Who here loves ketchup on their fries??  I DO!!!  Mmmmm.... I must say it is one of my true obsessions.  Have you ever seen Grease 2?  When Michelle Pfeiffer orders EXTRA ketchup on her burger.... and they end up forgetting it completely... I don't know why but every time I eat a veggie burger with fries, in my head I'm always saying "Nooo ketchup!" and imagine myself grabbing one of those old fashioned pointy top red ketchup bottles and squirting a mountain of ketchup on my burger. LOL!

Ahem... Okay so anyway... who knew one could love ketchup even more than I do right?  Well... ladies and gents (are gents even reading my blog?) it has happened... I've fallen in love with ketchup even more than before!  Here's a little recent history for you... My dear sweet husband decided to get me an early (okay VERY early) Mother's Day gift.  You see I've had my eye on some beautiful stainless steel cookware with the outer copper lining by AllClad.  Well I knew it would forever be a dream because of the hefty price on ONE piece let alone the entire set.  So every now and then I look to see what other cookware sets are out there that come close in comparison to the AllClad.  Well lo' and behold I found it... at COSTCO!! The Kirkland Signature 18/10 Stainless Steel 13 piece Cookware set!!  The second I saw it I fell in love and thought it even prettier than the AllClad set!  Every time we went to Costco I just went to go see it and make sure they still had it.  Although it was very reasonably priced I could not justify buying something at that cost for myself so it went into the dream book once again... that is until, my husband came home with it one day!  It has been a DREAM to cook with and I am extremely satisfied with my beautiful new cookware!

So what... in... the... WORLD does this have to do with ketchup you ask?  LOL... Okay I'm getting there... The only down side (or so I thought) to my new cookware was that after only the first use/wash the beautiful copper outer lining turned to a dark not so pretty color.  I thought maybe I had done something wrong and that I ruined my pretty copper/stainless steel cookware that I had waited so long for.  I did some research online and came across several articles making it look like it was just something I was going to have to live with.  UNTIL.... I came across an article about the problem I was having and the use of ketchup... just put some ketchup on it and wipe it off it said.  I kind of gave a chuckle and thought to myself... well in the least it'll be a fun experiment... I'll give it a try sometime.  Well the next morning I was in the kitchen scrambling up an egg for my little man... and one of my cookware pieces was right there just staring at me... I thought "hey why not?!" and grabbed it and the bottle of ketchup out of the fridge... I put the pot upside down in the sink and squirted a line of ketchup over the discolored copper.  I went back to making my son's egg and by the time that egg went from pan to plate (which was VERY quick), I looked over at my pot and saw the ketchup sliding down the side revealing the bright copper lining that had greeted me right out of it's packaging.  It worked!!! And in RECORD time!!! Don't believe me?  Take a gander! 

There you have it! Amazing isn't it!?  Well you can bet I won't be using my organic ketchup for this task... maybe if I splurge on some french fries over the weekend I'll ask for my usual 'EXTRA ketchup!" and save a few packets for cleaning my pots and pans!  I'd say even though ketchup was already high on my list... it's down right Magickal now and it's being added to my broomstick closet!

So I'm quite sure I'm not the first to think of this, but the other day I was thinking when our son gets older I want to have what I'm calling... Appreciation Days.  These will be days perhaps twice a month (maybe more, maybe less) where we will live the day out in someone else's shoes or in another time period.  

When I first started thinking about this I began with "Pioneer Day"... On Pioneer Day I'd like to live without the common luxuries we have become used to in this day and age.  We would see what it was like to live without electricity and only use candles, wash our clothes the "old" way with washboards and then hanging them out to dry (hopefully we will be used to the hanging out to dry part already)... I'm hoping we have a wood burning stove but if not we can always build a fire for cooking, and read aloud for fun, etc.  If we are able to achieve our dream and have a little bit of land one day I don't think having Pioneer Days will be too out of the norm for us, but it will be a GREAT learning experience and will hopefully grow an appreciation inside our little one's hearts for the old ways and how our ancestors couldn't afford to be lazy.  Plus... a huge benefit will be learning homesteading skills that will prepare them for anything the future might bring, be it a power outage or something larger like a natural disaster... if anything like that happens they won't be at a loss for what to do and they will have a good grasp on how to survive off the land.

