive oil with mullein 6 weeks ago, I wouldn't worry.

About that Seed Starting...

I suddenly remembered (yesterday) that I had planned to figure out the details of my seed starting, buy everything, and set it up by now. Oops. Clearly, I've been a bit distracted. Not that I mind being distracted, but these things need to get done!

So what I did was figure out that I need to start 68 plants (I'm started a third more plants than I need of each variety), and then, given that they will be grown in 3 inch pots, I figured out the dimensions of the space I would need (3 pots by 23 pots is 9"x68", 4 pots by 17 pots is 12"x51" and so on). then I went and measured every available surface I had in the house (I don't want to build shelves) and found that the desk I NEVER use in my bedroom is not only a good bit larger than the necessary area, but is in the warmest spot in the house and is close enough to a low ceiling to easily accommodate a florescent light with adjustable chains for height without any other rigging. As for cat-proofing - we'll just have to hope, for now. if it gets bad, I'll make a chicken wire cage around the plants. I'll cover the surface of the desk with plastic so as not to hurt the pretty wood.

So that means I need to purchase:
1 florescent light fixture and bulb (about 40" long)
2 chains - 40" and 30" (it's a sloped ceiling)
2 ceiling hooks that can take the weight
...which really isn't bad at all.

I will make a bunch of little pots out of newspaper. Tutorial to follow.

Added bonus: that desk was a mess and during the lovely snow day I had this morning, I got a chance to finally (and for the first time, I think) clean it off.

mmm Flowers!

Quick! It's the season to force flowers indoors! Go out and get those early woody bloomers - forsythia, peach, apple, cherry, or dogwood stick them in a vase with water in a warm spot in the house and wait for them to bloom which they should do in a week or so. It'll feel like spring.

Hosting through 3 Delicious Meals

It's surprisingly rare for me to truly enjoy hosting someone through three daily meals, all cooked at home. It's very rare to share breakfast, lunch, and dinner all homemade with a guest, but that, my dear readers, was something I got the chance to do yesterday, and in the process I learned that it's really easy to cook 3 fast and delicious meals in a day (which is something I rarely do for myself as is). The, trick, it turns out, is to go for delicious yet simple. here was my action plan:

Late Breakfast - Herbed Scrambled eggs with fried parsnips and rutabaga
Late Lunch - Fried tofu with caramelized onions, rice, salad with a ginger vinaigrette
Late and small Dinner - Tomato rice soup

Here's the scoop:

Breakfast (10 minutes prep, 15 minutes cook)
For the root veggies, thinly slice up 2-3 parsnips (as thin as you can get it - circles or half moons depending on the size of your parsnip) and a quarter of a medium rutabaga (you can also use potatoes, sunchokes, celeriac or whatever root veg you have on hand). Thin slice an onion. Sautee, covered, with a lot of butter and rosemary (to smell), you can add a quarter cup of water if things are burning. Add a bunch of salt. It takes about 15 minutes. Serve with sour cream.
For the eggs, beat 4-6 eggs (for two people) with sage, thyme, oregano, and a bit of rosemary (a lot - it should smell well-herbed). Scramble.

Lunch (20 minutes prep, 25 minutes cook, with some overlap)
Drain tofu, cube it, and then cover with 2 parts soy sauce, 1 part rice vinegar, and 1 part sesame oil, plus a grated inch or so of ginger (frozen ginger grates really well) a minced clove of garlic, some chives (if you have them) and a pinch of red pepper. let it sit while you prep a basic green salad, set the rice cooking (enough rice for lunch, and dinner! remember tomato rice soup!), and dice an onion.

For the salad dressing (this is the best part, and really ties the meal together) grate about a half inch of ginger into a dressing that is one part neutral oil (olive is fine), one part sesame oil, one part rice vinegar, and one part (or more even) lime juice salt or tamari to taste. Stir really well and don't let anyone pour it in their salad without stirring it well enough.

throw the diced onion and the tofu (reserve some of the marinade or it will burn) into a hot pan with oil, and sautee for as long as it takes the rice to finish. this should be plenty of time for the onions to caramelize and the tofu to brown. While everything is cooking, you can prep dinner.

Dinner (10 minutes prep, simmer as long as you can)
The trick to dinner is that it has to cook for a long time, so prep it while you're doing lunch, or while your guest is checking voicemail/something of the sort. It's the easiest meal you're going to cook all day. Dice an onion, a carrot, garlic, and some celery or celeriac (I didn't have it so I skipped it) throw that into some chicken stock, add a can of tomatoes (I added a can of tomatoes and a can of sauce for extra yum and so I had plenty for leftovers) and sprinkle in some marjoram and a dash of thyme (if you have it) salt, and pepper, and simmer until you're ready to eat it (yes - like 5 hours - that's the trick, seriously). I simmered mine uncovered because it was so watery and it turned out perfect. Dump in the rice a bit before you're going to start and stir in a cup or more of sour cream, half and half, heavy cream (don't overdo it), milk, or whatever combination thereof you have on hand. Serve hot with bread. if you're going to skimp on the chicken stock and use veg stock, you should sautee the veg before cooking. If you don't think you can leave a pot of soup simmering while you run around town for an hour or two, you're too risk averse, and I recommend trying it (unless you have a dog that will want to know what's cooking).

And that, as they say, is that. Very simple.

Planning for Indoor Seed-Starting

I'm late! I'm late! The spring season has been ticking closer and the sudden toe-tapping feeling has come over me. Oncoming spring always makes me feel late. I walked into my landlord's house to chat about laundry and thank him for keeping my fire going when I had an unexpectedly long stint away from home last weekend, and saw a fully rigged set up of shelves with florescent lighting to start the lettuces and tomatoes. I haven't even cleared enough space in my living room to start seeds yet! I haven't even ordered my onion sets yet! or discussed my garden plans with my landlord!

But really, it's okay. My farming friends are only starting their onion seeds now (they grow from seeds, not sets - sets are tiny second-year onions started the previous autumn and then over-wintered. They grow faster to ensure nice, fat bulbs, and are easier to maintain for those of us who don't have the faith in our gardening skills to grow onions from seed). They will start tomatoes in March. I will follow their example and chill out. I've already numbered all my weeks in my planner backwards from the last frost for the region (May 20th), so i always know what week it is (The week starting Monday, February 15th is 13 weeks from the last frost). In the mean time, there's a lot to think about.

