Kombucha 101

I've jumped on the kombucha bandwagon, and I love it! Kombucha is fermented tea that is rich in probiotics and has numerous other health benefits. You can use black or green tea, flavored or unflavored, and you can add just about any other kind of flavoring to it. Kombucha cultures are very hardy. Unless you freeze them or toss them in boiling water, it's unlikely that you'll kill them, and contamination is uncommon. That being said, if you see any black discoloration on your culture at any time, it's become contaminated and needs to be thrown out.

Kombucha cultures Breed Like Rabbits, so you will always have plenty to give away! Your culture will produce faster than you can find homes for all the babies, so you'll have to throw some of them away. I know, that's depressing, but it comes with the territory. Oh, one other thing to be aware of: kombucha cultures look a lot like giant boogers. I'm just going to call that one like I see it.

Most people make kombucha in a half-gallon jar, but I don't have the counter space for that, so I've invented a recipe that you can do in a quart jar. The thing to keep in mind if you use a quart jar is that the fermenting time is basically going to be cut in half, so you'll need to keep an eye on it and make sure it's not getting too sour for your taste.

How to brew kombucha in a quart jar:

You will need:

-kombucha culture and ½ cup starter tea (get online or from someone who brews kombucha)

-1 pint of boiling hot water (half a quart)

-1/3 cup sugar

-2 bags of green or black tea, or generous handful of loose-leaf tea

-1 bag of other tea or small handful of loose-leaf tea for flavoring (optional)

-paper towel

-canning jar band and lid

-dry erase marker (for writing dates on jars)

Place the tea bags or loose herbs in a clean quart jar and fill up halfway with boiling water. Steep for 20 minutes. Remove tea bags and add 1/3 cup of sugar. Stir until dissolved. Put jar in fridge or freezer to chill to luke warm. (Mason jars can go in the freezer).

Add filtered water until the quart jar is filled up about ¾ of the way, and then add the starter tea and culture. Screw the band over the paper towel and let it ferment until it tastes right. My quart jars generally take about two days for the first ferment.  It'll depend on your kitchen's temperature and humidity level.

After the first ferment, it's time to add any additional flavoring. You can add fruit, cinnamon sticks, or fresh or dried herbs. Screw on a lid and band tight, and it's ready for the second fermentation. If you don't add anything to it, it will start to form cultures on the top of the liquid. Open it and dispose of these at least once a day. These baby cultures will make it too sour if you leave them in there. When I put fruit in for the second ferment, I don't have issues with baby cultures forming.

Once your kombucha is done, it can be stored in the fridge. I try to drink one or two 8 oz glasses a day, 3 if I'm coming down with something. I try to use it up within a week.

You can easily do this recipe in a half-gallon jar.  Just double all the ingredients. 

"What do you do all day?"

When you make the decision to leave the workforce when you are childless and clearly not old enough to retire, the question of "what do you do all day?"  Is inevitable.  I think people want the assurance that I don't just sit around doing nothing.  If you think that's what I do,
you’ve got another think coming!  The days activities depend heavily on the season.  Summer and winter are more laid-back right now.  Lots of reading and craft projects.  Late summer and early fall are pretty busy with all the canning and dehydrating.  Once we have a hobby farm, spring will probably be quite busy because that's when all the planting will take place.


Here is a list of things I might do on a given day, depending on the season:

-laundry

-making my own cleaning products

-cleaning

-gardening

-knitting

-crocheting

-sewing

-spinning

-various craft projects

-volunteering

-going to the library

-grooming the cat, cleaning her litterbox, taking her to the vet (there will be lots more animal-related responsibilities once we have a hobby farm)

-baking

-cooking

-canning

-dehydrating

-doing all the dishes that result from cooking and canning (trust me, there are plenty of dishes!)

-biking

-going for walks

-writing and blogging

-reading

-babysitting on occasion

After seeing all this written down, I think I'm busier and more productive than I was when i was working, haha!

 

Why I Kissed The Workforce Goodbye

 Some of you already know that I made the decision to be done working in early childhood education earlier this summer.  A lot of prayer, tears, and late-night discussions with my husband went into that decision. I’d been doing childcare in one capacity or another for the past 9 years.  I briefly toyed around with the idea of going back to school, and quickly realized that wasn’t for me.  I had absolutely no peace about the idea of changing careers.  But the thought of leaving my career gave me more peace than I’ve had in a long time.

Naturally, a decision like this doesn’t come without a lot of questions from curious and well-intentioned loved ones: Why would you choose not to look for another job given the shape the economy is in?  Why would you stay home if I don’t have any children?  How can you call yourself a feminist if you’re going to make such a decision?  And the most commonly asked question:  What do you do all day?

