Elderberry Syrup and Plans to Culture All the Things

As of today, November 15th, I am officially free from the bonds of Q3 earnings, or "busy season" with my work. This means more time to play in the kitchen and continue trying to optimize the ways in which I take care of my home and my person. Today held a series of small victories on that front.

First, on a mission to Vitamin Cottage for elderberry syrup implements, I discovered this:

As some of you are aware, I've been meaning for a while now to start making kombucha and actually attempted to grow a SCOBY at home using some store-bought kombucha, but that experiment has . . . fizzled out, shall we say. Thanks to, I suspect, a combination of ginger in the existing kombucha, using metal utensils, using non-organic sugar and/or keeping it in too cold an environment, I remain sans SCOBY after three weeks. Since this kit comes with a SCOBY, all I'll need is a gallon container to start what will hopefully be a successful batch, with potential for further brews. Plus, pear and ginger sounds awesome.

While at Vitamin Cottage, I also discovered that organic Greek yogurt is obscenely expensive, so I went a-Googling and found this recipe for bulk quantities of homemade Greek yogurt made in, of all things, a crockpot. This strikes me as the most economical way to keep Greek yogurt around, since I eat it every morning. If I'm especially crafty, I can probably even stock up on gallons of milk when it goes on sale and freeze it till I'm ready to make yogurt.

Finally, I got around to making a batch of homemade elderberry syrup -- FrugalGreenGirl's recipe, to be specific. For those who've yet to be subjected to my proselytizing on the subject, elderberry anything is excellent for boosting the immune system and treating colds and flus. I've now used the commercially available Sambucol (basically elder berry Zicam) to nip two colds in the bud, but that runs $15 for 30 tablets, or one cold. This syrup ran about $5 for a two-cup batch. Ingredients are nothing more than 1/2 cup dried elderberries, 1 tsp fresh ginger, 2 cinnamon sticks, 4 cloves, and 3 cups water, brought to a boil, simmered on low for half an hour, strained and mixed with 1/4 cup of honey. It purportedly keeps in the fridge for up to three months -- we'll see if it lasts that long, knowing my propensity to come down with stuff. I'm planning to drizzle a tablespoon or so on my morning yogurt to keep me evenly supplemented.

Musings on Meal Kit Services, and Feeding Myself Economically

I was debating whether this was worth a blog, but figured I'd spit it out so I can quit overthinking it. You're welcome?

My friend Jessi posted on Facebook an article entitled "How to Save Money When You're Young, Dumb and Broke." I won't tell you which of those modifiers I identified with, but I read the article and noticed that the author, who also seems to be living alone, has taken to using a meal kit subscription service and finds it economical for her circumstances. For those of you who don't know (I didn't), companies such as Blue Apron, Hello Fresh, Plated and Gobble offer weekly subscription boxes delivered to your door that contain ingredients and recipes for 3-ish meals, for anywhere from 2 to 4 people. The one the author cited, Blue Apron, costs $60 a week, and she gets anywhere from 6 to 9 meals out of it. This got me thinking, and I've wasted most of my morning ruminating on the pros and cons in my head, which I will presently share because I can.

Pro: Cheaper than grocery shopping
I know, $60 sounds kind of expensive for three meals. However, in watching a Youtube grocery haul recently, I realized I spend an average of $100 on food a week. For myself. $50-ish at Costco and $50-ish at Trader Joe's, once a week. Having groceries delivered would dramatically reduce my monthly food costs by mitigating temptation if nothing else. Even if I went shopping twice a month for breakfast food, fruit and snacks to augment, I'd still be saving over $100 a month on food. If I got 7-9 meals a week out of it, my daily food cost would be under $10 total, which is pretty good -- better if I can stretch the leftovers.

Pro: Less Waste
The food I consume is 90% perishables and 50% Costco quantities. Even with a consistent diet and eating at home as often as I can, I end up wasting a lot more produce than I'm happy to admit simply because I can't get through that large a quantity before it goes off. (I do plan to start composting to offset some of this, but that's a work in progress.) Having pre-portioned ingredients means no waste. As for the packaging, it all seems fairly recyclable -- some services even let you ship the packaging back for free to be recycled.

