Journey Beyond Survival

homemade yogurt I made my own yogurt. I know. I don't even shave my legs either. But I've got white blond hair. And I'm not really a hippie. I promise. Mostly. Whatever. I guess I'm about 60% hippie. So think whatever you like. straining homemade yogurt It only takes 1/2 cup of any yogurt with live cultures, 1/2 gallon of milk and a crock pot. Plus time, and jars, and a cloth covered strainer, but who doesn't have those?  All in all it takes 13-21 hours.  But the most labor intensive part is straining out the whey.  The more whey I get out, the thicker the yogurt.  The difference in time is whether or not I let the yogurt set up one more time in the fridge. Most of the time is spent in the milk getting warm, cooling off, and . . . well, turning into yogurt. berries in yogurt We don't drink a lot of milk.  We don't eat enough greens to get our calcium that way either. So we tend to eat yogurt a few times a week, as shown in someone...

Woo! Are we all perky from our weekend off? I feel good. How 'bout you? Summer's getting close. Can you feel it? My kids can. They want me to get out the 4' pool someone gave us last year. We couldn't put it up where we lived before. Because we lived above Mr. Survival's business. So every day it's warmer than 55 degrees they put on their suits and beg me with goosebumps bigger than a two week boil. They could try the patience of the sagest of the Sages. Come make the jump into summer with me, over at the Peanut Gallery Speaks . photo credit

Due to the amount of friends I have participating in FitBloggin'11 this blog will be closed until Monday. It may also be that I'm grieving very sad I won't be there myself. I was tempted to just grab my unsold ticket and drive, baby. I could always sleep in the car. But that would be irresponsible. Or ridiculously fun. photo by AndYaDontStop

Laurie was saying yesterday that I should be a writer. I love you Laurie . I want to be, and I'm going to keep writing and trying to make it profitable. In the meantime I've got to find something to bridge the gap. I thought maybe some of you writers out there would like to see some fabulous writing things I've come across? Here's a website that tells you whom you write like . I copied and pasted my last post and it told me I write like Cory Doctorow . I did it a few weeks ago when I discovered the site and it told me the same thing. Who the heck is Cory Doctorow? I don't know but it must be true. Mr. Survival is headed to the library to take back the overdue books he and Miss got on their last date together. Maybe he'll pick up a book or two of his for me. It's probably a mass conspiracy to get us all to read new authors, but it feels a bit like having my palm read or something. Very exciting. The second is a lovely sentiment. About wr...

I was driving along, minding my own business yesterday when it hit me.  A beautiful idea out of nowhere that makes so much sense!  Has that ever happened to you? It dovetails beautifully into where I'm going, what I want to do, and how I want to get there.  Why didn't this occur to me earlier? I started thinking about how Mr. Survival came up with what he wanted to do with his life to support his family and hopefully have fun.  I started thinking about how much I had to do with any of those choices. I could have had a lot more say.  But, I chose to trust.  I realized with that lucky wisdom of youth and inexperience that he would know better than I.  We talked out his ideas, and I was pretty honest about what I needed.  But, the decision was up to him. This time I've been motivated by fear.  Everything clenches from my teeth to my hands to my bottom and my toes when I think about running out of money.  That is silly.  We wo...

I've been mulling over a lot of things.  Most of them happy, exciting and beautiful.  But, the thing that is compelling me to write is not.  It's a dark tangle in my stomach and I need to get it out. I had a few conversations over the span of the Great Blogger Downtime and this past weekend.  Conversations that really hurt. I don't really need understanding , so much as I need to get this out . Psychosis is terrifying. It is worse than being locked in a basement in chains in the dark.  With spiders and rats running around over my bare feet.  I hate psychosis more than death, more than fatness, more than Rett Syndrome. I've written about it before.  I've tentatively talked about it.  But, I clammed up again.  It hurts when someone thinks I'm less religious than I am. It hurts when they don't understand the journey I've taken.  The measures of prevention I take every single day.  Of course some of it is motivated by fea...

My kids are developing a new form of time management. They are trying to see how long they can take  to do absolutely everything I want them to. Mr. Survival and I aren't so patient right now. Not as much as we want to be. Not as much as we should be. We were  are desperate. I decided to teach them a lesson for Family Night. I made up the labels of the things we needed to do after school. I attached each label to two different groups of ingredients. The front line has more fun things and less chores. The front line could do chores in any order they wanted, until school got out in June. If they chose to do things their own way, they didn't get these ingredients. Vanilla. Salt, baking soda, baking powder. They tasted it. They rejected it laughing. I rubbed my hands together in glee. Sugar first. Of course. Browny's ticket was on the chocolate chips. Fitting. Browny + egg = I'm winning Right? Mmmm. They put in the flour last. Without mixing anything e...