The Big White Farmhouse

intentional living, little by little

No.433: 2020 Gratitude // 31 & 32

zinnias exploding with all different colors
hearing my farmer neighbors hard at work when I go to my garden in the morning
the peacefulness of a child asleep
picking seeds for fall planting
finally getting the Goodwill boxes out of the house!
a new spot in my bedroom to read
a few sales on ebay
the kids’ excitement when they were able to hug their grandparents after five months(!!)
evening rain showers
that our power returned after three hours and we didn’t lose all the groceries we had just purchased that day
strawberry crumble cake
homesteading videos on Youtube
creating a delicious meal from leftover ingredients
tile purchased for Sophie’s bathroom
the privilege to homeschool my children
Lucy’s silly antics
belly laughs

No.432: 100 Little Things, Round Seven

This is my seventh year with the practice of 100 Little Things.  I can honestly say that this practice has changed my life for the better.  That sounds a little ridiculous and extreme, but I believe it to be true.  This list allows me time every summer to sit with my to-do list and my dreams and create a wonderful mixture of both.  It keeps me focused on the memories that I’d like to create with my husband and children.  It keeps me from throwing money away at the Target Dollar Spot because there is a list of things I’d really like to purchase.  It keeps my own health and self-care on track so I can pour from a full cup.  It is just a little list, but it is so, so good.

Thoughts on Round Six: The final goal was 52 tasks accomplished, which I think is a personal best!  I really feel like I hit my groove with this one and it seemed to be a nice balance of fun things and necessary things.  Last year, I had written: “I tried to focus on the goal of noticing (my one little word for 2019), especially taking care of the things we already own, taking care of myself physically and spiritually, and taking care of the people in our community.”  Even without completing all 100, I think I accomplished that.

Thoughts going into Round Seven:  I was really inspired with the idea of increasing my skills as a creator versus a consumer, so homesteading skills, gardening and even some handicrafts have a strong presence on the list.  There are a handful of tasks that need to be tackled and half-finished ones to be completed.  And because after three really hardcore years of debt reduction, I allowed myself to dream a little about home projects and purchases too.  So fun.

Here’s my list for August 2020 – July 2021:

1. Complete Baby Step #3: save six months of expenses
2. Refinance the mortgage
3. Pay one extra payment on the mortgage
4. Make homemade Greek yogurt
5. Learn how to make pickles
6. Make cinnamon rolls from scratch
7. Make a cookie cake
8. Make a new flavor of homemade ice cream
9. Make homemade vanilla extract
10. Bake a two-layer cake
11. Make and can tomato sauce
12. Invest in half a cow
13. Learn how to make a homemade caramel macchiato
14. Sew cloth napkins
15. Sew a piece of clothing
16. Learn how to darn a sock
17. Set up a clothesline
18. Make my own laundry detergent
19. Expand the garden
20. Grow herbs
21. Plant flowers along the outside perimeter of the garden
22. Finish painting the garden fence
23. Build a wood shed
24. Build a chicken coop
25. Get chickens

26. Build a pig shelter
27. Raise pigs for meat
28. Add more apple trees to our orchard
29. Add a nut tree
30. Buy a citrus tree to keep inside

