"Do" starts with "try".

Duncan and I were talking about Yoda's famous line from Star Wars this week, "Do or do not. There is no try."

While it's a good line, and very memorable, it got me thinking. Sometimes the thought of doing some major task seems completely overwhelming. You can probably do it, but you may fail - and that's okay.

Even if things don't go as planned, we still learn from the effort of trying. Then, we can make a better decision about whether or not we want to keep trying until we get to "done" - or maybe it's a better use of our time to try something else.

This year, we've been trying different things with Common Sense Home to figure out a way forward in an online environment that's becoming dominated by AI snippets and Google's preferred publishers.

We hired a couple different "experts" earlier in the year who made things worse instead of better. We're still fixing weird stuff on the back end of the website from that mistake.

We tried setting up a membership, but we haven't gotten quite the level of questions from members that we thought we would, and I didn't make the progress on courses that I thought I would. Members will be getting an email with more details this week, but the short version is that members are going to get access to the ebooks and courses that will be coming out in 2025 as part of their 2024 membership.

I've been thinking about writing more books for a long time, but have been afraid to tackle it because of the work involved. Now Duncan and I are working on a children's book about the Duck Patrol (our special holiday project), and I am talking to a publisher about a homesteading & preparedness book. I'm still nervous about both, but I won't know how it'll work out until I try.

We hired another website guru to help sort out the other guy's screw ups, to identify the posts that should either get updated or get the boot, and to help the site work better. We went over his list of recommendations last week - and now we have a ton of work to do. Some things are already fixed, and you should notice more changes in the weeks ahead.

One feature that's new is the "breadcrumbs" displayed at the top of each post. Here's an example:

We've divided the content into subcategories, and added clickable links at the top of each article, making it easier for you to investigate related content. We've also adjusted the home page to make it easier to see more articles at once on mobile, and hopefully easier to navigate.

The important thing to remember is to keep trying, and learn from your mistakes, and try again.

For those who celebrate it, have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and stay safe if you have to travel.

Helping you create resilience and abundance,

Laurie (and August IV, August V, and Duncan)

This week's featured articles...

'Tis the season for sniffles, coughs, and sneezes. Poor Reggie the Rescue cat kept me up last night, sneezing on the couch. Thankfully, he seems to be resting better today, without the sneezing. (And speak of the devil - he just woke up from his nap and sneezed. Time for some Rescue Remedy for Cats.)

I've updated the 10 Natural Sore Throat Remedies article with some of my new "go to" options for sore throats.

We got our first significant snowfall of the season this week. The ducks were not impressed, but it melted by the end of the day. Friends were not so lucky, and have snow that's sticking and stacking up.

If you haven't prepped for winter yet, check out this winter car kit list to help keep you safe in the cold.

One thing I truly enjoy about cold weather is snuggling up with a warm drink. Herbal tea is my first pick (other than my morning cup of coffee-herbal coffee mix), but when we have a group of people, this wassail recipe is a wonderful welcome. It smells like Christmas in a mug.

Need some more help with holiday cooking?

My friend, Wardee, and her crew have put together a beautiful holiday cooking course that includes:

• the Thanksgiving Dinner printable PDF eCookbook
• 5 streaming masterclass videos
• the “Cobblers, Crisps, and Crumbles” PDF recipe eBooklet

This course has a 30 day money back guarantee, so you can try it out this holiday season and be completely satisfied.

Wardee runs the Traditional Cooking School, where they teach how to cook nourishing food without getting overwhelmed.