This is something I should have done ages ago. For me to be able to continue serving the needs of my readers, it would be so helpful for me to know some more exact demographics, rather than just guessing (because guessing is kind of fun, but highly inaccurate!).

Literally, this survey will take 1 minute to complete. It's 100% anonymous (I have no idea who is filling it out). There's no Excalibur Dehydrator giveaway at the end of this survey (but wouldn't it be nice? ), only my gratitude and a deepened knowledge of who you are that helps me be a better blogger. So thank you!

Take the survey now.

Edit: Wow, thank you so much for that tremendous response! That was incredibly helpful for me! (And yes, you can still take the survey- I just thought I'd comment on the results so far).

Someone asked to know the results. Here they are in a nutshell:

1) 98% of my readers are women (are you surprised? )

2) 94% are married

3) Most of you are between the ages of 20-45

4) 65% of my readers have education at a Bachelor's degree or beyond, and most of the others have at least some college or certification of some sort.

5) Family incomes are spread all over the board, but over half of the families represented here make $55,000 or higher.

6) A surprising (to me) 20% of my readers don't yet have a child. Most have between 1-3 children, and about 12% have between 4-6 children or more.

7) 60% of my readers are full-time homemakers with no employment. The other 40% is split pretty evenly between those who work outside the home (full and part time) and those who work from home.

8 ) Your 5 favorite topics here at Keeper of the Home are (in this order):

• Cooking and food preparation
• Nutrition
• Recipes
• Frugality/Money Management
• Natural, sustainable living

9) You're all amazing! (But I already knew that!)

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• No News | Keeper of the Home
• Toxins, schmoxins | Keeper of the Home
• Introducing the Forum! | Keeper of the Home
• A Wormy Update | Keeper of the Home

In the midst of preparing for baking day and then spending all day yesterday actually doing it, guess who completely forgot that it was supposed to be the Organic Gardening Carnival today? Oh wait, that would be me!

Because I always prefer to give everyone a heads up about an upcoming carnival the day before it actually happens (just to give you time to prepare your own post if you're participating), I decided late last night not to run the carnival today. Instead, I took this morning to sleep in (much needed!) and enjoy a sweet and leisurely family time over breakfast (fancy scrambled eggs, sprouted grain toast and OJ- yummy!).

So consider this your one day reminder that the carnival is coming up! Tomorrow, to be exact! In fact, I'll likely have it up by later tonight, for any early birds who want to get their posts up first.

Can't remember what the Organic Gardening Carnival is all about? See this post.

In other news...

Tomorrow will be a busy day for me, because not only am I running the carnival but I will be participating in the first every Real Food Twitter Party! Thursday night from 9-11 pm EST (that's 6-8 pm for us Westcoasters) you will find myself, as well as many other fabulous nourishing bloggers (Cheeseslave, Kelly the Kitchen Kop, Naturally Knocked Up, Kitchen Stewardship, etc.) discussing (what else?) REAL FOOD! We'll be discussing how we all got started and why we eat the way we do. We'll definitely be taking questions and doing our best to answer them! If you're just curious about eating more traditional, nourishing foods or starting out and would like to hear more about how others do it, then definitely join us! There will even be a chance for someone to win a copy of Nourishing Traditions!

If you don't already, you can follow me on Twitter (@keeperhome). To join in the party, look for the hashtag #realfood, so that you can keep track of the conversation that's going on. See you there!

Wanna know who won some of the giveaways?

Awesome Stainless Steel Food Storage goes to:  Sarah M (@ssmast)

Gorgeous Silver Jewelry goes to:  MelodyJ (melodyj@)

Please email me at stephanie (at) keeperofthehome (dot) org, and if I don't hear from you I will be in touch.

Remember that you only have 2 more days to get your entry in for the incredible dehydrator giveaway, and that means my book sale only lasts 2 more days as well!

I hope that this little post is a good reminder that yet again, I do not have it all together. I get caught up in what I'm doing (and just the general chaos of life) and forget all about other important things. I get too busy and too tired. I sleep in. I'm a real mom, just like all of you!

So just to make me feel better, why don't you all share with me some of your "finer" moments where you completely forgot about something important!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• I’m joining in the Spring Cleaning Party! | Keeper of the Home
• Upcoming- Organic Gardening Carnival! | Keeper of the Home
• No News | Keeper of the Home
• Free Groceries and Other Random Thoughts | Keeper of the Home

For quite some time, I've wanted to launch a forum here at Keeper of the Home. A place where all of those wonderful questions that get asked in the comments could be answered in a more purposeful way. A place where women could connect with other like-minded women. A place where knowledge and tips can be shared, on any given topic, and not just by me but by all of the other incredible and resourceful women who read this blog. A place where the focus is on issues pertaining to natural living-  but you get to ask the questions and decided which topics are most important!

