HJ Waxing Moon

Mr. Moon and I have been working for over a year on a project to turn the garage into a lounge area, second living room, game room, whatever you want to call it. We have a name all picked out, which will be revealed when we have AFTER pictures. We agreed to take a futon from one of his aunts who is moving out of the area, and somehow we ended up getting obligated to take a second couch. Not sure where the misunderstanding was, or if that was the couch Mum was going to use to replace the one in the living room she doesn't want, or what exactly happened that we have more furniture than I'd originally planned in there. All I know is that with the couch we found on the side of the road in the subdivision, and the futon and couch from the Aunt, we were supposed to be fitting three couches in this garage. Which would be fine, without the chair that Mr. Moon insists on keeping, and the massage chair that will not be gotten rid of so long as it works because the thing is delightful. ...

This is my first year celebrating Chalica. I'd heard about it in 2008 in its second year, and been "meaning to" "get around to" celebrating since. When I first heard of it, I was so excited that my faith now has a holiday we can call our own! I know a lot of my lackluster commitment has been related to this crisis of faith through which I've been suffering for years. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to include anything about my faith here in this blog, because I don't want to push anyone away. I decided that I'd rather dip into this a little bit occasionally than try to ignore it altogether. My faith is so much a part of why I started down the path of urban homesteading that it feels wrong not to honor that place in the process. But that's a topic for another day. Today I want to celebrate, in all its imperfection, my first year celebrating Chalica.  I'd intended to ease myself into it. I put on some Celtic music, because it's...

Halloween in my favorite holiday. I love the decorations, I love dressing up in costume, I love the fall air and the parties and the traditions. Growing up, my family had a tradition of making a crockpot of chili and hot dogs on Halloween night. I remember spending the month ahead of Halloween hanging out in the living room for frequent fittings while my mom sewed my costumes and watched Tigers baseball or the World Series. I remember the year my mom made my costume in August and then discovered two days before Halloween that I'd had a growth spurt and she had to let it out (oddly I don't remember what the costume was!). For some reason I'm just not feeling it this year. I don't know why. Part of it could just be the crappy situation we're in. Some of it I'm sure is probably this underlying depression and the funk I've been in. A lot I know is frustration with my body and not being able to wear the costumes I want to wear, or have the energy to do a lot of...

Five things we accomplished in September that are really kind of big: We got on a schedule of chores, and even managed to stick to it in this very busy week.  We had fun on some cheap dates, and got to spend more time with friends than we have any other time since we moved down here. We pinpointed some trouble areas with the housekeeping and started making strides to combat them in a manageable way.  We dove down the rabbit hole with gusto, starting on such projects are sourdough pancakes, waffles, yogurt, mozzarella, and possibly soon into sourdough bread. We managed to keep the sideboard in the dining room CLEAN and clear of clutter for the better part of a month, and still going!  It wasn't entirely intentional, but we spent the month working on building good housekeeping habits. If October has a theme project, I think it needs to be the garage. We got behind on cleaning that out and missed both of our self-imposed deadlines, or we will because the second o...

Growing up, we didn't have a fireplace, but we did have a secretary/china cabinet that lived in a weird nook into the hallway that had knick-knacks inside. For me, this was basically just something to collect dust and clean rather than anything I got to have fun with. After moving out, I've always had a little area that I would decorate, no matter how cluttered the rest of the home got. It's fun to decorate things for the seasons, or just switch it up regularly. In my mind, this would be a fireplace mantle. But somehow I've only had one of those in ONE apartment. So I've made do as best I could. Our last apartment, I put a shelf above the couch about 18 inches from the ceiling, high enough that even the tallest person wouldn't hit their head on the brackets underneath while flopping down. When the room got re-arranged so that it was actually above the walkway, it was still tall enough that it was fine. I liked to use this shelf as my "mantle," decora...