Princess of Pink

Coupons, savings or not?

I constantly see articles on how this person or that saves so much on their grocery bill by using coupons.  They usually shop sales on items and use coupons and find double coupon days for their savings.  They also keep price books, run from store to store to find the best deals and usually I hear that all this takes about 3-5 hours a week to print coupons, clip coupons and generally save as much money as they can.  These folks are touted as being thrifty and cost conscious shoppers by using all these coupons which are manufactured by the makers of the foods they are buying.

I call this Bullshit.

What I mean by this is the savings are on items that are not what I consider food.  Most of the items are high priced, high fructose corn syrup, unpronounceable frankenfood.  In my opinion the savings on these items is negated by the health risk you take by eating them.

For one example I'm going to use Macaroni and Cheese mixes.  These contain Enriched Macaroni Product (containing flour and various vitamins) and cheese sauce mix which contains a variety of ingredients other than the milk and retten that I use to make cheese.  This means you are getting food dyes, preservatives and various non-regulated vitamins in your mix.  All this convenience for about one dollar.

If you take a home made amount of macaroni and cheese made from elbow macaroni and real cheese you come out to a cost of about half the cost by buying bulk elbow macaroni noodles and real cheddar cheese and you are skipping the food dyes and preservatives.  You probably have to shred the cheese and stir real good to get it all to blend together but other than that I don't see much of a difference other than a bit of time.  Oh, wait, there's no more chemicals and additives.

A coupon shopper might be able to get a box of Macaroni and Cheese for the same price as home made but at what price does that savings begin to be no real savings at all when you consider the extra ingredients you don't need, the packaging that is wayyy more than bulk buying and the time spent to hunt for all those coupons, store sales and driving from store to store.

In my mind I'd rather buy a 25 pound box of macaroni, 5 pounds of real cheddar cheese, good organic milk and real butter (you add those to a mix anyway) and make a dish that is not frankfood, tastes good and in the end takes me far less time than the frantic coupon mavens who are running around the rat trap of marketing and supposed convenience. 

Oh, since I buy in bulk about twice a year I'm saving a ton in gas money by NOT running around from store to store.  I also have the 3-5 hours a week that I don't clip coupons to use gardening, making real food or just plain enjoying something like my knitting.

So in the end I will opt out on the supposed coupon savings that make great media stories unless they start to print coupons for fresh vegetables, flour, oats, rice and beans.  Now that's just crazy talk!!!

Apparently I live in Canada now...

According to wikipedia the border between the U.S. and Canada is incorrect.

"Because of an erratic survey, the border separating Canada from the US was drawn incorrectly by the surveyors in the 18th century, above the 45th parallel which was the agreed boundary. Derby Line was founded based on that line, above the 45th parallel. The boundary was confirmed by treaty in 1847."

My thoughts on this?  Cool!  *giggle*

Seriously though, today I met the unofficial mayor of Derby Line, Joe Queenin.  What a lovely man.  Joe made sure to get my name and introduce me to "Bill" who carries dog biscuits in his pockets.  Bill was a big hit with the girls who daintily accepted their tribute.  Since Taffy can be quite the shark over biscuits I was very happy over her show of manners.

The local gas station/convenience store seems to be the hub of this small town with folks shopping for a paper or milk or what not.  I have been stopping there every day for my newspaper and since I'm buying the Sheriff's place it seems that we are already "known".  Gotta love a small community!

Agatha has been reading up about the various activities in the area and already knows that she can dip her paws in the brook at the edge of the property.

Taffy on the other hand went bouncing across the back of the yard today, in the VERY wet grass, rolled around, smeared something on her neck (I didn't look too closely) bounced into the woods....  It was like having Tigger from Winnie the Pooh around but at least she listens a bit better.  She's going to love living there, there's loads to sniff and do.  After all the bouncy, bouncy this afternoon she decided to tuck up for an afternoon nap on the trip home. 

We also took a trip this week over the Kangamangus Highway and I remembered again why I love being home.  You may not be able to eat the scenery but it serves up dessert for the soul!!

We are Legion...

