Domestically Disabled No More

I am continually amazed at how domesticated I am becoming. I think everyone would agree that I was domestically disabled about 2.5 years ago. Then suddenly, I began morphing into a cooking, baking, gardening, crockpotting, couponing mama, and now I will never be the same.

My first inspiration was my sister, who has always amazed me with her ability to whip a meal together with hardly any notice, and that she handmakes birthday and other cards for about 40 people a month, (she's currently making 150 cards for Christmas).

My sister-in-law, Karen, also amazes me with how she can figure out how to put Pergo flooring in all by herself, or take mismatched fabric remnants and an old window shutter and create a beautiful headboard for their bed. I still get excited when I change the lightbulbs and replace batteries in toys all by myself. Seriously, I'm tool illiterate.

Though my mom hasn't been around since I have had babies, I look back on my life growing up with her and think about the things that were memorable and want to replicate some of those things with my own children. She had a huge garden every year, which I had the pleasure of hoeing. Alot. I do have fun memories of it as well, though, like snapping peas together and digging for potatoes. I remember watching her dance around the pressure cooker as it was steaming its little top off and wondering if it was going to blow up on us. It didn't. So this fall I learned how to can pumpkin with a friend and I felt a little bit closer to mom. I also planted my very first garden EVER, and it did pretty well. I learned alot too.

I have also been blessed with a group of friends who have had to endure my dinner mishaps while I learn the ins and outs of cooking. (now Kate, was that butter, flour, milk then wait till it boils? or is there another step in there? I'll never remember.) Through rock hard biscuits and WAY too cheesy broccoli, they have all been very gracious and understanding.

Then there is Angela, my couponing partner in crime (well, sometimes I feel like a criminal depending on the cashier) who introduced me to printable coupons and got excited with me after my first time of getting cereal for FREE! We're both a little nutty about couponing, thankfully we have a saving money blog for me to post my grocery scores or you would be wading through pictures of my Walmart or Walgreen's trips.

And my Sherwi, as Nik calls her, who has slowly been switching me to the dark side, I mean, the organic side, of eating. So far I buy my milk from happy goats, my eggs from happy chickens, my beef from happy cows and my honey from happy bees. In other words, the animals get to run around in fresh air, which, if I were an animal, would be nice. Though, I don't know about the bees being happy, they always are buzzing around their hives sounding rather, well, ticked off.

There have been many, many others of you all who have inspired me to embrace being a wife and mother and all that that entails. It will be interesting to see just where this whole homemaking lifestyle takes me. Hopefully, once in a while, it will still take me up a rock or two, because I still think about rock climbing pretty much every day, but I have no regrets. Someday I will be putting a meal in the crockpot as my boys and I take off for the crags where we will learn about gravity and friction and all the other many things that God's creation can teach us.
You were right George, "It is a Wonderful Life" :)