Produce for nothing, and your kicks for free.

It's rare in life that we get something for nothing.

Two years ago, my son was out mowing the lawn. I was also out in the backyard playing with my daughter, and when the mower stopped, I figured it had run out of gas. But there was a brief pause before my son called, "Mom? Am I supposed to mow over these things?"

 Well then.

I joined him by the side of the compost bin, where he stood staring at the ground, and was shocked to find two cantaloupes tucked away in the unmowed, overgrown grass. Seeds scattered from the composted remains of an on-sale cantaloupe must've made their way outside the compost bin and taken root in the fertile ground there. Since my son wasn't exactly an enthusiastic lawn mower, the melons had grown, undisturbed and unnoticed, for quite some time. They weren't ready to be eaten quite yet, but I answered my son's questions with an resounding, "NO! Holy crap, we're growing compostaloupes!"

We ended up with four surprise compostaloupes, juicy and sweet and kind of amazing for something we didn't plant, didn't water, didn't tend to in any way. As I'm not a huge cantaloupe fan, my husband and children enjoyed them, while I enjoyed that they were nourished by something that appeared out of nowhere. Hurray for free food!

So.

You know where this is going, right?

Two nights ago, I was mowing the lawn. (I've since taken over the job; the last time my son mowed, it set his allergies off in a bad way, and as it turns out, I'm really great at mowing. Our lawn looks fantastic!) It was a pleasant evening, cool and sunny, and I'd been enjoying the task at hand. I had finally begun the home stretch, circling the mower back by the compost pile, when I began reminiscing about those compostaloupes from two years ago. 'Haha,' I thought to myself as I pushed the mower closer to the compost bin. 'Remember those compostaloupes? That was so funny. Wouldn't it be funny if we were growing something agai-'

Well then. Again.

And there we were, yet again. 

Not compostaloupes this year.

Compostomatoes.

Two of them, in fact, and each plant already has several flowers.

I continued to mow, careful not to disturb my new little friends, laughing the whole time. 

It's not often that we get something for nothing. Sometimes, we don't even get something for something; often, hard work goes unnoticed and unappreciated. But on occasion, every once in a while, we get a gift that we didn't have to work for, a tiny reminder of the goodness of life, small and green and perfect.

May your day be full of compostaloupes and compostomatoes. 

Things I Love: The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn

Have you ever had the course of your life completely altered by a book?

This was that book for me.

I was 19 or 20 the first time I read it. I'd always been frugal, saving my money for things that I really wanted and frequenting thrift stores and yard sales, but as an adult, I was surprised to learn that there were whole online communities of people out there like me. Entire online forums devoted to the practice of saving money? Sign. Me. Up. And then someone mentioned The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn. They referred to this book as the bible of frugality, and of course, my penny-pinching brain was intrigued. Off to the library I trotted, and I came home with the hefty book tucked proudly under my arm.

My mind was blown by this book. Here was a woman who knew how to Get Things Done. She cooked from scratch (even when the pantry looked bare), sewed her six children Halloween costumes (out of a surplus of black fabric, so they could be whatever they wanted as long as it was something black), threw a party decorated with what was basically scraps from the trash and recycling bin... The list went on and on and I'd never been so impressed with anything in my life. I wanted to be just like Amy, and I set about incorporating her ways and ideals into my life.

And over the past *coughcoughletsnottalkaboutnumbers* years, I've done my best to live up to those ideals. I cook, bake, craft from cheap or free materials, decorate with what I have on hand and what I can scavenge inexpensively. I use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without, and so much of what I've learned has come from this wonderful book. It has a place of honor with my cookbooks and I pull it out several times a week to reference a recipe or thumb through for a tip on some topic or the other. Usually once every year, I'll sit down and page through the entire thing for frugality inspiration, to get myself back in the mindset of doing it myself.

Several of the recipes (the food processor pizza dough, Create-A-Muffin recipe, Real Tightwads Eat Quiche, Tuna Cheddar Chowder) have become staples around here. I learned to always compare unit pricing thanks to Amy, I got in the habit of creating my kids' Halloween and dress up costumes because of her, and I've used countless tips and hints throughout the book to make my home and daily life run easier. The Complete Tightwad Gazette absolutely made me the homemaker that I am.