I was just speaking with my father regarding my family in Eastern Quebec.  Apparently as a family, we have been quite prolific.  He told me that when Grandmere died in 1986 at I believe the age of 104, she had somewhere in the number of 1500 descendents.    *boggle*

My maiden name is Theriault and I come from Diana Ward and Victor Theriault.  Their parents were Laurel & Wally Ward and Camille & Anna Theriault. 

Anna's mother was a Durand.   Apparently I have the "look" of a Durand *lolol*    I know when you take a picture of my grandmother at 16 and a picture of me at 16 we look like sisters, very close ones.

It's nice to be home and very interesting too!!!  Now I have to either re-take conversational french or start listening more at the gas station so I can talk to any of these relatives if we meet up!

Where did my soup come from?

It is becoming clear to me that there is an entire generation of people who have no idea where food comes from.  In fact, I'm not sure they recognize what food is anymore.  The section in most grocery store with pre-prepared meals is huge these days and the packages of meats that are simply one cut or another dominate the cases as do the packages of cut up vegetables.  I think it might be time to revive home economic curriculums and teach the next generation how to cook, manage a household budget, mend clothing and grow their own food.  

I'm making chicken soup today.  It does not come from a can.  It unfortunately does come from a grocery store purchased chicken but I'm still homeless and have not taken time to figure out local food sources since this is a temporary location.  Yeah, lazy, I know, but oh well *lolol*

My first step this morning was the roast two chickens.  I like the flavor roasting imparts and I like the juice that collects in the pan.  I usually roast a chicken once a week for Wes and I and we save the bones up until there are six frozen bags of bones to make soup from.  I deviated from this due to the aforementioned temporary home situation.  Once the chickens have roasted I remove the meat from the bones and toss all the bones and skin into a pot with pan drippings. 

In another pot I saute onion, celery, carrot in olive oil until lightly caramelized and add season salt, garlic, bay leaf and today I added marjoram.  Once this is done it joins the bones and skin in the pot with enough water to cover and simmer for hours, usually 4-5 hours. 

About 2 hours before dinner is to be served I remove all the bones, skin and vegetables and today will be throwing them out.  In the future I'll be dehydrating them and grinding them for the garden.  I added a bag of baby carrots (hopefully my own carrots next year!) and those will simmer for about an hour.  Then I'll add back in all the chicken, removing about 8 cups of stock for a separate pot where I'll make dumplings.

This might seem like a lot of trouble for a bowl of soup but the flavor is simply divine and there is nothing in my pot of soup that I can't pronounce.  I know the quality of my cooking and I know how every safety issue of handling food is adhered to.  I don't get sick from my own cooking.  I also usually make a very large stock pot of soup at one time and freeze individual portions for days when I'm too busy or too lazy to cook.  I really do love having things put up for future meals.  I makes me feel really, really secure.

Teaching how to make a simple bowl of chicken soup seems like a no brainer to many people but you'd be amazed how many times I am asked for my "recipe".  I am happy to teach people how to cook real food and I truly would like to do this in my future, even if it was in a high school setting. 

I wonder if this kind of knowledge is going to be lost someday.  More than the energy crisis, economic crisis and world instability I worry that we are going to lose precious knowledge about the simple things in life that will keep us alive if TEOTWAWKI ever happens.  I can only hope that someone gets wise some day soon and starts teaching our children that a bowl of chicken soup actually starts with a real, live, feather covered, squawking, chicken.  Not a round, cylindrical, can.

p.s.  there will be a peach cobbler for dessert!

The New England Deep Freeze and Die Off.... NOT!!!

Once again there are headlines posting that due to the cost of heating oil there will be not only wailing and gnashing of teeth but folks making hard choices this winter between food and heat.  Frankly I think it's more likely to be choices between things like 72 degree heat and 62 degree heat with appropriate clothing or heat and cable tv or heat and eating out.  You know necessity vs. non-essential?

I realize that a small portion of the New England Population needs to make the hard choice between heat and food.  I also realize that it's a SMALL portion.  I realize that the elderly may need additional help and that's where being part of a community or extended family comes in and that's fodder for a totally different blog posting.  I'm not heartless, just realistic about percentages of actual folks who are in dire need and it's much smaller than the news reports.