For all of these reasons and many others, I decided to pursue running a forum on this site. Now, I've never run a forum before (nothing like trying out something that you're clueless about! ). However, I've participated in some and found them to be such incredibly helpful resources. It is a powerful thing to have a question on a very specific topic and be able to post it and begin to receive answers and thoughts from other moms and homemakers, within the day or even hours! It's fantastic to be able to answer someone else's question and know that you've helped them out or been able to encourage them in their efforts. Community is a very good thing.

Knowing the wealth of wise women that frequent this site, I can only anticipate this forum growing to be a valuable place to both share and ask about what's on your mind and going on in your life. Topics can range from natural diaper rash solutions to your favorite heirloom seeds, or from a recipe that uses stewing beef and broccoli to the best non-toxic method you've found for removing grass stains on kids clothes. And absolutely anything in between. The sky is literally the limit.

Image by PhotoVandal

Not sure how to get started?

**This is a screen shot of part of the forum, just to give you an idea of what it looks like**

First, click on the Forum tab in the navigational bar at the top of my blog.

Second, you'll need to register as a Forum member. This is a very quick and painless process.

Third, at the top of the board categories you'll see one called "Welcome" and within that is a board called "Start Here!!!". Take a quick read through this just to get more of a feel for how to use the boards and some basic forum etiquette.

Fourth, take a look through the different boards. See what interests you and then jump in! We'll need some brave souls to start out by initiating some new threads and topics. I've established all of the main categories (such as Natural Living), as well as boards under those (eg. Cloth Diapering, Mama Cloth, and Household Cleaning). From there, we need to start posting new topics and get things going!

You'll see that I've started off a few. You can find them under Cloth Diapering, Recipes, General gardening topics and Sources for real food. But please, don't be shy in creating your own topics!

Then get ready to have some fun!

I can't wait to see some conversations get started, and to be able to connect with many of you more through the forum!

As well, when I feel that it's appropriate I will occasionally start a new forum topic as a spinoff of a blog post. I'll do this when I feel that it's a particularly important topic or when there's lots of conversation happening in the comments and I think that it could be furthered in the forum.

Now go check out the forum! I'll see you there!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• The Backyard Homestead | Keeper of the Home
• Forum Highlights- November | Keeper of the Home
• Upcoming- Organic Gardening Carnival! | Keeper of the Home
• Organization for the Disorganized | Keeper of the Home

Did you think you'd ever see the day when I joined Twitter?

I haven't been shy in my dislike for social media or the fact that I think it can tend to be a time-stealer and get in the way of being focused and efficient in my roles as a mom, wife and homemaker (and note that I said in my roles, because I know my own tendency to get off track if I'm not careful- I know that many people are able to carefully balance the use of social media and I think that's great). I still think that these things (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) can have the potential to distract us and it's important to make sure that we keep our priorities in order and not allow them to get in the way of those things that are far more important.

However, my husband has been looking into Twitter a lot lately and feels that it's a really valuable tool from a business perspective. It's ideal for keeping in touch with my readers (that would be you!) more frequently and consistently, and also on a more personal level. It also allows me to pass great information and resources on to you very quickly and easily, such as helpful websites, yummy recipes, interesting facts, exciting giveaways, thought-provoking quotes and so many other things. When used well, Twitter can be a worthwhile tool for communicating and that makes it something that I feel like I can wholeheartedly participate in.

And so, I've agreed to join the ranks and start tweeting along with you all!

Wanna join me? Follow me on Twitter!

(And on a related topic, during my blog's transfer over to Wordpress, my feed was temporarily broken and many people unsubcribed as a result. Rest assured that the feed is indeed working again and you can re-subscribe by clicking here. There are options to subscribe either through a feed reader (like Google Reader or Bloglines) or else through your email (you'll receive an email each time I post), so choose what suits you best! Thanks everyone and sorry for the inconvenience!)

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• How I “Do It All” | Keeper of the Home
• I’m joining in the Spring Cleaning Party! | Keeper of the Home
• No, you’re not going crazy | Keeper of the Home
• I’ve been inspired! | Keeper of the Home

This week we are in the midst of a switchover from my previous blog platform (Typepad) to a self-hosted site through Wordpress. Though you can't see a whole lot of outward changes, there is a LOT happening in the back-end of my site. The reason for doing this is that it will ultimately give me much more control over how I want my site to look and function, allowing me to offer many more reader-friendly functions in particular. It will give this blog room to really grow and develop, which is why it is worth the utter CHAOS that has resulted!