The last question needs its own post, because I do a lot more than you might think.  I don’t think I’ll fully realize exactly how much I do until I see it all written down, haha!

There are a LOT of reasons I made this decision.  I’ll be writing more posts about this in the future, but here are the main reasons:

1.)  Economy.  I can’t work full-time, and with my level of education I can’t make very much. A typical part-time job in early childhood would essentially pay for the business clothes, the car insurance, and the gas to get there, and that would pretty much be it.  If I had a good reason to keep doing it, that would be fine, but since I don’t want to keep doing it, it’s not worth it.  And since I am not driving my car for work, my husband and I get to put my car down as a leisure car on our insurance policy.  The savings are decent. 

2.)  Stress level and emotional health.  The last couple years have been rough, to put it mildly.  It wasn’t too much in the moment, but it adds up.  When I got to the point where I couldn’t even care about myself anymore, I knew it was time to be done.  I need to have time for the things I enjoy doing or I wilt.  Having time to take care of myself and knit for my Etsy shop on my own schedule has done a world of good.

3.)  More time for volunteering and ministry.  When I was working 20-25+ childcare hours a week, I didn’t have any time or energy left over for other people.  Now that I’m working for myself, I can make my own schedule and help out with various service projects through church and whatnot.  I have to be careful not to overdo it, but it’s really nice to have the option.

4.)  Avoiding the “two-income” trap.  If I got a bachelor’s degree and continued on with my career, we’d fall into the two-income trap when it comes time for me to stay home with the kids, which I absolutely want to do.  In the two-income trap, a couple gets used to having a certain amount of money and a certain lifestyle that can only be sustained if both people are working.  In most cases, they either feel like they don’t have the option of going back to only one income, or one of them leaves the workforce but they take a serious financial hit. 

5.)  The field of early childhood ed is evolving, and not in a good way.  In the past, if you didn’t want to take all the courses necessary for getting a teaching license, you still had options.  You could teach kindergarten, teach in a parochial school, or do early childhood.  But that’s not the case anymore.  You need a license to teach kindergarten now.  More and more private and parochial schools require teaching licenses.  Again, if this was what I really wanted to do, it’d be no problem.  But early childhood classrooms are not what they used to be.  The stakes are getting higher.  These classrooms are becoming more academic and less about learning through play, which I am all for, and which I wouldn’t get to implement if I kept working in early childhood. 

6.)  I have time for homesteading and cooking healthy food.  When I was working, I didn’t have time to eat healthy.  My body paid dearly.  I’m cooking a lot more of my own food now.  I have time to seek out ethical and sustainable food sources. 

I got all these ideas from Shannon Hayes’ book “Radical Homemakers.”  Her book discusses the idea of one partner staying home for practical and economical reasons.  It’s really interesting.  I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know why people would choose this, or for people who want to be radical homemakers themselves.

Redefining the concept of "diet"

 In one of my previous entries, I wrote about the importance of being connected to our food.  A huge part of eating disorder recovery was simply learning how to enjoy my food again.  When I was in the early stages of my recovery, it was simply a matter of increasing my food intake.  I had a meal plan that I was trying to stick to, but the important thing was just making sure I ate. 

Now that I’ve been in a healthy place for a few years, my food connection is deepening.  The more I get into homesteading, the more I’m learning about the miracle of food and how our bodies use it.  I’m getting to know my own body and my own nutritional needs.  I recently found out that my cholesterol is slightly elevated (it’s genetic.)  I also have a few other health conditions that I am trying to manage, at least in part, by eating healthier food.

I’m trying not to use the word “diet” in the traditional sense, because in our culture it’s so synonymous with the word “can’t.”  The general concept of a diet is a list of foods you can’t eat. If someone were to ask me if I’m “on a diet,” I suppose the technical answer would be yes.  There are some things that are either no longer a part of my diet, or are consumed in much smaller (and less frequent) amounts.  But I don’t think in terms of “can’t.”  I’m something of a go-getter when I want to be.  When I found out I have high cholesterol, my response wasn’t, “Oh great, I can’t eat this or this or this.”  I didn’t think of my diet as being restricted.  I didn’t think of it as a punishment.  I looked at it as an opportunity to find different foods that I’d enjoy eating (and maybe growing!), and that would be a bit healthier. 

I’m not saying we should never use the word “diet.”  It’s a useful word in the right context.  I just wish we could separate it from this idea of “can’t.”