Let me tell you a story.  The folks who came over here from England, you know, the Pilgrims?  They landed in this country, in New England, at a place called Pilgrim Rock or thereabouts in 1620.  This was lonnnnnnggg before the advent of Heating Oil.  Oh, the punch line?  They landed in November.  Not in June with plenty of time to put up cut and dried wood.  November.  Right before the onset of winter.   It was considered a mild winter for the times but once again due to climate change it was likely much harsher than our winters of today (in my opinion).

I realize that half of those Pilgrims died that first winter.  The causes of death are attributed to things like Scurvy, starvation and cold.  This winter came at the tail end of a long ocean journey and years of religious persecution.  We know today that these kinds of stress inducing events produce very damaged immune systems. 

If the Pilgrims were to take off today after being well fed and nicely treated with an adequate supply of fruit, vitamins and our modern style of living I would guess that after landing in one of our average Novembers and doing the same kinds of things, building a village, you'd get less than five percent of the total deaths they did at that time.

Back to our rant.

Today we have houses that are heated to an average of 68-72 degrees, a wide variety of vitamin enriched foods, work and school places where we are housed, fed and cared for by the nanny government to strict regulations meant to keep us relatively healthy.  We are soft.  We don't get enough exercise, we eat too much of the wrong foods and not enough of the right ones.  We sit around too much in front of televisions, computers and game machines.  We need to chop some wood, walk to school/work, read a book... oh, sorry, different rant.

We are spoiled and think that we need to heat an ENTIRE home to the same temperature.  In various cultures of the world only one room would be heated in winter and that would be a common room that folks spend most of their winter days in.  In an agrarian style life you would follow the seasons with work done as needed such as long summer days planting and tending a garden.  Shorter fall days would be taken up with harvesting and canning your work in the garden. 

Animals need to be tended in winter (after you've sent quite a few to freezer camp so there are less to take care of) but that is usually a twice a day thing and you would normally have them in quarters for the winter with brief weekly interludes outdoors. Actually now that I have an attached barn I can see where winter tending of livestock probably wouldn't have been too awful for the small homesteader. 

Hard work keeps you warm in the out of doors.  Inside in the cold winter months you mend clothing, make new clothing, knit a frickin' sweater for crying out loud!  Indoor activities don't need to be spread out in a 3000 square foot home, they can be concentrated in a basic common room or "living room" and the family can spend time together.

I realize that today that family might spend time together watching television and that's a whole different discussion but the television and bodies in a room actually produce heat!!!  What a concept!!!

There's no way in the world that the New England of today is going to experience a great Die Off or Migration due to higher cost of heating oil.  The people of New England will put on their Big Girl Pants and adapt.  Thermostats will be pushed lower, pipes will get insulated and heated enough so as to not freeze.  Some folks will actually turn off the water at night if it's 40 below zero for an extended time. 

I predict a run on wool yarns and knitted clothing and Aunts and Uncles all over the region will be revered for their knitting skills as will Mothers, Fathers, Sisters and Brothers.  Afghans that were relegated to closets gathering dust will be aired out and used as lap rugs and throws.  Blankets languishing in chest of cedar will be placed lovingly on beds to keep folks warm as night time temperatures dip and folks stop heating sleeping rooms.  Babies will be put to bed in hats and booties, again another knitting opportunity.  Children will return to footie pajamas (so will I if need be).  We'll slip on cozy foot gear, maybe lined with sheeps wool, in the morning and a nice fluffy robe to access our morning cup of elixer also called coffee.   Actually I suspect flannel nightgowns will be sexy again and we'll all start to dress appropriately to the season. 

Before anyone suggests clothing is not affordable, get  yourself to a thrift store.  I scored a few flannel shirts this summer for a buck a piece. Blankets were about $5 each and there were plenty of sweaters to heat an army.  I know that a lot of them were not wool and not hand made but even acrylic will keep you warm and so will polar fleece.

