Author and Speaker Melissa K. Norris Talks About Her New Book & a Simpler Way of Living

Melissa K. Norris is the author of The Made-From-Scratch Life: Simple Ways to Create a Natural Home (www.melissaknorris.com). With life changing stories, step by step tutorials, how-to's, real life examples and recipes, The Made-From-Scratch Life, will inspire and teach you how to get back to the basics, not just in a from scratch kitchen and home, but in your mind and soul. It looks at the things that shape us and how you can apply old-fashioned traditions to your modern life and savor what really matters. 

Q:  Melissa, thank you for doing this interview with us. Congratulations on the release of your book The Made-From-Scratch Life: Simple Ways to Create a Natural Home. What's this book about?

It's a guide book on how to get back to the things that matter in our home, garden, cleaning cupboard, recipes, and most important with our hearts and loved ones. It breaks everything down on how to implement healthy changes, both in the kitchen, our cleaning products, beauty products, our gardens, and our relationship with Jesus. 

Q:  What inspired you to write this book?

I've always loved Laura Ingalls and the pioneer life and grew up being a made from scratch girl, but when my daughter was just a few months old, I had a health scare. I had to have my stomach and esophagus biopsied for cancer, thankfully, it came back clear, but that was my wake up call to really look at the things my family and I were coming in contact with and using in our home and kitchen. This is the steps we took to turn our health around. I constantly had readers and friends asking how they can kick the processed things out of their life and become healthier, without being overwhelmed or costing a ton of money, and the book was born from there. 

Q: In the book, you talked bout how we experience a deeper appreciation for God's care for us when plant and harvest our own food or care for livestock. How can we appreciate more of God's care by planting our own food?

There's something that happens when we watch something grow and tend it. The parables from the New Testament and Jesus really take life. When I'm out weeding the garden, often times God will show me areas I need to weed in my life as well. When our hands in the dirt and we see nature unfolding, we're reminded that God takes care of us and His creation. It allows to appreciate what He's given us in a way purchasing it off a store shelf doesn't. 

Q: What do you have to say to someone who has never planted a garden before.  Where can he or she start? 

I'd say get started! You can start by growing a few herbs in a pot on your kitchen window sill or planting a small bed of lettuce. A large container allows you to grow something even if you only have a patio or small backyard. Once you begin, you'll become hooked and want to grow more and more. 

Q:  You have also written some healthy recipes.  Where did you get your ideas?  And in what ways do your recipes help us health wise?

Because we grow so much of our own food, my recipes are born from simple foods, but they have to taste amazing. My husband and kids will quickly tell me if something doesn't work. If I'm cutting out a processed food, the homemade version has to taste as good or better, of they let me know. Often times I'll look at a processed item and think of a way I can make it at home with "real food" ingredients. My recipes are things you don't have to a mile long ingredient list from or be a chef to make or understand. They're the foods our grandmother or great-grandmother would have prepared. I stay away from genetically modified and processed foods, so you'll find homemade condensed soup made with just 3 ingredients and ready in 4 minutes, faster than you can buy it from the store and a whole lot healthier and tastier. 

Q:  In the book, you advocate a return to a simpler way of living, why is that important for us?

It's important because busy has taken over. All of us have a to-do-list a mile long and are running around from one thing to the next. In doing so, we sacrifice relationships with people and with God. The simpler way of living allows us to bond with our family and reconnect. When you eat something on the go, you're not sitting down and talking with your family over a meal. My husband and children are a part of the gardening and cooking. When you have a home prepared meal you sit down and eat it together. It brings people closer together. It also preserves traditions like gardening and canning that are being lost if we don't teach the next generation and put them into practice. 

Q:  Personally, you have gone through quite a rough patch with the loss of your first pregnancy. How did you find hope in that season of brokenness?

When we experience something tragic or painful it becomes a defining moment. We can either let it make us bitter or full of blame or we can choose to let God turn that painful thing into something good. We're going to go through hard times, and we can either let it be just that, something hard and broken, or we can let God work in and through it to redeem those times into something good. It's our choice, but when we give it to Him, He will bring healing in ways we can never imagine.   

Q:  Besides writing this book, you also write for various magazines and blogs, where can our readers read more of your own writing?

They can find me at http://melissaknorris.com/ and also on my podcast called, Pioneering Today.  

 

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