Another book contract!

I admit I'm not very good at building suspense, which explains why I'm not a fiction writer. Yes, the title pretty much spills the beans. I signed another book contract. The Ecofrugal Handbook will be published in the fall of 2012. It takes the core beliefs behind Homegrown and Handmade and brings the concepts to an even larger audience. Even if you don't want to grow your own food, you can make inexpensive, ecofriendly decisions daily.

Being a stay-at-home mom when my children were young, I was always looking for ways to save money and was a big fan of the Cheapskate Gazette books back in the early 1990s. Even though I've only been making soap for eight years, I was using baking soda as a facial exfoliant shortly after reading Don't Go To the Cosmetic Counter Without Me when it was only in its fourth edition. (It's now in its eight edition.) I also have all sorts of books on making your own cleaning products. In fact, one of the things that sold this idea to my publisher is that a lot of authors have made this way too complicated! You don't need 300 pages to give someone a couple hundred recipes for cleaning their house! Between baking soda and vinegar, you've pretty much got the bases covered when it comes to cleaning. Throw in a little hydrogen peroxide for blood stains, and you're good to go. And even though I loved Don't Go To the Cosmetic Counter Without Me, you really don't need 1,000 pages of advice on skin and hair care. The whole point of The Ecofrugal Handbook is that it does not have to be time-consuming or complicated or expensive to do things that are healthy, inexpensive, and ecofriendly.

I'm really looking forward to writing this book because it's always been a passion of mine to help people save money while making healthier choices. The book will cover ecofrugal choices for all sorts of things from educating yourself to planning your child's birthday party. And I'll definitely be asking all of you for ideas along the way.

One of the things I learned in writing my last book is that although I could write a book in three months, it's not something I really want to do again. So, the deadline for The Ecofrugal Handbook is January 15, which gives me time to do some gardening and cheesemaking this summer, as well as book signings and speaking engagements in the fall when Homegrown and Handmade comes out.

Natural alternatives to body care products

A number of events lately have inspired me to take a hard look at all the things I'm putting on my body. I've been working for more than twenty years to eliminate all the artificial and possibly dangerous substances from my food, and it only makes sense to also try to keep such things off my skin, since it absorbs whatever is put on it. That concept is driven home by the fact that there are a number of drugs that are available via dermal patches that are stuck to the skin for a few days, and the drugs are absorbed into the body. It is actually a more effective route of administration that oral medication, because it goes directly into your bloodstream, rather than going through your digestive system first.

If I won't eat food that contains sodium carboxymethylcellulose, then why should I use shampoo that contains disodium laureth sulfosuccinate or hydroxypropyltrimonium chloride? And this is from a company that claims to use natural ingredients. I have sometimes used my homemade soap to wash my hair, and it gets my hair clean, but it's a challenge to style. Then I came upon this blog post about using baking soda to wash your hair, so I thought I'd give it a try. I just put a little baking soda in my hand, get it wet and scrub it around my scalp. It gets my hair squeaky clean. In fact, it dries out my hair and makes it frizzy, which I would have previously assumed to be impossible. Remember Roseanne Rosannadanna? I tried putting the baking soda in my hair and then adding my soap, which works better, but styling is still a challenge.

I mentioned my experiments on the Antiquity Oaks Facebook page, and a few people said that they have completely stopped using shampoo. They simply rinse their hair with plain water in the shower. At first their hair was a little oily, but it was temporary. Some also mentioned using apple cider vinegar as a rinse. Now I am really intrigued and excited to try these ideas and see what happens.

Although my shampoo-alternative experiments have just begun, I started living without a commercial deodorant a month ago. I've known for at least 15 years that alcohol works just as well as any commercial deodorant, but I was always worried that if I used it every day, it would dry out my skin. So, I only used it after shaving under my arms, because I really did not want to put unknown stuff on skin that had just been shaved, regardless of how safe the company claimed it to be. Anyway, I decided to see if I could simply use a bit of alcohol to keep my underarms odor free, and maybe it wouldn't dry out my skin. I've discovered that if I shower daily, I don't need the alcohol, although I did need it the first few days after I quit using the deodorant, which I found kind of interesting. It was as if there was a rebound effect from using the deodorant -- discontinuing use made my underarms stink badly within an hour or two of showering. Now, a month later, I don't smell a thing for 24 hours after showering. I also tried witch hazel, and it worked as well as the alcohol. I just put a little on a cotton ball and rub it under my arm pits.

My next challenge is to find an alternative to toothpaste, because almost all the so-called natural ones have sodium laurel sulfate in them. I found one without it, but it had some tiny something in it that would get stuck between my teeth, which necessitated flossing. It seemed really weird that my toothpaste created a need to floss. Any suggestions?

My new solar clothes dryer!

Shortly after moving out here, we put up a clothesline for drying clothes. It was behind the mobile home that was here at the time. We were thinking about where to build our new home and did not like any of the options very much, and then this big storm came through, and when we woke up in the morning, we saw that there was no longer a tree in our backyard. The enormous hickory tree, whose trunk was about two feet in diameter, had been blown down in the storm -- luckily in the opposite direction from the house. The clothesline was completely demolished, but it was certainly preferable to our home being crushed by the tree. It wasn't very long after the tree went down that a light bulb went on, and I realized that the space between the mobile home and the pond was the perfect place for our new home. We simply had never considered it before then, because there was a big, beautiful tree there, which we didn't want to cut down.