Here's my plan:

This week I will:
- Design my indoor seed-starting set-up
This includes:
- Figure out how many seeds I will be started and what the system will look like
- Figure out if I need to heat the system (I hope not)
- Figure out how to keep the cat out of the seedlings
- Make a full shopping list for what I need

Also this week I will:
- Actually talk to my landlord about my garden plans and the where and when of it
- Buy onion sets, herb seeds, and other things i don't have! I will buy my next round of seeds from Fedco, which is the cheapest and most responsible northeast seed company with a comprehensive variety of seeds)

next week I will (12 weeks before the last frost):
- Buy the necessary equipment

The following week I will (11 weeks before the last frost)
- rig up the seed-starting system
- run a test-start with lettuces, and possibly okra (i need to do some more research on this Southern, heat-loving plant which grows so anemically here in the Northeast)

9 weeks before the last frost (the third week in March):
I will start my earliest seedlings (tomatoes, peppers, okra, and I'll probably start my herbs and flowers as well)

Life Without a Microwave

Okay folks - first off, you will never see me advocating avoiding anything on this blog because it's scary, going to cause cancer/world war III, or is simply "evil," however, I will advise you avoid things because they use too much energy and are questionable in their safety or the purpose they're billed for. Microwaves easily fall into the questionable category. They are, surprisingly enough, not much more convenient than a standard small pot or pan, and what you loose in taste and texture is so much, that I would suggest that you start phasing yours out. Even I, who deplore doing dishes, prefer to wash a small pot to losing all of the good, hard work I've put into my meal by reheating it in the microwave. Toaster oven or stove top is ALWAYS tastier. Also, if you experience power outages in you kitchen, chances are your energy-guzzling microwave is to blame. At the very most, it's worth considering your microwave a fancy and expensive bread box, or a mouse-proof cabinet.

Here's the how-to on reheating without a microwave:

Rice, other grains, and cooked beans are reheated by adding a bit of water to the bottom and simmering, covered, over a low heat. If you're impatient, turn up the heat and stir the grain every minute or so to make sure it doesn't burn.

Soups are reheated the same way they are cooked. If they're very thick, add some water or stir frequently so the bottom doesn't burn.

Casseroles and pan-fried meals For the sake of expediency and deliciousness, I'd reheat these by frying on a hot pan. Refried meals (like beans) are delicious because you've added oil (or, even better, butter), browned the bottom, and mushed things together, which makes everything taste better. if you don't like things mushed together, add a little liquid to the bottom, cover, and heat over a low flame. If you have a lot of time to kill, throw it into your oven or toaster oven, covered, on 350 degrees and wait.

Anything meant to be cooked in the microwave such as frozen burritos and tv dinners can be cooked (covered) in a pan or in the toaster oven. In the case of TV dinners, transfer to meal to an oven-safe baking dish before melting plastic in the toaster oven. This is the only case in which it will take more time to cook, but burritos are much less soggy when toasted or fried, and tv dinners will thaw very quickly in the frying pan but will still be disappointing. In the case of Ramen noodles and such soups, cover with boiling water until cooked or simmer for a minute.

And please, immediately throw away any recipe books for "microwave cooking." This is not cooking. It is, in fact, a farce. Anyone who thinks their 12-year-old child can't cook a meal without the help of the microwave would do well to wonder how 9-year-olds helped their mothers in the kitchen 100 (or even 70) years ago.

A Little Gift

I've been busy with a few projects, a lot of which involve my friends' kids. My close friends are having a baby, so I'm working on decorating a onesie for the baby (it's the kind of onesie that folds over itself, and the outside is going to have the "Drawing #1" from The Little Prince and the inside is going to have "Drawing #2" shhh don't tell!). On top of this little treasure (and about 4 birthdays coming up in February - ahh!) My landlords have 4 kids, who frequently have birthdays. Their youngest daughter is scheduled to turn 6 on the 21st, which left me scrambling to make a present 2 nights ago. I made her a little bag with a pretty button closure that she can wear around her neck for putting her little finds into. I put a little shell in to start her off on her adventures.

This was a great project seeing as I have yet to fix my sewing machine and it was small enough to easily be done by hand. Also, I used up some pretty fabric scraps I had lying around which I thought were too small to be good for anything. Total, it took me about an hour and a half, including time to search up and down for an appropriate button, ribbon, and strap material.

Here's a quick how-to:

Materials:
Scissors
Thread that matches the color of the purse's exterior fabric
Needle
Pretty outer fabric (it helps if it's a heavy material)
liner fabric that compliments the bag's fabric
a button
a short length of ribbon
yarn

Cut a rectangle twice the size of the finished pouch with seam allowance (about 1/4 inch on all sides) in both the pretty fabric and the liner fabric.

Fold the exterior, pretty fabric in half so the wrong side faces out and sew up both sides, leaving the top open, so you have a little pouch. Leave the top seam unfinished, because first you have to sew the liner.

Sew the liner exactly as you did the pretty fabric, but do not turn it inside out. Since it's the liner, you want the seams to face out, because the interior of the pouch will be the visible part.

Now sew the two together. Do this by flipping the exterior fabric right-side out, stuffing the liner into the purse so it lays flat, and then folding the hems on the top of the purse over the liner. Sew around the entire mouth of the purse so the liner is sewed into the hem and the pouch looks pretty, finished and opens. If you sewed it closed, you did something wrong.

Now get out your pretty button (I used a large, wooden tear-drop shaped bead) and sew it onto the front center of the pouch. If you're careful, you won't sew it into the lining, and will sew only through the back of the main fabric. This is difficult, however, and I did not succeed in this endeavor. If I were practiced at this, I might have suggested you sew the button on before attaching the lining, but I am not so practiced.

Next, attach a pretty bit of ribbon to close the purse. Make a loop with the ribbon just big enough to close around the button when attached to the interior of the purse. Sew the ends of the ribbon into the inside of the back of the purse so that when looped around the button, the ribbon holds the purse closed.

Finally, you're going to make and attach a strap to the whole thing so it can hang from a child's neck. I braided several strands of yarn in a matching color, you can also use ribbon, or a knit cord, or just about anything you have on hand. In order to attach the strap, I sewed the ends into the inside of the bag. If I were neater and more practiced (once again) I might have done this part before sewing the lining as well, so that the sewn-in ends could not be noticed on the inside. Clearly, I have much to aspire to before becoming a professional bag maker. My advice on sewing in the strap is to go ahead and use too much thread, and use it as an excuse to reinforce the side seam. A simple X - pattern will secure the strap if layered a few times. If your pattern and button are simple, you could sew the strap onto the outside of the bag and have hanging yarn tassels.

