Projects and Health
Hi and Welcome to the A & J PEI Treasures E Jean Simpson Author Blog Post and Podcast. I’m your host, Jean coming to you from the beautiful Province of Prince Edward Island, Canada!! The blog post and podcast is an opinion piece and only reflects this author’s opinion and not that of any other entity. I hold no designations in politics, economics or medicine. I am retired from the mental health field. I am a humanitarian and speak from that viewpoint only. Whether you agree with me or not, at least I hope it makes you think. This week I will tell you how I spend my time and some hobbies I have that keep me busy. Hubby of course has his woodworking, but I have other things. I have a bunch of hobbies that end up being of little value for sales, but can keep things more interesting. If you want to find out more, then stay tuned…!
At first, I thought I might make some money with upcycling clothing, but this seems not to have been productive. No one showed any interest or showed very little interest in anything I produced. I think I sold one piece on Ebay a long time ago. So, knowing that, I moved forward into making stuff for myself. I have expanded from upcycling already existing pieces, which I still can do to making simple no pattern pieces. I had sewn a bit in my earlier years. In fact, one piece won second place at a local fair many years ago. I had used patterns. I still could, but I became interested in easy to make pieces. I found the sewing machine to be somewhat annoying as it was very picky. So, as a result, I turned to hand sewing. So far, my cloth has been purchased at various thrift shops so it is actually still giving something a second chance. I’ve used various cloths…lace table cloths and curtains included. Once I stopped being so serious about the sewing and started to make stuff for my enjoyment, I didn’t care how long it took to make it. I had to concern myself with what I wanted to wear and not what someone else might want. I still have quite a stash of cloth and clothing to work with. I find hand sewing to be relaxing.
I also have done crochet and knitting. I tend to cycle through my hobbies. The sewing is at the top of the list right now. I find that with more delicate fabrics, I like to use French Seams https://www.seamwork.com/articles/sew.... For any other sewing, it is possible to sew very small stitches on the outside or one can pick a little cloth on the inside in order to hide the seam. Of course, my love of added embellishment is given a place as well. Sometimes this can be used to hide sewing if one wants to make it easier. All it takes is some rudimentary sewing knowledge on how to sew straight stitches or back-stitching to lock in place. I have to admit that when I took sewing in Home Economics way back in school, I wasn’t enamoured with sewing. I found it slow and silly. Most of the girls weren’t incredibly excited by the class or said they weren’t. This was in the days when girls had to take Home Economics and boys had to take Shop. I suspect that at the time, some of the girls would have been happier with Shop and some of the guys would be happier with Home Economics. It wasn’t the way things were done back 35 or more years ago. Now, I think there is choice with that regard. Strangely, I was able to make use of what I learned at the time. It was much like the typing class. I hated it at the time. In the years since, I’ve made good use of the skill I had achieved. So, there is something to be said of taking courses that one doesn’t exactly love when they are in Jr. High and High School. As they said at the time, it builds character.
Another hobby that, strangely enough I also didn’t find all that exciting in Home Economics class, but developed some interest in since leaving the workforce is baking and cooking. I remember in Junior High School pairing up with some friends. The rule for the particular class was that you had to eat what you made. I believe we might have created the first time that the rule was allowed to be broken. Apparently two of us got the same ingredient and added it. This did not work out well. The teacher tasted it and admitted it was disgusting and would waive the having to eat it rule. It was rather lucky that we were both respectful students as it was admittedly a mistake and not a purposeful action. My mother was a teacher, how much could I get away with…LOL. Now, I find myself watching some baking videos and if the project looks reasonable I make sure it isn’t something wrong and give it a try. Of course we all know that every YouTube video is exactly correct (sarcasm it can be hard to tell with writing). That’s another one of my issues. The one thing I can tell you is that if we make a YouTube video, it is a valid video. We actually video what we are doing as we do it. Doesn’t always make great video, because I can’t go back afterwards and re-tape it. But, it does mean that if you see a project work on our channel it should work. My latest thing was making pumpkin puree and freezing it. The great thing about this is that it gives me a main ingredient. The pumpkins cost us nothing extra as we grew them from seedlings. So, it was just the electricity to bake and grind the puree. I don’t add anything to it because I want to be able to make it into whatever I want and different recipes might call for different additives.