Pro: Variety
When it comes to feeding myself, I am spectacularly unoriginal. My daily meals at home consist of a bowl of plain Greek yogurt with fresh or frozen berries and chia seeds (which I have eaten daily for at least six years) and a lunch/dinner salad consisting Costco power greens, cherry tomatoes, a couple other veggies, maybe some fruit, Kirkland pre-grilled chicken breast strips, a smattering of blue cheese and some balsamic vinegar (which I've eaten daily for three years), occasionally augmented with hard boiled eggs to snack on. I just never think to make anything else and can't normally be bothered to do any food prep that involves slicing, let alone heating. With one of these boxes, I'm guaranteed at least some variety in my diet without having to be creative.

Pro: Forces me to cook
I'm not a naturally gifted cook and don't do it unless I have to. I bought a crockpot thinking that if I could cook in bulk and freeze it, but it's been a long ordeal retraining myself that the freezer is not just where food goes to die, and that leftovers from the freezer can indeed be palatable. Knowing how I tick, I'm much more likely to cook three times a week and eat day-old leftovers than cook twice a month and eat leftovers that went unrecognizable in the freezer.

Pro: Less time spent shopping
I'm a bit of an agoraphobe, and grocery shopping for me is like running the gauntlet, especially on weekends (stay tuned for a Costco intra-aisle road rage post to follow). Not only would having to do it less be delightful, but I'd save a gallon of gas each week I don't have to go. Plus, I'll be less likely to starve those weeks over the winter when I can't be arsed to put on snow boots, unbury my car and go out.

And finally . . .
Pro: It's a package to open
I'm a Prime addict -- I love flirting with the delivery guy receiving packages in the mail. There's something tactile and fun about unpacking surprises, even if you picked them out and know they're coming.

As for the cons . . .
Con: I might still waste food
If for some reason I don't like the recipe, get busy or otherwise flake, there's still a good possibility I'll defeat the box's purpose. I like to think I'd do better than that, but let's be real -- I'm committing to cooking three times a week when I currently cook once a month at best.

Pro/Con: I might never leave the house
There are indeed some weeks when I only go out because staying in means waiting to see whether the cats eat me first or I them. If the food comes to me, why go out at all.


For my circumstance, this service has enough going for it that it's at least worth a shot. I'll probably order a box for next week since I'll be out of busy season and will have more time to cook.I'll try to chronicle that ordeal -- with pictures -- if I remember.

Back in the Saddle Again . . .

That's right, kids -- the time has come for the biennial resurrection of the blog and kidding myself that this time will be different!

Before I found myself given to fits of misanthropic indignation, this blog was intended to document my pitiful attempts to play house while shacked up --  a role and circumstance I referred to as hausfraud. A great deal has changed since my last post, and yet not so much. After a four-year relationship and two years of living together, my beau and I broke up -- in sentiment at first, but not in dwelling. Since we renewed the lease for another year two weeks before we pulled the plug on "us," we continued sharing our one-bedroom apartment for another year after the breakup, both of us working from home the whole time. Maybe at some point I'll post something on how to not kill each other when you're within 500 feet of each other 24/7, because I'm frankly extremely proud of the civility of that breakup given its duration and proximity.

Since my first foray into domesticity was predicated on that relationship lasting, I thought for sure that a breakup would mean moving back in with my mother and turning into Little Edie of "Gray Gardens" infamy (Google it), but then a miracle happened: I bought a condo. I'm blessed with a smart and sainted mother who embodies the perfect balance of pushing her young to better things and also helping them get there. Because she'd pushed me to go to college in high school on the state's dime, I had a large enough college fund to put a down payment on an 880-square-foot condo in the same complex where my kid brother had already bought one (you see, in our family, the fetus isn't viable until it has a mortgage). She functioned as my realtor and hooked me up with other family friends to cut me a deal on renovations and help with the accounting and loan-acquisition side of the equation, which made this small semblance of autonomy possible. Clearly I'm not grateful at all.

At any rate, the point is that I find myself in a new stage of hausfraud-dom (hausfradity?): keeping a house I own, for no one but me. In a masochistic sort of way, being able to support myself and also be my own housewife feels like having it all. Because I live alone, there is no one else to please, no one to object when the urge to grow a new thing comes over me, and no one to kvetch when I cathartically clean the kitchen and listen to standup at 1 AM. I have a lot more responsibility, but also a lot more freedom, and keeping my home has become my greatest joy, even with no one around to keep it for. I'm beholden to no one, which means the domestic itch in me can grow completely unchecked. Be afraid, be very afraid.

Since I've been plastering my Facebook with pictures of plants and kitchen decor for several months now anyway, I figure I might as well consolidate it. I'd promise more content, but it is me we're talking about. We'll see.

