All Or Nothing Is All Wrong

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I admit it. I tend to have a “go big or go home” thought process. So perhaps I’ve given the wrong impression when it comes to backyard veggie gardening. Here’s a paraphrase of a conversation I had recently: Well, I’d like to have a garden but I live in the city. I have one-tenth of [Continue Reading...]

A Community Thing

Clasp Hands

Hi there. I’m Erica. Been a while, hasn’t it? Sorry about that. I have been elbows deep in my real life, for good and for bad. This blog is real enough. It’s as true as it needs to be. The stuff I write about doing, I actually do. The rants about food politics, I actually [Continue Reading...]

Whine, Wine and Weed

Weeding Tool

Whine I would like to humbly suggest that an urban homesteading lifestyle requires a certain degree of letting shit slide. You have two choices: make peace with weeds, kitchen dishes, chicken shit and dirty fingernails or go crazy fighting the inevitable. I would like to humbly suggest that blogging also requires a certain degree of [Continue Reading...]

Thrift Shop – An Anthem for New Frugality?

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Homebrew Husband came home after his commute the other day and told me that local Seattle rapper and my fake internet boyfriend, Macklemore, is overwhelming the Seattle radio scene with his hilarious ode to frugality, Thrift Shop. Thrift Shop has been making rounds through the money-saver forums for months and months, so I’ve been loving [Continue Reading...]

The Aspirational Life and New Year’s Resolutions

Bar-Gym-Resolutions

January is the month for Aspirational Lives. New Year’s Resolutions, goals, big changes and all the jazz, commitments designed to inch us closer from how we are to how we want to be. I haven’t put up a “2013 Resolutions” post because, frankly, 2013 just pitched in of its own accord, and like most things [Continue Reading...]

Being The Gatekeeper

Heart Shaped Potato

Something evil happened last week. I don’t need to tell you what it is. You know. You’ve seen the reports, and read the headlines and wept for strangers and clutched your children to your breast because of it. This thing, this tragedy, maybe it’s entered your heart and your head. It’s entered mine. I have [Continue Reading...]

From Russia, With Vegetable Love

Part 1 Sometimes I go to the grocery store and get mad and start ranting about vegetables. Homebrew Husband thinks I’m silly when I do this, and pokes me if people start looking at me funny. The thing is, the cost of vegetables at the market is often far out of proportion to the difficulty [Continue Reading...]

And Then The Ugly Happened

Ugly Garden Early Winter 2012 (11)

You haven’t read much about gardening on this site for almost three months. That’s because I haven’t been doing any of it. My garden is really ugly right now. It is inadvisable to leave your garden completely unattended for almost three months because if you do then the Ugly happens. I have done almost nothing [Continue Reading...]

Dear Black Friday Shoppers: Knock It Off Already

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It is, somewhat shockingly, just a few days before Thanksgiving. I’m not sure how this happened. Perhaps because I’ve been even more of a homebody than usual this past 8 weeks, I’ve missed the traditional warning signs: Williams-Sonoma window-displays featuring festive, faux-gourd soup tureens and French porcelain turkey-shaped gravy boats. Pre-lit plastic Christmas Trees and [Continue Reading...]

The Propaganda of the Four Season Chart

Seasonal Charts (6)

You know how those elementary-school season charts always show the four seasons divided into nice equal pie-slices? Usually the season-slices are accompanied by a seasonally appropriate deciduous tree: leaves turning color in fall, bare and snow-studded in winter, leaf budding and flowering in spring and in full green verdancy in summer. The important part is that each season [Continue Reading...]

Zombies vs. The Joy of Canning: Motivation in the Productive Home

Blanching Tomatoes

“Hey, we were planning on getting together later today, right?” I asked my friend. “Yeah, but after dinner.” “Can we push that back to later in the week?” I was exhausted from Can-o-Rama and the idea of a social commitment after dinner was more than I could handle. “Sure. What’s up?” “I’m pretty tired. I [Continue Reading...]

The Terrible Tragedy of the Healthy Eater

Kale

I know you. We have a lot in common. You have been doing some reading and now you are pretty sure everything in the grocery store and your kitchen cupboards is going to kill you. Before Your Healthy Eating Internet Education: I eat pretty healthy. Check it out: whole grain crackers, veggie patties, prawns, broccoli. [Continue Reading...]