Purposeful in Puyallup

On a Break

2011-07-12T20:17:00.000-07:00

Its pretty obvious I haven't written in forever.

Just taking a much needed blogging break for awhile.

I hope to come back sooner then later with ideas,thoughts and other misc things to inspire.

Cheers!

Neti Pot

2011-05-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

last month I was sick and I had to be leaving for a trip on a plane in about week from the time I got sick.

So as a last ditch effort I decided to invest in a Neti Pot.

This one pictured is the one I got and its from the Himalayan Institute. I bought it at Super Supplements mainly because i had a coupon and I was already there buying homeopathic remedies for my cold/flu I was battling. A friend recommended it but I'll admit I was skeptical at first.

I did some research online to see if there was anything negative surrounding it and surprisingly I didn't find anything that made me doubt its effectiveness. Of course most people saw how popular a Neti Pot can become after being on the Oprah Show with Dr. Oz. I never saw the episode but man there were A LOT of pictures of that girl using it on National TV.

So I can't say it healed my illness but it did help especially at night. I suffer from allergies to begin with and I could actually stop taking my Zyrtec for a couple of days rather then taking it daily. now I'm down to taking it maybe every 2-3 days. I don't use my Neti Pot daily, rather I use it when I know the pollen count is very high or I was doing a lot of cleaning for example.

How it works is after you have mixed warm water and a tiny bit of salt formulated for the neti pot you press the spout up to one nostril and tilt it up a little and out the yuck comes. Sometimes it does make me feel a little like I'm going to drown or something and I can feel the water going down my throat but if I adjust my head a little and tilt more or less it'll adjust. Its actually very easy to use and cheaper then my Zyrtec.

Give it a try on your next sinus infection or if you have chronic allergies like myself.

Repurposed Projects

2011-05-07T18:41:00.000-07:00

Hubby and I like to make things new out of old especially on furniture. They are nothing new idea wise - just recycled ideas. But I'm very proud of them. Here is a collection of them and to see more check us out on our Facebook Page: Repurposed in Puyallup.

Bench made from an old Frame that had rotted out wood. We replaced the wood with wood from Pallets.
Queen Headboard made from Kitchen Cabinet Doors!

Pee-Pee Hut aka: Litter box furniture. It was just an old hutch that we made into a place to hide your cat's litter box. You can't see it but on the side is a little cut out for the cat to walk thru. This unit is SOLD - bought by a gal on FB.

Dog or Cat bed -- made from an old TV unit with the guts removed. They enter thru the back side and while you can't see it the front does have a screen. Now your pet is "on" TV!

Extreme Couponing & Why it hurts the Environment

2011-04-25T19:36:00.000-07:00

Ok I get it.
People want to save money so bad and we like reality type shows.

Usher in the new show on TLC "Extreme Couponing" and people are going crazy over it.

I can see why its popular - we are blown away at how people are able to buy things for pennies or less! We can't comprehend it and don't understand why we can't duplicate how they do it! So we watch this show in hopes that we can maybe do the same.

There have been a lot of great articles written about what they don't tell you on the show so I figured why not?! I'll put in my thoughts about this too.

Now I have only seen about 4 little bit parts from that show and have never seen an entire show but even seeing 4 min of one show was enough for me to form an opinion.
Here's my thoughts:

Most of the items the people get on the show are things not good for you such as crappy food like on one episode where a lady bought over 100 Butterfinger bars. Ok I'm all for getting a good deal but who needs 100 candy bars? Obviously you are going to eat them sooner then later because they will go bad and get stale, but watching her count all those bars made me a little sick. Yes she was overweight which only made watching it feel worse. Its like watching a drug addict scramble for a hit or something. it was truly sad. She loaded up NINE carts full of junk and highly processed foods like Poweraid, over 100+ boxes of pasta, the candy and the carts were bursting with more and more junk. (the above picture is just one of her carts)

Clearly getting a good deal on those items were more important then her health.....or she's like most Americans who just buy whatever is the cheapest on the shelf regardless of the crap that's in most of those foods.

Not to mention all the deals they snag on products for your body like deodorants or lotions, shampoos, makeup, etc. Nearly all of what they get none of us should be slathering all over ourselves! Or the cleaning supplies! Oh don't even get me started on that. Considering how toxic most cleaners are, can you imagine how polluted their homes are inside?? I can't even fathom it. But I guess getting a good deal on things like Glade Plug In's is more important then their families health. That might sound mean to say but having this show televised is only hurting the issue's above - not helping them. ( I encourage you to read some of the links to learn more about my rant)

By showing people how cheap they can get these items for, its making people want to go out and try it themselves. which brings in toxic items into the homes of millions.
It also shows manufactures that they need to make MORE of these items to meet the demand which brings more chemicals into homes around us and brings more waste into the landfills.
Nearly every product purchased on the show has a ton of packaging that in most cases cannot be recycled.