This book is frugality inspiration between two covers. Has the book aged over the years? Of course. Some of the articles- healthcare, long distance plans, if you really need the internet at home- aren't exactly relevant these days, but the vast majority of the book has held up surprisingly well. Frugality is a mindset, and while you might not need to sew Halloween costumes out of leftover black fabric or find a use for your baby's old crib, it's still ridiculously inspiring to read about how Amy did those things, and it puts the reader in the mindset of, "What can I use up around here? How can I improve my quality of life using only the things I already own?"

If you've never checked this book out before, RUN, don't walk, to your local library. I suggest that first, but if you're anything like me, you're going to want your own copy (I'm on my THIRD. Yes, THIRD copy of this book. That's how useful it's been to me!). Amy Dacyczyn is a Woman Who Gets It Done, and I'm proud to say that she taught me how to Get It Done, too.

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Weekly recap 7/2/2018

Hoo boy.

Did you ever have a period of time in your life where you just wish for a regular week?

That's about where I am right now.

Let's get down to business on Stephanie's weekly recap! *cue confetti and balloons* (What can I say, I grew up on 80's/90's game shows.)

MONDAY
I took my son to his second-to-last day of school, then ran home to reschedule the vaccine appointment he was supposed to go to (which I originally scheduled before I knew his summer school schedule). They allowed me to reschedule even though the appointment was in two hours, so that was good (no one was there for me to reschedule over the weekend). I washed and hung the laundry out to dry, ran the dishwasher, then did Reading and Geography lessons with my daughter. I finished reading a novel from my shelves (meh) and also finished reading Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers!!! Excitement!!! That night, I sat down to write and finished with 370 words. A pretty productive day!

TUESDAY
I dropped my son off at school for his last day, then did Reading and Geography lessons with the girl. I practiced the piano while she played, and then we headed to the library. And then...

Backtrack time. I have degenerative disc disease. The discs in my back are jerks and like to break down faster than everyone else's discs. They slip, slide, herniate, cause nerve pain that runs down my legs, it's generally a miserable experience all around. Some days are close to normal; other days, I'm considering taking a chainsaw and liberating my body below the ribcage, the pain is so bad.

Tuesday was one of those days. I was a little painy before we left the house, but by the time we were getting ready to leave the library to pick up my son, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it out to the car. Not a good thing to worry about when you've got a four year-old and a heavy bag of books. I did make it, and my son was kind enough to get my daughter out of the car and carry the books inside. I spent my daughter's nap time icing my back and watching Love Between the Covers on Netflix (a documentary about romance novels and some of the authors who write them). Highly recommended! Despite my pain, I had to pick up another interlibrary loan book from the library that night before dropping my son off at a friend's house, but when I came home, I sat down to write and pounded out 751 words. Score!

WEDNESDAY
UGH. The pain was bad, bad, bad that day, and I skipped grocery shopping because of it. I did Reading and Geography lessons with the girl and spent the rest of the day reading a book from my Goodreads list.

THURSDAY
I woke up early and added the French vocab from the final chapter of Harry Potter into my Anki app. We got the grocery shopping done, slowly, then I carefully cleaned the house of the mess that had built up the past two days. We stopped by the library, I cooked dinner (including making the homemade sandwich rolls that I'd forgotten to grab at the store, for the roasted eggplant-tomato-basil sandwiches I was making for dinner. YUM). After dinner, I sat down to write and came out with less than 100 words. I. Was. Exhausted. The thing with chronic pain is that you forget that you're already starting quite a ways before the start line. It takes a lot more effort to do things on painy days than it would if I weren't already struggling, and so on days when I'm not feeling well, I really wear down. I fell asleep in my chair when my husband and daughter were watching My Little Pony and barely had the energy to hold my book open after that.

FRIDAY
My daughter and I visited some local yard sales in the morning. I found a rug to place underneath my piano bench for a dollar, so that made me happy. I studied and completed the French vocabulary from Harry Potter using the Anki app, and in the afternoon, we went to the library, where we ran into some friends (one from France, the other married to a man from France). That night, I picked up a basic French grammar book and began reviewing.

SATURDAY
Kid gymnastics day! I cleaned and read, drove my son and his friends places, made a huge pot of spaghetti sauce using the veggies lurking around the fridge, and practiced the piano.

SUNDAY
Lazy day. I finished a library book, practiced the piano, and studied my French grammar book. It's been a long time since I've done a grammar review, so I think I'll really benefit from this. Even in the early chapters, I'm already noticing things I've forgotten.

Book Update
Books Read This Year: 82
Books On My To-Read List: 169

And there we have it! Not exactly the most productive week, but such is life. Crossing my fingers that next week will be better! How did you do this week?

