Grandma Susan's Almanac

GOOD NEWS - BAD NEWS ABOUT GRANDMA SUSAN'S ALMANAC.

2018-06-21T14:05:00.003-05:00

Dear Readers, This note is being sent out to all my friends who are in contact with me on this blog-space. I hope you are well and with lots of light in your life. I want to thank you for being my friends for these past few years. FIRST, THE BAD NEWS... Sadly, I'm sorry to say that I've decided to end my activity here. What I began with so much interest about a

OUR LIVES AS WORKS OF ART

2017-11-24T09:58:00.000-06:00

A portrait of the - would be - artist As a young person, I fancied myself as an artist and spent endless hours working on sketches with pencils, crayons, and water colors. Most of that artwork is long gone - from me and probably from the planet. I even have a formal background in art – at least, that, according to the undergrad degree that I obtained years ago. But I never did much with it after

A FAMILY VISIT AND PROJECT: "KITCHEN-FIT GRAND KIDS"

2017-09-04T20:05:00.000-05:00

This past month, I had the pleasure of visiting with my son, daughter-in-law, and my three lovely grand children, ages 10, 8 and 5 years. It was an especially joyful time for me because I don´t get to see see them often. I live at the Mexican border and they live at the Canadian border, about 2000 miles away. While the children are always sweet and loving, they are still a bit shy

TALES – OLD & RECENT - OF LENTIL-BASED CHUNKY SOUP.

2017-06-19T19:22:00.003-05:00

I know it’s mid-summer. And, yes, I’m preparing a hot, chunky soup. I LOVE home-made soup and always have. It's healthy. What's more, this kind of soup is not only filling but also helps make us sweat, thereby cooling the body. All tropical cultures, at least, the ones I know about, eat warm and often spicy foods to create a higher level of

QUICK & TASTY RADISH & CARROT PICKLES

2017-02-24T17:46:00.000-06:00

There are a few veggies that are almost always available at markets and remain fairly cheap all year long. A good deal, right? But, on the other hand, we – you and I - may not be used to buying them. For me, radishes were among those veggies. I always found them somewhat overpowering like raw garlic and onions. My own feeling was that radishes were good – finely sliced - in small doses

LOOMED KNIT BABY STROLLER BLANKET.

2016-10-24T21:44:00.000-05:00

Yay! – I’ve just finished this baby stroller blanket. There is something exciting about creating a gift to celebrate a baby’s birth. Of course, in this case it is even more special. The baby is being welcomed as a new addition to our own family – for me: grandchild number four, grandson number two. So, it was a joy to knit a gift

repost (original in April, 2012): TAKE GRANDMA'S 100 THING CHALLENGE

2016-09-13T11:47:00.004-05:00

Despite the materialistic hype that's pounding at us every day, having overflowing basements, closets, garages, and drawers doesn’t make us better or more attractive people. And, it won't make us miraculously happy either - quite possibly the opposite. I think a lot of us feel that in our bones, but where do we start? A book and blog have been written about this dilemma. It’s about the

EARTH & SKY MORNING TEA

2016-08-22T15:30:00.005-05:00

Earth and Sky chilled tea, a mid-summer hit. Tea. It’s something wistful. It takes me back to distant childhood memories of how my Mom, sister and I, who had few luxuries, would sit down – feeling oh! so pampered – to our almost daily, afternoon tea break. Perhaps that’s why I’ve always felt that there is something extraordinary about a

HEARTY, SUMMERTIME POTATO SALAD

2016-07-26T19:05:00.001-05:00

July has reached its last week and temperatures are rising. With all the heat, “regular meals” just don’t entice. That’s when, for me at least, I begin to think of (did I say crave?) how good chilled potato salad is. And what I have in mind is a truly hearty potato salad. While picnics are the main reasons that we prepare potato

DECORATIVE REMAKE OF A SIMPLE JUTE RUG

2016-06-27T20:02:00.000-05:00

Been keeping a few craft projects on the back burner - maybe a little too long. But I finally got around to one this past weekend. I’ve wanted to embellish a small rug for some time. The project was a remake of the rug in the entry of the living room. It was an indoor/outdoor woven rug – a dollar store find. And as such, after

CELEBRATE YOUR MISMATCHED TABLE LINEN

2016-05-28T17:54:00.000-05:00

Like most folks, for years, I believed that the best way to set a table was with matching sets of linen and china. But times have changed. I now find it a bit boring to set an entire table with all the exact same elements. Also, over the years, I’ve lost several of my prior uniform-looking plates and linens. And I’m not willing to toss the

MAKE PICKLED GINGER IN JUST A FEW MINUTES

2016-05-22T17:39:00.004-05:00

My husband did a fast julienne cut - worked just as well as super thin-sliced. Do you like pickled ginger - that sweet and sour garnish served alongside sushi at Japanese restaurants? Most of it is made with mature ginger covered by tan, dry skin. The skin is cut off and “pickle cooked”. Pickled ginger is called gari in Japanese. This

FERMENTING CABBAGE TO MAKE SAUERKRAUT

2016-04-23T18:40:00.000-05:00

By now, you’ve probably heard about the benefits of probiotic fermentation. It’s a new food “trend” with ancient roots. It refers to a traditional way of preserving food without canning or freezing. Sauerkraut (German word for sour cabbage) is one of those delicious fermented foods that you can make for yourself in fair-sized

