The canning season is a busy time of the year. Preparing and storing canning jars so that they are ready to be refilled helps a lot. Yes, it eliminates a few steps of work during the cunning season. This can be done all throughout the winter as jars get emptied out, or beforehand in spring. Just ...
Simple Living
Successful Gardening is not Depending on a Green Thumb
It is a common assumption that successful gardening is depending on a green thumb. Some people have the ability to grow a great garden, and some don't. People with a green thumb can grow almost anything in any climate. If you don't have a green thumb, you might be able to develop one if you study ...
Making Progress on One Thing a Day
Making progress on one thing a day that matters to you helps you to accomplish more without feeling overwhelmed. It is called the Progress Principle, and it is empowering. I have been using this for years in many different situations not knowing that this is a thing that science backs up. This ...
Cookbooks to Start a Plant-Based Diet
We are sometimes being asked if it was hard for us to change to a plant-based diet. Our answer is no and it has two reasons. For one we are both people who do not mind to try something new and for two there are great cookbooks to start a plant-based diet. The list of plant-based cookbooks is ...
Freestyle Cooking
Freestyle cooking is an easy, fast, flexible and realistic way to prepare food. In a day and age of overload of recipes, it can easily get lost. Recipe makers (blessed be their effort), make us believe that it involves hard work and special skills to make a recipe, and unless you follow it to the T, ...
The No-Plan Meal Planning Method
The No-Plan Meal planning method emerged out of disability to plan meals. Well, sort of. There are several reasons why I think meal planning is overrated and not everyone's cup of tea. If you have been struggling or feeling guilty for being a ‘not so planned person’, keep reading. After we discover ...
How People Lived Simple Yesterday
Simple living, self sufficiency, off grid living and back to the basics is having a huge comeback these days. Homesteading and backyard farming has become popular again. In this post I share childhood memories of how my parents lived a simple, mostly self-sufficient, urban homesteading life. How was ...
Homestead Kitchen – Before and After Reveal
It is very exciting to reveal our homestead kitchen before and after. It was a great project and we are very pleased with the outcome. As you know, we went with an IKEA kitchen, and you can read here our 7 reasons why to choose an Ikea kitchen. It was a DIY project, from planning the kitchen to ...
5 Appliances I Would Not Want to Miss in my Kitchen
Most food in our house is prepared right in our kitchen. There is not much that we buy ready made. We cook from scratch. To be able to do this without being in the kitchen all the time, I have little kitchen helpers. One can easily get carried away with all the kitchen appliances that are ...
Building an Easy Pallet Deck
We moved into our house in late fall and were not so sure what to do about a sitting area. Since the house had no deck or patio, and we were still busy with other projects, we needed something DIY, easy, and free. Building, in our house, is Jakob's job. He is great in it and builds amazing things ...