And it almost glorifies hoarding. Extreme Couponing is encouraging people to take pictures of their stock piles or their "hauls" that people bring home. Hoarding is literally a sickness that many people struggle with and cannot get over. The show Hoarders on A&E is incredibly sad and depressing - yet on TLC its FUN to hoard and we applaud it. Why? Because we think that watching someone save money is not as "bad" as those who Hoard? I'm afraid I don't see the difference.

Now before you start shooting me down by saying, "but they donate most stuff to food banks for charities" .....let's be honest, most of those people do not donate their haul because they got such a high from getting it in the first place. Parting with it would deplete their giant store room of stuff that is some sort of tourist attraction AND a TV show.

If you have 9 people living in your house and you have no other options because you are out of work or struggling financially - then USE COUPONS and buy what you need. I'm not speaking to you in this post, not at all. As someone who is and has been living the unemployed lifestyle for nearly 2 years - I get it.

I'm saying we need to be cautious. And really look at what we are doing with our money and how we spend it. By purchasing products that not only hurt the environment but also ourselves we are telling Manufacturers to keep it coming! And we drown out the little guys like Seventh Generation or Method for example and scoff at spending what they charge. Of course they are charging more! They are putting out a premium product and cannot compete with companies like P&G who are happy to put out thousands of coupons to get us to buy and keep buying. Hook 'em and reel 'em in....but at what cost?

I'll stick with my savings and coupons I can use for products I support. I can't even shop the way those do on that show anyway. I live in WA state where tripling coupons isn't allowed in my grocery stores. maybe its a good thing.

And can I mention that Seventh Generation offers some great coupons on occasion and you CAN stack their coupons with Target Coupons. Which equals great savings and supports the little guys. Method sometimes has great coupons too.

So those are my thoughts. Obviously the show is controversial no matter what your stance on the subject is. Sadly I don't think the show is going anywhere.

Little $$ = Green Living

2011-04-12T22:29:00.000-07:00

Now that my husband has been out of work for almost 2 years this summer I've found that a lot of how we live now pretty much lines up with most "green" living ideas. Here are my top examples: -Probably the biggest thing we do is just going without. Having no money leads to not doing a whole heck of a lot or buying very much! When we do buy stuff is pretty much going to be something used (like clothing for example) or we are going to think that purchase to death if it isn't used. If something can't be found on Craigslist for example and we do have to buy it new its probably more then we need to spend in the first place. Which translate into giving room for pause on spending in the first place. -We don't eat a lot of meat. Mostly because beans are cheaper and meat is a lot more expensive if you want the good meats. Organic meat is pretty much not an option when you are squeezing that nickel for all its worth. -We don't drive very much. We just go to work and come home. most errands are run in one day on a weekend so they can get done quickly. This of course goes along with the green mindset of drive less and group errands together. -We make a lot of our own foods. I made my own tarter sauce the other day and I was really proud of myself! And I didn't have to buy anything else - just used what I had on hand. Little mayo & relish - instant tarter sauce! I did the same thing with making my own salad dressings. instead of rushing to the store like I would have in the past, I had to figure it out. Plus making my own dishes is overall more healthy for you and I actually tend to eat less. its a lot of work to make things like deserts sometimes and I want it to last! -We clean out our pantry, fridge & freezer a lot more now. Instead of finding food buried in those places we are trying to just use up what we have. Its amazing what you can dig out and make. Sometimes its a bit of a hodge-podge of meals, but its still food we didn't have to rush out and buy. Obviously this means we don't buy a lot of prepackaged foods. that goes without saying. -Being at home a lot really makes you look at your STUFF in your house. If you need it, use it or even if you want it anymore. For us its about making some fast cash, but reality is its a good thing to get rid of clutter. I would have thought after this long I couldn't find stuff to purge from the house but I still see stuff I wonder why I am still holding onto these things. Being surrounded by your stuff makes you see it just as that - Stuff. -I'm more willing to network online to get the things we need or get help/advice about things. Instead of driving around for answers I network on Facebook or I just hit the library or the Internet for answers. Gone are the days of going from place to place - now I'd rather one stop shop for stuff. Sometimes we barter for things we need in return for something. with a neighbor lady around the block we trade her coffee and she shares with us usually food like Pasta sauces or Oatmeal for example. She usually stocks up on things she shops for with coupons. But her thing is she gets too much stuff and she's more then happy to trade! Bartering and networking works for me! Another example is I needed advice on getting a good alteration done and a friend mentioned she'd help me out. Networking saves us so much money in the long run! Love it! -Without Cable we save money naturally but my son is more creative because of it. He has no problem making videos of himself on the Flip or drawing for hours when I'm watching a movie he doesn't want to watch. Thank goodness he can Entertain himself without needing a TV to do it for him! not that he doesn't watch TV- he does. But not seeing TV as a constant around our house helps me look for other things to do. See all those people who we might think how sad it is to be what we might consider Poor really are the ones living the TRUE green lifestyles. they know how to wear stuff out and make it last or at least fix it. while I'd like to pride myself on being as green as possible, I'm not even close to how some people live. But I'm glad I'm not only learning to live it. Sometimes you just have to get by on what you got - rather then lusting after what you don't.

