Washing Day

Meg's Wash Day Laundry Powder

1 cup Grated and whizzed up Laundry Soap (Sunlight bar)
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
1/2 cup Baking Soda

Making your own laundry soap is so easy!

I just grate a bar of Sunlight soap and let it dry out for a few days, then whazz it up in a blender until fine and powdery. In a bowl, mix all the ingredients together and then put it into a pretty jar or container. I use 2tbsp per wash. That's it!

As an alternative to fabric softener I just add plain white vinegar to a 'downy' ball, and throw it in with the wash. Everything comes out clean, fresh and not overly fragranced.

Try it!

Spring Chicken.. House

This spring I finally get to have my very own pets again.
Since the poor Fella's allergic to everything with fur, I set my sights on a few chickens instead! My step-dad's been busily hammering away and has built the most incredible 'Palais de Poulet' for them. I still have to paint it, but here are a couple work-in-progress pictures to peek at. At the moment the first occupants will be three very lucky Rhode Island Reds.

Wait til you see it whitewashed and with it's board and batton siding on,
oh mon dieu!

Happy Spring!

A blooming bouquet of paper roses for my mum's birthday.

More Kitchen Pictures

Here are a few more Kitchen Re-do pictures.

The Great Kitchen Re-do!

This winter I have been a busy worker bee making my new kitchen pretty as a picture. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I'll let the Before and Afters show you what I've been up to!

This is what the kitchen looked like when we moved into Grandpa's old house.

We took out the table, and I painted the walls a pretty robin's egg blue, then painted out the trim and baseboards. The old rocker was my mum's first auction find when she was my age, the cookbook shelves are a couple of old pear crates, and I made an apron holder for my collection. The fella also welded the lampshade, and I covered it.

The main kitchen when we moved in.
It was very dark, so my priority was lightening it up - lots.

I painted out all the cupboard doors (over thirty of them!), sewed up a new curtain, and found an antique table at an auction to use as an island.

A lot can be done with a lick (or two!) of paint, and the only big costs in the re-do were the new soft vinyl floors, and the vent hood. The old floor had a great big scorch mark on it, and the old vent hood no longer worked so they were a must-do. I have to say that I am so very glad it's all done! It was a lot of work, but it was worth it. I may just never leave the kitchen again :)

Pretty Pocketbook

Necessity really must be the mother of invention because I had to create this little wallet for myself the other day. My old one, bless it's heart, was falling to pieces and despite fruitless searching for a replacement I decided to make my own from my stash. Using the old wallet as a pattern ( I really did love it) I cut some fabric from an old sheet, installed my first zipper in years (thank you Sew Mama Sew easy zipper tutorial!) , pinned on a sparkly paste brooch and voila, brand new pretty pocketbook.

The old one.. sniff sniff

The new one.. so pretty!

Snow in the Night

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening


Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
-Robert Frost

Cold Comfort Farm

"There's always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm."

I simply must write to let all and sundry know about this absolutely wonderful movie. I recently got it from the library (though I have seen it before!) and spent a wonderful evening laughing out loud at the screen.

This film is eccentric, witty, British humor in the charmingly idyllic 1930's Sussex countryside. Kate Beckinsale is my heroine as Flora Poste, who's aim is to experience life and then write a novel about it at the age of fifty-three. After her parents die, she moves in with her Great Aunt's mad family and fixes them all quite tidily. The characters are marvelous, from Ian McKellen's fire and brimstone preacher, to Sheila Burrell's Aunt Ada Doom who 'saw something nasty in the woodshed' (what that was has sadly been quite forgotten). Another favourite actor, Rufus Sewell (watch him in ShakespeaRe-Told: The Taming of the Shrew with Shirley Henderson. Excellent!) plays the highly sexed cousin Seth, who longs to be in the Talkies. Overall, it's a great parody of all the things the countryside ought to be.

Not only is the dialogue extremely diverting, but the costumes are brilliant. I wish I had a wardrobe full of Flora's clothes and hats.
Rated PG (mostly because of Seth..)

Homemade Holidays

Christmas was a flurry of homemade items and I was busy all month baking and sewing away for my family. It was such a treat to be able to give each one such a unique gift to suit their own lives and personalities. I was inspired by the Homemade Holidays tutorials posted over at Sew, Mama, Sew. Since the holidays are officially over now I can finally post up my projects..

Here is my favourite knitting needle case I made for my mum.

Rolled Out (notice the bit of ribbon for tying in stitch markers.)

All Rolled Up.

Sew, Mama, Sew

Craftsters amazing and easy Jordy Purse

The capacious tinyhappy shoulder bag (missing it's button in this picture, oops.)

The ultimate Sock Monkey (I actually made two for Christmas this year)

Jungle theme Coasters (shown without matching hotpad and placemats)

My first attempt at tea dyed stocking. Lace for me, red cuff for the fella.

Baking Baguettes

"Without wishing in the slightest degree to disparage the skill and labour of breadmakers by trade, truth compels us to assert our conviction of the superior wholesomeness of bread made in our own homes."

- Elisa Acton, Modern Cookery for Private Families, 1845.

Inspired by a library book,
Joie de Vivre; Simple French Style for Everyday Living
by Robert Arbor I set about trying my hand at making baguettes. I've been baking bread for years, though mostly relying on my bread machine to do the kneading for me. This time though, I did it the old fashioned way and was pleasantly pleased with the result. Lovely crisp, crunchy, crust and dense interior - perfect for smothering with butter and honey. Yum!

The recipe I loosely based my bread on was the One-a-day Baguette over at Epicurious.com. Try it!