Weekly recap 6/25/18

Hooooooooooooooooooo boy, has it been a week, amiright???

I'm going to start this new feature on the blog, tracking my week and accounting for my time. I'm hoping it'll keep me accountable for all the things I do, need to do, and want to do, and it'll give you a glimpse into my days.

This week has been unusual, for so many reasons, least of all, it was my son's birthday week (16!!! I'm not sure how that's possible because I just graduated high school myself like ten seconds ago, so there must be some timewarp nonsense going on around here), so a lot of my normal activities were subverted by that. But let's start, shall we?

MONDAY
I started out the day with errands and birthday shopping, only to receive a text from my mother, inviting us over after my son finished with his summer school class. RECORD SCRATCH. So off we went to spend the rest of the day with her. We had a wonderful time, and while my daughter splashed in my mom's blow-up pool, I spent three hours working on my grandmother's cross-stitch table runner. :)

TUESDAY
Birthday shopping. I'm usually much more ahead of the game than I was this year, but we've had a lot going on, so it fell to the wayside. I did go to the town to the south of us to visit a gaming store for my son, who has gotten into Dungeons and Dragons with his friends, so that was an adventure! By the time we got home, it was time to start dinner. Long day there!

WEDNESDAY
I spent the day emailing my Congresscritter (twice!) and arguing with people online that it's not difficult to treat human beings with dignity and kindness (apparently, this is very, very difficult and treating others like garbage is exactly what Jesus taught? I must have missed that one in the years upon years of religious education I had growing up). I don't usually spend as much time online as I did this day, but there was so much going on that I felt the responsibility to pay attention. I did finish by memorizing the last bits of French vocabulary from Chapter 16 of the first Harry Potter with my Anki app, so there's that.

THURSDAY
We went for groceries (three stores! Two or three is normal for me. They're all within about five miles of each other, so the savings we get from visiting so many stores is worth it). When we got to store #2, an employee said, "Oh, you're here too early! Curious George won't be here until 10!" Say what now??? Turns out people from our local PBS station, along with Curious George, were making an appearance at that store; I'd had no idea. So we hit up store #3, then came back to #2 for...

this guy! My daughter wasn't hugely excited by it, to be honest. When she saw him, she shrieked (loudly), "That thing is REAL!!!" She begrudgingly agreed to the photo op, but just barely. She was a lot happier with the wife-and-husband musical duo that performed prior to George. I emailed my Congresscritter again, made dinner, and spent the evening finishing a book from my Goodreads list.

FRIDAY
My daughter and I started off the day with a trip to Target, from which we almost didn't return home due to nearly every street leading to our house was flooded due to a massive downpour and the sewers that just couldn't keep up. What should have taken 10 minutes ended up taking about 40, and then I had to put towels down in the basement where we get water every time it rains like that. UGH. I wrapped all my son's birthday gifts and then spent most of the rest of the day with him and got a little writing done that night.

SATURDAY
Daughter's gymnastics class meets on Saturday mornings, so in between watching her, I read a book from my shelves (I'm not loving it, but I'm almost done, so I'll finish). I got more writing done- between Friday and Saturday, I hit nearly a thousand words, which is a pretty great re-entry into writing after not being able to (due to my computer having died back in the winter) for so long. I cleaned for the party, which included washing those waterlogged towels in the basement, baked two cakes, and practice the piano for a bit (FINALLY!).

SUNDAY
This was a DAY. I ran to two stores picking up things for the party (seriously, sending a vegetarian to pick out burgers and hot dogs for a barbecue is a terrible idea! Where is this stuff? What do I buy? I was laughing hysterically at my incompetence in this area and had the cashier laughing with/at me as well), then came home and frosted the cakes.

I mean...not well. Pinterest-worthy, they are not, but they were eaten all the same!

After that, I mowed our lawn. It was HOT, and I had to stop twice to rest and cool off, because I was starting to feel like passing out. 

But look what I discovered when I was mowing! TOMATO BABIES!!!

After showering and eating a small lunch, I finished cleaning and doing party prep, and then it was time for my son's birthday party. We had a house full of family and teenage friends, and it was a great day. :)

So here's to hoping that next week will be more productive! How did your week go?

Book review: A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

"Have you read A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen?" a friend said recently in an online book discussion group. "It's this really great middle grade novel about life behind the Berlin Wall." Well. That's something I didn't know much about, and so onto my Goodreads list it went. Turns out my local library had it, and thus I grabbed it to read while I wait for my interlibrary loans to come in.

