What is Being Frugal & Voluntary Simplicity? Delish Simple Chopped Salad Recipe

What is Frugality and Voluntary Simplicity?
I started thinking more about this recently. I see some people toss around the word frugal, then buy multiple cars, collect extensive groups of things for decorating (I do it a bit too, so I get it). Go buy an expensive chicken coop kit to match the decor of their backyard, and I think, what? THAT'S one blog I stopped following, but that's just me. To me part of being more self-sufficient to learn to do things yourself: build things, cook, make/re-use things, read, don't waste resources. Also- know when you're out of your league and pay someone to do something for you, like trimming a 30/40 year old, huge maple tree :)  Sometimes being more simple is letting go of others expectations of what you should be, how you should live. That can be very freeing.

When I was looking at my pretty empty closet recently and seeing all the clothes that were gone (weight loss) and some I will need to replace for work, I thought- how much do I really need? How many days in the week do I need to fill with outfits? Do/would people judge me if they knew half (or more) of my clothes come from thrift stores, etc? Should I even care? I also thought that sometimes it's better to buy less but higher quality, versus some people who view being frugal or simple as more for less. I'd personally would rather have a few good quality pairs of shoes that 25 pairs of junk. Or eat a small amount of amazing chocolate :) I'd rather have a few good loaves of whole grain breads than cheap white stuff with 0 nutritional value (or make my own). While I love to go thrifting, I'll be working on my food pantry more, especially after our recent storm. That reminded me that many things are simply out of our control. You do what you can. But you'd better do it now, time's a wasting....

Some good questions here- Choosing Voluntary Simplicity.com  I like their positive spin, since I think life shouldn't be about denial... What do you think about frugality vs. simple living?
           

Delish Simple Chopped Salad Recipe-
Next on my list to try. I discovered Katie Brown years ago, when my kids were little. One of the first cooking/DIY shows I ever saw. Love ya Katie! Simple Chopped Salad 

               

                                     Amen sister :)  But sometimes, ya just gotta buy something new...

One Person's Trash Is Another Persons Cobbler! Enlarging Garden, My Carpet Re-newal Idea

One Person's Trash Is Another Persons Cobbler! I love my neighbor- she's dog sat for us and is so nice. Each year I have lusted after her HUGE rhubarb in her front yard. It's massive, about 4' across (1 plant), ripens, then she throws it away. Meanwhile, my 2 little ones get a small harvest and wither in the heat, but I moved them this year and bought 1 new plant. Hope springs eternal:) This year I got up the courage from my Independence Days Challenge to ask her if I could buy some? She said- take it all, no charge, it's free, help yourself. I nearly swooned!  My husband grew up  eating lots of rhubarb, and my garden has failed in that one crop. Dave got out some clippers and brought back about 5 lbs! That's about 1/3 of what's still out there still ripening! I bought some frozen triple berry mix at Costco, and made a nice, big crisp. I used this recipe- Rhubarb Berry Crunch, cut back on the sugar and added cinnamon to the fruit and topping- it's still cooling, and the cream is waiting for it:)

Garden Enlarging- You know how you build something perfect? Then you add something later, and now it's not so perfect? That's what happened with our veggie garden layout. It was fine, until we built the coop. Then it wound up having a fence panel in the middle of the front, large coop panel. Tough to clean, so... I asked Dave if we could move the fence back a few feet? We'd get more room to grow veggies, especially now that we have more light. Here's Dave, he started without me, I was making the cobbler-

Dave moved the rock border out 3', then the fence. It's lined up with the small coop door, easy to clean! We'll fill it in with tomatoes and peppers next in that area.We'll gain quite a few square feet. The weather has been wild this week, so my veggies are still on the deck :(  Hopefully in 2 or 3 days we'll plant.

My Carpet Re-newal Idea- Last year I bought a nice, jute area rug from Target. Fast forward one year- dog cookie stains and the fabric border is really worn. Lesson learned- buy heavier carpet. It's not in the budget right now to buy a replacement, so.... I had the brilliant idea to turn it over, vacuum it, and whala- new carpet! Old carpet, before-

Re-newed carpet, after. It will be fine for a while...