And, voila! a little purse for a little child. A quick, easy, and have-everything-on-hand type of project. Feel free to put some nice little presents inside if you're so inclined and have little things (like shells or pretty river stones or marbles).

A Note
Since this is for a child, I'd go for reinforcing all seams. Children break things at incredible rates and are not delicate. Therefore, err on the side of building something mildly indestructible if you want it to last more than a week.


But seriously, when will I do this?
If you're wondering how I can go through so many little projects the answer is that procrastination is a powerful force of creativity. Since I have no internet to occupy my time I am left with no choice but to do crafty little things to put off things I should be doing, like cleaning, organizing, and making money on the side. Also, I work a strict 9-5 day, no more (I never put in days until 8 PM) which gives me plenty of evening time to kill, and does not pay me well enough to stifle my creativity through shopping. I hope that when I'm older, making more money, and more practical that I will not be addicted to internet and will save instead of spending.

A Woman's Secrets

Call me old-fashioned (okay, I know you already do) but I think a woman goes from being attractive to deadly with the help of a few simple tools. So boys - just skip this one (okay, I know you won't, but pretend).

I'm not the kind of woman who does my hair. I'm sitting in a cafe right now in clothing I reserve for house work. I didn't know there would be an attractive man playing a guitar. But I do at least have some defenses. And here's a short list.

Most of my feminine secrets have to do with smell. I hate commercial perfumes. I think they smell cheap (even the expensive ones) and make a woman smell like an identifiable product rather than a sensual secret. A woman's scent, in my humble opinion, ought to be elusive and specific. Being part of a short and recognizable list of scents is irritating - especially when you walk by someone wearing your perfume and suddenly realize that in a dark room, you and the woman you just walked past could fool your lover.

My scent is very simple - it is a mix of just two essential oils. No, I will not tell you what it is. I chose it carefully - I wanted to smell vaguely of a comfortable and joyful kitchen and of warmth and femininity. It is a little less than sensual, but it's mine, and I like it. I'll probably add a sensual scent soon, but seeing as Patchouli is absolutely not an acceptable scent to wear unless you want to smell like Woodstock (thank you, 1970's), and I don't much like Ylang Ylang, I'll have to wait to find a better essential oil to throw into the mix.

My soap, my shampoo, and my body oil are all infused with the same scent. I drop a single drop of the pure essential oil mix behind my ears and on my wrists before going out (more than one or two drops is always too much!). My hand salve, however, has a different smell, with only a trace note of one of the oils, because it seems to me that hands, which work, should not smell overly manicured - it just doesn't fit that I am a woman whose hands work.

Body Oil
Body oil is a simple alternative to commercial creams that you slather on after a shower. Oil is super-moisturizing, and if your skin isn't too oily, it will go a long way in softening your skin and making it more radiant. It is a simple blend of one or many oils with some essnetial oils (optional) for scent.

If your skin borders on oily use almond or sesame (not the roasted kind!) oil as a base. These are light oils. I use a blend of St John's Wart infused olive oil (calendula infused oil is also great - find insturctions on infusing oils in this post) in an almond and canola (it's cheap) oil base with a bit of jojoba oil. I keep this in a squeeze bottle in my bathroom. It makes my shower experience much more decadent. You can also use coconut oil, which is convenient because it's solid at room temperature, but melts onto skin. If your skin is really dry, Shea butter is a great oil to use.

Whatever you do, do not use too much cocoa butter, or you will smell like a stripper.


Scents
I'd suggest spending some time with your collection of essential oils before choosing a blend for yourself. My collection is really very small - 6 or so oils, only 3 of which I use exclusively for scenting things, the rest I use for household and other purposes - for more info see this entry). Figure out which oils you gravitate towards for scenting things like baths and footbaths. Figure out what kind of base notes you like, and higher notes when it comes to your own smell. Do you like flowery scents or earthy ones? Combinations or simple, single scents? Start experimenting with a few drops. When you've settled on a scent, mix a small batch and use it for a week.

Once you're sure you love this scent and it's yours, mix it into your body oil, your homemade shampoo, (in Earthly Bodies & Heavenly Hair: Natural and Healthy Personal Care for Every Body - I can't justify handing out so many of her recipes for free, so go and buy the book! It's well worth it) and make a small batch (keep it tightly sealed!) for use as perfume.

Solid Perfume
if you have a small glass jar (1/2 oz would be ideal) that seals tightly you could make a solid perfume. Make a simple salve by mixing two parts olive oil to one part pure beeswax. Put the oil in a double boiler (a small pyrex measuring cup works well and is an easy way to measure beeswax into oil to get the right ratio) with slivers of beeswax. Once the beeswax is melted entirely into the oil, stir with a chopstick or pencil, and pour into the container. add your essential oil mix until it is as strong as you want (30-50 drops, approximately), stir, and cap tightly to keep the essential oils fresh. Reserve the remainder of the unscented salves for other batches or other salves. Tthis makes a very thick salve, which is necessary since you'll be adding so much essential oils. to make a thinner salve, simply add an additional part of oil. You can melt and reconstitute the salve as much as you need without hurting it.

Enjoy smelling like a wonderful, unique version of yourself.

Cat toys

If you're renting in the country and are being frugal, chances are your most expensive asset after your car is your cat or dog. After vet bills, it's unlikely that there's much money left for toys, and let's face it, pet toys are the aesthetic equivalent of jell-o and they're the fastest way (short of having a baby) to completely ruin your rustic decor, or, if they're squeaky, your sanity.

I made a lovely little cat toy this morning which almost made me late for work. I have trouble justifying buying cat toys not only for the above mentioned reason but also because my cat plays with anything she can get her little paws on. For the past few days her toy of choice has been a turkey feather that she got out of a vase I had moved onto the floor in the process of rearranging. She has been very taken by it, chasing, pouncing, and tumbling with the feather whenever she isn't lounging by the stove. I decide to make her play a little more fitting for a civilized household, so got out another turkey feather, tied them together with a bit of yarn, and hung the feathers from an upper rung of the ladder so the feathers hung at perfect cat height away from the wall but out of the way of foot traffic.

