Battle Plan 2009

I don't make resolutions in January; I usually do that on my birthday. They tend to be short-term goals.

But this New Year, I am making some major life changes. There are a number of things happening in our lives that are leading me to change direction.

1. My 80-year-old mother is physically healthy, but is getting forgetful and indecisive. I do not think it is Alzheimer's, but she shouldn't live alone anymore. We want her to be living with us within 2 years. Her house can be rented out, which provides income, and leaves it available as an asset if she ever needs nursing care. We gave long thought to living with her, but it creates too many family issues.
   
   
2. My 39-year-old ex, my daughters' father, has now been formally diagnosed with a fatal incurable brain disorder that could strike my girls in their 30's. If you watch the TV show House, it is what the character 'Thirteen' has. I am not typing the name if it, because I don't want it to show up in Google searches. We have always known they were at-risk, but his diagnosis officially raises their risk to 50%. I want to be free to spend time being involved in their interests, like youth conferences and art exhibitions. I am also giving deep thought to planning for the future, which could include supervising my daughters' home care when I am in my 70's. I am no longer involved in my ex's care, but the girls will see his decline, and it will be hard to watch.
   
   
3. I am 47 years old. Reality says I have 18-23 good years of productivity left. I think of the saying from Horace Mann: "Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." I am drawn back toward urban planning, the discipline in which I have a Bachelor of Science, but have not practiced since about 1992. It is my food security concerns that are drawing me. I have been thinking about going back to grad school to revive my professional chops, and get involved in urban food policy. I will start with community involvement, to support future grad school applications.
   


4. DH is looking for a professional path after he graduated with a degree in professional writing this past May. He went after a lot of government jobs, but there are hiring freezes at many levels now. He is interested in the Emergency Management field, which I think is a good application of his investigation and security background, his practical personality, and his writing strengths - there is a lot of report and plan-writing in most government jobs. He is going to pursue further education to increase his marketability.
   

For DH: He found a part-time job tutoring writing at the local community college. It's a very short commute. He also signed up for an EMT training course that will improve his chances of finding work in Emergency Planning. It only costs $125 and ends in certification. Between job and EMT class, he will be at RACC four days a week. So - his next 4 months are laid out. Job, class, work on freelance writing.

Then, we hope to send him to grad school. He is applying for a one-year intensive fellowship program that would get him a Master of Public Administration. He would have to leave us for most of that, which would be hard, but we have many ways to stay connected. It would start in May, and he would again seek a state or federal job in Philadelphia or Washington DC, where he has family.

For Me: First, I am closing my existing web hosting business. I will keep a few long-time clients who would have trouble moving; they will help offset the cost of keeping a server for myself. I spent a lot of time in doctor's offices and court rooms this past year, and I am too often out of touch to stay in a technology business. I have not had good luck finding reliable hired help. A recent offer to buy the business fell through when the buyer lost his business line of credit in the banking crash. It will be better for my clients, and for my family, for me to turn most of my clients over to another hosting firm. My technical experience will undoubtedly continue to be useful, no matter what I do next. I invested a lot of myself in that business, and it is hard to let go, even when it is well past time to do so.

What will I do for a living next? I have a big list of ideas. I am not going to try to plan for more than a year or two ahead - the economy is too unstable to make predictions. I want to be adaptable. My plan is to tie together all my volunteer, church, and professional work under the heading of "urban food security." We are city people, and our future lies in finding new ways to live in urban areas.

There are three areas that interest me most at the moment. I've picked a project for each:

1. Supporting Urban Food Gardening
   
   Urban gardeners need many things - containers, plant starts, clean soil, community, etc. But free water is a big factor when the cost of water is so high in our city. Our monthly water bill is $85-100, without any summer watering. Free water is pouring off every roof. In January, I will start producing rain barrels and barrel conversion kits. I will sell complete rain barrels locally starting in February, and sell kits on the internet. I attended the first breakfast meeting of an entrepreneur support group New Year's Eve morning.
   