The next Appreciation Day I thought of was a Silent Day... This one fits us on a more personal level.  Two of my older siblings are deaf and sign language was pretty much my first language if you will... just like my son... I had him signing before he could even speak, telling us if he was hungry and if he was hurting.  A little tip: Even if you've had NO experience with sign language, do some research and DO THIS!  It's amazing how much it reduces stress and frustration on both the baby's part and the parents!  On those random nights when baby was crying and we didn't have a clue why... those magickal little hands came together and signed "hurt" and grabbed his belly and I knew immediately what was bothering him was gas.  Beware though... some books that say they teach "Baby Signs" sometimes aren't true American Sign Language and you don't want anything but the real thing.  Now my siblings both live in separate states and even when someone is fluent in American Sign Language (ASL), you can get a bit rusty if you aren't signing often... and learning the language is even more difficult when not in a classroom scenario nor around deaf individuals.  Raising our children with a very true understanding of deaf culture is extremely important to me.  I've always felt that I have benefited in SOME way by growing up surrounded by deaf culture.  I believe it's strengthened my own senses, made me more aware, made me an excellent communicator and more.  I want our children to have those same benefits therefore I want to have days where we essentially "turn off the volume" in our household for a day.  No one speaks, no music, no sound on the television.  We will sign, use closed caption (which I can't live without anyway... another quirk of mine having grown up with deaf siblings), and use the communication skills any other deaf person would need to use to get through a typical day.  This will not only help us practice and strengthen our sign language skills but I believe it will bring about more deaf awareness which I am an advocate of and hopefully make our kiddos appreciate and understand the struggles deaf people have just trying to get along in the world, even though they are in every way capable as the next person.  In doing this I hope that one day when my children are out in public and they see someone who is deaf and may be having a difficult time trying to communicate with someone who is hearing, say in a store type setting, that they will have no fear and walk right up to offer their help.

So those are my ideas so far... I'm not sure I would add to them.  I'm quite content with the focus of those days so far... If this interests you, try and think of something that you feel is important to you and your family... perhaps a different language, or you can narrow it down to something like just baking if that's what you used to do with your Grandma.  There are so many ways to utilize this type of activity with the children.  Make it personal and make it magickal!

It's almost been exactly one full year that I've been blogging to y'all!  Can you believe it?!  Honestly... I can't!  With the exception of my two month hiatus over the holidays I've kept this blog going for a full year.

These past two weeks I haven't been blogging at all really and hopefully those of you not on my FB page saw on my feed down below that my laptop is on the fritz... and sitting down to a desktop that we have inconveniently located in our tiny little house is a bit difficult with a toddler on the loose.  However in those two weeks this blog has been a constant on my mind... I've honestly been wondering whether or not I should continue it.  Sometimes I feel as though I'm writing to no one, there's times where I've got a huge case of writer's block and can't think of a single thing to tell you.  Then there's times where my husband sends me a text and tells me he read a blog post of mine (without me nagging him to) and says that he loves the way I write.

In realizing tonight that I've made it a year blogging I was inspired to go back over some of my very first posts.  It's amazing the memories that flooded back... some felt like they were just yesterday and others I couldn't believe were only one year ago!  It also made me wonder if there's anyone out there who has been with me the whole time?  Have you been with me since the beginning?  It was during those thoughts where I decided that I do want to keep going...  I mean why not right? I'm still going to be cooking and baking... I'm still going to be homemaking... And our goal is to still create the perfect homestead... one day! 

I'll probably try to spice it up around here... nothing too drastic but maybe a few design and layout features.  Please let me know if there's anything you'd like to see that you aren't... I'm not promising anything but definitely feel free to give me your input.  Also tell me what you are loving so I make sure to keep it around!  After all... you are the main reason I'm here!

And just because I can't wait till next Wednesday... I'm gonna leave you with this... My very first line of of laundry... it was everything I imagined it would be!  My son ran around the yard hitting his ball... it was pure bliss!