Simple Living
Doing It Myself
My husband and I have talked for a long time about the idea of being more self-sufficient. When we lived with my sister, we collaborated on a huge garden and we learned a lot from my sister who makes a lot of things herself rather than buying. Some of the changes we’ve made this year were done for financial reasons but we often find that making decisions for financial reasons reveals other bonuses you might not have expected. Food-wise making things from scratch gives you total control over the ingredients for instance. Product-wise making items often means that you can choose materials that won’t end up in a landfill. You can also reuse and up-cycle to reduce the impact of acquiring more things and by making rather buying, you teach your children about self-sufficiency and hopefully, skirt around some consumerism issues. Things we used to buy regularly that we now make ourselves are: ice cream, bread (though we have an awesome local baker that we support at least once a week for our sliced bread), mayo and granola. The bread recipe we use required a baking stone and rather than buy one, my husband had a potter friend fire us a flat slab of clay and we’ve been using the artisan bread recipe from Mother Earth News. My sister also makes her own yogurt, crackers and pasta noodles. I’m itching to try cheese although it feels kind of daunting to cut out buying cheese completely. And in a way, who would want to?? In the last couple of months, having closed my business, I have a lot more time to do things with my hands in and around caring for my kids. This Christmas especially I’ve been getting a lot of joy out of making things. Some of my recent projects have included: A magnetic Advent Calendar that is about counting down the days, rather than counting up the chocolate or little gifts every day. I wanted a calendar that was not disposable and that didn’t focus on getting something everyday. I stumbled on this idea (using a cookie sheet and scrapbooking papers) last year and loved it right away. A Caterpillar Dress for a swap with members from my old Due Date Club at Mothering.com from when I was pregnant with my daughter. I have made 1 which I sent in the swap and I’m making 2 more out of the remaining fabric (1 for my daughter and 1 as a gift). The corduroy was store-bought and the satin was an old housecoat I got from a friend. These dresses will fit from age 1-3 because as Little Miss grows you just start layering it over pants and it goes from Dress to Tunic to Tank Top. A Baby Blanket for my daughter to replace the one I knit her while pregnant and which got lost when she was 4 months old. I’m doing a different pattern this time, from Natural Knits. I still have 3 squares left to go + blocking + sewing together + knitting the edging. Do you think I can get it done in the next 9 days??? Our Stockings. I would like to maybe re-do these at some point in the future and do a nicer job using nicer fabrics. For now, I whipped these up in an hour using some cheap fleece. I like them. They’ll do for now. Popcorn Garland. This is our first year with a real tree. We used a little potted Norfolk Island Pine when we lived in the bus but it just wasn’t the same. Last year we travelled for Christmas so no tree. As a result, we’ve been married for 7 years and have almost no Christmas decorations. Plus, we’re in our first year of a new business so we don’t have a lot of cash. We did the old-fashioned popcorn and cranberry garland. Aaron and I sat up doing it one evening after the kids were in bed. It was a lovely way to spend the evening, sipping wine and chatting over a shared project...
Read MoreBlender Mayonnaise
I’ve had some homemade mayos before and I have to admit they never come close in taste to my beloved store bought varieties. Until this one. I got the recipe from my sister, modified it a bit and voila! One more thing I don’t have to buy prepared from the store. We’re trying to increase the number of things we make ourselves and for some reason this one makes me extra happy. Whirl in blender: 2 eggs 1 1/2 tsp salt 1 Tbsp dry mustard Clean down sides with spatula. Add: 2 Tbsp lemon juice Start blender, remove cover and very slowly, pour in: 1/2 cup salad oil 2 Tbsp vinegar Slowly, with blender still running, add: 1 cup salad...
Read MoreFresh Salsa
It’s not really the season for fresh salsa but my mom just gave me I don’t know how many pounds of tomatoes that she harvested from her garden this fall. They needed to be used and I love salsa. I used to make this salsa with jalapeno but the kids don’t like it as much and I prefer to be able to taste all of the other flavours (besides the burn) so I started using a dash of tabasco instead. Some will find that terrible and this salsa too weak. But I love it. 3 or more good sized beefsteak-style tomatoes (fleshy, not too juicy), diced 1/4 small red onion, minced 1 clove garlic juice from 1 lime splash of olive oil splash of red wine vinegar 1/2 clump of cilantro salt to taste You can give this a brief whizz in the blender if you like your chunks a little smaller or eat as...
