Bringing bits and pieces to our home.

I use to feel safe living in the United States, I had a good childhood, my parents taught me to respect others, and how to say please and thank you. In school I was taught home economics, cooking and sewing.  It was a time when children played outside with the neighborhood children and we walked to school.   

I can barely recognize where we are now, there is so much change and crime is increasing and very real. 

We need our home to be all that it can be and especially our place of calm.  This means respecting others in the home so they can feel the calm as well. 

Red Bean Mochi, a small special treat with tea.  

When Charles and I leave home, even for a short time, I feel relief each time we drive back down our driveway, lock our gate and walk into our home. Just yesterday I was talking about this to a good friend.  A few weeks ago my neighbor mentioned how she was concerned because crime was increasing in our area.  So it is not just the economy, the higher prices in food, medical, electric, water, most everything, now it is the uptick in crime, the uptick with unstable people, the confusion and how everything is changing so fast.  

We need to learn to navigate this changing time that we are living so that we can feel comfortable and keep our mental state from decaying, people are not mentally well.

I am determined to remember what our normal is and what is happening is not normal. We need to say these words, this is not normal.

I was shown from my grandparents how to live a simple life and there was so much love combined with their simple life that I have never wanted for expensive things, a large house or a fancy car.  I understood those things were not necessary. 

So we make our home the way we want it, keep things at a normal pace and enjoy being in our home.  

I love learning new things, this is a wonderful distraction to what is going on outside our home. 

I have studied history for many years.  I made terrible grades on the subject of history in school and then later on in life I cannot get enough of it.

Now I am digging in to learning about traditional cooking and learning about the traditional way of life in other countries.  Many of them have deep appreciation for food and family and I want to know all about it.

All the while I am learning about traditions I am concentrating on the garden and finding ways to combat critters that are enjoying my hard work making them food. 

I am following my feelings that this is a time that I am supposed to become more self reliant, more resilient.  I am trying to grow a better garden in my tiny yard, and I am trying to make our home more comfortable and interesting so we can relax and be distracted from bad things. 

When we are given lemons we make a lemon pie.

I want to make people feel welcome and comfortable when they come here. I want my home where they feel they are welcome to walk around the rooms so they can leave here with a feeling that they can go home and create their own comfortable and interesting refuge with their own interest and also be comfortable and feel safe in their home. 

 They can see that it can be done without expensive items, but with thrift finds and using our hands and and mind to make homemade creative items that are pretty and sensible. 

 I now realize that I most likely will never get to visit the places that I have always wanted to see, I realize that Charles and I are getting too old to move to a small farm and take care of farm animals and tend to the land and a large garden. It would not be fair to the farm animals should they get used to us and comfortable where they are and then something happen to where we could not take care of them.  

But we can have a little bit of all of these places that I wish to go right here where we are.

I want to taste the food from different parts of the world, and I have found that I can make those foods here in my own kitchen.  I have wanted to experience the traditions from other countries but I can study and learn and make them myself.  

We can have small pieces of a farm here in our own backyard. 

I can watch how people live in other parts of the world on youtube and then I can do what they do right here where I live.  When I get especially homesick Charles will drive me out to the local dairy farm and I can sit and watch the cows, I do love seeing the new baby calves out playing and smell the wonderful smell of the countryside. 

It is not my farm but just for a bit I can sit and rest and remember the farm that I did once live. I usually cry when I go there because it brings back so many good memories.  Those were happy years and happy memories.   

When others are grumpy,  I can be the friendly person that smiles at someone and say something kind. 

There are small things that do not cost a lot that can make a home pretty, and home cooked food makes the home feel like home, even if it is rice and beans, or toast and coffee. 

Going out to a fine restaurant is not in our budget but Charles and I can cook our own special meal and it tastes even better.  This was a celebration dinner of short ribs, carrots, green beans and mashed potatoes and gravy.  

We were celebrating his three week check up with the surgeon and got a very good report.  Charles is especially good at making sauces and adding flavor, I am more of a country cook and I enjoy baking bread and special desserts with less sugar.  Cooking homemade we can adjust the ingredients to make them more healthy. 

We can learn how to do most anything that we want to do, we do not have many mentors in this day and time but we have videos that we can watch to do most anything and then we can take that information and make it happen.  

I recently realized that I had lost my skill of tatting.  I decided to take my tatting box with me on one of our trips to physical therapy.  I wait in the waiting area for Charles as he goes in to do his therapy since total hip replacement surgery.

My intention was to start a new tatting project but I couldn't start my flip that I must do to tat and I was quite surprised because one day I taught a lady to do this as I was tatting in a doctor office waiting room.  

It has been several years since I tatted so I went to Youtube on my phone and watched a video and in a few minutes I was back to tatting sitting there in the waiting area.  This made me realize that I need to keep up on the things I can do so I don't forget.  The same thing happened to my  neighbor Naomi, she was trying to tat again and she could not remember how to get started, she brought her tatting shuttle over with some thread and we sat down in my kitchen and tatted together and she once again was tatting. 

I started tatting after I found my grandmothers tatting shuttle in my mothers belongings after moving my mother to our house. Right now my purpose for tatting is to make some tatted edging to repair a vintage cloth. 

