Budgeting, natural dying and making homemade

Book reviews of Budgeting Made Easy, Natural Color and 101 Easy Homemade Products for your Skin, Heath & Home.

Each month or so I try to share the books I’ve been enjoying. I don’t share every book that I’ve been reading, just the ones I really like or think will be helpful to the majority of our readers. While I prefer physical books, I do believe that some books are very well suited for digital … Read more

Backyard Bread and Pizza Oven, DIY Homestead and The Bee Friendly Garden

The July book reviews include the Backyard Pizza and Bread oven, The Do it Yourself Homestead and The Bee-Friendly Garden. All three of these books were really good. They've all given us direction in how to make our homestead more productive and sustainable.

It’s been a while since I’ve written monthly book reviews. So today I’m going to remedy that with three really wonderful books.  The Backyard Bread and Pizza Oven ebook is such a great book. Carl and I have been talking about designing and outdoor kitchen with a brick oven, smoker, grill….it’s a “someday” project. But after reading this … Read more

The Homestead Kitchen, Chickens from Scratch and other great books

A stack of books topped with a tablet displaying a book app. The text reads, "March Book Reviews: The Homestead Kitchen, Chickens from Scratch, The Refashion Handbook and many more!" Explore these homestead-focused reads, including "Good Cheap Eats" and "Grow Your Own Drugs.

It’s been a long time since I’ve shared my favorite books I’ve been reading with you . We’ve been diligently going to the library every three weeks since one of my New Year’s personal goals is to not pay any library fines this year. So far, so good.  I’m definitely a non-fiction reader – even … Read more

Real Food Recipes for Weight Loss

If you’ve been reading here for very long you have probably figured out that like I keep my recipes super simple and frugal and I like to use real food to feed my family – although I’m not above using a package when needed. There are many reasons for this but the main reason is that … Read more

A Garden to Dye For

When I found out that Christ McLaughlin, author of Vertical Vegetable Gardening: A Living Free Guide, was writing a new book on growing a dye garden, I knew I wanted to read it. So, I beggged and pleaded asked nicely if I could review her book and she was so wonderful to send me a pdf … Read more

The Art of Gardening and other book reviews

Cover of a book titled "The Art of Gardening: Building Your Soil." The illustration depicts a vibrant garden with lush plants against a blue sky. The book is written by Susan Vinskofski and illustrated by Dan Hartley.

Today I thought I’d share with you some of the wonderful books I have been reading lately. I’m pretty much a non fiction reader. To relax I look at book with amazing photography or artwork – the subject doesn’t really matter, I just have to like the art. The Art of Gardening by Susan Vinskofski … Read more

Personal Priorities and Dreaming…..My Path Out of Survival Mode

If you’ve been reading my blog for long, you know that I rarely have guest writers. It’s a personal thing, this blogging gig, and just like my physical babies, it’s hard for me to share.  As part a book launch team for Crystal of Money Saving Mom, I’ve had the opportunity to “meet” some amazing … Read more

When the Lights Go Out {and real emergencies}

Saturday afternoon while I was painting our bedroom, the electricity went out. It stayed off until about 8:30 that night. We have quite a few oil lamps, both big and small, so before sunset we lit one or two for each room. Unfortunately, Phoebe was in the middle of browning some hamburger meat for dinner … Read more

Wildly, Affordable, Organic and other book reviews

This month my reading stack has been filled with new books from the library and some old favorites.  I expectedthis book to be good but it was more than good…it was life altering. And I don’t say that lightly. Several years ago Linda Watson and her husband took a challenge to eat at “Food Stamp” level … Read more

The Beekeeper’s Lament and other book reviews

Cover of "The Beekeeper's Lament" by Hannah Nordhaus. The top features a quote, while the title and subtitle, "How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America," are centered. The bottom shows a landscape with yellow flowers and blue sky.

This holiday season found me with some extra time to read. We went to the library and I found several books that were on my list and a few in the new section that looked fun. I also was able to pull a few off my shelves to enjoy again. Here’s a run down on … Read more

A Simple Christmas and other book reviews

At the beginning of the year I made a list of books I wanted to read and thought I’d post reviews of them each month. While I’ve read most of the books on my list, I haven’t done many reviews. So while most of these were not on my original list – I really have … Read more

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life {ebook}

 If you’ve been a reader here for very long you probably know that I have great respect for Crystal of Money Saving Mom. Not just because she and her husband are using 100% of their profits from her book Money Saving Mom Budget (you can read my review here) to help the people of Dominican … Read more

Seven Habits, One Thousand Gifts and other January Books

Earlier this year I picked two books a month to read and listed them out. I normally read more than that, but since my way of picking books is usually just perusing the new section of the library there’s books I’ve wanted to read that never get read because I don’t have a list. So … Read more

Book Review:: Debt-Free U by Zac Bissonnette

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was reading Debt-Free U by Zac Bissonnette and that I’d do a review of it soon. Well, the wait is over and here’s my review… I will definitely have all of my children read this book as they are preparing for adult life. I say “preparing for adult life” … Read more