I finished reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver and finally found the passage for which I had been looking.  It was a quote which gave me hope!  She writes, “Small, stepwise changes in personal habits aren’t trivial.  Ultimately they will, or won’t, add up to having been the thing that mattered.”*  Much of this book made me feel like I could never garden or shop or preserve food as ethically as this family did for a year.  Talk about guilt producing!  But this one sentence reminds me that the only changes that we can sustain in our lives are the small, daily things we do each day.  Whether it is more exercise, eating healthier, reading the Bible or any other habit we wish to learn, we do it in small steps and then the action begins part of our daily life. 

This book describes a family who ate locally for a year, growing their own food, both plant and animal, buying only items produced within 100 miles of their home (except coffee, olive oil, spices), or going without.  This is a huge change from how most of us eat, but I am inspired to make some small steps towards supporting local farmers.  And I am inspired to grow some of my own food, in my own garden.

*Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Copyright 2007 by Barbara Kingsolver, Steven L. Hopp, and Camille Kingsolver.  HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53^rd Street, New York, NY 10022.