CRISPY, NO-BAKE RICE PUFF TREATS

2016-02-14T17:38:00.000-06:00

As my readers know very well, I'm part of a line of self-reliant and anti-consumerism people who stubbornly turn to do-it-yourself gifts. So, I’m always looking for some quick and inexpensive gift ideas. These things have to be - potentially - useful for the gift receiver and something that can be made by my own two hands - and also, if you like, by yours. The results of which, I hope, show my

UPCYCLE A FLEECE PULLOVER TO MAKE MITTENS & A SCARF

2016-01-10T16:59:00.001-06:00

I’d been reading craft blogs about making mittens as a great way to upcycle outdated sweaters. I like the results and had put that on my “wanna-do” list for gift-making ideas. So, this past month I decided to make

TWO COOKBOOKS ARE ENOUGH FOR ME.

2015-09-18T18:13:00.000-05:00

Well, for those of you who haven’t heard from me in months, I’ve been busy changing my home space and continuing – with only occasional stumbles - on my minimalist journey. The change was radical. We bought an old RV. And for the past four months we – my husband and I – have lived in a 30-foot RV along with our one gray, outdoor cat. Our RV is parked in a rather large, tree-lined mobile park.

NATURAL HOMEMADE DEODORANT

2015-05-26T17:53:00.000-05:00

Some months ago, I read about how bad regular deodorant is for us. It seems that the popular anti-perspirant deodorants contain aluminum chlorhydrate, a toxic compound linked to brain disorders and cancer. Some other new aluminum free anti-perspirants have appeared on the market. But whatever they have in them, if they work at all, stop up the sweat glands and that is also really bad for the

EASY-KNIT BED SHAWL

2015-03-11T20:10:00.000-05:00

A knitted bed shawl offers comfort & warmth. Spring may be just around the corner but we will still have cool nights for quite some time. And while we like to read, knit or watch television in bed, it can be just too cold in the bedroom to sit up in bed for more than a few minutes. Also, when we are ready to sleep, it's not easy to keep the heavy bed covers pulled up all the way

TIME OF YEAR TO PLANT A SALAD GARDEN

2015-02-27T15:35:00.000-06:00

It’s the end of February and for many of us in the Deep South and Southwest, the heart turns to love - lovely visions - of beautiful veggies growing right outside our doors. That’s just where I am right now. My house doesn't have a lot of space around it but that doesn’t keep me from dreaming about a garden and pursuing those dreams – on a small scale, of course. Also, I’ll be

MY LOVE FOR BLUE AND WHITE THINGS.

2015-02-01T20:26:00.001-06:00

I want my home to celebrate the blue-and-white color tradition. New, old, traditional, vintage or folk, if it’s blue and white I love it all. You might ask: Why blue and white? Why not blue-and-green or red-and-white or some other combination? Well, I’ve discovered that a focus on blue-and-white is a very positive influence in my life. When I see blue-and-white around me in my personal space, I

JOYS OF AN EDITED & ORGANIZED CLOSET

2015-01-03T20:43:00.002-06:00

I remember a time - not so long ago - when shopping for clothes meant going downtown or to the mall with any excuse of "needing" some clothing item, or having no excuse at all. It involved hours of endeavor - all morning or afternoon - going in and out of stores, trying on clothes. And often as not leaving the stores with several items, even though I’d gone there looking for something in

MY OFFICE SUPPLIES, SCRAPBOOK, MEMENTOS, AND GREETING CARD DRAWER SHRUNK TO SHOEBOX SIZE

2014-11-09T16:49:00.000-06:00

As you have seen from earlier posts, I fully believe in peace and harmony in the home. That's why I've been busy these past months striving for minimalism in my home. Among my first projects were getting rid of extra furniture items, excess bed and towel linen, and deplasticizing my kitchen. So, recently, I knew I would have to tackle the junk in my drawers. And, just a few days

DEPLASTICIZE MY LIFE – BEGIN IN THE KITCHEN, PLEASE!

2014-10-06T10:57:00.000-05:00

Plastic is a petroleum product that's part of oil extraction industries. It's everywhere and it's long-term effects are incalculably bad. If you've been reading almost anything current, you’ve heard that our continuous exposure to plastic lowers our immune defenses setting us up for infections and even cancers. And it’s not just in our homes. Plastics from litter and landfills

CHOOSING TEA OVER COFFEE: ONE HUMBLE EXAMPLE OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY.

2014-09-02T11:34:00.001-05:00

When, a few months ago, my husband and I began to discuss voluntary simplicity, we knew we had a lot of not-so-comfortable decisions to make. This adventure was one that I had been slowly making over the past few years and it was one that I, personally, wholly embraced. So, when we recently decided to challenge ourselves in new simple ways, we should have known

THE SEARCH FOR A BETTER TABLE SPREAD

2014-07-14T11:16:00.001-05:00

I'm always looking for ways to prepare and eat REAL FOOD - or, at least, as close to it as we can get these days when so much of the readily available stuff is full of empty calories and toxins. For my own health and that of my family members, I've learned over the years to make most food from scratch. Among other things, it was important to me to have a healthy and tasty spread