My entire point is this:  We will survive, thrive and adapt to higher costs of heating.  We are New Englanders and we've been here for just short of 400 years.  We ain't dead yet and don't think we're going there just because some news pundit thinks we're soft.  It just ain't so.

p.s.  remember that pile of cotton I bought this week and slated for baby caps?  most of you know I'm childless by choice.  why do I need a baby cap?  I don't, but some folks do and I can knit.  like I said, I'm not heartless and being part of a community means helping.  making baby caps for winter nights is something I can do.  what can you do to help neighbors, family and friends?

Shopping with Deluge and need Webbed Feet

Yesterday we woke up to rain.  Yes, more rain.  I know when we headed east I was all about the need for more water in my life but for Pete's Sake, enough already!!!  There are now folks being flooded out and that's just not right!

I was tired of being cooped up in the grandparent's home and managed to browbeat convince my husband to take me to mecca.  You know....  Center Harbor, New Hampshire?   The home of Patternworks Yarn Store, Needle Arts Store and Keepsake Quilting.  Also the home to Canoe, a very nice restaurant that has fantastic Seafood Chowder with Lobster and Scallops and Shrimp, oh my!

I managed to keep myself to just sale yarn at Patternworks although a darling scarf kit in sparklie yarns called my name and the wall of Koigu was whispering sweet nothings in my ear.  I grabbed a few skeins of cotton yarns for baby caps.

Then I found a few skeins of Jamiesons at half price and who doesn't need white?  There were two skeins of a pale pink Nashua wool yarn and a lovely skein of lavender silk and wool for J. Knits.

The piece de resistance and I didn't even *try* to resist was three skeins of Colinette Hand Dyed Silk.  Taffy is obligingly modeling the lovely colors of hot pink, lavender and sundry accents.

I was in and out of there in about 30 minutes just in time to walk into a serious downpour, toss my bag into the car and dive into Keepsake Quilting. 

If you are into quilting fabrics you will realize that the Keepsake Quilting store is almost an affront to the senses.  I have to really gird myself to enter because there are so many fabrics and they are organized so well but I still get disoriented and have a difficult time.  It's major sensory overload for me.  Knowing this because I've been there before I made a pact with myself to stick to Medley packages, Charm Packages and that's it.  No yardage because once I find yardage I need to find five pieces that go together and that can take all day.  Seriously.

I found a few lovely things with roses, Beatrix Potter, fat eights in pinks, 10 inch packs in blues and had a grand time.

 

Then I found something so incredible it took my breath away.  I have found out that my new home is considered Farmhouse Gothic Revival and was built right after the end of the civil war.  I really want to decorate the house in some sort of period style but I also love my blues and creams and shabby chic style.  This medley of fabric made me realize I *can* have it all!!!

There are blues, creams, taupes and lovely burgundies with a hint of raspberry for fun.  I'm going to use this as my palette for the house.  Quite a lot of my furniture is deep blue and the wing back chairs are deep burgundy check.  I have the Iron Day Bed Couch and the wood furniture is sour cream white.  I suspect that I'll paint the walls in a taupey cream with hint of rose gold color and then use lots of lovely blues with burgundy and raspberry accents.    Unlike all the brushed nickel in the old house I'll switch to brushed brass for doorknobs (although I really want cut glass) and use some rose gold accents which is easy to do with brushed brass.

In a note from the fates the wood stove I purchased in black is not available but the one in black and brushed brass is.  Spooky sometimes, isn't it?

I spent about 90 minutes in Keepsake Quilting and finally returned to my warm, cozy vehicle with husband and corgis to yet another deluge of rain that seemed worse than when I entered the shop!!!  We drove over to Canoe for lunch and I realized something. 

The dogs had not been walked since breakfast.  Groan!!!!!  I grabbed the umbrella, leashed up the girls and they bravely jumped out of the truck and started to trek across the very wet parking lot.  Ears went flat and I got two very disbelieving looks about taking them for a walk in the shower of life.  No sooner did they hit the grass and there was squatting, finishing and a major fast dash back to the safety and dry haven of the truck.  Taffy was so miffed that when I went to get her leash off she backed away from me as if to say "don't make me go out there again!!!!"  Luck is on my side as double coated dogs and a brief time in the rain means they dry quickly.  I also made nice by bringing each girl two large chips from Wesley's fish and chips lunch *lolol* 

We finally made it back to the home after a morning of shopping in the deluge and the rain finally tapered off.  I was happy to shop and get out of the house and the dogs have forgiven me.