Some Stats

2011-02-14T22:36:00.000-08:00

Just some stats I came upon on the Clean Air Counsels website. Some will really make you think. Here are some of the ones that surprised me...

*Less than 1 percent of plastic bags are recycled each year. Recycling one ton of plastic bags costs $4,000. The recycled product can be sold for $32.

*38,000 miles of ribbon are thrown away each year, enough to tie a bow around the Earth

*Only 30% of people in the Southern region of the United States had curbside recycling collection in 2008. Eighty-four percent of people in the Northeast had curbside recycling. The South also has the most landfill facilities – 726, in contrast with 134 in the northeast

*Because microbes in compost can degrade some toxic organic compounds, including petroleum, compost is often used to restore oil-contaminated soils

*Making a ton of paper from recycled paper saves up to 17 trees and uses 50 percent less water than does creating paper from virgin pulp

*Nearly 77% of all corrugated boxes were recycled in 2008

*The energy saved by recycling one glass bottle can light a 100-watt light bulb for four hours or run a computer for 30 minutes

*63.4 percent of paper was recycled in 2009, an all-time high, according to the American Forest & Paper Association. 2009 was the first year the rate was over 60 percent

*If we recycled all of our aluminum cans for one year, we could save enough energy to light Washington, D.C. for 3.7 years.[3

*About 304 million electronics were disposed of from US households in 2005. Two-thirds of them still worked

*More than 20 million Hershey's Kisses are wrapped each day, using 133 square miles of aluminum foil. Believe it not, ALL that foil is recyclable, but not many people realize it so most it goes in the trash!

Bartering

2011-01-22T20:33:00.000-08:00

So I thought I would try my hand at bartering.
Bartering you say?
Why yes! all the cool people do it.
But What does it mean?? here is the Wikipedia definition:

Barter is a method of exchange by which goods or services are directly exchanged for other goods or services without using a medium of exchange, such as money.[1] It is usually bilateral, but may be multilateral, and usually exists parallel to monetary systems in most developed countries, though to a very limited extent. Barter usually replaces money as the method of exchange in times of monetary crisis, such as when the currency may be either unstable (e.g., hyperinflation or deflationary spiral) or simply unavailable for conducting commerce.

So I thought I would try my hand at bartering recently since its sort of a form of recycling and being completely broke means I had to get creative.

My first attempt went pretty well. I posted an ad on Craigslist asking for books for Noah in exchange something and I let the people come to me with requests. Most people just offered to sell me their books so clearly the ad I posted wasn't clear enough. Then I stumbled across a gal needing baby stuff - jackpot! I have baby stuff so I traded her a small bag of clothing for 2 books for Noah. So I scored some books and she got some clothes for her baby. Obviously she made out better then I did, but that little baby needed clothes and no way was I going to turn it down!

Bartering attempt #2: this barter went off badly. So long story short I have a bunch of shampoo, conditioner, face cleaner and beyond. Seriously I do and honestly I won't even use them as much as I would like and they are not exactly environmentally happy. I was given the stuff to give away anyway so it works out great. So I post another ad on Craigslist in the barter section asking for some items in trade for the shampoo. This lady asks for a trade and I had listed somethings I wanted such as paint (for Hubby's projects), a tarp, etc. She apparently runs a clothing bank and products like I had were right up her alley. So I agreed to trade her some of my goods for her paint, a tarp and some dog blankets that I really didn't want but she insisted. Hubby ends up meeting with her and when I get home to go thru the stuff after trading a large box of my stuff for hers. *sigh* It was bad people. Her paint I was only able to salvage maybe 4 cans. The other cans were dried up and so old I couldn't do anything with them. Which means now I get to somehow dispose of them. Lovely huh?

The dog blankets one fell apart after washing it in pieces in my washer and the other 2 were so stinky I don't even think a shelter will take them. The tarp was the only saving grace. She said it was new. It wasn't. I clearly got the shaft.

