Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week.

1. Spared my fresh veggies from waste. For many years, we’ve purchased a share in a local, organic farm. For those not familiar with community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares, we pay a set price and receive a weekly allotment of the farm’s harvest. The produce varies from week to week depending on what is in season. While our family goes through many of the fruits and vegetables quickly (corn, squash, lettuce, potatoes), there are others I’m not sure how to cook (turnips, kohlrabi, collard greens, swiss chard). Spiral Path Farm provides recipes with its produce each week, which should make it easy. Still, I’m ashamed to say sometimes unfamiliar items spoil before I’ve figured out to prepare them. I’ve been making an effort use every fruit or vegetable we receive and avoid any waste. I made Collards Sweet Potato Pot twice now, and it is simple and delicious! And if you have a favorite turnip recipe, would you please share it?
   

   Collards Sweet Potato Pot
   I switched out collard greens for Lacinto kale and Italian sausage for smoked sausage.

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Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week.

1. Baked two batches of brownies for softball opening day festivities and managed to get most of them to the field. All the corner pieces, ugly ones, and then some were consumed, but we still had plenty to bag and sell.
2. Repaired Pooches. For at least a year, Pooches has waited patiently for me to set aside ten minutes for minor surgery. This well-loved monkey suffered from severe shoulder strain. He’s been restored to like-new condition and returned to his loving owner. Why did I put this off for so long?
   

   Pooches

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Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. Here’s my paltry offering for the week.

1. Cleaned the high chair. If you have one of those modern, plastic, easily-wipeable high chairs, right now you’re thinking, “This lady is really pathetic. That’s not a small success, that’s a nano success easily accomplished by trained monkeys.” We do not, however, own an easily-wipeable high chair. (Nor any trained monkeys. Ours are strictly untrained.) We chose a high chair that would blend with our dining room furniture. (If you’ve seen our dining room, you can stop laughing now. There IS furniture beneath the toys and mess.) Our lovely, ornate, Amish-built high chair is ridiculously difficult to clean. After weeks of scraping with cloths, tooth picks, and other dangerous devices, it is sufficiently clean to be stored. Or almost. I’m going to go at it with a mild baking soda solution and hope that takes care of the last bits. Continue reading →

Why small success? Because that’s the only kind I know! Even the big ones come in small steps. With the pace at home rather relaxed, you’d think I’d be getting lots done, and I suppose I am, but it’s only the ordinary things: bills, groceries, meals, laundry, dishes. You get the gist. I measure little successes by the other things – the bazillion and one projects in my mental queue that desperately need my attention. Here’s my paltry offering for the week. Continue reading →