It's all good!!!

p.s.  finally a picture of the current knitting project.  This is a pi shawl in laceweight Lucy in the Sky from Blue Moon.  It's a blob right now but it will get better!

It's a small world....

Deliberately moving to a community of 1500 people is like living in a glass house.  Everyone will know what you are doing and talk about it plus you know everyone else's business as well.

My day went like this: 

Stop at the Bagel stop where Ellie had Wesley's Latte ready pretty much as soon as we got to the front counter and had my bagel open and ready for whatever day's toppings I desired.  I always get an Everything Bagel but change the insides around a bit.

Drive to Derby Line to rent a post office box and in chatting with the postal folks find out that the gal locally who does a ton of Ebay sales is moving and since I also do a ton of Ebay sales would I please order US Postal boxes for them because consumers actually have more sizes to order than the post office does.  Sure, no problem!  Just let me know when you need stuff and I'll order you the odd sizes.

Drive to the Ace Hardware store looking for picket fence and a woodstove and get directed to the Yard Store where they have the most amazing wood stove ever.  I can cook on it and it has a grill insert!!!  I placed a deposit on the wood stove and then let the guys there talk me into a new dog food which looks pretty dang nice for the girls.  Got the phone number for a guy who has wood for sale at a great price, found out where to get picket fence at Pick and Shovel in Newport and just generally yakked it up about gardens and such.  Got a card from Jaret from his Maple place so know I know where to get fresh blueberries and maple syrup about 2 miles from my new house.  

Drove from the Yard Store to the Reg's New Furniture to price a new double and new twin mattress to replace those we had to leave behind and find out that the brother of the sales guy just bought a house from the same guy we used to buy our house.  We all decided that Ryan at Jim Campbell Real Estate was pretty dang nice and a very hard worker.

After the mattress look-see we went to see Ryan and sign the addendum to move up the closing date where he happened to be holding the sales papers from Mattress guy's brother's house.  Talked to the receptionist who told us that the Lawyer's receptionist is from North Woodstock which happens to be where I grew up and am currently staying.

See what I mean about small world.....

Then we went to the picket fence place, priced that and it was cheaper than Lowes so we'll get it there, drove to Verizon where Wes got his first cell phone ever and we added Canadian coverage since we're spitting distance from Canada and finally got on the road back to home.

But wait... there's more!!!

We stopped in Glover at Currier's Market for a few things where Wes finally saw a Vermont Moose (stuffed) and I found a fabulous source for cheese boxes.  This place is truly an amazing country general store and I loved it!

Finally after grabbing a few hand cut steaks for dinner at Wayne's Market in North Woodstock we arrived back at the home in time for naps all around and a bit of light reading.

This day re-affirmed my sense of a thriving, vibrant small community that I am very much looking forward to being a part of.

Actual Knitting and Spinning Content!

Despite all the travails of travel I of course had to make sure my knitting and spinning toys were available and ready for use.  There were a few, shall we say, lack of planning issues?

I packed 2 in progress projects just in case I actually learned how to drive and knit at the same time but alas that didn't happen.  I have been able to make great progress on the pi shawl of doom while Wes drives and only have 70 rows to go until my next increase.  This will be the last time I do fingering weight on number four needles for a pi shawl.  Lace goes much, much faster.  I also packed kid silk haze for a smoke ring, kauni for another pi shawl in a lace pattern and some sock yarn just in case.  Nothing has been touched except the pi shawl of doom but it's nice to have choices *lolol*

George made the trip just fine and after he was set up and given a day or two to acclimate to the humidity was ready and rarin to go.  Of course there was the problem of the missing bobbins....  The quick trip to Copper Moose scored some bobbins and a niddy noddy.  I forgot to ask for oil and a new drive band *facepalm*  Spinning occurred but the drive band is getting old and George finally started to squeek.  I made a trip up to the Montgomery Fiber Folks in search of OIl but alas, none to be found although I did score some gorgeous roving which promptly became a lovely light sport weight yarn despite a bit of sqeeking from George.