   
2. Discovering Urban Foodsheds
   
   I've spent the past year finding local sources of various foodstuffs, and bulk sources of things we don't grow here. I am ready to start a bulk buying coop. I am shooting for a monthly order cycle, with the first delivery in March. I'll start a non-profit with a paid administrator position, so I can turn it over to someone else if I leave this area. It will need to break even out of the gate, but I don't expect it to pay much in the beginning.
   
   
3. Relearning Traditional Food Skills
   
   I want to organize a series of events that provide opportunities for people to learn about cooking, food storage, seasonal eating, kitchen gardening, and preserving. I already have a list of films and a local film distributor, and a list of potential speakers and demonstrators.
   

I am organizing my activity by quarters. The barrel business will be my primary livelihood - it comes first, gets the most daily attention. In the first quarter of 2009:

• Attend weekly entrepreneur group for start-up support
  
• Rent barrel storage, shoot demo video, launch website
  
• Networking: PA Farm Show - Jan 14
  
• Present youth workshop about sustainable eating - Jan 23
  
• Networking: PASA conference - Feb 5-7
  
• Lead a monthly church discussion group about Ethical Eating
• Start a simple monthly bulk buying group - first delivery March
  

In March, we will know if DH is leaving, and the rest of my year might look like this:

• promote rain barrel business
  
• prepare to single-parent for a year
• help my mother clean out her house
• continue monthly bulk buying group
• present workshops at more youth conferences
• lead monthly discussions about food security
• plan a film/speaker/demo series
  

For DD12 and DD15: Both are happy in the school. Both are old enough to be left alone periodically, and to take responsibility for chores. DD15 wants to quit her job and go back to her internship at the community art center. It's good for her youth programming resume, and it reduces my taxi-driving. DD12 just wants to work on her computer graphics, and play spring soccer. They are ready for me to be home less, and it may surprise them to see what I can get done outside our household.

For my mother: She and I had a long talk over the holidays. She doesn't want to stay here over the winter. We agreed that she needs to check in with me daily, visit weekly, and I will be more involved in her doctor appointments. We will start getting rid of stuff at her house, at an increased pace in in the spring. She is worried about being poor, and I showed her that she would not be if she were not trying to support a 4BR house. If she lived with us, even if she contributed to food, she would have her Social Security, her small pension, and rental income from her house. Her new motto is, "I've got to get out of here." She is concerned about being a burden, and I explained that trying to help her maintain her in her own home was a far bigger burden that having an extra bedroom for her.

Beyond 2009: If this all goes well, when DH comes back from his fellowship, we will move to a larger city in 2010. We want a city with universities and good hospitals, that has a smooth tax sale process, so we can buy property. We will start looking for a site to start our city compound - like a warehouse with a lot or parking area. DD15 will soon be ready for college, and DD12 will be in junior high school, and my mother should be living and gardening with us. Somewhere in the future lies grad school for me.

To get all this stuff done, I am going to have to be more disciplined about several things:

• reduce my news reading
• reduce my TV watching
• better sleep routine
• avoid interesting time wasters
• stick to my daily action plan
• DH and kids do more chores
• engage everyone in decluttering
  

Interestingly, this Chinese New Year will start the Year of the Ox at the end of January. I was born in an Ox year, so maybe that is auspicious. I am not superstitious, but I enjoy the rituals of Chinese New Year - cleaning, paying debts, bribing the household gods, thinking of ancestors, gathering to celebrate family unity. I better make a bigger offering to the Kitchen God this year.

Independence Challenge - Week 33-34

Roast Beast (lamb) from Christmas Day, now starring in lamb curry.

It was a weird two weeks, with assorted holiday celebrations, so I have ended up rolling two weekly posts into one.

I am feeling conflicted about our celebration of Christmas, not sure if it was practical or self-indulgent. I may post more about those thoughts later, but for now I am going to just move on to what I am feeling more sure about.

