Wisdom, Grace, & Curls: Going All-Natural & Homemade

It's swiftly approaching 1:30 in the morning, and a loaf of freshly baked bread has just come out of the oven...

Ummm...awkward timing on that one, wouldn't you say? At least around here, everyone else is fast FAST asleep...(and I swear I'm not jealous!)

Really, I could blame this whole "going natural & homemade" kick on that first set of cloth diapers I bought back at the beginning of the year. After all, that is the catalyst that brought me to here anyhow!

Actually, no...the catalyst...the true catalyst would be when our home went from a double to a single income back in September. My husband and I both agreed that we wanted me to be home with the kids each day. It's something I've always wanted to do and am so overwhelmed with gratitude for. With this switch, however, we are finding ourselves face-to-face with a feisty challenger commonly known as The Budget. We have been doing just fine with keeping within the realms of our budget, but with our income taking such a drastic cut, I've started to look for cuts where cuts can be made.

The first, and most obvious, of these cuts was the diapers...I mean seriously, $30 each month for something my daughter plans to fill with poop and pee? I couldn't take it anymore and finally bought our last box around mid-December. Let me tell you, BEST decision I ever made, in regards to making that turn away from products I can actually do myself. A post for another day, but I love, love, LOVE her cloth diapers!! Only change I would make is having put my lady in these sooner...like from birth...straight from the womb and into one of these puppies...that's what I would've done!

Anyways, that transition to cloth pretty much started a landslide over here for us...every ticket item in our house I've wound up circling like prey and have one-by-one eliminated from our household purchases. I'm really looking forward to doing up that post about everything I've changed in our household, but like I said, it's 1:30 in the morning for crying out loud! Girl's gotta sleep sometime...right? I mean, seriously, right?! Because, sometimes I feel like I never get to have my hand at that!!

I will quickly say though, that this freshly baked bread is my latest "going natural & homemade" endeavor. Last week at the grocery store, I realized that I had to put items back from the cart, and the bread didn't make the final cut. We all ate peanut butter sandwiches on homemade tortillas for the first portion of our week (not a best sell for my son with his classmates, but hey, if he's hungry enough, that boy'll find a way to eat it!). Now for the 2nd half of the week, we have our fresh baked bread (yes, I will continue to use the entire phrase of "fresh baked" bread, because for crying out loud...as mentioned, it's 1:30 and I feel I've earned this small, insignificant right!)....

So here it is, folks....