You could do this by hanging feathers (or just about anything - though cats really love feathers) about a foot from the corner of a wide door frame, from the mantel, or anywhere else you can hang a discreet hook or nail that's far enough from a wall to avoid causing damage by clawing. If you don't have feathers lying around try using branches or anything that looks furry or vaguely mouse-like. a little catnip pillow also works (there's a great design for a catnip mouse, if you like sewing, in this wonderful book Country Wisdom & Know-How). Yarn is a great string to use because, doubled or tripled up it is quite strong and it is bouncy - which is fun for the cat - and chances are good that you have some spare yarn lying around the house.

Notes on spices and Delicious Crackers

Note on spices
It came up this weekend that someone mentioned that they didn't really know how to use spices in their cooking. Since spices define a meal and are the basis by witch we differentiate different styles of cooking, I figured it deserved some space. First off, you will not use your spices if they are not fresh, accessible, and clearly marked. I keep my spices in 1/4 pint jars (they were cheap and easy) on a fairly large spice rack that hangs on the wall right above my stove. Know how you cook - if you measure everything, go for a jar (like the 1/4 pint) which is easy to dig into with a spoon. If you'd rather shake, go out and buy some jars with lids that have holes for shaking. Never keep spices for longer than a year or too, and if they don't smell like much, they won't taste like much either. Have clear labels. Clear jars help because colors are an easy identification key. Keep in an order other than alphabetical - which isn't very sensible (and plus, there are far too many spices that start with the letter C*). Try ordering spices by cuisine or savory/sweet - there's some overlap, but this will keep things easier when you reach for the spices to make your Dhal.

Here are a few tricks of the trade:

- In General most people mess up by not adding enough spices. Especially in highly flavored cuisines like Mexican, Indian, Thai, Cajun, etc., it's really hard to overdo it (except with hot pepper). So go for a lot of spices. for a meal serving 4 people it's not unheard of to add around 2-3 tabelspoons of spices. Go for gold. if you overspice, add more of something to soak up the spice - like beans or rice. If you're scared of overdoing it, add spices gradually, and wait a while for flavors to meld before tasting. Try out a few recipes for high-spiced dishes just to get a sense of ratios and how much spices and herbs to add to different kinds of cooking. In general, dried, powdered spices are added early on in cooking so that the flavors can develop, flavor the oil, seep into the food, and really build character.

- Fresh, leafy herbs such as basil, cilantro, and parsley, should be added towards the end of cooking, because the flavors have a tendency to fade (a major exception to this rule in my kitchen is adding parsley to soups that are watery to develop the veggie stock flavor early on in cooking - some people may say this adds a bitter note to vegetable stock, but I have never found that to be true). Fresh and dried hardy herbs such as oregano, rosemary, thyme, and sage should be added early on or closer to the halfway point in cooking to allow some time to soften and the flavors to meld into the dish.

- Mexican Spices are powdered Cumin, oregano, hot chili, (including commercially mixed chili powders, which usually include cumin, oregano, cayenne or another hot pepper, and paprika for color). Add these spices when sauteeing onions. The flavors for these spices come out best when sauteed and cooked a long time. Onions should be fairly well covered with spices and look brownish-reddish (depending on how much hot pepper and/or paprika is added). At the end, immediately after turning off the heat, add cilantro if desired or called for. Jamaican cooking generally replaces most of the oregano with a lot of thyme. Add thyme closer to the halfway point than you would oregano.

-Indian Spices are a long, long list of things. Go for fresh ginger (an easy way to cut up this annoyingly hairy root is to freeze it and then grate the sucker on the small part of your hand grater). Usually you'll be using less than an inch of the root. The spices you will be reaching for include cumin, coriander, turmeric, cayenne pepper, (which are the ingredients in curry powder), to be added when sauteing onions, and mustard seed. For the slightly sweet dishes you might also reach for cardamom, or the pre-mixed garam massala, which I keep on my spice rack because I just can't figure out the ratio and all of the ingredients in this delicious spice mixture. Less commonly you might reach for Asafetida, fenugreek (which I have never gotten the hang of using) and some other lesser characters like curry leaf. You will be surprised by how much spice you will have to use. it's a lot. The rich flavors of Indian cooking are made up entirely of spices plus a splash of lime, some sides of chutneys and spicy pickles. When adding whole seed spices such as cumin seed or mustard seed, pop the seeds by sautéing them separately in a small pan in very hot oil until they start popping and jumping around. add this to your meal with the hot oil just before the dish is done. Whole seeds add a very different flavor and texture to your final dish than the powdered variety, and they're not really interchangeable.

- Thai I'm no expert by far - but I've found that lemongrass (cut into 1/2-in pieces and simmered for a long time, then removed prior to serving - treat as a bay leaf), a lot of lime, and basil added to the normal curry palate (see Indian spices above) with some extra ginger and coriander and less cumin is the basis of making a satisfying Thai dish. Thai spices, such as galangal are hard to find, so go for extra ginger and lime. A lot of cilantro and basil on top once the dish is done is also a must for most dishes.

- Cajun is a cuisine I haven't come into my own in yet, but I'd love to master it. it's delicious and a surprisingly rare treat to find a hostess serving - especially in this age when Asian cooking is chic. Either buy a commercial spice mix or mix one yourself and pretty much cake whatever it is you're cooking with it. A recipe can be found here. I would not shy away from adding allspice.

-Cayenne in recipes can never be trusted. Figure out just how spicy your cayenne is (it's never the same between years, brands, etc.) and feel free to add more or less than the recipe calls for, or to replace a part or all of what is called for with Paprika, which is less spicy (and frequently not spicy at all) but adds color.


On to the next of today's topics:

Delicious Easy Crackers

I made these crackers for new years since I had a stale baguette to contend with. They're basically croutons in the shape of a cracker - yum! Bakeries throw out bread every night. If you can get in as the workers are sweeping up (just as they're closing) you might be able to snag a few "day olds" which the bakery cannot sell the next day. If you land a few stale baguettes, here's what to do to make absolutely divine crackers. I did this without measurements, so feel free to adjust. I'm approximating from my visual memory

Ingredients:
- 1 stale baguette, cut into slices as thin as you can manage straight across (no need to cut on a bias unless you want long crackers)
- 2 cups olive oil
- 2 Tablespoons dried oregano
- 1 Tablespoon dry sage
- 1 Teaspoon thyme
- 1 1/2 Tabelspoons powdered onion
- 1 large clove garlic, minced
- Black pepper (however much you like)
- Salt (go for salty - 3 generous 3-finger pinches (that's 3 fingers not including the thumb))

The method
Mix olive oils and spices in a large bowl. once thoroughly mixed, add in the baguette slices and mix (with your hands) until all of the bread is well-coated. spread these out evenly on a cookie sheet and put into a hot oven (I'd go for the 450 mark - or on toast in a large toaster oven) for 10 minutes or until the crackers start turning golden brown and are no longer stale in the center. Transfer onto another cookie sheet to get them out of the oil that no doubt will be sitting in the original cookie sheet.