31. Learn how to crochet
32. Learn block printing
33. Finish the scrap quilt
34. Finish the princess cross-stitch pillow
35. Finish the flower garden quilt
36. Finally finish my “winter” cross-stitch
37. Complete a new embroidery project
38. Make citronella candles
39. Finish the 1000 Item Declutter Challenge
40. Buy a new couch
41. Decide what to do with the first floor textured walls
42. Paint Sophia’s room
43. Replace the tile in Sophie’s bathroom
44. Hang the dining room chandelier
45. Grow paperwhites indoors
46. Purchase new electric candles to put in the windows for Advent and Christmas
47. Choose a new piece of art for our 15th anniversary present to each other
48. Make sure every bedroom has its own crucifix
49. Buy outdoor lanterns
50. Make a firepit
51. Finish painting the second floor shutters
52. Fix the basement drywall
53. Buy a snake plant for the master bedroom
54. Plant lavender under my bedroom windows
55. Install more shelving in the laundry room
56. Buy a master bedroom headboard
57. Get Lucy a new dog bed
58. Whitewash the fireplace
59. Sew a slipcover for the living room chair
60. Add another bookcase to the school room
61. Finally finish the Bible reading plan
62. Get to 50% on my 20th Century Reading Challenge
63. Read Don Quixote
64. Read The Pilgrim’s Progress
65. Read another book from Agatha Christie
66. Read another book from Wendell Berry
67. Get Goodreads TBR to under 375
68. Say five different novenas
69. Celebrate the kids’ feast days with special dinners
70. Pray a 54-day novena
71. Read the Catechism of Saint Pius X
72. Learn about a new Marian apparition
73. Print pictures of all of the kids and make photo books
74. Hang a few family photos on the walls
75. Make another Extraordinary Ordinary video
76. Make a “1 Second Everyday” video to share on the blog
77. Find a new dentist
78. Invest in a new pair of winter pajamas
79. Buy myself a pair of snow pants
80. Invest in a new pair of spring/summer pajamas
81. Buy new slippers
82. Go to the eye doctor
83. Order new glasses
84. Find simple stud earrings
85. Invest in a high-quality linen dress
86. Read Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family
87. Send someone flowers, just because
88. Send Christmas cards
89. Donate to our local volunteer fire department
90. Donate to the food bank
91. Donate to a semi-local veteran retreat center
92. Sell the remaining inventory from my little Poshmark business and officially close
93. Participate in Project Feeder Watch
94. Thank the mailman
95. Thank the workers at the dump
96. Finish my self-defense DVD course
97. Get a haircut
98. Help place Christmas wreaths on veterans’ graves at the cemetery
99. Take the kids to the beach
100. Use Amazon as little as possible

No.431: Mother Culture // August 2020

August brings in the new school year here at the farmhouse and for me, it’s also going to bring in a chance to start again.  I’m tired of the funk I’ve fallen into and I want to counter all of the fear and negativity in the world with things that are beautiful and good.  So I’ve created a little monthly challenge for myself that I’m calling “Mother Culture” with five simple assignments.  I will probably vary the topics every month, but we’ll see.  One day at a time!  Here’s what I’ve chosen for August:

Mother Culture Assignments for August 2020

⬜ ASSIGNMENT #1: Crack open a classic novel.
⬜ ASSIGNMENT #2: Discover and listen to a new musician.
⬜ ASSIGNMENT #3: Read and reflect on one poem.
⬜ ASSIGNMENT #4: Learn something interesting about nature.
⬜ ASSIGNMENT #5: Memorize something: a prayer, a poem, or the lyrics to a song.


I’ll be back with a post about what I’ve learned on the last Thursday of the month.  Feel free to join in with any or all of the assignments or even create your own!  Let’s all seek the beautiful and good together.

No.430: My Latest Reads // July 2020

This post contains affiliate links.
P.S. I highly recommend Book Outlet!  Use my link to receive $10 off your first order of $25 or more.
P.P.S. Have you heard of Bookshop?  They are an online bookstore with a mission to financially support local, independent bookstores.  You can check out all of my favorites on this page and I’ll be linking to Bookshop and Book Outlet as much as I can from here on out.  I hope you’ll support them too!  
#51. THE HOUSE WE GREW UP IN by Lisa Jewell || ★★☆☆☆
I did not have nearly the same reading experience that most people did with this book!  The main premise about a mother who is a hoarder was interesting, but all the rest of the dysfunctional family members…oof.  Too much and almost bordered on ridiculous.  I don’t know…I seem to be in the minority here.

 #52. TRIALS OF THE EARTH: THE TRUE STORY OF A PIONEER WOMAN by Mary Mann Hamilton || ★★★☆☆
You know how much I love a good pioneer story!  This was a first-hand account from the late 19th century and located down in the Mississippi Delta, which was a new location for me.  (I usually read about pioneers headed west.)  Mary sure had a full life of hard work and hardship, but her grit and positive outlook were inspiring.  (This is also my 1992 pick for the 20th Century Reading Challenge.)

#53. HOUSEKEEPING by Marilynne Robinson || ★★☆☆☆
I can only describe this book as one you would read in a college literature class.  The one where you break down each dense sentence and formulate hypotheses about what the author meant when she said this or what the overarching theme was for that.  The writing was good, but the story felt weak.  Maybe I’m just not the literary type?  (This was also my 1980 pick for the 20th Century Reading Challenge.)