So I told her in an email that I felt like she jipped me and I'm stuck holding dried up paint and stinky blankets. She doesn't even apologize nor does she blink and wants to know what else can she trade for more stuff. Because she didn't get it I basically just ignored her emails and pictures of yet more junk in exchange for my goods. I should also mention that I gave her 2 large boxes of clothes for her clothing bank. which she pointed out all the stuff was gone when I wrote her the email telling her she gave me junk. As if I would ask for it back! Please!

So I have now learned that bartering while it can work, sometimes you can be left holding the bag - or in this case, the empty paint cans. But I'm not giving up yet. I know there are more honest people out there who truly WILL barter correctly.

And as for Hubby he was properly versed to LOOK at items being traded and not just blindly take stuff just because I'm not there.

Here's to more bartering, but this time why don't you try and let me know how it goes! here are some other sites that you can look into either exchanging services or bartering.

u-exchange

trashbank

caretotrade

Picture from THIS website...

After Holiday Shopping..more like thinking...not shopping

2011-01-16T21:02:00.000-08:00

The above title is basically what I did a lot of after Christmas.
While I know most stores at this point are hitting the 90% off sales - I on the other hand am not even remotely interested this year.
In the past yes I had been interested in finding things like LED lights or anything "green" when it comes to holiday decor.
But then I realized that amassing anything that I don't really need is more stupid for me! Trying to gussy it up by saying I'm looking for greener items sort of goes against what I truly believe deep down inside.

So I did a lot of thinking after the holidays were over.
And I came to a few conclusions for myself for 2011:

I need to stop excusing my shopping by saying I'm buying used/green/2nd hand/etc. Its still shopping and I'm still consuming.
How much money would I save avoiding doing what I was doing in #1? That's yet to be seen.
Get back to my roots about green living. Living simply hasn't been an issue for us, but I've gotten pretty lazy. Time to go back to my roots and start - hanging my clothes to dry, using less electricity/water/etc and just being more mindful OF my shopping habits.

When I wrap all these things up they center around one thing and that is that I still want to consume at times.

I try to make myself feel better by looking at those around me consuming to consume things like Nice Jeans/cars/houses/etc etc, but really am I any different?

Sure I spend a lot of my money on things like sponsoring a child or helping fund clean drinking water for other countries, but it still gives me pause when I look at some of the consuming I do do. And its do do a lot of the time.

So I'm going to be more mindful and just wait when I think I need to buy. Do I need this?? <----going to be my mantra for awhile. Which is why as of today we are on a NO spending fast for 2 weeks. (minus tithe - God still gets his goods from us no matter what!) its going to suck and so far its been a little hard, but its going to be good. Time to break ourselves a little bit and try to get back to the basics.

cheers.

vegetarian Living!

2011-01-11T18:51:00.000-08:00

So I stopped eating all meat back in November just before Thanksgiving (I know - crazy huh?) and so far it hasn't been so bad.
Today has been a bad day not because I ate something containing meat, but because I ate SO much junk food today. Potato chips, candy, PB&J sandwiches....sigh....So I didn't eat meat, but fell into the terrible trap of eating junk.
I don't know what I was thinking....ok I know what I was thinking - EAT and EAT JUNK.
It was stressful day at work and I have no excuse.

Thankfully I went for a walk on my lunch.
Maybe that helped.
even a little.

Tomorrow I will be back on track!!
But here is one of my favorite recipes for Potato Soup. (I make it with Veggie broth & no bacon obviously!)

Enjoy!!

Slow Cooker Baked Potato Soup

Instead of OUT with the old - its recycle the Old!

2011-01-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

The hubby and I are really trying to recycle a lot of the "old" things that we either have in our house or items we think we can repurpose and resell.
For example, we have a treadmill that one day decided it wasn't going to work anymore. After some Google Research we finally determined the issue.
Come to find out its less then $120 to replace the part. which is much cheaper then buying a new treadmill and then having no where to put the "non-working" treadmill. Which does work it just needed a new part.

I find it interesting that here in the US instead of trying to fix something that might just need a new part we just replace it all together.
Yes in some cases it is more cost effective to just get a new one then fixing the old one. Sadly this is very true when it comes to electronics - especially TV's.
At least we can recycle our electronics here in WA at the Goodwill!

When it comes to cars we don't think to just buy a new one when a part goes out - we fix it. It could be because cars costs significantly more then something like a treadmill, but its the mindset around it.
Why would we rather have new?
well I guess it just goes along with our consumerism of needing newer BETTER!
When its really sad that we fill up our landfills with stuff that is probably perfectly useful.
I'll admit to wondering if I could sit by the dump entrance asking people to stop so I can see if there is anything worth saving BEFORE they dump it.
Obviously that is not going to happen! But its a thought.

