I want to preface my home birth experience by letting you know that my intent in sharing my experience is so that others can know that IT CAN be done, with a positive outcome for mom and baby, despite the pain of it.  That being said, I don’t believe in sugar coating anything, and although there are people with quick and calm home births, that isn’t the experience for everyone. I definitely felt calmer than I did at the hospital and remembering why I chose a home birth is why I chose to birth at home a second time (if you haven’t read my first home birth experience, you can read it here: http://herbivorehomemaker.com/my-all-natural-home-water-birth-experience/).  My experience is definitely not representative of home births as a whole, so please keep that in mind as you read my story.  

Why buy broth when you can make your own?  Homemade broth is one of those things I have been experimenting with for some time.  I tried making liquid recipes.  I tried dry recipes.  Finally, I tweaked a dry recipe I came across to my liking and use it in everything that calls for broth.  It is completely vegan and gluten free.  In addition, it works great in recipes that call for chicken/beef broth or stock.  I love being able to make my own broth because not only does it save money BUT I am able to control exactly what goes in it.  I prefer a dry recipe because it is easier to make, it is easier to store because it doesn’t take up much space, and it is very shelf stable (there is no fear of it going bad, although the spices will eventually go stale if it takes you years to use it up).

As of the 1st of January 2018 I have been a vegan. If you asked me 12 years ago if I could see myself going vegan in the future I probably would have told you although I greatly admired vegans and the reasons behind veganism that it was not for me.  I didn’t think I could do it. People CAN change though, and I have definitely changed in more ways than one since then.  This is my own personal experience in my transition to veganism.

As with most of my DIY and natural living journey, I started experimenting with making my own laundry detergent back in 2013.  My oldest son was suffering from severe eczema, and even buying the laundry detergents that were supposedly super sensitive and all that, STILL seemed to bother him.  In addition, such detergents tended to be on the pricier side.  Eager for a more natural solution that didn’t cost an arm and a leg, I began my search for a natural laundry detergent that was inexpensive to make, had natural ingredients, AND cleaned the clothes well.  Over the years, I have tried a total of 6 recipes, although I have looked at many others.  I tried ones that had lots of positive feedback and/or were more popular among DIY’ers, appeared to be cheap to make, AND seemed to be fairly fool-proof to make.