#54. THE YEAR OF READING DANGEROUSLY by Andy Miller || ★☆☆☆☆
This was not the book that it was marketed to be and is possibly the only book that I’ve ever given one star.  With rambling side stories and crass language at times, the idea was good but definitely not the execution.  One positive note: it did inspire me to start picking up “harder” classics again.

 #55. 33 DAYS TO MORNING GLORY: A DO-IT-YOURSELF RETREAT IN PREPARATION FOR MARIAN CONSECRATION by Michael E. Gaitley, MIC || ★★★★☆
I have previously done this Marian consecration, but with times like these, I felt it would a good time to do it again.


 #56. 10 WONDERS OF THE ROSARY by Fr. Donald H. Calloway, MIC || ★★★★☆
A quick read about one of my favorite devotions.  There were a few stories I already knew, but many more that I didn’t.

#57. HANNAH COULTER by Wendell Berry || ★★★★★

As I went about my work then as a young woman, and still now when I am old, Grandmam has been often close to me in my thoughts.  And again I come to the difficulty of finding words.  It is hard to say what it means to be at work and thinking of a person you loved and love still who did that same work before you and who taught you to do it.  It is a comfort ever and always, like hearing the rhyme come when you are singing a song. (p.107)

The chance you had is the life you’ve got.  You can make complaints about what people, including you, make of their lives after they have got them, and about what people make of other people’s lives, even about your children being gone, but you mustn’t wish for another life.  You mustn’t want to be somebody else.  What you must do is this: “Rejoice evermore.  Pray without ceasing.  In every thing give thanks.”  I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions. (p.113)

My first Berry novel and it certainly won’t be my last.  I loved it.

 #58. SECONDHAND: TRAVELS IN THE NEW GLOBAL GARAGE SALE by Adam Minter || ★★★☆☆

In 2015, Americans tossed out 24.1 billion pounds of furniture and furnishings, according to the most recent data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  Along with all those old sofas went 32 billion pounds of textiles—including clothes, bedsheets, towels, and wiping rags—and 45.3 billion pounds of what the Environmental Protection Agency calls “miscellaneous durables.” This catch-all comprises products that aren’t generally destroyed in the course of use, including everything from rakes to forks and spoons, jigsaw puzzles to jigsaws, rotary telephones to smartphones. It’s a flood that’s yet to crest. (16%)

Is it China’s fault that quality is in decline? No. Initially, at least, China’s apparel industry simply manufactured to the standards set by foreign companies seeking cheaper factories. And those foreign companies were only doing what good companies always do: responding to customers. Walmart and Ralph Lauren, alike, bet that price—more than quality—moves product. As it turned out, they were correct, and nobody in Germany complained when Walmart dropped the price of its in-house George jeans from $26.67 to $7.85 in the space of a few years. Walmart’s competitors—desperate to keep up on the price points that matter to consumers—made the same compromises. These days, critics of fast fashion complain that Walmart has lowered everyone’s quality standards. That’s probably true; but the flip side is that it’s also lowered every consumer’s expectations of what a new wardrobe, a new toaster, and a new set of furniture should cost. In a world where new consumers are minted daily, low-price expectations matter more. (36%)

An interesting deep dive into where our stuff ends up when we’re done with it.  While it was a little too easy to read a few pages and then set aside for days (aka not a page turner), I did come away with a lot of things to ponder as well as a renewed interest in reuse and repair.  Solid three stars.

#59. FORGIVENESS MAKES YOU FREE by Fr. Ubald Rugirangoga || ★★★★☆

Forgiveness always goes hand in hand with mercy.  When you show mercy to the one who has wronged you, it opens the door for true forgiveness to flow between you.  This does not mean forgetting what has happened.  The pain of what you have suffered may rise up again and again, and you must be willing to bear it, even as you acknowledge the wrong that was done.  The perpetrator, too, must show mercy and compassion for true reconciliation to take place.  Otherwise they remain separated and closed both to each other and to God. (p.34)

Another book recommended by a trusted priest and a timely read coming off of Our Lady of Kibeho last month.  It would be beneficial for all of us to listen to Fr. Ubald’s advice, especially in today’s tense times.  Three and a half stars, rounded up.

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MY READING IN NUMBERS FOR 2020
Books Read: 59
Pages Read: 16,691
Fiction: 33  //  Non-Fiction: 26
Kindle Books: 24  //  Paper Books: 35
20th Century in Books Challenge: 28/100
Original 2020 books “to-read” total on Goodreads: 414 // Current “to-read” total: 400
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