Today hubby and I hit up an estate sale where they were pretty much offering everything for cheap. We found a belt sander (that we did need for projects) for only $2.50, a table saw for $12 with multiple attachments & blades, a little corner couch and a gutted out TV unit.
The TV case I'm most excited about. it still has the glass on the front and "looks" like a TV still from the front, but its missing the tube inside it.
I plan on turning it into some sort of dog or cat house.
And the couch and the TV unit were FREE.
Otherwise they would have ended up at the dump.

Now I'm going to profit off of that item! And the best part is keeping stuff OUT of the landfill. Makes me feel like I truly AM living Purposefully.

I'm taking a new "look" at how I see items that can be tossed. Now I see dollar signs instead!
Happy Day People!

Go thru your Medicine Cabinet

2011-01-02T19:52:00.000-08:00

Its that time of year again!
With a new year upon us, its time to clean out those cabinets and dispose of your nasty old medicines that for some reason we hang onto.

I hang onto them mostly because I know better then to dispose of them in the trash for the toilet, but have never had anywhere to dump them!
Finally after dropping off something at the police dept, I noticed they had a place where you can dispose of your medicines safely and in a secure location.

For more information on where to take your medicines and why within the state of Washington go HERE for more info: takebackyourmeds.org
And for specific drop off locations within your county go HERE.

So while you are on cleaning out your house to get rid of some stuff, remember to safely dispose of your prescriptions and over the counter stuff at any of the locations listed on the link above.

Happy 2011 Peeps!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T15:49:00.000-08:00

I realize I haven't written in forever. Its been a crazy month like most holiday months end up being! For 2011 I will be kicking off more of a green year - not that I ever stopped, but I need to not get rolled BACK into living more aware of what I'm doing. I have gotten a little lazy in some aspects of my life.

However, I have gone Vegetarian (although I will eat fish so I guess that makes me a pescatarian?) so that's a big step!

Merry Christmas my Blogger Buddies!

See you in 2011

Season of Giving

2010-12-19T22:08:00.000-08:00

Every Christmas is an opportunity for my family to give and go beyond what we did in previous years.

Now we are not the best at doing this, but this year we are trying the 25 Days of Giving thru our personal Facebook pages and trying to inspire our family and friends.

So far it looks like we did inspire some! At the very least I just love getting people to think beyond themselves and THEIR needs.

I want to tell you how this all started though and why I feel this burden to give.

We've done the giving tree at most malls since I was little. I do remember shopping for some other kid around my age and then putting it under the huge tree at Tacoma mall. Its much more scaled back now. Smaller tree, less of a presence.

Anyhow, that sort of died off with my mom as we got older, but I guess I never lost the thought of those going w/out.

Then when James and I were first married and Noah was maybe 2 we were recipients of our church giving tree. It crushed me. I wanted to be the one giving, not the one receiving and we had given to a girl that Christmas. It was hard for me to accept that someone wanted to bless us. I guess in some small way I figured people saw us as poor or needy - not that they just wanted to give because they wanted to give.

After awhile I decided I needed to be that person giving and get over my feelings associated with receiving. Good thing I did because I've gotten some good things over the years! ;)

But it started with that one Christmas and went from there.

Now with our 25 Days of Giving I can't help but want to give in every way I can - its not just giving stuff, sometimes its just giving of yourself.

Its been a little hard trying to get creative about all the things we are doing, but its been fun. I will post a full recap of all the stuff myself and others did during the 25 Days.

Be sure to give this year and give of yourself vs. giving of stuff. Stuff loses value - people never lose value.

A Circle of Gifts

2010-12-14T22:37:00.001-08:00

This is an amazing article a friend of mine who I would say is in MY gift circle found.

It looks long, but worth the read. Consider how much we can help each other with this basic idea AND help the environment.

A Circle of Gifts

Christmas "tree" Idea

2010-12-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

I found this Yo-Yo Christmas Tree on another blog and I got to thinking that might might also be just as cute to make a hair scrunchie christmas tree instead of all the work she put into it. For a little girl it might be adorable. I'll see if I can whip one up! It might not be christmasey per say, but it would be cute! And some kids need little hair scrunchies and some need the bigger ones - wrap around a dowel and viola! Instant cute tree - that you can use!

But this little tree is ADORABLE as well - I was trying to come up with ideas of things that you can not only use but reuse over and over again.

Gift Wrap - Use the Trash

2010-12-07T22:16:00.000-08:00

I stole this from Money Saving Mom because I think its SUPER cute and hello - WAY to reuse!!

basically she used onion bags and made them into cute bows! can't beat this idea and how cute!

Of course she also used brown paper sacks or any paper sacks as the 'wrapping' paper. Very simple and easy for us all to copy.

