Homemaking · 7 min
What is sourdough discard?
The part you don’t feed. It will not raise a country loaf. It will make pancakes, crackers, and a less wasteful jar.
The journal
Essays for the household
Homemaking without the performance, a garden you can keep, and worship that survives a Tuesday.
Homemaking · 7 min
Why is my sourdough gummy?
A wet, doughy center is usually a loaf that was cut too soon, or one that never finished baking. The crust can lie.
Homemaking · 6 min
Can you wash cast iron with soap?
Yes. A little soap will not strip a seasoned skillet. A night in the sink will.
Homemaking · 7 min
Tallow and lard are not the same fat
One is beef. One is pork. They do not act alike in a pie crust, a fryer, or a bar of soap.
Homemaking · 7 min
Oat groats, steel-cut oats, and rolled oats
They are one grain, cut three ways. Only the whole groat will sprout.
Homemaking · 6 min
What superfat means in soap
A little of the oil is never turned into soap, on purpose. You cannot see it as a layer.
Homemaking · 6 min
What is the liquid on my sourdough starter?
Gray liquid is hunger. Bakers call it hooch. Pink or fuzzy is a jar you throw away.
Homemaking · 6 min
Why biscuits need cold butter
The flake is steam. Warm butter melts into the flour and you bake a cake.
Homemaking · 7 min
Does homemade laundry soap actually clean?
It is soap, not detergent. Ordinary wash, yes. A cold machine and a huge scoop, no.
Homemaking · 6 min
Active starter or discard: which does the recipe want?
One has just doubled. The other has not been fed. Using the wrong jar is how a loaf stays flat.
Homemaking · 7 min
What exactly is “lye-free” soap
A tallow bar is soap only if lye had a job to do. The lye does not stay in the cured bar.
Homemaking · 8 min
How to Choose a Midwife
The letters after her name matter, and so does the bag she carries. Hire the midwife who will tell you when the plan has to change.
Homemaking · 8 min
Labor That Is Not on a Clock
Low light, a tub, a birth ball, and the freedom to move. Pain is real. Rushing is not what makes it shorter.
Homemaking · 7 min
A Short Birth Preference List
One page. The things that matter, and the sentence that says you will transfer. A twelve-page plan mostly starts an argument.
Homemaking · 8 min
The First Hour after Birth
If the baby is well, the cord can wait, the chest is the warmer, and the bath can wait. One medicine in this hour has a long record. Do not skip it by fashion.
Homemaking · 7 min
A Doula at the Birth
A doula does not catch the baby and does not replace your husband. She stays, and the studies on that kind of staying are unusually consistent.
Homemaking · 7 min
Food and Walking in Labor
A normal labor can include broth, toast, and a walk to the other side of the room. Ice chips were a hospital habit, not a law of the body.
Homemaking · 9 min
Natural Options in a Hospital
A hospital birth can still be a birth with movement, time, a midwife, and a baby who stays on your chest. Ask before you need it. Some of these are already the policy.
Homemaking · 8 min
When the Birth Plan Changes
Transfer is not a failed faith and not a failed body. It is the plan you wrote down for the day the labor stopped being the simple one.
Homemaking · 8 min
How to Use Essential Oils Safely
A drop is not a dab of lavender from the garden. It is a concentrated oil, and it belongs in a measured amount of fat, or it does not belong in the jar.
Homestead · 7 min
What Tallow Is Good For
Rendered beef fat for the pan, the skin, and the soap. Useful, plain, and not a cure.
Homestead · 8 min
The Gut Is Where They Start
Jordan Rubin and Dr. Josh Axe both begin chronic illness at the lining of the gut. This is what they actually tell people to eat.
Homestead · 7 min
What They Take Off the Table
Before Rubin or Axe adds a healing food, they take sugar, white flour, and industrial oil away. The illness they are talking about often starts there.
Homestead · 8 min
The Plate They Describe
The Maker’s Diet and Axe’s biblical plate are specific. Here is the food they name, and the difference between their table and the rest of this journal.
Faith · 7 min
Ask God Before You Ask a Chatbot
A machine will answer a life decision in a few seconds. That speed is not wisdom.
Homemaking · 6 min
How to Steam Fish, Cantonese Style
清蒸鱼 is a whole fish, ginger, and scallion. The steam is short. The cloudy water on the plate has to go.
Homemaking · 7 min
Hospitality Without the Performance
An open door is a Christian habit. A perfect house is not the price of admission.
Faith · 8 min
Family Worship That Fits a Real Evening
Fifteen honest minutes will do more for a household than a liturgy no one can keep.
Homestead · 8 min
A First Kitchen Garden, Kept Small on Purpose
Stewardship begins with a bed you can actually water, not a catalog you cannot finish.
Homemaking · 6 min
A Gentle Half Hour Before the House Wakes
Not a perfect routine. A small one, so the day does not begin by taking you.
Homemaking · 7 min
The Work Children Can Carry
Chores are not a clever way to get free labor. They are how a child learns that love has a shape.
Homemaking · 6 min
Folded Linen, Ordered Love
Laundry will not make you holy. It can be done as love, which is a different thing from worshipping tidiness.
Homestead · 7 min
The Pantry That Feeds More Than You
A stocked shelf is wisdom. It is also a way to say yes when someone at the door is hungry.
Homestead · 7 min
A Small Flock, Kept Gently
Hens can be a glad part of a home. They are also creatures you are answerable for, including on Sundays.
Faith · 7 min
Sabbath Is a Gift, Not a Grade
Rest was given because you are not God. Tired people are not the exception to that mercy.
Faith · 6 min
Praying the Ordinary Hours
Not a monastery in the kitchen. Three small pauses, so the day is answered rather than only managed.