A Message to Naive Provocative Dressers

Since "slut-shaming" is a no-no these days, here is a gender-neutral message to everyone, male or female, who exposes their underwear in public on purpose:

Dear Clueless Individual,

I bet someone told you that whale-tail or sagging look you sport is cool. Perhaps your friends, celebrities and other people you admire dress like that. However, perhaps you didn't know that dressing to expose the undergarments, back in the day when most people had a sense of modesty, used to signal those around you that you were available for sex. It told unscrupulous people that you were available and scrupulous people that you were unclean, undisciplined and otherwise untrustworthy.

Now, I'm sure at this point you're thinking to yourself, "But I'm not asking for sex; I just dress like this because it's what I want to do and it's my body, damnit." That's fine. You can walk around town looking like something out of Rocky Horror Picture Show for all I care. However, your motivation for dressing the way you do does not mitigate the reality that unscrupulous people will still see you as an easy target and scrupulous people will lose respect for you. If that's a risk you want to take, be my guest.

By now you've probably got steam coming out of your ears and are about to accuse me of victim-blaming. None of this is to say that anyone of whom sexual advantage is taken can be blamed, at least not any more than someone who leaves food out while camping can be blamed for a bear attack, someone who leaves his garage door open can be blamed for a robbery or someone who walks down a dark alley with cash falling out of his pockets can be blamed for a mugging. However, all of these unfortunate circumstances can be prevented at least in part by doing the responsible adult thing and covering your own ass, literally and figuratively. If you should find yourself in a pickle because you made the mistake of trusting the world a little too much and making yourself an easy target for a predator, I'm not going to have much sympathy for you.

Sincerely,
A concerned citizen -- not your mother, not a misogynist and not a square.

When in Doubt, Flank It With Pumpkins: (Belated) Fall Decor Part 2

Better late than never, right? I wanted to put all these pictures up before Halloween, but family vacations, work and ADD happened, as is their wont. So, without further ado, enjoy a tour of my fall/Halloween decor: 

The front door on Halloween. I got the door hanger from Hobby Lobby.

I kept the mantel pretty simple. The only additions to the existing set-up were a couple foam glitter gourds from Walmart with some moss.

A cute little stuffed turkey from Hobby Lobby graces the fireplace seat.

A ceramic pumpkin from Hobby Lobby on the right side table.

A Hobby Lobby ceramic pumpkin and a Walmart foam pumpkin on the left side table.

This year's Jack-o-lantern.

All I did with the coffee table was add a cool copper pumpkin and a Waxberry oil candle.

The entry "shrine" with moss and a couple Hobby Lobby pumpkins. That pedestal makes anything look classy; I need more of them.

I draped a stained glass Hobby Lobby leaf garland over the mirror, because I can't leave well enough alone.

The kitchen, having no counter space, was pretty simple. Just a ceramic owl jar and leaf placemat from Hobby Lobby on the range (plus a beaded spider hanging in the doorway and a purple glitter pumpkin on another counter, of which I failed to get a picture).

We have a cool little look-through between our kitchen and our living room, so I stuck another pumpkin on a platter and flanked it with moss and candles.

As you can see, the overarching theme for the season was, "When in doubt, flank it with pumpkins." Buying said pumpkins turned out to be a bit of an apartment-dwelling rookie mistake on my part, as they take up a hell of a lot of storage space en masse.

Where has all the closet space gone? Pumpkins ate it, every one. When will I ever learn? When will I ever learn?

Fortunately for me and my bank account, fall decor is pretty hard to come by when you're not into orange and black. I'm lucky if I can find one or two green and purple things that aren't campy. If I had to do it over again, I'd buy items that are either hollow or flat.

As you may have guessed from the picture above, I tore everything down today and have begun the process of decorating for Christmas. Hopefully that will be done within the week.

Hey Women, Men Are People Too.

This is a rant. I'm not citing sources; you can look them up and correct me if you like.

Lately the internet has run amok with ubiquitous "Real Men" posts. Real men do this, real men don't do that, such and such is what it takes to be a real man, and only by meeting the criteria for a real man will you be considered for employment as a mate. These are almost unanimously met with "Amen, Sistah"s and other affirmations all around. However, not once to my knowledge has there been anything similar regarding Real Women. Imagine if the tables were turned and some bitter man penned a treatise on what constitutes a real woman. He'd be chased out with virtual torches and pitchforks and labeled a chauvinist pig.