For those wondering what happened to my RSS feed, it was temporarily down but is now back up. If you unsubscribed, please feel free to re-subscribe (in fact, please do- I'd miss you if you didn't stick around!). That issue should be completely worked out now, whether you use my feed through a blog reader or through your email. If you are still having any issues with it, I would really appreciate knowing it so that I can get those ironed out as quickly as possible!

You may have also noticed that many comments are either missing or under the incorrect blog post. This, too, is being looked into and hopefully will be fixed very shortly!

You might also have wondered whether I took down the comments on my recent post A Trip to the ER, as there were some that were a bit controversial and in disagreement with me and my actions. Rest assured that I did nothing of the sort. I do not ever remove comments unless they are explicit or very obviously inappropriate, and would never delete comments simply because someone strongly disagrees with me. Although I always appreciate opinions that are shared in the most polite, constructive and respectful manner possible, please know that this blog will never be censored in any manner and that opinions that differ from my own are certainly welcome!

Please note that the Organic Gardening Carnival which was supposed to happen tomorrow (Wed, Oct 21) has been postponed for two weeks (it is now slotted for Wed, Nov 4). Due to my illness last week, and then all of these technical blog issues this week, it just didn't seem wise to go ahead with it. This will give me more time to get ready for the carnival, as well as the rest of you time to consider joining in and to prepare your posts!

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your patience as I get everything back up and running as it should be!

And a little something to anticipate...

Next week (October 26-30) I will be celebrating my 2 Year Blogiversary! During the course of the week, I will be hosting several great giveaways including one particularly desirable addition to any healthy kitchen, as well as launching a few new exciting site features and even a new product! Can't wait to see you all there!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• There’s a change in the air… | Keeper of the Home
• Winner of the Moukisac Reusable Bag System | Keeper of the Home
• Last harvest of the season | Keeper of the Home
• The sweetest of blessings | Keeper of the Home

(And no, I didn't whip them up while I was sick- this has been in the works for quite some time.

Most things will still look the same, some things may look a little different, and there might be just a few small glitches that need to be worked out. Please bear with me as all of the final changes are made and I get the site completely up and running as it should be!

When it's all said and done, this switch will have been worth it. Very soon you will begin to see some exciting new features, including a very special project that I plan on unveiling during my 2 Year Blogiversary Celebration, coming up the week of October 26-30! Stay tuned...

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• The internet, she’s a down | Keeper of the Home
• Someone’s getting a new apron in the mail! | Keeper of the Home
• It ’s official! | Keeper of the Home
• Children are a blessing from the Lord | Keeper of the Home

I know this has absolutely nothing to do with my regular blog topics, but it sure is relevant for our family right now, so indulge me if you will! As many of you know, my husband has recently finished working at his job in order to launch a new music school (you can see the in-progress website for Resound School of Music). One of the things that he is currently working on is a bit of further market research and this leads me to ask a favor of those of you with children.

Would you consider taking 1-2 minutes (literally, it's 10 questions, most of which are multiple choice) to fill out a very simple online survey? Since many of you have school-aged children and I know there are also a lot of homeschoolers out there, you fit well into what would be our target market (that is, if you actually lived where we live which I know that most of you don't).

Just to let you know, in a few short weeks I will be celebrating my 2nd
Blogiversary! My husband and I have been working hard on getting many
exciting things ready for that week and among those things are several
giveaways. One of those giveaways might just be a really amazing (and
somewhat expensive) but oh-so-useful kitchen appliance... and if you
fill out the survey, you might just earn yourself an extra entry for
that giveaway. I'm just saying... I think you'd be happy that you filled
out the survey.

Take the survey now.

Thank you! My husband thanks you, too!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• An apron and a surprise | Keeper of the Home
• Music to my ears | Keeper of the Home
• Small technical difficulty | Keeper of the Home
• My ebook has a name! | Keeper of the Home

Lately, though, this blessed mama is finding herself with very full days! My tasks at present feel like all (and some days more than) I can handle: caring for three little ones aged 4 and under including a somewhat colicky (but still lovely!) newborn, maintaining the home in some semblance of order and cleanliness, making meals, scaling mountains of laundry, harvesting the garden (ignoring the weeds), doing my regular fall preserving (or attempting to, as you can see in the picture of me shushing a fussy baby while canning tomatoes), starting the new school year of home educating, supporting my husband as he starts a new business, and still having any degree of time and energy for relationships.

