How scary is seed starting?

I never used to start seeds indoors. For nearly 20 years of gardening. You need equipment which requires either money or DIY chops (neither of which I have). You need time and a certain degree of obsessive compulsive tendencies to keep the seedlings healthy. I started what I could direct, and bought nursery starts for [...]

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Dark Days “Challenge in a Challenge” Vegetarian! (West Recappers)

“Vegetarian” is always a great theme to cook with: you’re pretty much guaranteed all your guests can eat it, vegetarian dishes are generally pretty healthy (other than those pasta and cheese options), cooking with all vegetables (especially seasonal) is generally the most sustainable way to cook, and cooking vegetarian is easy: no worrying about bringing [...]

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Dark Days:Week 13 EAST recap

We are now 3 months into the Dark Days Challenge. As I read different blog posts from different participants across the country I am starting to see come common challenges  for some of the participants out there. In certain areas, some people are very low or running out of stored fall vegetables like squash and [...]

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DIY Tooth Powder

Although I have posted this recipe at both my other blogs, and I know i have a few overlapping followers with Not Dabbling – i think this recipe is worth sharing as much as possible!  If you don’t mind, I’d also like to introduce to you all my new blog: Bathtime. I’ve been blogging for [...]

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Friends, Food, and Fun!

Although our weather has been mild here in the midwest, I’ve still had a major case of the winter “blahs”.  Some days have been cold and snowy, while others have been cold and rainy, while others have been unseasonably warm and sunny!  It has almost been more frustrating than a normal, predictable winter.  While I’ve [...]

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The little French children

You’ve probably been seeing all the news the last couple of weeks: the French are better parents than we are. In addition to having a cooler language, better wine, older monuments, sexier politicians, and hotter women. And, apparently, their children are perfectly toilet trained, sh*tting out €20 bills from the age of 6 months. Or [...]

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Dark Days Challenge: WEST

Welcome to our new recapper DeeDee, who has taken over the Midwest Group for Jenn. DeeDee joined us as a contributor at Not Dabbling in Normal this past November introducing herself in a post called “Baby Step.” We have been able to follow along in her journey as she gets back to the basics in [...]

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Dark Days: Week 12 – EAST recappers meals

It is really amazing to think we are 3 months into this challenge. That also means that this challenge is soon going to be coming to an end. There are still two meal challenges coming up - the Vegetarian Meal and a Breakfast Meal. We all look forward to seeing what the participants will come up [...]

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Finding my way…

 See, I fill this sacred pipe with the bark of the red willow; but before we smoke it, you must see how it is made and what it means. These four ribbons hanging here on the stem are the four quarters of the universe. The black one is for the west where the thunder beings [...]

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How I met your father

I met a lot of people my freshman year of college. Some of them I met, forgot, then met again. You have those conversations where you discover that you were in the same room at the same time with someone you later got to know well, yet you have no memory of them there at [...]

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