Whether intentionally or not, modern culture has become such that men are held to a certain standard of conduct and women largely are not. Any few standards to which women are or used to be held, e.g. chastity, kindness, beauty and/or childrearing prowess, are contested and ultimately abandoned, because oppression. In today's culture, a man's chief duty is to everyone else, while a woman's foremost duty is to herself. A woman is entitled to a good man, while a man must fight, jump through hoops, beg for and otherwise "earn" a good woman.

Think I'm wrong? Consider this. One of my Facebook friends recently boasted about how her toddler daughter pushed a little boy over a toy. "Girl power," she called it. Had it been her son who pushed a little girl, it would be neither cute nor commendable. It's not just her, though. Society in general is sending the message that women behave less than admirably for good reasons and men for selfish or evil reasons. If a woman bullies a man, she's fighting off her male oppressors. Good for her. If a man bullies a woman, lock him up. If a woman abandons her family, she probably wasn't happy at home. If a man abandons his family, he's a deadbeat. If a girl breaks a guy's heart, she deserved better anyway. If a guy breaks a girl's heart, he let a good thing go. If a girl want's out of the friend zone, she's following her heart. If a guy wants out of the friend zone, he's got ulterior motives. If a woman goes apeshit, she's just in a bad place that she probably didn't put herself in. If a man goes apeshit, he's just apeshit. I could go on for days.

In spite of the popular idea that women want to be equals, they also still want to be princesses. That is to say, they want the best that chivalry and equality have to offer with none of the responsibility to anyone but themselves. Every woman hopes and expects to be treated like a princess by her man, but none of them want to treat their man like a king. In a world where women can own property, support themselves and otherwise live independently, they still quantify their relationships according to what the man can offer. Does he take you on nice dates? Did he buy you a big rock? Does he patiently wait out all your emotional tirades? Does he think you're beautiful all the time? Is he emotionally available? Is he a good father? Does he have a good job? And, most importantly, DOES HE EXPECT NOTHING IN RETURN?

These are the qualities of a "real man": someone who selflessly provides and gives of himself while thinking only the best of his lady. What, then, can his lady be expected to contribute in return? What constitutes a real woman in this modern world? Sex? Only if she feels like it. Household duties? Only if she enjoys it and doesn't have something better to do, and even then you're expected to help. Child-rearing? Again, only if she wants kids and doesn't want to outsource their parenting to daycare, and even then you're expected to help. Emotional support? Only if you're not a pussy. Helping out financially? Maybe, but she'll resent you for being a poor provider. Commitment? Only if you meet her every demand and you do nothing divorce-worthy like aging, losing your job or treating her less like a princess. Respect for your personal needs, desires and ambitions? Not likely.

Is it any wonder why non-religious guys don't want to get married anymore? Dear Christ.

Women, it's time to decide if you want to be a princess or an equal. Those of you who keep trying to be both are scaring off the men for those of us who have picked and are willing to treat their men with the respect they are due. /endrant 

Fall Decor: Bedroom and Bathroom

I'm not one of those people who look forward to fall and winter with bated breath. While I love watching the leaves change and the snow fall from behind glass, the prospect of feeling chronically chilled for six to nine months doesn't hold much appeal. That being the case, as soon as the leaves start to turn and I trade my knit pajamas for flannel, I decorate. Nothing eases the transition from balmy evenings to frigid, blustery nights that kill my plants and chill my soul like a trip to Hobby Lobby when the seasonal decor is 40% off. Although I'm trying to use what I have and curtail my spending on knick-knacks that only see daylight three months out of the year, I couldn't resist a few additions.

A sprinkling of fall on the dresser in the bedroom. I'm a sucker for purple, and these leaf placemats came in a set of two -- the other's in the kitchen. The pumpkin is also new, and the birdies I've had.

In the interest of not overcrowding the bathroom counter, I just added a yellow glitter pumpkin and a sunflower oil candle from Waxberry to the existing decor. Got to have the symmetry.

This corner used to be pretty naked, but I had to bring my ferns from the balcony n for the winter. Add another glitter pumpkin  and voila.

Another sunflower oil candle flanked by ceramic birdies.

I didn't see the sense in adding much more decor to the bedroom since we spend most of our time in there asleep, but the bathroom sees more use. Plus, it's a lot easier to find yellow and green fall accessories than purple and blue (a fact which has probably saved me hundreds of dollars over the years in mitigated temptation alone). While I broke one of my cardinal rules by purchasing seasonal items that are bulky to store, we couldn't resist the oil candles, and I'm a lost cause at Hobby Lobby.

Next installment: balcony, kitchen and living room decor. I'm waiting on the addition of a few more trinkets before I'll call it presentable.