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Adventures in Housekeeping Family Food Health Care Our Life Self Reliance The USA The Virus

Adrift in a Sea of Plenty

Nineteen days into voluntary isolation, I reach to the back of the freezer for some ginger and discover two bags of sweet pepper, one green, and one red. It’s Christmas! Like many trapped in this stagnant lull, I have put on some weight. The more I focus on making do, the faster I eat down […]

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Family Food Happiness Self Reliance Writing

Line-dried Sheets and Other Unlikely Paths to Enlightenment

The heat pump hums inside our back door. It is 37° on our back porch this morning, and I’ve decided to sit in the corner of our bedroom instead. I settle into a comfy green and red plaid armchair, a chair I am proud to say came from a thrift store. On most mornings, I […]

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Happiness Self Reliance

On the Alerts

My Google Alerts serve me well. For example, on the day the news story broke, I learned that Timothy Cox was sentenced for 2nd-degree murder. That’s the driver who recently widowed one of our friends. I understand some might think it odd to stalk stories in this manner, but I prefer to be in the […]

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Community Dreaming Self Reliance

High Water Apocalypse

We had strung tarps beneath the sweet gums and were living on canned food and wild mushrooms. What with the hurricane rains, the woods were lousy with them. The kids seemed fine with the arrangement, old enough to understand why we’d abandoned the comforts of our thirty-year-old manufactured home, yet still young enough to turn […]

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Cookie's Bliss Diet Food Our Life Poor Little Vegans Self Reliance

The Gift That Keeps on Giving

My friend Linda of Cook for Good fame drove down from Raleigh last week to give me some 150-year-old sourdough starter. Linda is a food activist, cooking instructor, author, and a cherished friend, so this wasn’t going to be any old starter; this is going to be “The One.” I fed my new starter three times, […]