Subtitled: The First Four Years

I've been a fan of the Little House books for almost 20 years. My grandparents live near Pepin, Laura Ingalls Wilder's birthplace, and my great-aunt would take my sister and me on excursions while we were visiting for the summer. On one of these we stopped at the homesite and museum, and my great aunt gifted me with a set of the books. I've read them each dozens of times. I really should've been born a hundred years before I was.

I'm writing my own The First Four Years now, here, in real time. I've got my little house (albeit in the suburbs and not on the prairie), a handsome husband (though I really wish he would make me buckwheat pancakes sometime), a little girl and another baby on the way, a garden, and a love for all things domestic. (But let's hope that no infants pass away and no one's struck with diphtheria.)

Here shall be a chronicle of our live here in the suburbs, on a plot I've named "One-Quarter Acres," where I try my best to pretend I live out in the middle of nowhere instead. I'll talk about gardening, cooking and baking things from scratch, putting food by, the chickens I hope to have pecking away at my lawn someday, babies, birth, breastfeeding (those three Bs are my passions), the occasional plug of my soapmaking business, and all that organic/local/sustainable/frugal stuff that is popular nowadays.

I will warn you all: I am far from perfect. I can be very unfrugal, unless you call shopping around for the best price on cable a mark of frugality. I eat and even enjoy fast food. I have a very hard time making budgets, let alone sticking to them. My garden is full of weeds that I'll pull only when absolutely necessary, and my photos aren't going to be suitable for magazine spreads. But who wants to read yet another one of those blogs from yet another perfect family? They're inspiring enough but leave normal individuals feeling inadequate and like they'll never measure up.

Welcome to the blog, and to One-Quarter Acres. Enjoy your stay, and don't worry about getting mud on the floor because I'm not a good housekeeper, either.