A little nutty

The amazon gods appeared today. Not really, my local rural postal carrier appeared today bringing me a box from the amazon gods. I got a box of soap nuts! I know I wasn't supposed to start homesteading laundry until December but I may start early.

Although as I think about it, I will wait one more week. Gonna do laundry normally next week, then wash both sets of bedding and maybe even the pupper's blanket with soap nuts to clean out the washer like the soap nuts package says to do. Then soap nuts laundry week after next. Oh yeah and this week also gonna do a bit of pit scrubbing. Gonna give the soap nuts the best chance they can get.

Still not sure about this deodorant. On one hand, I don't seem any sweatier than usual. (Sweatier? I think I'm making up words) But I'm not sure about the odor control. But maybe I should shower more often.

Also, this post really is a bit nutty. I may or may not be drunk. In-laws are visiting. Teetotalling Jesus-freaks. They left me unattended for a bit. I had fruit loop milk. That shit is delicious. Now I'm trying to both pretend I'm sober and refrain from cursing at the TV. It's not going well. I have to stay on their good side though because they're the current owners of my Little Farm in the North. *sigh*

My Life in a Mason Jar

I'm seriously tempted to change the name of this blog.  Do you have any idea how many mason jars are floating around my life right now?  Let's analyze:

I just counted 181 jars of varying sizes full of food in my canning cabinet (no I didn't count them for giggles, I was doing an inventory) (I might have gone a bit overboard... we're never going to get through all that salsa...) (and that's not counting the 4 sitting on my kitchen counter to be used soon and the half dozen open jars in the fridge) (I like parentheses)
I use freezer-jam jars to make homemade yogurt, usually 6 jars at a time
I have two more freezer-jam jars in my shower to dilute the baking soda and apple cider vinegar to wash my hair
I have a half pint jar downstairs and a jelly jar upstairs containing my homemade deodorant
There is a pint jar with holes poked in one lid (covered with another lid to keep it fresh and from stinking up the place) in the spice cabinet holding hubby's rib rub

Also I don't currently have any of these jars but have in the past: homemade semi-instant oatmeal mix, chai tea mix, beef jerky, bits and bobs in the garage (actually there might still be some of those, I haven't looked) (although most of those aren't actually mason jars, somehow my hubby got a massive collection of baby food jars, I'm not quite sure how that happened since he has never procreated nor has he lived in the same state as a baby relative) and probably other things I am not thinking of right now.  There's another jar somewhere with more holes poked in the lid that I've used to hatch out butterflies and moths.  Entomology nerd.

And I want more!!!  I found these adorable little soap pump lids that go on mason jars for next to your bathroom sinks and whatnot.  And there will probably be other ideas as time goes on.  The more homemade things I make, the more I shove things in mason jars.  December's homesteading project is laundry, I have soap nuts sitting in my amazon cart just waiting for me to decide what else to put in there and punch in my gift card number and hit the free super saver shipping button.  I hear that soap nuts work best in hot water but I'm lazy and my water heater sucks so I'll probably be making them into soap nut liquid detergent which I'm sure will also go into a mason jar.

Also saw a cute idea for making candles in mason jars.  Safety first - make sure they won't break or damage whatever they're sitting on.  But it looked like a good idea!

Anyway, I should go be productive.  Just wanted to babble about my love for the simple mason jar. 

We put the "fun" in dysfunctional, only not really

I was with the fam last weekend, and we have TONS of family drama cropping up.  I'm not going into that here, not the time or place, and I really don't have anything to say anyway.  However, the interesting thing is that I had a little time to chat with my brother and this is at least the third time where he has mentioned something from our dysfunctional childhood that I had COMPLETELY BLOCKED.  Kinda makes me wonder how many other repressed memories I have tucked away in the grey matter.  And the most recent one was all about how the family has always hidden things from older generations.  And this has gone on for generations.

I've said for quite a while that for as different as we are, my brother and I cope with... whatever... in rather similar ways.  Both are self-destructive.  He drinks, I eat.  He's an alcoholic, I'm fat. 

And I'd repressed just how much the family hides things from others.  And I hide my eating.  Anything "bad", anything that's more than what is necessary, I desperately try to hide it.  Creamy cheesy fattening naughty foods, I eat when the hubbster is out of town.  Or in my car.  Or whatever.  Bags of candy hidden in my desk.  All that jazz.  But anything I eat in private shows up on my body in public.  How can I break the cycle of, well, dysfunction?

No, really, someone tell me.  Cuz I don't have a clue.  I keep thinking that recognizing all this will help.  And maybe it is, because I think I'm less bad than before.  I've managed to mostly maintain my weight (at least stick right around the same size) for like 4 years now, which is nothing short of a miracle.  I've never stayed the same weight for more than 2 years in my entire life.  Ever.  Always going up or down.  Mostly up.  Some down.  But the downs are always followed by more ups.  And never staying the same, at least not for very long.

But I hope someday I'll figure out how to use this information to my advantage and actually get to a healthy weight.  One thing's for sure, I've figured out a million ways that don't work!