Ellie by the raised bed- "beware of snapdragons"

Storm Damage- No Power/Lessons Learned, Thrifting, Apple Ring Recipe

Storm Damage: No Power-
Well, it's been a couple of "recovery days" here. Monday night, about 5/6 p.m. a predicted storm started blowing thru, dropping the temp 25+ degrees. We went from 90 to 55 in a few hours. When this happens in Boise we get severe winds, and hardly any rain. We had gusts up to 60+ mph. We lost power at 7:00 p.m., and lit up our oil lamps and candles as it got darker. As the worst of the wind hit, our huge maple tree started losing small branches, not a big surprise. We had a major trimming done a few months back, which probably helped our tree. Then the bad news- a really large branch broke off and wound up like an upside-down V wedged slightly angled down, half way up the tree. It was still raging wind-wise when we spotted it. It was way too dangerous to attempt to go out and fix at that point, I screamed this to my husband :) I was not amused with him trying to go out. I attribute this to the pressure change, as his brain fluid must have been affected.

I had secured our yard/deck, and put our 4 chickens in the 2 sided coop (sun room and main coop, still had the younger girls separated) and was hoping it wouldn't come crashing down on both of those, our fence behind it, or though our picture window. In 60+ winds, it wouldn't fall straight down, it would blow sideways. Of course. The photo above is the aftermath the next day, yesterday. Our power came back on about 1 a.m. yesterday morning. I heard the power trucks going up and down our street Monday in the middle of the night, went out a few times to see where they were working, and only slept about 4 hours or so. I was exhausted yesterday morning. I was happy the power on, as many 1000's still were without it. Then the clean up began. Our biggest concern was the big branch wedged in the tree. It wasn't safe to climb up into the tree to cut and rope it down, as the main branch might go. So, drum roll please (do NOT attempt this at your home)...

Dave rented a chain saw on a long adjustable pole, climbed up onto an orchard ladder we have and trimmed it in sections. That part went pretty well, little branches falling down. Then came the bad part- it was still windy and the heavy V section was still up there. Dave was ready to start pushing it off the other branch, knowing the coop might be the target. I had gotten the chickens out to the other side of the yard. As a rebuild lay in our possible future, and flashed before our eyes - I held my breath and prayed (not being a religious, but spiritual person, I pray on a regular basis). Then Dave pushed. I wish I had a video camera, but I was steadying the ladder. Down it came- sideways, diagonally, landed perfectly between the coop, and the berries bushes, in the unplanted garden area, not touching a thing! I screamed, "that's awesome!!!" 

What are the odds? Dave said when he pushed it looked like it was going straight down headed for the coop, then it swung sideways. I told him it got a little push :)  Then I said lots of thanks. Then the full clean up began, see photo. We used the chainsaw and had it most of the way cleaned up within an hour or so. I took a nap 2 hours later. I saw another employee on the noon news- she had a huge tree fall across the entire house, and smash her roof. I feel very lucky, it could have been much worse here. It snowed in the foothills last night, and was 38 this morning. My tomatoes are waiting in the dining room for a few more nights to be planted, oh well. We went out to dinner last night. I slept really hard, and we did more normal yard work today. Chickens are all still alive, house/garden intact, all is well.

Lessons Learned-
Except for the tree damage I was pretty happy with how things went. I tend to be OCD about prepping for storms, as I went thru a lot of bad ice storms in Oregon. I had prepped- made an early dinner/dessert, had newer batteries in our flashlights, a crank- up radio (which helped pass the time), and lots of oil lamps. I loved my 2 little LED lanterns, about 4" high, that were very bright. I got them several years ago for a couple of bucks. We still had water pressure too, but lower, good thing for city folks like us. I do need to get a new water filter, as we had 2 full rain barrels, but our old camping filter died. Will shop around for that. It would have been tricky if the water went out totally, as I only have 5 gallons stored for drinking water.

Thrifting- We dropped off some donations today and I found these- a like new Pottery Barn teapot for $4.00. I love the apple green color! We had donated our iced tea maker, since we don't drink as much as we used to, so this will work great instead. Takes up less space, and can be use for hot tea too.

Also got this Japanese rice bowl/gravy boat, like new $1.50, cute! Not sure exactly what it would be used for in Japan? Probably holds about 4 cups. Ah, it's the little things in life that give us pleasure...

Fun Apple Ring Recipe- What a great idea, and gluten-free too! Foodrenegade.com  Lots of great thought-provoking articles as well.