Consider doing it for your holiday this year and save some GREEN!! (sorry - I couldn't resist)

Homemade at Home

2010-11-21T19:32:00.000-08:00

Every since I've been trying to live a more purposeful life, I've learned to love to cook more. I'm not completely great at it - in fact a lot of times I fail like crazy, but usually someone will eat it. The guys at work swear I'm the best ever, but they lie so I'll make more stuff for them! ;)

But seriously I'm really starting to get better at cooking and try harder to make things from scratch. Its better for us overall and cheaper on my pocketbook.

Tonight I made 2 batches (approx 16 cups) of vegetable broth and an apple pie. I personally love to make homemade broth - so much better for us instead of the commercially prepared stuff. Typical broth such as chicken broth has 770mg on average per can. Even the low sodium stuff is full of salt. No thanks.
I'll make my own chicken broth after I cook a small chicken. Its so easy, just throw in a few carrots, onions and celery. I make mine in a crock pot so I don't have to watch it and it uses less electricity over all.

Aside from just growing to love to cook, I'll admit I love the praise I get from family and co-workers about how good my food tastes. I normally only bring in baked goods to work since its easier to transport. They love it. And I have the Internet to thank for all my good recipes! Seriously I just google stuff I want to make and can find a recipe with a ton of reviews about it and I just narrow down which one sounds the best.
I can't say all my baking has done a whole lot for my waistline, but it has made me feel more empowered about controlling what goes INTO our food.
Plus, less packaging - who doesn't love that?!

Heaters and how we're doing...

2010-11-21T19:20:00.000-08:00

I mentioned a few posts back that we will try to not used my gas furnace (which needs to be serviced badly) for as long as we can this winter.

Well last night it snowed and I've come to realize that 2 heaters is either not enough or I'm not going to win this whole "not use the furnace" challenge.

We have 2 of them - one we keep upstairs and one downstairs. Of course I do the usual stuff like keeping doors closed to rooms not needed to be heated (Oh its so cold in my bathroom!!) and keeping blinds closed to keep out the cold as much as possible, but its still pretty chilly.

My husband thinks we need another one but I don't want to spend the $$ on it right now. We'll get used to it. After all, the snow isn't that bad yet and while yes it barely snowed last year our electric & gas bill was crazy.

so we'll keep on using them - pumping up the heat if necessary even!

I'm big on sweatshirts and whats wrong with wearing a hood inside?!

the trade off I'm trying with using the electric heaters instead is to not use the dryer and hang the laundry near the heater which also helps put some moisture into the air as well. That's helpful for us all, but me and my allergies especially.

I will say that not having the gas furnace on my allergies have been grand. No crazy dust flying thru the air at random points throughout the day.

Here's hoping that by putting off the use of the furnace that we'll save it from possibly breaking down due to it needing to be serviced. This is what we get for being lazy right?!

Here's to the first snow of the year!

RE-DO

2010-11-11T20:14:00.000-08:00

BEFORE

AFTER

$4 Yard Sale purchase that is now going to make some little kid a very happy kid this Christmas!! People need to see the beauty under the ugly sometimes. While I'm sure this was passed over and over at the sale I bought it from because its just too "much" to fix it up for some people. But for me and hubby we benefit from people's laziness and make a profit off of that.
This kitchen I'm most proud of because I found it myself and know its a great find. REAL wood and good bones. Just needed a quick sand, paint job and some cute accessories then VIOLA - excellent kitchen!

So while shopping consider re-doing! you might be surprised at what you can accomplish!

Heat it Less

2010-10-24T20:15:00.001-07:00

I'm going to try this year to not use my gas furnace for as long as we can this winter. Instead I'm going to try to just use 2 space heaters and rotate them throughout the rooms we use consistently -- our bedrooms and the living room. No sense in heating up all the other rooms and paying so much to do it.

We'll see if the electric benefits outweigh what it is to use our gas furnace.

I can say that I buy all my electricity at 100% wind power or other green options so I feel like I win either way when it comes to still being green.

And we'll also see how I last by doing this!

Homemade Halloween

2010-10-22T22:13:00.000-07:00

I'm really into making homemade costumes for Halloween - none of that cheap Halloween stuff they want you to buy for $29.99 at the "spirit" stores. Yuck.

I can't even stand to go into one of those stores they just reek of junk!

But amazingly Halloween is still somehow one of the holidays we here in the US love to blow our money on.

Go figure.

But blowing your money on some crappy Halloween costume doesn't always mean it'll work out for the better.

Haven't you noticed how when someone puts work behind a costume they are the ones who win competitions or get noticed when they go out? Its not expected and that's why we like it. Is almost like we envy then while looking at them from our cheap, sad store bought one.

Maybe I'm being dramatic.

But i have proof its possible to make your own and still dress to impress!