Gerta is a young German girl whose family is becoming more and more wary of the tense political atmosphere around them. After much discussion, her mother finally agrees with her politically active father that it's time to move, and he and Gerta's brother Dominic head out on a two day trip into Western Germany to secure an apartment and a job. In an amazing stroke of bad luck, the border is closed overnight, leaving Papa and Dominic trapped in the West, and Gerta, her brother Fritz, and Mama trapped in the East, the side controlled by the Soviets.

As Gerta grows, life becomes as gray as the wall. Food shortages are common, books are censored or banned, music from the West (like the Beatles) is forbidden. The Stasi (the brutal East German police force; for more info, check out Wikipedia's article) keep their guns trained on the citizens, and neighbors and friends are quick to inform on each other in order to keep the heat off their own backs. Teachers instruct students on how lucky they are to live in such a wonderful Communist country and how dastardly the West is, how immoral and full of misery. But if East Germany is so wonderful, Gerta ponders, why must they force their citizens to stay there upon pain of death?

Having spotted her father and brother at an observation point on the Western side of the wall, Gerta interprets his dance movements, which used to accompany a song about farming that he sang to her as a child, as him asking her to dig. But where? It takes a secret note passed on by a friend she's no longer sure she can trust to help her locate the site, and with a borrowed shovel, Gerta begins digging her way to freedom.

The best kind of books leave you unaware of the physical act of reading, and Nielsen's novel is one of those, easily forming pictures of gray skies, state-sponsored fear, and the dirt-streaked yet hopeful face of a young girl in the reader's mind. Gerta is a wonderfully strong character, never losing her drive or resolve despite her country's determination to quash all indications of individuality. Her fear of losing her brother to the Stasi, her sadness over the end of a lifelong friendship with Anna, her longing to be reunited with her father and brother, every emotion leaps off the page and turns Gerta's plight into one that could easily be our own today, if we're not more careful.

This is a superb book, one I hope will be on the reading lists of middle schools and junior highs around the country. I knew very, very little about the divide between Western and Eastern Germany before this; I learned a little in grade school, and I vaguely (very vaguely) remember the Berlin Wall coming down, but past that, my history education pretty much stopped once World War II ended. Modern history is definitely something I need to focus on more, and this was a fantastic introduction, both in that it was a fabulously well-written story, and that it drove me to want to learn more.

Are there historical time periods you've realized you don't know much about?

Book review: A 1000 Mile Walk on the Beach by Loreen Niewenhuis

Imagine a walk on the beach. The sand under your feet, the sun shining ahead, the call of birds in the distance, a power plant to your right, the strong smell of...is that some sort of solvent? And is that a half-stripped deer carcass over there? And what's all this trash doing here???

Equipped with a deep love of Lake Michigan (pictured above), author Loreen Niewenhuis decided to undertake a walk on its beaches- a long walk, all the way around. Clocking 1,019 miles at journey's end, Niewenhuis began at Chicago's Navy Pier, touring the lake counterclockwise, through towns, industrial areas, tourist havens, and deep forests with no signs of human life. She walked through various types of weather; occasionally she walked with friends and family, but mostly, she walked alone, allowing for deep contemplation of the lake, humanity and its relationship to nature, and herself.

This story is beautifully written, one of goal setting and determination, a love letter to the lake and a plea to the people who live on it and make the laws controlling it. Niewenhuis wonders over the natural beauty of the lake and the diversity of the wildlife that flock to it, but laments the way it's been not just changed, but devastated over the years. Industry has polluted Lake Michigan in shocking, terrifying ways, and invasive species such as zebra mussels and round goby have severely damaged the biodiversity of the fish population (and many of the remaining fish found in the lake are unsafe to eat). Time and again, she mourns what the lake could be, should be, if only humans would learn to live with it, instead of demanding that the lake serve us.

I'd been aware of some of the problems of the lake, but not to this extent. I live close enough to Lake Michigan that my drinking water comes from there (the water in the middle of the Lake is known to be potable; Niewenhuis drank filtered lake water on her journey, which, after reading her tales of all the chemical spills, and chemical and waste dumping that has taken place in the lake, I consider that pretty brave!), and I was extremely dismayed to read about how carelessly the lake has been treated practically since the beginning of white settlement (the native population lived more in harmony with the world around them). "I began to formulate the idea that the most invasive species of all is probably man," Niewenhuis says, and she's not wrong.