My next big project might be bread making. I have seen some easy looking recipes. They are more time consuming, but if you watch on Twitter, I often post pictures of things I have made. I don’t bother to redo the same recipes on YouTube. They’re already on YouTube at least half dozen variations. So, my picture and short review of the recipe is enough. The other thing is that I often find a wheat flour recipe and I have to modify it. I will share wheat containing recipes, but at some point, I tell my followers what I changed. Sometimes wheat recipes translate well into Gluten Free and sometimes they don’t. I never know which it will be until I try it out. The benefits to doing your own baking is, for example, to buy a muffin mix or cake mix that is gluten free is quite expensive. If I’m choosy about what I use, then my fresh baked is no worse in price. I find most of the packages require the addition of eggs, oil or some other items. I can buy the flour and add the other ingredients and still not be any worse in cost.
I should point out that Do It Yourself (DIY) is time intensive. Most times, unless you find ingredients or pieces that you need to buy that are more expensive, it isn’t more expensive in the long run. Living within one’s means and being on a budget means that I pick and choose the recipes that I attempt. I also pick and choose the items that I make. There is more to doing your own thing than there is to buying ready-made. For example, things like pumpkin pies, if you buy them in store, and they are gluten free the price is often $10+ each. I haven’t bought one for a couple of years or more, so not sure exactly the price, but last time I bought one they were over $10. On the other hand, if you grow your own pumpkin, even buying the pie crusts, the price is far less. Yes, it takes longer, but you save money. The most important thing about baking projects is that you know what is in them. I try not to find recipes with a whole lot of sugar in them. I find a lot of recipes online tend to use too much salt and a lot use a lot of butter. If I bought them, they would be full of those two things as well. I can control the intake of things such as sugar and salt. There are no extra ingredients to keep them fresh for long periods of time, so I control the amounts that I make so that we don’t have it go bad. Some things you can freeze. The cost of frozen fruit, for example, has gone up dramatically. Having grown our own strawberries they can be picked and frozen. These strawberries have lasted us the whole winter. Possibly we will have a new batch before we totally run out, but it will be close. We use them in making smoothies which we also make from scratch. So, there are a lot of benefits, but there are costs to the DIY life style. Of course not all things are DIY in our home, but we find that a small garden had yielded a lot of pickles and salsa. I have pumpkin puree and discovered a nice muffin recipe. I’ve made pies. I would suppose one of my future projects should be how to make pie crust. I do remember not being incredibly talented at it when I tried years ago. I hope that this will give my readers and listeners some ideas how to simplify their own lives. As Napoleon Hill is quoted as saying, “It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.” Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
At first, I thought I might make some money with upcycling clothing, but this seems not to have been productive. No one showed any interest or showed very little interest in anything I produced. I think I sold one piece on Ebay a long time ago. So, knowing that, I moved forward into making stuff for myself. I have expanded from upcycling already existing pieces, which I still can do to making simple no pattern pieces. I had sewn a bit in my earlier years. In fact, one piece won second place at a local fair many years ago. I had used patterns. I still could, but I became interested in easy to make pieces. I found the sewing machine to be somewhat annoying as it was very picky. So, as a result, I turned to hand sewing. So far, my cloth has been purchased at various thrift shops so it is actually still giving something a second chance. I’ve used various cloths…lace table cloths and curtains included. Once I stopped being so serious about the sewing and started to make stuff for my enjoyment, I didn’t care how long it took to make it. I had to concern myself with what I wanted to wear and not what someone else might want. I still have quite a stash of cloth and clothing to work with. I find hand sewing to be relaxing.
I also have done crochet and knitting. I tend to cycle through my hobbies. The sewing is at the top of the list right now. I find that with more delicate fabrics, I like to use French Seams https://www.seamwork.com/articles/sew.... For any other sewing, it is possible to sew very small stitches on the outside or one can pick a little cloth on the inside in order to hide the seam. Of course, my love of added embellishment is given a place as well. Sometimes this can be used to hide sewing if one wants to make it easier. All it takes is some rudimentary sewing knowledge on how to sew straight stitches or back-stitching to lock in place. I have to admit that when I took sewing in Home Economics way back in school, I wasn’t enamoured with sewing. I found it slow and silly. Most of the girls weren’t incredibly excited by the class or said they weren’t. This was in the days when girls had to take Home Economics and boys had to take Shop. I suspect that at the time, some of the girls would have been happier with Shop and some of the guys would be happier with Home Economics. It wasn’t the way things were done back 35 or more years ago. Now, I think there is choice with that regard. Strangely, I was able to make use of what I learned at the time. It was much like the typing class. I hated it at the time. In the years since, I’ve made good use of the skill I had achieved. So, there is something to be said of taking courses that one doesn’t exactly love when they are in Jr. High and High School. As they said at the time, it builds character.