I served the crackers With a sage-y white bean dip (cook cannellini beans, add a lot of sage, and mash with cream and olive oil as you would mashed potatoes), but really, they were delicious enough to eat alone.


*Just for fun - Spices that start with C (let me know if I missed any): Cayenne, cumin, coriander, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, chives, chipotle, and (if you're really an acclaimed Indian chef) Curry leaf.

Hosting - for a week straight

I have never understood why New Years happens a week and a half after the winter solstice. Thanks to Wikipedia my thoughts on the complete arbitrariness of the new year falling in January have been confirmed. January was when the consuls of ancient Rome assumed the government. Traditionally, the Roman calendar started in March, which makes much more sense. The Jewish calendar renews during the harvest season, which also makes sense. Perhaps the only thing a January new year has going for it is that winter is a time of introspection and a time when we spend far too much time trapped indoors and are in need of something to make us feel less caged. Winter could benefit from a party and a nudge in the direction of thinking over the past year, though not, in my over-extended hostess's opinion, a week following Christmas.

I am not prone to thinking over the year at this point in December. While I was a student, the much more obvious time for the was always at the end of the school year in May or June. To me the year always feels as if it is renewing when I pull out the seed catalogues in mid January and start planning the new garden (this year, again, for the third time in four years, I will be digging a new garden). The renewal of our calendar is an imposition on my otherwise fluid experience of the cyclical nature of seasons. It feels rushed, stuck in and overshadowed as it is after the month-long glut of Christmas specials, carols, and advertising.

Since Wednesday evening I have had no time for anything besides driving, catching up with friends, cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning - definitely no time for top-ten lists and memoirs of my 2009 AD/CE experiences. It is a relief to be at work, where I am left relatively alone and no longer frenzied to the point where my body insists on hurting itself through sheer stupidity because otherwise I do not hearing it yelling "slow down and take a break, you maniac!" (I slammed my fingers in the front door right before sitting down to Sunday brunch, a completely idiotic move I haven't successfully pulled off for the better part of a decade)

I take pride in my hosting not because I am a deeply social person who loves having people over. Quite to the contrary. I make hosting a fastidious habit because that is the only way that the whole experience becomes easy and low-stress. Because every step is a habit, drilled into me by endless practice runs since I was old enough to pour tea, I no longer have to think about it. I spend half of my time with my guests going through motions so habitual I could do them with an axe murderer. "Tea or coffee?" "Let's move to the living room, where it's more comfortable." "Candy?" "Of course I don't mind if you take all the books off the shelf. It's about time I reorganize, anyway!" This perfected routine turns 4 hours of hosting into 2 hours of robotic ease and 2 hours of actual interaction, which, I assure you, I cherish.

Seeing as I am actually an antisocial person who likes more than anything to take a foot bath alone except for the company of my cat and Ira Glass, I hope you will excuse my coping mechanisms. I assure you that they are for our mutual benefit - you get tea and slippers as soon as you walk through the door, a set table, and other conveniences most people can't look forward to expecting until their friends are in their 40's and have finally shaken off the oafish habits of college, and I get the security of auto-pilot.

Ice Skating, heating stones, and cole slaw

The world is miraculous. It is splendid. I had to work saturday a bit, so I moved my weekly cleaning day to Sunday. After a few hours of dishes to Selected Shorts, sweeping, taking out the trash and piles, and setting dinner to cooking, I noticed my neighbor and his daughters pulling an ice sled and their skates to the pond. I peaked out of my living room window, and sure enough, there were two kids, a grown man, and a dog skating circles under my window on a beautifully frozen pond/stream (it's a dammed stream, and under my window, it's pretty narrow, though once it goes under the bridge and across the road it spreads into a lovely acre-sized pond (and nowhere is it deeper than 4 feet - which is great for skating and bad for swimming).

After a week of surprisingly cold temperatures for December never getting up past 23*F (about -5 Celsius to everyone else) and no snow - the blizzard that clobbered the northeast missed us this far north and inland entirely - the weather is perfect for ice skating. over an acre of perfectly frozen water, with no snow to sweep off or ruin the texture. The stream flows down to the pond from areas I've never explored. A house burned down around the bend from the stream last week. I'd like to skate up there one of these days. The fire was so huge and sad and beautiful - it would be good, i think, for me to see its effects.

I ended up going out to skate 3 times. I had hot chocolate and the most pristine spread of cookies all handmade by my landlady with perfectly iced gingerbreads, flower-shaped sugar cookie sandwiches with raspberry and quince jam and powdered sugar, little chocolate cake and jam with ganache cubes, lemon pound cake squares, ginger snaps, and rugellah. I aspire to such domestic perfection. I make a point of never showing up empty handed (for the sake of propriety and general joy and the continuity of the spirit of giving), so I brought over some sour cherry jam, the christmas presents I had made, and a book of paper dolls for the oldest daughter's birthday which is on Christmas (a day after mine!). Then I went out skating again with their 3 girls for at least another hour.

Friends came over for a dinner of root veggies, barley and chicken soup in turkey stock and cole slaw (see recipe below). We went out ice skating with my kerosene lantern. Dressed in fleece leggings and my turmeric-dyed house skirt, with gloves, scarf, and my long winter coat, the stars so bright they were reflected in the perfect ice, it was a wonderful, beautiful sight. Aesthetics are a lovely part of life!

My friends and I figured out a very clever little personal heater. I had a smooth river stone, flat on one side, about 3 inches in diameter. My friend tied cotton kitchen twine around it so it hangs like a necklace. when heated on a brick on the stove (not directly on the stove - that's too hot) it's the perfect temperature to wear around my neck under my sweater but over my long sleeved shirt (it's winter - layers! layers! layers! 2 on legs (including feet) and 3 on top is my standard rule - one of the tops damn well better be a sweater too). It heats right at the core and radiates that heat for well over an hour. It is by far the most magical way of staying warmm - and the most effective! Just keep your eye out for the right sized stone and a boyscout who knows his knots. if you don't have a wood stove, you could probably boil the stone - just be careful that it doesn't burn you!