Winter Whites and Christmas Colours

Winter blew in early this year and I couldn't be more pleased. One of the things I missed most about the West Coast was the lack of wintry days, well - never again!

I'm very happy to be a housewife this winter and have been puttering and decorating with my favourite vintage ornaments. Christmas greens have never been easier to get - just walk out the back with my clippers and a bushel basket.

Here's our little Balsam Fir all decked out for the holidays, just waiting to have brightly wrapped packages underneath.

Orchard House Farm

Since November, the fella and I have been on a very great adventure; leaving our easy, breezy, and rainy, west coast village life and moving to the chilly, rolling, countryside of southern Ontario. We now live up above the Niagara Escarpment, in a pear orchard where my step-grandfather used to grow Bartletts, Anjous, and Boscs. They still grow here but are farmed by a local fruit producer instead.

The rest of the property around us is vineyard, rows upon rows of grapevine stretching from here to forever. I can't wait to see them leafy and dripping with shiny purple and green globes. There is lots of room for a good vegetable garden and the seed catalogues are ordered but right now, with a blanket of snow on the ground everything moves inside the little modest bungalow that seems huge to our old tiny yellow duplex.

Life in the country has a steep learning curve, our well is full of bacteria and our cistern needs a liner, the wood furnace is a hungry beast and we are rushing to find enough wood to keep it satisfied, the snowblower won't work and a blizzard roared in last weekend... There are days when we wished we lived in our nice cozy city apartment again, but most days we love the country side. The quiet, the views, the birds, the forest at the end of the dirt track..

Eureka!

It's been a crazy month of highs and lows. Desperate writing sprees, lugging the laptop around constantly, word wars, relying on my little blue egg timer to get me through fifteen minutes of writing at a time, but I did it! This morning I passed that mystical 50 000 word mark and finished the first (very rough) draft of The Gilded West.

Today a novel, tomorrow the world!

Three cheers for everyone that participated and wrote their hearts out this month, and three cheers for the NaNoWriMo team for keeping the site and the challenge going!

The Pen is Mighter than...

Everyone pick up your pens and flex those fingers, it's National Novel Writing Month time! That's right, you've got one month (that's 30 little days) to write a 50 000 word novel. But don't feel discouraged, it's not meant to be a work of art- it can be rambling, have plot holes, or maybe even characters that suddenly disappear- but it's a great first draft. And it's 50 000 more words than you would have written otherwise!

I had a good start yesterday and am up to 2600 words. I'll try to get a ticker up here so everyone can see my word count, but if it doesn't happen you can always check out my Profile over at the NaNo website.

This year's novel, The Gilded West, is a historical romance set in 1890's British Columbia. Victoria is packed with gold seekers headed for the Klondike and my two main characters get caught up in the excitement of it all. Love leads to heartbreak but will Mira and Declan get over their differences and find each other at the end of it all? I'm not sure yet but I'll let you know by the end of the month!

Good luck everyone and happy noveling!
We can do it!

A Good Clear-Out

As we ready ourselves to make our big trek east at the end of October, a Moving Sale was in order. We don't really need all that stuff anyway, so we emptied out our cupboards and crawlspaces and put it all on display for our neighbours to nose through. No worries though, they were all very friendly and carted off lots of good junk! The rest is going to be packed off to the Salvation Army or Freecycled. Freecycle is a great organization that lets people help out other people. When we were younger (and poorer) and starting out, Freecycling led us to an office chair, a patio table, and a computer monitor- FREE. So hopefully, we'll be able to return the favour and help a few folks out around here.

It was pretty chilly at 7:30 this morning, so the big cosy knitted sweater came out of hiding, and was partnered with a fetching vintage apron - with pockets perfect for lots of change.

Fall Frocks

Empty out your closets and find your prettiest gloves and hats, the ladies over at Sense and Sensibility forum have scheduled another Week in Feminine Dress from September 23 through to September 30. It's always great fun and a wonderful excuse to wear skirts and dresses all week long. The link is at the side, just go into S&S Message Boards and then the Off-Topic section. We all try to post our outfits everyday. Rumour has it we may even attempt a Week in Historical Dress within the next few months!

“I don't understand how a woman can leave the house without fixing herself up a little - if only out of politeness. And then, you never know, maybe that's the day she has a date with destiny. And it's best to be as pretty as possible for destiny.” -Coco Chanel

Potatoes A-Plenty

With Autumn arriving soon, I, along with gardeners all across the country, have been out in the crisp (and sometimes soggy) air harvesting the garden's plentiful produce. This past week it's been potatoes. Wonderful red, white, and purple beauties; a treasure hunt in every hill. With each dig of the fork I turn up miniature marvels and giant starchy wonders, and I am always amazed at how that little chunk of potato I planted so long ago in April has multiplied so much underneath the ground, hidden away from prying eyes. As a cook, I imagine the dirt covered lumps roasted beside a sizzling chicken, fried to a lovely golden colour beside a plateful of French toast and sausages, or serving as companion to the pale leek in my favourite soup. There is nothing better than fresh, organic, potatoes. Very easy and very rewarding.




Eating local and in season seems to be the hot topic in the media today. I've read a wonderful book this summer titled Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver, that follows one family's journey to accomplish this. There are numerous reasons to follow this path; it reduces carbon emissions, supports local farmers, cuts down on pesticide use, and is much healthier for you. But I don't grow and eat my potatoes because of those reasons, though I certainly agree with them. I do it because it's what people have always done for hundreds of years and it plain old feels right. A hot, steamy jacket potato with a dollop of sour cream and a pat of yellow butter on my plate when the wind blows chill, and the night creeps in early. Sounds just about right to me.

Way Back When ?

Summer Days

Mistress Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row.