Read MoreR-value
Living in a metal house gives you an interesting perspective on the weather. In the winter it’s like living in a tin can. In the summer it’s like an oven. We’re hoping to build our next house out of straw bales – the complete opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to R-value. When we first bought the bus, we paid $80 a month to park it in a field in South Vancouver between a gorgeous market garden and the Hari Krishna temple. The narrow strip of land was essentially a rutted mud pit in the winter. The row of trees bordering the temple side of the property provided screening but not a lick of shade in the summer. The sun would beat down on us and we would watch the chinese ladies harvesting veggies next door wistfully, jealous of their pointed straw hats. Of course, we worked during the week and spent our evenings in our East Van bachelor suite (with off-suite bath). Summer weekends we spent at The Cabin. We would have a cooler packed and a bag of clothes ready so that we could head out straight after work on Fridays. Arriving around 6:00 pm, the sun would still be high in the sky. Poor Eliza had sat all week, windows closed, doors locked, sun beating mercilously down and nowhere to get away. No shade. No breeze. Aaron would boost me up so that I could unlock the padlock on the Emergency door at the back and get in. The air inside was boiling, stagnant and oppressive. The trip to the front of the bus only took seconds but felt like an eternity, gasping for breath and sweating profusely by the time I clambored over all our junk and made it to the driver’s seat to untie the door handle (high tech security) and throw open the door for Aaron. I don’t miss that trip from back door to front one...
Read MorePriorities
Have you ever wondered what you’re made of? I always thought I was kind of a wimp. Cold all the time. Can’t lift much. I complain about papercuts. The first year in the bus made me realise that I was a lot tougher than I ever gave myself credit for. We had this idea that the bus conversion would go quite a bit more quickly than it really did and we moved in before much—ok, let’s face it—before anything was completed. For the first year, we gave up some pretty basic modern conveniences: No furnace. We had a small woodstove but the fire would go out after about 3 hours. This was a bit of a problem during a Canadian winter but thank goodness we live on the West Coast. We could see our breath in the morning when we woke up and when we got home from work. We gave new meaning to the suggestion to “wear layers.” No plumbing. We bought a port-a-potty after the first month peeing in a bucket. We got the Canadian Tire 24L camper model. With regular use they break after 1 year. We replaced ours yearly. We showered and did laundry in my sister’s place. Not a huge big deal but it did mean walking outside every time we wanted to have a shower. We kept a couple of 4L jugs full of water in the bus for washing up and we had a small Rubbermaid basin for doing dishes. No water heater. We boiled all of our water for dishes and washing up. We kept a pot of water on the woodstove at all times too. No stove. We had a single propane burner that looked like something from chemistry class. It was hooked up to a 20Lb propane tank (like you use for bbq’ing) that we kept inside. I used this exclusively for cooking that year. We boiled our water on it too. No fridge. Ok, that’s an exageration. We had a mini-bar fridge. It could hold a 2L of milk, a couple of Tupperware containers and a few veggies. A head of green lettuce stacked on the containers would fill it completely. No wiring. We had two extension cords so we could have power. For lights we used those small indoor Christmas lights. Aaron calls them fairy lights. We also had a lamp that Aaron made himself out of wire & cardboard and a desk lamp. No curtains. There are 11 windows on each side of Eliza, not including the back windows or windshield. Considering that we were parked on a corner, on a bike route in a fairly big city, beside a busy park that held a farmer’s market on the weekends, this is a big deal. Aaron used butter knives to stick blankets into the seams between the walls and the ceiling so we could have some privacy. We did have a phone, a computer and high speed internet though. Was it the internet that gave me the strength to weather all these other hardships? Or was it something inside...
Read MoreDelicious Slop a.k.a Raita
Rain loves raita and I usually make it every time we have Indian food or make curry. He gets really excited and says “Mom, you made that delicious slop!” 1 cup plain yogurt 1/2 cucumber, shredded on a cheese grater 1-2 tsp cumin cilantro to taste 1/2 tsp salt Stir everything together and serve with your favourite curry.
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