I had some bloodwork done for a check-up on my thyroid disorder. When I got to the doctor's appointment, the test results were missing. After some tracking, it turned out that my vials of blood had not been labeled properly, and the safety protocol called for destroying them. So, I had to get the blood drawn again. Upside: not only did they cancel the charges for the original bloodwork, they gave me the second round for free. I got $200-300 worth of uninsured bloodwork for free. Merry Christmas to me! I am still pretty healthy in important ways - normal blood pressure, normal blood sugar, lipid profile not bad for a fat girl.

Planted: Nothing, but I worked on a garden plan for next year. Participated in a seed swap.

Harvested: Thyme, still usable under the snow.

It just might really taste like sunshine!

Preserved: Made 3 half-pint jars of Sunshine Jam with a pineapple and a lemon. Very nice marmalade-type texture for my first citrus preserves. Thanks for that recipe, Meadowlark! It makes a great holiday gift.

Now, I just have to perfect some biscuits to go with jam. DD12 got me two new steel half-sheet pans and silicone baking mats to go with them, so that biscuit-making might just have gotten easier. I can use a sheet plan as a work surface, to contain the flour and rolling-out mess, and maybe for kneading bread, too. Having only a 2'-square counter surface (that familiar yellow Formica in all my photos) has really been cramping my style.

Cooked: DH made pasta sauce for us while we were at Christmas Eve services. He made quiche for us Christmas morning. Lamb is DH's family tradition, so he also cooked a juicy roast leg-of-lamb for Christmas Day. He made a new cornbread and sausage dressing we didn't like - but that's what cooking experiments are for. DD16 made mac-n-cheese that we re-heated in slices for days. I guess part of my Christmas joy is that other people do lots of cooking!

I'm doing pretty well with my oatmeal challenge. I have been eating oatmeal 4 out of 5 days, skipping only the morning when I fasted for bloodwork, and Christmas morning. Made oatmeal for Mom, too, when she was here for a few days.

Tried my first batch of granola, full of nuts and dried fruit from a recipe in Vegetarian Times. Tastes good, and I put it in a jar for sprinkling on hot cereal or yogurt. It is too loose for eating out of hand. I need to experiment with recipes until I find a version that can be snacked on more easily, either by acting like trail mix, or being cut into granola bars. Note to self: no peanuts in the next batch - they taste weird with yogurt and oatmeal.

Stored: Whole almonds, sweet potatoes (only .49/lb). One of my mother's friends passed to us a frozen turkey she was given at work. Pork was on sale at the market stalls: ham hocks, a smoked ham end for soup, a lot of pork bones to freeze for later stock-making. Everyone buys pork for New Year's Day, so the butchers have cheap bones.

Visited Redner's Market for a few things: saltines, clementines and butter on sale, potato smilies for DD12. Found a new local brand of smoked kielbasa from Schuylkill County. At $3.50/lb it was a little more than my usual $2.29 store brand (probably private-label Hillshire). Not pastured, but it's a step in a better direction, a local product from a local biz. We like all sorts of sausage. A pound is a good amount for 3 adults with pasta, beans, etc. It has been an adventure looking for local stuff. The ideal would be sausage from pastured or game animals, nitrate free, from local producers. Oh, and affordable enough to buy bulk for my freezer. Dreaming!

Prepped: DH bought another cider bucket, a dozen re-usable ceramic-cap bottles, and a bag of corks for us to reuse wine bottles for our hard cider project.

We bought a sleeve each of plastic pint and quart deli containers to make our fridge and freezer storage work better. Our quaint collection of tupperware and yogurt tubs runs out regularly, and poor labeling results in waste. We hope the clear containers of uniform size will help with all that. I use jars a lot, too, but they don't stack safely.

Look at this old bread bag! When did bread cost 35 cents?