The day I learned to make crumpets.  

 I must rearrange my attitude instead of getting irritated about things I have no control over. I can make the space that we live special and happy, and we should do this.  I do watch some news because I want to know what I need to prepare for if necessary, but then I counter the news like a bad dose of medicine by tasting something good. I try and make something look pretty, even if it is just putting a pretty clip in my hair.  

We have the ability to calm our home, someone in the home has to be the starter of getting things under control and that person is us.  Nothing gets done if we do not do the work it takes to make it happen.  It may not be easy and most likely it is not, but the choice is let the chaos continue or do something about it.  

With the instability today, we need to get out of debt.  We cannot keep spending as if one day we will pay it off later. Three things that we need to do, fix our home, fix our finances, and work on our health. 

My new thing I am learning.

I have always wanted to taste a fresh baked croissant from France, I want to dip it into a coffee, tea or warm chocolate milk in a bowl like they do.  I finally decided to study how to do this and not only learn how to make a croissant but to be able to make just two croissant's at a time so that I can make just enough and not more. 

I have learned that our butter here does not have the same percentage of fat, this is important if we want the taste to be the same. So Charles and I went on a search and to our surprise, we found three different butters that have the needed higher fat.  It is not an expensive endeavor because there will be no waste, we will be carefully using the butter for special uses.  

In my journey of learning to make Croissants, I learned about the coffee bowl.  I did not know that many people drink coffee, tea or hot chocolate from a bowl.  The proper way is to use both hands and using the bowl is good for dipping the Croissant or other bread that is eaten.  

We find our fun in small things such as going out looking for a butter with higher fat and mostly learning new things.   

I have not made the croissants as of yet because I do not want to waste any of my supplies and I want my first try making croissants to turn out well.  I finally have found the recipe that I will use because it seems to be the most traditional.  

When looking for traditional we must do our research because there are so many recipes and ways of doing things and so we need to understand the history of it as well. Some people claim it as traditional but when spending the time to do a good research we can find the very traditional way to do it. There will be no modern appliances required. 

I found much enjoyment learning to make Queens cakes from the early 1820s. This took me on an entirely new journey in to the early 1800s.  

I needed to study quite a bit before making the Queens cakes so they would taste like they would have long ago.  I wanted them to be traditional.   This was the same when I started learning how to make Pasties, not pastry, but "Pasties".   Another thing I have learned from all of this is to measure with a scale so that it can taste the same the next time it is made.  Here in the U.S. it is common to use measuring cups and spoons but in other areas of the world it is more common to measure by weight.

I enjoy making the Pasties and have shown them recently in a post when I made Charles a pasty a few days after his surgery. I always make sure to have the correct ingredients, I want traditional Pasties which includes Rutabaga, Skirt steak, Potatoes, onion, salt and pepper.  The pastry is also homemade. 

It is good for us to keep learning, this makes life interesting. Going back to traditional feels right, and whatever it is that I am doing needs to be simple and traditional and then it will be the experience that I am looking for in bringing at least part of what I am trying to experience.  This is a very good time to learn new things. 

Part of tradition is food preservation and learning how to can food if you do not already know how.  This is a beef stew with potatoes and carrots that we like to can and keep on our shelves. There is also a chicken stew. 

I feel that this is a very good time to learn how to preserve food. My dear friend Naomi told me many stories of how her mother fed her family by canning during the great depression.  I have talked about Naomi before.  Naomi parted this earth several years ago and  I miss her living across the street.  I learned from Naomi and she would be shocked today at the changes we are going through.  We should be smart and understand that if we live a simple life and focus on keeping a stocked pantry and have the needed tools that will help us to preserve food, repair our home, to mend our clothes then we will have a better chance of remaining comfortable through possible difficult times. 

And last there is Margaret. 

I have been planting new seeds over the past several weeks, planting for late Summer and Autumn garden.  I decided to plant three Korean squash seeds to see if some of my issues were coming from American seeds.  This one Korean Squash germinated right away.  It became strong and I named this squash Mrs. Margaret Zucchini.  

I transplanted Margaret to a garden tank today.  I have protected Margaret from critters so hopefully she will be safe here in the tank.  

After Margaret grew to stand tall, two baby seeds started Germinating so now I consider them her babies.  They will join her in the tank when they get big enough.  I will let Charles name her children.  :)  Now lets hope that none of them get eaten or die so I will not feel sad, this is the downside of naming plants. :(  Please root for Margaret to live, no pun intended.... 

Do you feel you may never experience the things you want to see and do?  Have you thought about bringing parts of those things to your home?  You might be surprised at what you can do.

The forum is open to talk, we do not talk politics here in this forum but we talk about a lot of things.  

What are you doing to bring calm to your home?

Are you working on something interesting that brings you happiness?  If so please share it with us.  

Are you finding ways to save money in this expensive time?   Please share with us so we can try it too.

Do you have some special traditional meals, or things you do in your home?  We would love to know about it and since we are from all over the world joined together, it makes learning what others are doing even more special. 

Do you have something that you have been wanting to talk about? Let us know.

Grandma Donna