Remodeling A Family Affair

Yesterday in our Frugal Photo Post I posted a picture of one of our remodel projects.  It is the one we are in the middle of right now.  It is something the whole family pitches in on and helps.  Our older boys work there when they can, making time around college and their other jobs.  [...]

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Being Frugal our Sunday Photos

We decided that the weekend after Thanksgiving is usually a time to think about shopping.  Black Friday, the alarm going off at 4:30 am, early morning doorbusters, the mall, the crowds…the mayhem! Since we like to swim against the current around here we are sharing photos of  ‘being frugal’ .  Now this we do admit [...]

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You know you’re a Gardener when…

When a line of plastic garbage bags gets you excited! Want to know what’s in my bags…bettcha do! It’s beautiful, and nutritious… Look!  Fo0d for my garden…lovely leaves destined to be shredded and put down as much.  To break down into lovely healthy soil for next year’s garden. Yep…you know you’re a gardener when you [...]

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The Day Before Thanksgiving

It’s the day before Thanksgiving And while I’m employed I’ll get to work early, Yet slightly annoyed. How can I focus? I’m much too distracted. There’s so much to do In the time so compacted. There’s a turkey to roast And you know, that takes hours. It can not be rushed. No, it’s not in [...]

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Asking the right question

I usually check the news in the morning while I’m waiting for the coffee to get done.  I try not to obsess, but I like to keep up with what’s happening in the world at large.  So, this morning I turned on CNN and listened to a bit of the wrangling over the Health Care [...]

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Storing Food in Glass and Painting it too!

I must admit to a slight obsession.  I love glass containers.  I especially love old blue glass containers… You know the ones our grandma’s had! I use them for all kind of storage.  I have one in my sewing room with old buttons in it.  But I mostly use them to store food in.  This [...]

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Thankfulness

We’re all here again in our Sunday post…today we are sharing some of the things we are most thankful for! I’m thankful that there are people who take the time and effort to grow food to sell at the farmer’s market. This makes it much easier for those of us that want good healthy local [...]

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I’m New Here

My name is Susy, I’m a new writer here at Not Dabbling in Normal. My pen name is Chiot’s Run. I blog about gardening, canning, local living and all kinds of fun stuff over at Chiot’s Run, you can also follow me via photos on my Flickr Photostream. I also write over at Simple, Green, [...]

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Homesteading 101 Your pantry

Nothing is as essential to being self-sufficient as food production and storage of food.  Today I’m going to touch on some ideas for stocking the basic must have pantry.  My goal in my pantry stocking is to have enough of the staples put up so that in the case of emergency I am set at [...]

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More squash gone bad!

Yesterday, Alan described his winter squash predicament and how he was able to turn his “lemons” into squash soup. We too are faced with a squash predicament. We plant cushaw squash which are beautiful winter squash that we typically have been able to store for a year or better…but not this year. We had way [...]

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