I was a nudist on strike last year for Halloween - now I didn't win any awards, but was complimented highly about my choice of costume. (I wore a robe and held a sign that said Nudist on Strike. Robe I had, sign i stole as Halloween is always around an election time! WHAT?! I was recycling!!)

And this year I finally won something for my work!

I went this year as Flo from Progressive. Got the most creative award at work. We celebrated early due to an event near Halloween.

I made my costume like this: white pants ($0.99 sale at Goodwill), white polo (on sale for $2.25 and its a boys one so Noah can wear it later), a white apron from a craft store (with a 40% off coupon which made it $3.49), borrowed a bump-it from a co worker, had the shoes, had a headband and the name tag, progressive logo and I love insurance button I printed off the Internet. Just added some pins to attach them and glued the progressive logo on the front. Done.

And I won.

See that is how its done! A little shopping never hurt and because I put some thought behind it I barely spent anything.

Make your Halloween homemade because that is how a true greenie does it anyway.

Maybe you should be a treehugger this year - just hug someone dressed like a tree!

Supporting Local

2010-10-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

Today I was thinking about how important and beneficial it is to support a local business.
I think a lot of people assume the shopping at a privately owned business costs more then if they shopped at a local mega-store.
In some cases you would be totally correct. And obviously some brands are not carried at local businesses either.

So, how can you make the business work for you?

Well for one thing sometimes just having an "in" with the owner is the place to start.
For example our local pet store that sells all sort of dog supplies has been close with us pretty much since they've opened. We were lucky enough to help them build counter tops for their new location when they expanded into a larger building.
After doing that they give us a store credit AND 10% off all items whenever we shop there. Now that is a huge savings! It saves the tax at least.
We did do the work for free (they bought the stuff) but it was a huge pay-off for us because it meant we would get discounts and future work with them.
PLUS it means we'll continue to shop there which benefits them. Yes, I realize 10% off is nothing when you take into account the mark up on items like pet supplies, but I couldn't get that sort of treatment at PetsMart.

They also let us showcase the work my husband does with dog houses as well as give out our info when people request work for items like a dog house. We've had one lady who called us recently and she was so impressed with our work she gave us a big bonus!
To me, what our pet store does for us is priceless.

And if we had been shopping at a mega store we wouldn't that the luxury of outside work as well as just having some great friends!

So when you shop local consider what it means not only to the shop owner, but what it could mean for you as well. I know a lot of places like coffee shops for example that allow local artist to showcase their work like photos, painting, art, etc in the store for sale. Just getting your name out there is half the battle to begin with!

Its a give and take that is worth investing just a little more into a local business!

One thing to Another

2010-09-26T20:55:00.001-07:00

Here's a pic of the kitchen hubby made out of a side table from Ikea.

We got the idea from Ikea Hacker and the rest is history. Much better to use actual materials then plastic! Most of those kiddie kitchens are made out of plastic and are just not good for your kids. Consider options like this made out of wood, paint or stain with eco-happy options and you have a family heirloom that hopefully can span generations. Ok, maybe I'm being a little over the top, but you get the idea!

Funny thing happened while at Ikea...

2010-09-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

We went to ikea the other day and did a little shopping.
On our way out at the checkout I kept looking for something to bag our stuff in. We had a lot of little items that were not going to fit into my purse!
Silly Me.
I forgot that Ikea got rid of bags years ago - the cashier confirmed this when he said, "Sorry. We haven't had bags for 3 years now."
Ok sorry.
Thankfully I had my trusty red roll up bag in my purse. Whew!

I'll admit to being a little lazy in the whole bring your own bag dept. I do bring them on large trips, but sometimes fail on smaller trips for stuff.

Ikea is a great example of a sustainability leader.
They have 77 ways they are improving their impact on this earth with their Never Ending List.
I like the name.
Loads of great ideas throughout the list to help not only the environment around them, but also at the store level. Gotta hand it to them for striving to be the leader in being as sustainable as possible.
I encourage you to see the list - its vast and well thought out.
I like to shop at places that encourage things like this but at the same time don't dent my wallet so hard I can't breathe while inside! Some of the Eco-stores in our area are so expensive I can't get past the price tags, let alone consider the product. But with stores that are large like Ikea they can obviously make the biggest impact because they are big.

Kudos Ikea!

Repurposing Rather then New

2010-09-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

Because of hubby being laid off from work (still) we are trying to come up with whatever we can to make extra money on the side.
One thing we've done a little bit of is make some things for dogs and cats to be sold in our local petstore. She sells a ton of natural and homemade stuff for all animals and we just adore them. They let us help them make some register cabinets and it forged a great friendship.
I personally feel like its better to take something that is already existing, but might be very ugly and then make it into something either useful or pretty! :)

We are currently working on this ugly side table and making it into cat box furniture. Which as ugly as THAT sounds, its just a piece of furniture that you hide a cat box in. So it looks pretty and hides the litter box.

