Daily (not yearly) Resolutions

     While the exact quote is not within reach as I try to make a quick post (for self, mostly) while baby J sleeps, I recall that St. Francis de Sales said something (he said a great many things, actually) to the effect of  "each day you get to get up and try again to be better".  I like this, and think this fits in so much more with "daily ad orientem" better than the whole make-yearly-resolutions-on-New-Year's-Eve, and only then, only to give up on them before January is over-- not to try again until the following December 31st.

     It's a comfort to know you can begin each day afresh (especially if one has recently gone to confession)  with new resolutions. It makes the long run so much more hopeful.

With the thought of daily resolutions, here's my major, continuous daily resolution:

Baby Steps Are Allowed.

     In that line of thought, here's a stream-of-cousciousness thinking that has affected my choice of babysteps.

     St. Nick was so kind as to give me Nourishing Traditions cookbook. It's actually more than a cookbook; it's an education. I hope to slowly embrace the entirety of it this year for my family. Here's how:

     We will swap current staples to recommended types. For example, we will forgo common iodized table salt for Celtic sea salt. This has naturally ocurring iodine, along with many other minerals that the former salt loses in the refining process.

     Another swap is refined sugar. Instead, I will use raw honey, molasses, maple syrup, raw agave nectar, and for the dry choice: rapadura. Rapadura is similar in look to "Sugar in the Raw", or sucanat, but is truly not processed (Sugar in the Raw is actually made white, then molasses added back in, or something like that, losing much of the mineral content and digestability).

    We just ordered half a cow, which is so much better (and less expensive) than the store-processed junk. I look forward to incorporating home made bone broths instead of boullion cubes, too. I successfully made a turkey broth from our thanksgiving turkey, and it's really REALLY tasty.

    Oil swap--- no more corn, canola, mysterious vegetable oils here! I have already been using olive oil as often as possible, but now I'm adding unrefined coconut oil, and will add palm oil, too.

    Milk. This is tough. I WANT raw milk. But that's a tricky thing here, and we don't have our own cow. The next best thing is I can dump the homogenized legally, and get slightly pasteurized milk. We've been doing it sometime now, and while the cost is easily double the pasteurized/homgenized, the taste and results is truly worth it. It used to be that I liked nothing better than an icy cold glass of the skim past/homog. Now I can't stand the taste. It tastes like chemicals to me. There's no going back there. I'll take icy cold water first.

So. Wow. I'm so stream of consciousness. And I'm sorry for the rough draft quality, too. Someday, I'll have time to type things out better, and maybe even add pictures! Wow, what a boring blog when there aren't pictures! I'm so hoping to have time to finish some of the crafts piling up on me-- like the cloth diapers for my now 9 month old niece!

BTW, the homeschool planner is on sale for $12 somehow. I can't remember the code, but I bet you can find it if you link to it. I  wish it were Catholic. For a Catholic planner, go to sanctussimplicitus.com/blog and it's really cool. I like the pdf version of the former, but Catholicity of the latter. sigh.

Later, homies.