Life is so magical when it's a winter wonderland! i am so incredibly happy it's hard to describe. it's as if winter is conspiring with me to make everything perfect and wonderful.

New Years' party at my house with ice skating and everything - come on come all (if I actually know you or you're a friend of a friend). It will be a night to remember! Hot stones will be handed out for ice skating. Bring skates, a sled (if there's enough snow), and plenty of warm clothes. I'll provide warm beverages for adults, kids, and designated drivers.

Killer Cole Slaw
I always have cabbage in the house. It;s cheap, it sits in the fridge forever, and it's versatile. So when my one-pot soup had to serve as dinner for four, I had to figure out how to add a side dish. In the fridge: a full array of winter storage veggies and condiments. nothing else. So here goes:

- Finely cut cabbage. You can shred it with a cuisinart, but why, when it's easy to shred cabbage with a knife and the crunch is so much more satisfying? To fine chop cabbage, cut off a chunk and then cut shreds on a diagonal.

- Grate a few carrots to get to the cabbage/carrot ratio you want (or parsnips, or beets - whatever you have that's sweet and can be grated)

- Mix in Mayo - enough to cover everything but not too much. nothing kills a good cole slaw like too much mayo.

- Add in enough pickle brine so that it tastes salty enough and somewhat tangy, and has enough moisture (I just use the leftovers from my store-bought or homemade dill pickles - always leave this on hand when you finish the jar of pickles for soups and slaws. it's a delciious treat). If you pickle brine has garlic in the bottom, add it to the slaw.

- If you have it, add some Dill. This adds an authentic Russian taste to your slaw, which will add a nice ethnic touch.

- Add black pepper, mix it up, and let it sit for a bit so the flavors meld. Taste and adjust seasonings.

Yum! Now you have a side dish to your otherwise scant dinner spread.

Time in wood and Home, among other things

It is definitely winter. Nights are down in the single digits. I'm facing the choice of living a life of decadent warmth or being conservative with my wood usage. I went for conservative last night and spent all morning huddled by the stove, not even cooking myself a warm breakfast because that would take me out of the living room for too long.

It seems to me that the length of winter is measured in wood. A chord isn't just a measure of stacked, split wood (2 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet), but of heat per day, per week, per month. 2 1/3 chords - which is roughly what I started out with, is shifting, shrinking, and changing very rapidly. In the fall, a chord of wood is endless. One log here and there makes the oncoming winter seem easy, filled with abundance. As the winter comes in with her blizzards and below-zero wind chills, a chord becomes a much smaller measure. 2 months easily becomes a chord and a half. the stack of wood indoors shrinks fast. the amount of heat provided becomes relative to the cold outside, and the stove is always on. A little furnace chewing away split logs, one by one, or two by two, or three by three if the stove is cold and dead and needs to be revived, first hoarding the heat, then slowly radiating it out into the house over the course of hours, until even the kitchen is warm, and the cat and I venture away from the chair pulled right up to the stove for an abbreviated night of chores and tasks.


Last night I made both salves I said I'd make lavender lip balm, lavender baby oil, and shampoo. I used 1/4 pint jars, old travel candle tins, and these little black plastic lidded containers that were used for goat cheese and a friend had saved in her resourcefulness and had given to me. They turned out to be a good size for salve (a bit on the large size - so I filled them halfway, but much better than anything else I had, since I had neglected to buy another flat of 1/4 pint jars - which I go through faster than is at all reasonable).

I hung a blanket over my front door to keep the draft at bay. What looked like a very ugly old blanket actually turned into a cozy entryway because the colors matched and complimented the walls so well. I considered weather stripping, but the space between the door and the frame is so uneven in places, and the process of buying and installing the stripping was so unknown to me, that I went for the simple solution of nailing a blanket to the door (yes - this is what my landlords suggested. I think the door is being replaced come spring anyway - I need a screen).


As the winter encroaches and I am drawn more and more to the hearth I am dreaming of the possibilities of home. I am considering the possibilities of summers and winters. I am considering a little mud room, or at least a covered porchlet. The direct southern exposure would make for a perfect little sunroom or greenhouse. The shed could be insulated, a door could be cut into the living room, and the little room could serve as an office or a small bedroom. with an additional window facing the stream to the north, it would easily be the most beautiful little room in the house.

My landlords mentioned, offhand and semi-joking in the way we all do, that maybe we could switch houses eventually, when their kids all moved and once I had kids. They wouldn't need the big house anymore, and would like the coziness of the cottage, and I would need a larger space and could move into the farm house. it is a fantasy, of course, but to me, in my incredible sedentariness, it is the loveliest of fantasies. Imagine - finding home at 22! This may not be your dream, but it is mine. A stream, a view of the Catskills, a strip of forest, a sledding hill, 30 tilled acres, outbuildings, a barn, a hamlet within a mile with a library and a PO, a city within 10 miles with everything I might need including a direct train into New York City, wonderful neighbors and long-term relationships. Never underestimate the power of a beautiful place.

Holiday presents - Calendula and St. John's Wart Salves

Being a Jew, I don't think of Christmas much except to fume about its unfortunate proximity to my birthday. If I had kids I would fume more, of course - what with everything in this area being Christmas-themed all month and every community celebration featuring santa clause and the baby Jesus surrounded by lambs and wise men - there's nothing for Jewish kids to do! And being as I believe that Chanukah is a mediocre charity-holiday created by the marketing conglomerates to make little Jewish kids just as consumer-oriented as little Christian kids, I'm prone to go through December enjoying the pretty lights, wreaths, and garlands and happily avoiding the consumerist hubbub. to be honest, I consider myself lucky (though if I had my druthers, I would move my birthday to some point a bit farther from Christmas when people could actually focus on me, come to my birthday party, and give me presents that weren't afterthoughts at best).

This year, in a great departure from the norm, I am making some Christmas presents. I'm making them for my landlords, who very sweetly sent their daughter over with not one but two homemade Chanukah gifts for me. Seeing as they're my landlord-soulmates, I'm going to make them a Christmas gift. Also, I'll have some on hand for whoever else I need to bestow gifts upon - which is something I generally reserve only for my friends who are giving birth soon, and their children, and, when I think of it and see something they'll love or am making something lovely anyway, my closest friends. Seeing as I have at least 3 birthdays in February for the sweetest little girls, and have infused oils on hand from the summer, the following recipes should do. (taken from Earthly Bodies and Heavenly Hair)

Calendula and St. John's Wart Salves

Salves are super-luscious, concentrated moisturizers and healing balms that can be used all over the body. Calendula, which is an all-purpose skin-healing super flower is many a mother's favorite tool for moisturizing chapped baby skin, keeping cold wind from chafing rosy cheeks, etc. To be honest, I don't know any mother who doesn't have a bit of it on her at all times. Also, it's great for grown-ups. i used it as a lip balm, on cuticles, and the backs of my hands when they get cracked.

