It was a rainy and quiet morning, so we slept in. Rob went to see his Dad and I worked on cleaning up the house. This paring down of excess takes awhile. The nature of what we are trying to do with our garden, and becoming as sustainable as possible, requires some pretty specialized equipment for canning and food storage. I have no problem keeping the tools and equipment we need – what I still am figuring out is the massive amount of paperwork, mail, magazines, etc. that four adults generate. If I am honest about it – quite a bit of it is mine. I’m letting all but one of the magazines expire. I really enjoy Countryside, and have read it for years, and reread them – so those I’m keeping.

I spent some time hanging out with my daughter when she got home from work, which is always enjoyable, and then I worked for hours on the Powerpoint and drawings for my Permaculture final project. Working on this project for a design to make our property sustainable reveals some things to me personally. I feel overcrowded with many of the things around me. Clothing, books, paperwork, etc. I have been spending time thinking about my habits, hobbies, and day to day living and the effect it has on the world around me – and if my personal lifestyle is sustainable. Where I buy my clothes from, where our food comes from, all of the the other things we buy or throw away and how it effects the environment. We have found a place to buy local meat, cheese, eggs, etc. through Mass Local Food and next I want to find a way to buy clothing local. I’m just starting the research on this.

When Rob got home – he suggested we go to Rosalina’s for dinner. It’s so great to have such an amazing place to eat that we can walk a couple of blocks to. Dinner was delicious and I have almost 1/2 of my steak left – so tomorrow it’s going to become a topping when I make my first gluten free (rice crust) pizza!

It was a slower paced day – but I find that I get more done when I can work on a project, then take a break and walk around or sit in the yard – and then get back to the project. Smaller bursts of work have a longer lasting effect on the progress I make.

One project was to clear off, organize (and get rid of) a bunch of useless things on the counter downstairs in our basement kitchen. So, I cleaned everything up to make a nice area for baking (and storing baking supplies) as well as a bigger space for canning and processing veggies from the garden. The cabinets are for food storage – for what doesn’t fit in the couple of cabinets we have upstairs. Most of the baking supplies need to stay in a cooler place, so this is perfect. Also – with the space ready to use like this – I will be more likely to whip up some delicious meal or treat.  During the summer, when we don’t use the wood stove for heating – we do our cooking downstairs in the gas stove.