Though I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things, I'm also just plain old exhausted from lack of sleep, and thus time spent blogging is often just a bit much for me. There doesn't seem to be enough time in the day, and seriously, my brain isn't fully functioning! I would be wrong in my priorities to spend time focusing on my blog on many of these days when I am just needed in so many other ways, and honestly, my kids (and husband) need a much more pleasant and cheerful woman than I've been of late.

I've decided that I'm going to do some "play it again" posts (idea and title inspired by the lovely Amy @ MomAdvice, who occasionally re-posts previous but excellent posts from her archives). I'm going to bring back some oldies but goodies, interspersed with what I have time and energy to write fresh until I get things on the home front back under control and myself back to being a bit more rested and sane.

Thanks for understanding, y'all! Hope you enjoy them and can't wait to be more fully back ASAP! (Any requests?)

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

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• Adjusting to Life with 3 Little Ones | Keeper of the Home
• How I Plan to Keep Blog Time in Check | Keeper of the Home
• What topics do you want to see around here? | Keeper of the Home
• Carrying Burdens That Don’t Belong to Us | Keeper of the Home

Today is my due date. Most of your Baby Poll guesses have come and gone (as have my own guesses). Seems that this baby just wants to keep us all guessing! LOL!

I just don't have anything that I really felt like posting for this morning, but I knew that if I posted nothing, I would get a slew of emails and phone calls wondering if something had happened! To set your minds at ease, nothing is happening, but I simply needed a day off.

I promise, I will post as soon as I can when something happens! Until then, I'm going to take a day to finish up the last of some household projects, and if baby still isn't here, then the next day my MIL and I are going to take the kids out for a day of fun somewhere. I need all the distraction I can get!

I'll be back soon with a real post, I promise!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• Pumpkin canning | Keeper of the Home
• Quick Update | Keeper of the Home
• 1 Minute Survey | Keeper of the Home
• Surprise Getaway | Keeper of the Home

I'll confess... I have another new project up my sleeve. As if it's not enough to be having another baby and starting a new family business, I've decided to write another eBook, just for fun!

The concept of my new book is a collection of all the different ideas, tips, tricks, budgeting methods, cooking styles, gardening and preserving helps, shopping resources, general frugality, even recipes, etc. that I have learned over the past 6 years as a young wife and mom, as I do my best to serve nourishing, nutritious, whole foods to my family on a limited budget!

I know that this is an incredibly timely topic, as we all feel the budget crunch of the economy and the current tough financial times (and maybe tougher yet to come). It feels so relevant to me right now, and I'm sure it is a concern for many or even most of you as well. The challenge for us is figuring out how to continue to serve our families healthful foods for less money, without making compromises and being enticed by all of the cheap processed and nutritionally empty foods that are out there.

Though I have many of my own ideas and topics for the book already, one thing that I would love to include this time is wisdom and advice from an incredibly abundant source: YOU! My faithful readers, who are full of so much good information and knowledge!

What would I like from you?

• Your best advice on buying and serving healthy foods on a budget!
  
• The tips that you would give to young wives and moms just starting out (even if you're just starting out yourself!)
• The things you do that you believe save you the most money, and allow you to buy the highest quality whole foods.
• Your favorite ways to make things stretch and get the most out of your food dollars.
• All the little ways that you practice frugality in your kitchen.
• What you wish someone else had told you! 

My one request is that you only leave a comment for me of this nature if you are comfortable with me publishing it as a quote in my new eBook. It won't be practical for me to directly contact every single person who comments, and I would like to freely use the quotes that I think would add to the book. If you would leave a name that you are comfortable with me using when/if I quote you (it doesn't have to be your real name, and last names aren't necessary), as well as where you're from (only if you're comfortable with that), that would be fantastic!

Thanks, ladies! I can't think of a better group of women to ask this question to, and I know that you have such a wealth of knowledge to offer!

Our Sponsors:

• It Starts at Home: Are we Discipling or Outsourcing the faith of our children? Read It Starts at Home! Then, just nurture them together.
• Moukisac: Your 6 in 1 shopping bag system; compact, stylish, versatile and practical, of course! Made by Canadian mom.
• hope ink: Custom inspirational art for your home
• ListPlanIt: Lists to put your world in order
• Vintage Remedies: Get healthy, naturally
• Just Bumming Around: When only the best cloth diapers (at great prices) will do. FuzziBunz packages on SALE!

More from Keeper of the Home

• You Tell Me: The Little Things | Keeper of the Home
• You Tell Me: Finding the Time to Cook From Scratch | Keeper of the Home
• How My Grocery Budget Works | Keeper of the Home
• Q&A- My Grocery Budget | Keeper of the Home