Saturday was pretty action packed. While I was at the local American Sewers Guild meeting giving a presentation on Mend it Better (more on that when I get some pictures from the organizers), Jason and our friend Mike was picking up our order of chicks! Read more →
Ah, delicious. Kind of. Horseradish is powerful stuff. It burns through your nose in a flash and then it’s gone. It’s unlike any other “hot”. Last spring I planted a few cuttings of it in a secluded bed that’s hopefully sectioned off enough to keep it from spreading everywhere.
I finally got around to digging it up in mid December and making it into its most simple beautiful form: minced horseradish in vinegar. Read more →
Over the past three months I’ve been searching for the perfect lunch box. I really wanted a bento box, but they, as I discovered, not available locally. In fact, I went to every gift shop, cooking store, asian themed store, and asian grocery (about 8 total) from here to Des Moines and back again. No luck. I just really wanted to hold it in my hands and consider it before spending money on one. Because I don’t really know if I’ll use it.
Jason and I went to Japan town and I bought a few food picks and sauce holders in the shape of little pigs and fish. I considered getting a bento box there, but since I worked from home I was like “nah, I don’t need one”. I had no idea I’d be getting a job by the end of the year and working in an office where I’d use one just about every day of the week! Read more →
I love shopping in the bulk bins at my local co-op. And buying big bags of spices from the asian food store down the block from my house. And from the farmer’s market. And pretty much anything that smells neat or is called for in a recipe.
I’ve been joking around all year with friends about my potato tower of power. Using minimal space, you get a huge harvest of potatoes, and they are relatively easy to retrieve. I finally got to harvest the fruits of my labor!
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I really don’t feel qualified to help anyone with technical advice, but maybe by sharing my story it will help you with your own fitness journey.
My Thrift Kitchen journey has started in an unexpected place — exercise. I feel like until I got that established everything else got disrupted when I would try to add it in.
Plus there’s that whole healthy body, healthy mind thing too. I really had to get my self in order before I could set to work on anything else (house, cooking, etc).
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Last week I talked about where I was, so this week I want to focus more on where I want to be and, the big one, why.
At some point I realized that I had to Want a change. Really want it.
No more shoulds, only desire. Because desire is the root of habit building, not obligation.
It had to make sense to me so I couldn’t defeat myself with circular logic — why bother when it will just be a mess again.
Really, establishing 4 new huge habits – each one being multi-faceted, is a large change. A lifestyle change. It’s not like I can just wake up and all of a sudden *poof* love cleaning.
There’s all these ideas of duty and honor. It’s good for you. It shows your family how you love them. It’s good for your health. Quality of Life.
All True.
But that’s not good enough.
The fact was I didn’t really want to change for the longest time. Which I hate to admit.
It’s not that I didn’t want good food and a clean home and my debt from college paid off.
It’s more that I wanted to paint murals, knit all night, play cello, go on walks with Bob (our dog), and spend time with Jason.
There’s so many good things in life and while cleaning is important, I just hadn’t considered it one of those “good things.”
And while I still don’t enjoy cleaning all that much, there’s been a shift in my attitude that the end results of my efforts are those good things.
I want to create an inviting space where family and friends feel welcome and cozy. I want to host airBNB guests without having to dash around cleaning like a crazed person.
Finally I have the desire. I’ve grabbed hold of it. And it’s carrying me forward.
But it’s hard not to get overwhelmed. It’s taken me years of collecting and putting off to get to where I am, it’s not going to take a week to fix it. Or even a month. I’d say it will take me a year to really get on track.
Today I read this really inspiring post on the Simple Dollar on What You Give Up For Change.
And that leads me to my final point for today. When I started crafting, it took soaking up resources and other people’s work for a long time before I actually got into it. I wanted to share with you some of my favorite resources that have helped moved me from a state of feeling Obligated to a state of Desire.
Best of wishes!
Kristin M Roach
ps – Next week I wanted to start talking about specifics. Would you like me to start with cooking, cleaning, finances, or health first?
My chickens have started flying the coop, literally. They’ve figured out how to hop over the fence, well, hop fly. And unknown to me, the decrease in egg production was actually them just preferring a more natural nesting environment.
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In the beginning, Thrift Kitchen started out as its own separate blog. I realized pretty quickly that a lot of the people who were reading Thrift Kitchen we also reading Craft Leftovers. And I also realized that posting about home-y stuff once a week was really all I wanted to do. So I made Thrift Kitchen a post series here on Craft Leftovers and called it good. First it was on Thursday, then this year I moved it to Tuesday.
While I’ve continued to post a recipe from time to time and talk about growing food and meal plans, it’s been a long time since I’ve fully embraced the Thrift Kitchen model – providing food for my family that’s healthy and cheap.
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My friend Aimee and I always say we should get together some Sunday and cook a big meal. And we really haven’t. Well this weekend all those “shoulds” became reality and we crafted together the most delicious meal: Tacos! But these aren’t just any tacos. These are traditional-heritage-mexican-american-just-like-her-grandma-makes-them-tacos!
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