There's a lot to admire about Niewenhuis's journey, her love of the lake, and her persistence (she was back out there just days after being hospitalized for gallbladder issues so severe, her pancreas was affected). Loreen Niewenhuis is an amazing example of not only finishing what one starts, but also delving deeply into a personal passion. She's continued her walks, strolling the shores of all five Great Lakes and exploring the Great Lakes islands. I'm inspired by her drive, her follow-through, and her passion for the natural world, and I'm definitely looking forward to reading more about her 1,000 mile walks.

And I'll be keeping a closer eye on the news regarding the health of Lake Michigan, and demanding that my representatives act as better stewards of this amazing resource. You should too.

Because this little girl, and all the other girls and boys out there deserve a clean, healthy lake.


(All photos come from our trip last summer to Traverse City and the surrounding areas.) 

Learning to play piano...again.

My love of music really started when I was 7. My mother had an organ and would play it occasionally, and she allowed me to tinker around on it. In one of her monthly organ music magazines (I swear this was a thing!), she had received what I remember her calling a 'skeleton,' a heavy paper...thing...that you place over the piano keys, which tells you the name of the note and what it looks like on the music staff. Although she didn't need this, as she'd taken music lessons as a kid, I used the crap out of that thing and taught myself how to play a one-handed version of Silent Night. (This also came in handy in plunking out the same song on my cousin's set of bells that he played for band, after he had bet me that I couldn't play a song on them. Ha!)

I continued plunking around on her organ until my parents got me a smaller sized keyboard of my own when I was twelve, which was about the same time I discovered my aunt's old piano lesson books at my grandmother's house. I really wanted lessons, but this was the early 90's and it was a little harder to find people who taught back then, so I just started teaching myself. Finally, after I'd whipped through all the books, my parents found a teacher and I began to learn just how much I didn't know.

I was 13 when I started, 16 when I stopped due to parental divorce and difficulty in getting to the lessons. I wasn't the best piano player in the world, but I've been the pianist at a family member's wedding and I've accompanied several people for public performances. But as an adult, playing the piano really fell by the wayside. My eighty-eight key keyboard never really had its own space, so it lived in the closet and became a hassle to pull out, and once my daughter arrived, forget trying to play. When my mother bought a new piano, I inherited the old one, and we have video of my daughter yanking my hands off the keys over and over again so she can smash them with her own tiny hands! Adorable and hilarious, but what it meant was that even though I had access to a piano, I still couldn't play.

Now that she's a little bit older, I started wondering if maybe it was time to get back into it. "What if I practiced a little every day?" I wondered. "Nothing crazy, just maybe at least fifteen minutes... How far could that get me?" I used to have quite a few songs memorized, so that when I came across a piano, I could sit down and whip one out, but that was all years ago, and those memories have all been wiped out and replaced by things like what hours the local pharmacy is open, and what my daughter's current shoe size is, and what time my son needs to be picked up from his late choir practice. You know, life stuff. ;)

So I decided that if I were to get back into playing, I would need some goals in mind. One piece at a time. Practice it daily, play it until I can play it through with minimal mistakes. Learn a few pieces by heart. Improve my playing; improve my sight-reading if possible (I've always been garbage at sight-reading.) And then I'd go from there.

My first piece was one I'd picked up from a book sale a few months back, Beyond the Sea. I remember hearing my grandparents play music like this when I was young, and Kevin Kline sang the French version of it on the soundtrack to the movie French Kiss (I listened to this obsessively in the last two years of high school). I took it slowly; it's been a long time since I really played seriously, and I need to get used to the feel of the keys all over again, relearn what the distance between the notes feels like. My hands aren't as familiar with them anymore, but they're finding their way back.

It took about a month (with some days of zero practice, because, well, life), but I've got the song down now! I played it straight through this morning, and my daughter, who was playing on the floor behind me, sighed and said, "That was nice." I consider that a definite success. :)

I'm still going to play Beyond the Sea daily for practice, but I'm going to move on. Yesterday, I started working on Angel Eyes by Jim Brickman. My hometown radio station used to play this song all the time, and since that was the station we usually listened to where I worked in high school, I heard it constantly, and it reminds me of those times, so I figured that would be a nice one to move on to. I got to a tricky part this morning, where my hands and brain don't seem to want to work together, but I'll get there, with plenty of practice (and plenty of sour notes and groans of frustration). I'm really enjoying playing again, and I'm excited to see how much I'll have improved in a year or two.

Is playing music part of your daily life? Have you gotten away from it? Are you planning to get back at any point?