Another hobby that, strangely enough I also didn’t find all that exciting in Home Economics class, but developed some interest in since leaving the workforce is baking and cooking. I remember in Junior High School pairing up with some friends. The rule for the particular class was that you had to eat what you made. I believe we might have created the first time that the rule was allowed to be broken. Apparently two of us got the same ingredient and added it. This did not work out well. The teacher tasted it and admitted it was disgusting and would waive the having to eat it rule. It was rather lucky that we were both respectful students as it was admittedly a mistake and not a purposeful action. My mother was a teacher, how much could I get away with…LOL. Now, I find myself watching some baking videos and if the project looks reasonable I make sure it isn’t something wrong and give it a try. Of course we all know that every YouTube video is exactly correct (sarcasm it can be hard to tell with writing). That’s another one of my issues. The one thing I can tell you is that if we make a YouTube video, it is a valid video. We actually video what we are doing as we do it. Doesn’t always make great video, because I can’t go back afterwards and re-tape it. But, it does mean that if you see a project work on our channel it should work. My latest thing was making pumpkin puree and freezing it. The great thing about this is that it gives me a main ingredient. The pumpkins cost us nothing extra as we grew them from seedlings. So, it was just the electricity to bake and grind the puree. I don’t add anything to it because I want to be able to make it into whatever I want and different recipes might call for different additives.
My next big project might be bread making. I have seen some easy looking recipes. They are more time consuming, but if you watch on Twitter, I often post pictures of things I have made. I don’t bother to redo the same recipes on YouTube. They’re already on YouTube at least half dozen variations. So, my picture and short review of the recipe is enough. The other thing is that I often find a wheat flour recipe and I have to modify it. I will share wheat containing recipes, but at some point, I tell my followers what I changed. Sometimes wheat recipes translate well into Gluten Free and sometimes they don’t. I never know which it will be until I try it out. The benefits to doing your own baking is, for example, to buy a muffin mix or cake mix that is gluten free is quite expensive. If I’m choosy about what I use, then my fresh baked is no worse in price. I find most of the packages require the addition of eggs, oil or some other items. I can buy the flour and add the other ingredients and still not be any worse in cost.
I should point out that Do It Yourself (DIY) is time intensive. Most times, unless you find ingredients or pieces that you need to buy that are more expensive, it isn’t more expensive in the long run. Living within one’s means and being on a budget means that I pick and choose the recipes that I attempt. I also pick and choose the items that I make. There is more to doing your own thing than there is to buying ready-made. For example, things like pumpkin pies, if you buy them in store, and they are gluten free the price is often $10+ each. I haven’t bought one for a couple of years or more, so not sure exactly the price, but last time I bought one they were over $10. On the other hand, if you grow your own pumpkin, even buying the pie crusts, the price is far less. Yes, it takes longer, but you save money. The most important thing about baking projects is that you know what is in them. I try not to find recipes with a whole lot of sugar in them. I find a lot of recipes online tend to use too much salt and a lot use a lot of butter. If I bought them, they would be full of those two things as well. I can control the intake of things such as sugar and salt. There are no extra ingredients to keep them fresh for long periods of time, so I control the amounts that I make so that we don’t have it go bad. Some things you can freeze. The cost of frozen fruit, for example, has gone up dramatically. Having grown our own strawberries they can be picked and frozen. These strawberries have lasted us the whole winter. Possibly we will have a new batch before we totally run out, but it will be close. We use them in making smoothies which we also make from scratch. So, there are a lot of benefits, but there are costs to the DIY life style. Of course not all things are DIY in our home, but we find that a small garden had yielded a lot of pickles and salsa. I have pumpkin puree and discovered a nice muffin recipe. I’ve made pies. I would suppose one of my future projects should be how to make pie crust. I do remember not being incredibly talented at it when I tried years ago. I hope that this will give my readers and listeners some ideas how to simplify their own lives. As Napoleon Hill is quoted as saying, “It takes half your life before you discover life is a do-it-yourself project.” Whether you agree with me or not, I hope I made you think. Thanks for listening to my podcast and/or reading my blog post and thanks for your interest in A & J PEI Treasures! Keep watching because we’re always working on something. Thank you!
The podcast that matches this blog post can be found on Anchor FM: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
Blog Posts are available on
WordPress: https://aandjpeitreasures.wordpress.com/ and
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Podcast are available on:
Anchor FM in a variety of formats: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/sh...
iHeart Radio: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-e-...
Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/e-... name a few
All my e-books can be found on:
Smashwords (my Affiliate link): https://www.smashwords.com/profile/vi...
You can also find us on:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/EJS08026749
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5zp...
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/ej2466
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/e-j-s-151a...
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewAandJP...
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A & J PEI Treasures/E Jean Simpson, BEd, BA, MA
A & J PEI Treasures is located on Prince Edward Island, Canada. We are a husband and wife team and our companion animals. There are a number of things that drew us to the Island…one of which was the n
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