text: . Our Garden in the City .: Homemaking Ups and Downs
  Homemaking Ups and Downs
  All this gluten-free baking stuff is taking over my cupboard! We've got flax seed, cornmeal, chia seed, potato starch, amaranth flour, almond flour, tapioca starch, arrowroot powder...the list goes on. I need to take the time and completely organize my kitchen so all our ingredients have a place and are easy to find. Maybe another day...
  Then there was the Garlic Saga. I bought an enormous bag of peeled garlic at H & W with the plan to dehydrate the cloves and pulverize them, thereby making our own garlic powder. After two days in the dehydrator, the cloves weren't even softened, but our entire house smelled so sickeningly of garlic that I asked J to put the dehydrator on the patio.
  Well, he decided to put it in the garage instead. So then our garage smelled of The Garlic, and when we left the windows of the van open to air it out, the scent permeated our van as well. Leading to embarrassed explanations whenever anyone outside the family came along with us. So J pulled the plug on the dehydrator, and since it was cold out there, dealing with The Garlic fell further down on the priority list.
  Then we started our family room renovations, and miscellaneous objects got piled on top of the dehydrator and a thick layer of construction dust coated everything. You can imagine how excited I was to go deal with it now. Procrastination and forgetfulness combined and so it remained until the other day, when J decided to clean out the garage. He brought the dehydrator in and left it on the kitchen table unopened, for me to deal with. I was dreading opening it, but when I did all I found was mounds of slightly brownish, slightly softened but definitely aging garlic cloves. And so plug your nose, here's a photo of the offending little fellas in the compost bucket.
  We'll chalk this one up to an $11.99 learning experience. IF I ever attempted garlic powder from scratch again, I would scramble the cloves in the blender first, then pour it onto the silicone sheets to dehydrate. Although I imagine that would be even more fragrant... Or maybe we'll buy small jars of garlic powder at Costco with the rest of humanity.
  Then there was the morning I sent Ry upstairs to dress Rz, and this is what the small boy came down dressed in. A bit of indictment regarding getting behind on the laundry pile.
  On a positive note, I got the schoolroom tidied and organized finally. Kind of making me wish no child would enter and mess it up, but I guess that kind of defeats the purpose of a schoolroom. Yes, I know children should be cleaning up after themselves, but lately that just doesn't seem to be happening. Repeated reminders and direct supervision required to get any slave labor out of these kids at all!
  The white box on the countertop is what remains of our "crafting junk". I sent the rest back to the Reuse Centre to be used by someone else, and our project potential will just have to be restricted by what can fit in the box!
  And the amaryllis flower bloomed. A much-needed bit of color and life in the middle of this dreary wintertime. I have to confess, I'm dragging a little. Perusing seed catalogues and drawing garden plans is keeping me hopeful but winter sluggishness has seized hold of me. Everything. Feels. So. Hard. Not sad or depressed or anything, just moving slowly, needing lots of sleep, and feeling overwhelmed. Spring, come quickly!