I can't believe it's taken us six years to get another clothesline up, but we live on a dusty gravel road, and when we've gone a few weeks without rain (as we just did), a big cloud of dust blows towards us when cars drive past. Luckily, not too many cars drive past, but I didn't see the point in putting up a clothes line if our clothes would be dirtier after drying than they were before washing.

After Mike finished the wood shed a couple months ago, it clicked! Let's put the clothesline south of the wood shed. Then another light bulb went on, and we realized that we could attach one end of the clothesline to the wood shed. So, now our clothesline is an extension of our local fuel preservation station.

Homespun Christmas

We made a lot of our gifts this year. We gave people homemade soap and garments that we made ourselves by knitting and crocheting. Margaret made tea cozies for her aunt (my sister-in-law) and me. The mostly white one is for me, and the mostly purple one is for the sister-in-law. If you're not a tea drinker, a tea cozy is placed over the pot to keep it warm. She is also crocheting a table runner for me that will match my china, but it's not done quite yet.

Margaret knitted mittens and a hat for Mike, I knitted a scarf for another relative, and we're making 100% cotton washcloths for other family members to go along with their homemade goat milk soap.

Christmas dinner consisted of our homegrown turkey and green beans. Ingredients for everything else was store bought and side dishes were made from scratch. If you've been reading for a while, you can see that as we move into winter, we are using up our stored food fairly quickly. Next year, we definitely need to grow winter squash, since they last for many months with no special storage. Squash bugs are the reason we rarely have winter squash. We are also hoping to get a greenhouse built and operational in 2009, which will extend the harvest.

"We need a little Christmas!"

Shortly after the stock market crashes in the famous play and movie, "Mame," they sing the song, "We need a little Christmas!" and they bring out all the holiday decorations to raise their spirits. So, today as I listened to experts on the radio argue about whether we were in a recession or a depression and was looking at the headlines, The Coming Pink Slip Epidemic and Unemployment: How to Stop the Bleeding, I started to remember that song. When I heard another expert say that the odds of getting a job this holiday season are about 1 in 45, I thought that maybe a few of my blog readers might need a little Christmas now.

So, here goes ... Today, I started making cookies to prepare for the holidays. Three years ago, Katherine and I made cookies a couple times a week starting in November, doubling the recipe every time. We'd eat half the cookies now and put the other half in the freezer. Freeze them on a baking sheet so they don't stick together, then put them in a freezer bag or other freezer container. When you have guests over for the holidays, you can pull out a variety of five or six home-baked cookies and impress your guests. They only need about half an hour to defrost.

Today I baked one of my personal favorites, Scottish shortbread. My apologies if there are any people here from Scotland, as I'm sure I'm not doing it properly, but in my defense, I have to say that it works, and the cookies taste better than the ones you buy in the store. So here's my quick recipe:

3 sticks of butter (1 1/2 cups or 3/4 pound)
1/2 cup sugar
4 cups flour

Blend the softened butter with the sugar, then add the flour, one cup at a time. It will become crumbly, and you'll think that you've made a terrible mistake, but as long as you can pick up a handful of it, and it sticks together when squeezed, you're okay.

I pour out some of it on a piece of wax paper, then fold over the wax paper, and roll it to about 1/2 inch thickness with a rolling pin.

Then I use a knife to cut it into squares or diamond shapes. Place the raw cookies on your baking stone or pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Since there is no egg or leavening, they won't rise, so you can space them 1/2 inch apart and not worry about them running together.

I put the ugly (imperfect) ones out on a plate for us to eat now, and I freeze the perfect ones to bring out when guests come over during the holidays. When we did this three years ago, we had six different kinds of cookies by mid-December, so we could put out a platter of a dozen cookies, with only two of each kind. It looked very impressive, and our guests were so surprised to see a variety of home-baked cookies.

Before you write off the shortbread as too expensive because of the amount of butter, check the price of similar cookies at your local store. Yesterday I checked the price on a 12-ounce tin of Danish butter cookies, and they were almost $3! Now I have twice as many cookies for about the same price, and they are all natural.

By the way, if there are any Scottish blog readers, feel free to post your recipe in the comment section!

The softest hands and the tastiest baked potato

Today for lunch I had a baked potato and pampered my hands at the same time. How? First, scrub the potato under running water and set it aside. Then pour a small amount of oil in your hand and about a teaspoon of salt. Rub your hands together and get the oil and salt all over your palms, tops of your hands, and between your fingers. Then pick up the potato and rub the oil and salt all over it. If you are making multiple potatoes, you might want a friend nearby to pour more oil and salt into your hands as needed. Place the oiled and salted potatoes in a baking dish and wash your hands. If they still feel a little oily, use a paper towel to dry them, and within a couple of minutes, your skin will absorb whatever oil is left. Congratulations! You've just had a salt scrub treatment on your hands for free!

There is no need to cover the potatoes while they're baking, and you wind up with a crunchy, salty skin -- like fried potato skins without all the fat from soaking in oil. Yum!