About

I started this blog because of my 2012 New Year's resolution to make, grow, repair and barter for more of what I need. The first step was catching myself saying I can't do things because I'm not [insert adjective here - often crafty, good with my hands, that kind of thing] and replacing it with I can learn how if I want. The second step is getting comfortable with sucking at stuff and doing it anyways. My 2013 New Year's resolution is to connect more with people, but I am still continuing with the 2012 resolution too. I suspect it may well be a lifelong thing now.

I haven't done as much as I wanted to when I set out, largely because my youngest child developed some pretty serious health problems and multiple dietary restrictions. While being forced to make everything from scratch is exactly in line with my resolution, it has also meant a pretty steep learning curve to shift our diet from mostly whole-grain vegetarian fare to mostly eggs, meat and vegetables and it means pretty much all of my making efforts are in food.

The resolution also gave rise to regular thrift store therapy, a vintage cookbook and kitchenware obsession, and a desire to be free of the big box grocery store, eventually. On this blog, you can expect to see occasional thrift store finds, recipes I try from the vintage cookbooks, local sources of food and neat stuff, and reports of doing things for the first time, aka sucking at stuff.