I picked up a big box of pearl cotton crochet string from Freecycle, along with a bag of embroidery hoops. Some of the spools of cotton where wrapped in plastic bags. One bag was a blue-printed bag for Harbison's Sandwich Bread from Texas. It had no UPC, no nutritional information or ingredient list, and a sticker for 35 cents! The girls immediately started braiding friendship bracelets and cell phone fobs.

We drained the top bucket into the bottom one with a rubber tube.

Managed: Down in the cellar, we moved the cider from the primary fermenting bucket to a secondary fermentation bucket. We tasted it, and it was more like apple wine than the bottled commercial cider we used to drink. We are not sure if we let it ferment too long, or if this is what real hard cider is like, or if it needs to mellow. I will do more research in the homebrew forums online. It sure has a kick! There is no doubt that we have produced an alcoholic beverage. We will let it mellow for a month, and start a new batch with brown sugar, to see how that affects the taste. We immediately got ideas about using it like cooking wine. A friend from church is saving empty wine bottles for me, which will make it easy to share. We will reserve the new reusable beer bottles for household consumption.

Reduced, Reused, Recycled: DD12 made a batch of colored play dough for three of her friends at school. That last-minute play dough recipe on Women Not Dabbling in Normal was a really timely reminder for me. DD12 said everyone was impressed that she knew how to make play dough. She also made bundles of cookies she baked herself, to take to teachers, wrapped in reused tissue paper and cotton string with handmade gift tags.

Local Food: Found a guy at the Fairgrounds Market that has pastured eggs from Lancaster County, but they are $4/dz. I only have room for 3-4 dozen eggs, max, but eggs are a big protein source for us and we can go through 1-2 doz a week, more during the holiday baking season. Since the summer producer market closed, I have been pressed to find a source that is not "too far to drive for eggs." I need to learn more about how long I can store fresh eggs, and how to freeze them, so I can make a larger purchase from a source I want to support.

I answered a Craigslist ad giving away a banana box full of hundreds of greeting cards. I send cards to church members who are sick or bereaved. But here's the really great part... it led me to a thrift shop I have not visited in a few years, since I thought it closed. The new owner has had it for about a year as a non-profit, taking donations and regularly giving free clothing to city folk that need it. She has regulars that she saves clothing for. We can work with her at our near-by church food pantry. It turns out she used to run a local organic warehouse, and still has connections with bulk food sources. I can't help by think I was meant to run into her as I plan to start a new bulk-buying group. She gave me some new sources for pastured meat (omnivore!), but even she drives to the Philly area to visit Trader Joe's and Whole Foods stores. She is savvy enough to use Craigslist and other online tools. And she runs a thrift shop! My favorite thing. It's my new place to take clothing donations. I am going to ask at church for people to gather the men's socks, belts, boots, and pants they need most.

Learned: Signed up through Meet-Up for a local entrepreneur support group that meets for a weekly diner breakfast. I plan to get help with the business and marketing plans for my rain barrel business. I know what I am supposed to do - I've had three small businesses that worked out pretty well - but it's too easy to skip the written-plan steps that help you later. I hope the group will help keep me on-task.

I volunteered to be an interviewer for a hunger project:, which I hope will both help policy-makers, and provide me with more personal knowledge about local food security:

Starting in January, Berks County will be participating for the first time in a nationwide study, Hunger in America 2009, sponsored by Feeding America, the national food bank network. The Greater Berks Food Bank and the United Way of Berks County are partnering to manage the research study in Berks County to get an accurate and more in depth understanding of how many people need help getting enough food to eat, what their circumstances are, and what parts of the county they come from. The research results will help in future planning efforts to help those who are hungry.Volunteered at the local United Way to be volunteer interviewer for a Hunger Survey to be performed at food pantries and shelters in our area. The goal is to gather statistics about the hungry in our community.

Gratuitous silverware photo: I like this old grapefruit spoon that
I keep in a jar of House Seasoning (salt, pepper, and garlic powder).