It's six ounces of lovely Cormo and Mohair and very, very pretty.

Another trip was made in search of a drive band and oil to the Elegant Ewe in Concord, New Hampshire.  Success!!!  I found a lovely store absolutely packed full of yarn plus a small section of spinning accessories where I was able to purchase oil and a new drive band.  I managed to hold myself back from purchasing any more yarn but it was not easy. 

After placating George with oil and a new drive band I realized that I really don't have anything to spin right now.   This means I need to get off my arse and unpack the Pat Green Drum Carder.  This was done today after a family breakfast at the Sugar Shack in Thornton New Hampshire where they stuff you to the gills!   All was well except...  apparently I have packed the doffing tool in a very safe place, separate from the drum carder.  Sigh..... 

Necessity is the mother of all unvention and I managed a work around with a meat sharpener and a letter opener.  Not the best tools but used together they make one fine doffing instrument.

I have the Brown Sheep grab bag from the Sheep Shed to work with and many other fibers so I decided I'd do all the natural fibers first and then go on to blending with colored fiber and glitz.  This pile was wrangled during the rains today in between meals and a nap (rain always makes me sleepy).

I honestly have no idea how much this large pile weighed because my scale is MIA somewhere in the storage unit.  However at the end of today I had a gorgeous pile of 30 batts sitting fluffy and proud..

I've lost the daylight and since I think I've carded for about 5 hours today it's time to sit back, relax with some Ben & Jerry's Vermonty Python and a good book and savor a day's work while I plan for tomorrows.

Taffy is pleased to show off the tall pile of fluff for me so you can see I'm not *just* sitting on my butt while I wait for the new house to close.

Hot Water Conundrum

The new house has an electric hot water heater in the unfinished basement.  This to me is a grand way to heat the basement but I'm paying for the electricity to do so and I suspect it's a pretty penny compared to my old hot water heater.

I could knit a hot water cozy but frankly, I'd rather knit socks.

Do I install a propane hot water heater, again inefficient because it heats water for all the time use, install an on demand unit which actually needs electricity for a few seconds to work each time it's used and also uses propane or do I wing it?

I'm thinking of getting a bid for a solar hot water system but I suspect it might be a summer thing more than a winter thing due to being at such a high latitude (45th parallel).  In the summer time we might do fine with solar hot water and we are planning on outdoor shower but showering outdoors in the winter might be like bathing in a hailstorm of icicles.  Brrrr......

I don't need loads of hot water in the kitchen and our electric tea kettle could make just enough to do dishes and cook foods quite nicely.  I don't use hot water to wash clothing, cold works just fine.  I do like the occasional hot shower but in the winter that's usually only twice a three times a week and the rest of the time I make do with washing up.  The big hot water uses are the tub, we like to take a bath together once a week and washing my hair about twice a week. 

Two thoughts come to mind.  One is use the woodstove to heat water for the tub and the hair washing and skip showering in favor of the tub.  Two is turn on the electric hot water heater twice or three days a week.

Anyone tried the turn on the heater only when needed bit?  See a cost savings?  Inquiring minds and all that because I like being in hot water.

Marketing Idiocy

Here I am trying to find out various services available for the new house.  High speed internet is a must so I call the local phone company and they don't offer DSL to the area.  That's okay I'll call the local cable company.

Get this....  I can order just high speed internet from Comcast for around $60 a month or I can get Cable Television Service and High Speed Internet for around $45 a month. 

I don't own a television.  Sigh....

Looks like I am ordering a "package" to save money and getting a service I don't need or want just to save a few dollars.  I'm actually thinking of trying to get them to give me the lower price on just the internet service but I have the fear that it will actually take reaching someone with a clue, sometimes difficult in those huge massive corporations, and might actually give me a brain storm trying. 

So, do I try to get them to see sense and sell me only the service I need for the price of both services or do I blow it off, get service for an appliance I don't use and just remark on the inanity of it all as time goes on?