St John's Wart is also a super-healing, mildly antimicrobial flower found just about anywhere in mid summer. In tincture form (steeped in alcohol for months) it is frequently used as an anti-depressant. In salve or oil form, it is great for relieving pain in aching joints, and generally soothing minor physical complaints both topical and injury-related. Great for arthritic hands or aching joints brought on by cold or flu. Mixed with some fennel and lavender oils, it has a soothing effect.

Materials
Clandula flowers dried or fresh, olive oil, or calendula-infused oil (6 ozs)
St. John's Wart plants, dried or fresh, olive oil, or infused oil (6 ozs)
Beeswax (4 ozs total for both recipes)
A double-boiler, or a small pot of water and a heat-resistant measuring cup
something to stir with (a chopstick works)
little jars, 1- or 2-oz, or 1/4 pint jars
Labels

The Process
We're making 2 seperate salves here - in my case, on for the parent(s) and one for the kid(s). So follow these instructions twice over - one time with the calendula and another time with the St. John's Wart

If you're lucky, clairvoyant, or have been doing this already, you'll have some olive oil infused with calendula and st john's wart on hand. If not, wait until the summer for a fresh harvest or go to your local health food store that features an apothecary (mine does, for some wonderful reason) and pick up some dried flowers.

Now, if you have time, here's how to do it: Cut up petals (in the case of calendula) or the whole plant (in the case of st john's wart) and place in a jar of olive oil to cover (more or less depending on how strong you want it - for these recipes 6 ozs of finished oil is required). Let sit in a cool, dark place at least a month or more. 6 weeks is ideal, but it can sit for a long time. Mine have been sitting in a closet since the summer.

Strain your oils and put 6 ozs into your double boiler, once the water is boiling. get the oil good and hot, and then chop in 2 ozs of beeswax into small chunks into the oil. stir until assimilated and then pour into your containers. If you're planning on adding essential oils do so at this point (lavender and fennel for calming colic, tangerine for energy, none at all for most salves, since scents are so invasive and define a salve's purpose so strongly). Cover immediately and store in a cool, dark place until they're ready to gift.

If you don't have the time to infuse oil, or don't have infused oil
You probably don't. If this were the book I want it to be, you would have read in May that it's time to plant your calendula and in August you would have read that it's time to dry it and steep it in oil, and on December 15th, having all the ingredients on hand, you'd be reading this. But since that book is still in my brain and not in your hands, here's what I would do if I didn't have infused oils on hand.

Follow the directions above using olive oil and beeswax. If you'd like, replace half of the olive oil with jojoba oil or cocoa butter for extra-moisturizing power. Then, when you pour it off, choose an essential oil mix that's right for the person you're gifting this to. Lavender would make a great "bedtime salve" for lips, temples, chafed noses suffering from colds that would be a sleep-aid. Tea tree oil would be great for a scent-reducing foot salve. Tangerine would be great for a morning or pick-me-up salve, and sandalwood and rosemary would make a great scent for soothing tired hands (also- it's a fairly masculine scent)


Notes
Note on herbs: Really, you can use just about any medicinal herb in this way. Comfrey is good for treating bruising and internal aches. Black Walnut hulls and tea tree oil are great for fungal infections. read up on things and experiment. To make a colored lip gloss, infuse annatto seeds (for an orangeish tint) or alkanet root (a reddish tint). replace 1/2 oz of the infused olive oil in the salve recipe with castor oil for gloss. Replace 1/2 oz of infused oil with jojoba or avocado oil for extra moisturizing. add fragrance if you'd like, but be sparing, this is going right under your nose! in another alternative, you could make a salve-perfume, mixing a lot of essential oils in to make a solid perfume. Be careful though. gifting and making perfumes is a very specific art.

Note on consistency: The recipes above are not hard science. If you want a runnier salve, use less beeswax. If it's summer and you want the salve to hold up better and don't want to risk oils going rancid, use more beeswax.

Enjoy!

Life is going to change. No doubt about that.

I've started drawing sketches to accompany the blog, but I don't have a functioning scanner in my life. The one at work doesn't seem to work, though i spent more time than I should have trying to fix it. Please forgive me, dear readers, for my dislike of digital photos. They just take up way too much time. sketching is much simpler and more satisfying.

Now I must admit a thing that has made me sad and that will definitely impact this blog and the pace of my life, though I have no idea how (who ever knows?). Now that I've finally fallen in love with living alone, I have put out a call for a roommate. there was no way to avoid it. I can't afford to live in my sweet little house alone, and there's no way in hell you could get me to move. I have found my little piece of heaven. I intend to stay here until I have no other choice. So there it is. I wish I were filthy rich, so I could be a real fashion farmer and live wherever I wanted and grow whatever I wanted just for the hell of it - and because it makes me feel good about myself (warning about the link - don't open it if you're an ex-suburbanite-turned-rural-farmer and take yourself too seriously).

As a result of me not being a trust fund baby, you, my dear readers, can expect to find posts about building walls (because i intend to separate the loft into 2 rooms), arranging work-trades, and figuring out how to convince your roommate to do all the dishes (I will think of a worthwhile exchange and appreciate any help in doing so). Also, I will inevitably have to discover how I can listen to NPR as often as i want to with another human being in the house, who probably hates Allen Chartok as much as I do but isn't as fascinated by the constant chatter.

Wish me luck, and if you know anyone who wants to be my roommate, send them my way!

It's the little things

I have discovered the secret to joy last night and it is this - a foot bath in the chair by the stove once a week with sea salt and essential oils, tea kept perfectly warm on a brick on the stove, and crackers with sweetened condensed milk. After a day of the usual - 8 long and boring hours of work, cooking, shoveling snow, dishes, bringing wood in, and, if I'm lucky, some time on the couch with the cat - it is the perfect sliver of luxury. It is such luxury, that is makes me forget entirely about those boots I've been coveting that are $80 out of my price range. The $.03 foot bath is better than the boots anyway.

I finished the sweetened condensed milk two days ago, so last night I settled for a jar of my admittedly mediocre apricot jam, honey, and butter. It's not perfect, but at least I can afford sweetened condensed milk - now a staple of my diet above and beyond peanut m&m's which come in a now-distant second for top guilty pleasures. I'd give up a lot before I'd give up that little Carnation can. Definitely chocolate (gasp! I know! but seriously, s.c.m. is THAT good), sliced bread, and any $120 pair of boots. My favorite way to eat it is slathered on a very thin cracker that doesn't get in the way. It's also very good over nutella (but really, how could that not be?) I also like dipping my finger into it when it's cold in the the fridge and will stick - ah, the pleasures of living alone!

So in case you too have just discovered that you're not really making all the ends meet and will therefore need to find a roommate or move out, if all your muscles hurt from shoveling the driveway with a very heavy and old snow shovel, if you really can't stand the thought of cleaning, cleaning, cleaning after working, working working all day, and just want to live your own life, even though that's basically impossible - go dip your feet in some hot water and let yourself sit for a half hour. Listen to some music, or the radio, or watch a movie, or write, or read. I promise, you'll feel better. I do.

Snow Day!

6 inches of snow meant I got to come into work today at noon! In a wonderful, relaxing morning I spent half my time on the couch (which I pulled up to the stove) petting my cat, and the other half helping my landlords switch in a new fridge for the old 1950's one with a breadbox-type freezer that had been in my kitchen, and setting up the lettuce window growing station I promised myself and yall that I would make. I only had one piece of 2x2 long enough, so I made a one-legged window sill extension using the front panel of an old drawer which comes from a set I have used for just about everything from shelves to a spice rack.

I simply cut the 2x2 to the height of the window sill, set the plank of wood from the drawer onto the sill with the 2x2 supporting the overhanging edge, and nailed the shelf down to the 2x2. With the weight of my window box on it, it's actually very sturdy. I'll add a second leg if I get around to it.

I transferred my frozen fruits, herbs, veggies, and meats from the upright freezer in my shed into my new indoor freezer and unplugged the big upright freezer. Half a bushel's worth of frozen peaches wouldn't fit, so tonight (or tomorrow) will be a night of jam and preserves making for gifts.

Essential Oils - A guide

Every other thing I do at home includes essential oils. They might seem pricey, but they're so concentrated and so useful, that they're 100% worth it, especially if a local co-op is willing to let you order direct from their distributor with them. Housing co-ops (include the one at your local small liberal arts college) and buying clubs are great for this. If there aren't any in your area, ask your food co-op/health food store, though they need to make money somehow, and since you won't be buying oils in bulk, you might have to pay full price.

Essential Oils are highly concentrated medicinals. Keep them in a cool, dark place away from children. Never drink or eat them (unless specifically indicated). This is the distilled essence of the plant. Treat them with the due respect they deserve.

Here's my stash and what I use it for, in order of how much I love it. You can find more info just about anywhere.

Lavender - It's as close as you're going to get to all-purpose. Smells great, calming and uplifting, Lavender is also a great antiseptic. use it on cuts and scrapes to ward off infection, in household cleaners, and in scented anything. I always add lavender to my baths, I run it through my hair to freshen up (just a drop or two), and if anything needs an uplifting scent, I spray it with a bit of lavender water (essential oil mix).

Tea Tree Oil - go ahead and buy the 2 oz bottle. Tea Tree Oil is an outstanding antifungal. It works much better than almost anything else (including many over-the-counter creams). If you have any type of fungal infection including athlete's foot, a yeast infection, or those spreading pink and brown spots anywhere on your skin, keep a mixture of tea tree oil and witch hazel on hand (20-30 drops tea tree oil in a half pint jar filled 3/4 of the way with witch hazel is perfect). Shake the mixture and dip a cotton ball in, squeeze out excess, and apply to the affected area twice a day until infection clears and then at least an additional week. I also include tea tree in all of my household and personal cleaning mixes. I mix 10-15 drops into my deodorant (1 part baking soda and 1 part corn strach - mix thoroughly after every drop. I keep mine in a tightly sealed mason jar and apply with a large powder brush. This is also great for whisking away moisture on feet, in cleavage, etc.)

Lemon - I use lemon essential oil in my dish pans as I do dishes. My water smells very strongly of sulfur, and washing dishes in batches in dish tubs with 4-5 drops of lemon does the trick. It smells so fresh that I can almost convince myself that I enjoy doing dishes.

Sage - Like its fresh and dried counterpart, sage is great for coughs and any sort of congestion. I add sage to my baths if I'm feeling a cold coming on. It is also part of my personal bouquet of scents. it is one of my favorite smells - being earthy and flowery at the same time, and also evoking that edge in the smell of body odor that is so mysteriously sexual, intimate, and calming (at least to my nostrils). I mix 10-15 drops into my deodorant along with tea tree oil (see tea tree section for recipe).

Sandalwood - I just love it. It's a scent thing. Also, all of your musky, wood smells are great in foot baths or regular baths after a hard day of work. They do something to really get in and relax your muscles and your mind. Cedar, Bergamont, Egyptian musk are also great "masculine" scents if you want to mix a scent.

Clove - clove oil is a strong antifungal and antibiotic. Use with tea tree oil if your infection really isn't going well. Also drink clove tea for general systemic candida overgrowth (but not essential oil - boil whole cloves).

Eucalyptus - Eucalyptus is most commonly used for clearing colds and minor congestion. Carry a small vial with you and inhale the scent as needed to help with a common cold.

Echinacea - Mix 10-15 drops into water or juice and drink to boost immune system response.

Oregano - Mix 5-6 drops in water and drink to ward off cold and flu-like symptoms, and to generally boost immune system response.

Garlic oil - This isn't an essential oil, but it is a great medicinal oil. heat up 1-2 tabelspoons of olive oil in a small pan as if to cook. add a clove of minced garlic and turn off the heat. let it sit in the pan until the oil is warm to the touch. strain out garlic and massage the oil into ears to treat ear infections. Lay on each side after applying to each ear to let it seep in.


A note on mixing your own essential oil perfumes:
No one appreciates being bashed over the head with your scent, no matter how good it is. go for subtle. Too much Egyptian Musk makes you smell like a bad male escort. Too much rose makes you smell like an South Asian kitchen before a wedding. Mix small amounts and then add to it, so you don't waste excess on a bad mixture. use two drops, max, on the throat, behind your ears, wrists, and temples. never perfume your cleavage. it's trashy.


Check in with this entry from time to time. I'll be adding more as I think of them.