I wish we could make a job out of it honestly. I think there is plenty of furniture out there that can be repurposed rather then tossed into the dump. its hard to snag this stuff on CL and we should have been more adamant about it during Yard Sale season, but for now we'll see how we do with what we have. Lots of people repurpose furniture and make a good living off of it.... I can dream can't I? And it could still happen. We just need to get more into it!
So far we've repurposed an old table, a lawn bench and that side table (still under construction). So we're getting there.

Before you toss, consider repurposing or at the very least recycle it on CL. It'll find a home there for sure! :)

The Fair

2010-09-11T19:46:00.000-07:00

The Puyallup Fair is HUGE these here parts of Western WA and beyond. People come from very far away to visit the Fair and its a huge event!

Its the 8th Largest Fair within the US and honestly its a pretty neat thing.

I went last night and today and got to thinking about if a Fair is considered a truly "green" event or not. The Puyallup Fair does have recycling for plastic bottles and cans, but no paper recycling. Which surprises me because there is a TON of flyer's floating around that place - especially coming from the vendors.

One thing I will say about our Fair is its very clean. There are sweeper people all over the place (similar to Disneyland) and if there is trash it doesn't stay there long. Its really refreshing!

I don't think that a Fair is necessarily "green" per say, but I would say it does bring awareness about growing your own food, small farm to large farm animals and local businesses. Maybe it makes us all dreamers that we can farm our own land or raise farm animals.

At the very least it shows children that people grow their own food or food they sell for profit. At least kids can see that aspect of farming.

While a lot of people do attend the Puyallup Fair I personally think at our core its just part of who we are in this area and we are proud of our Fair! I think caring for something like a Fair and bringing people into towns that might not otherwise be visited to visit a fair is a great way to get people out of their homes and away from things like TV.

SO the Fair probably isn't very green because they do go thru a lot of trash, use a lot of electricity and all that -- but its a great place to bring your kids or just be a kid.

Go visit the Fair people!

Go Free Your Glee!

Ditch the Disposables!

2010-08-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

Egg Recall

2010-08-21T20:20:00.000-07:00

This is my son Noah last summer holding our very first egg from our tiny little flock of chickens who at the time were only 3 hens. Now we have 7 all of which are laying both brown and white eggs.

I get big beautiful eggs that are lovely and strong inside of their shells! I call eggs at the store "weak" eggs because they are so bland and tasteless. Ick.

But now with the Massive Egg Recall I have to wonder if people will turn to a more home egg option.

My little backyard flock currently is laying about 4-6 eggs a day, but my 3 older hens will stop their egg production shortly when they start molting. I think one of them is already starting to molt as her tail feathers are pretty stubby looking right now.

Either way, I'm getting a lot of eggs and all the sunshine WA is suddenly seeing is helping us tremendously with their egg production. I already have had 2 people inquire about getting eggs from my backyard flock and I don't blame them. Who wants to worry about salmonella poisoning from an egg!? I know I don't. This is going to hit egg farmers pretty hard and because their chickens don't look sick its hard for them to pin point who is carrying the strain. Horrible for sure.

But at the same time it brings up a good point about how we as consumers are endlessly wanting cheaper, BIGGER, FASTER - NOOOWWW!!! And because of that we've allowed chickens to become resistant to certain antibiotics and we want them to produce, produce, produce at a rapid rate so the chicken can't be just a chicken. So because of those of these things we do to get our food faster and cheaper we risk things like this happening. Of course thats just my opinion on the matter. I feel for the farmers, I really do. This is a huge blow to them and their families regardless of their business practices and how they treat their layers. (but I don't in any way condone or agree with how some farmers DO treat their layers. most of the time its sickening)

However, I hate to sound smug, but I don't have to worry about my eggs being bad. Its pretty rare to get eggs from someone who has organic, Free range, cage free chickens. when I was in the store today Hubby mentioned how he has never seen eggs with those 3 options on it.

So when you are out shopping for eggs this week or next, consider buying Organic Valley's eggs. they were NOT part of the recall. That is unless you don't have an option of getting a backyard chickens eggs. Even ones that don't eat organic feed are better then buying from the store right now.

Seventh Generation Fabric Softener Sheets

2010-08-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

So I bought these about 2 months ago at Toys R Us of all places when they were having a HUGE sale on Seventh Generation products. (and I had a coupon and a mail in rebate so it was worth it)

The sale gave me the opportunity to buy items from them I hadn't seen before and hadn't had a chance to try yet.

So I've been using the Blue Eucalyptus and Lavender scented ones and I have mixed feelings about them.

Pros: For one thing, they do actually reduce static cling, the sheets feel like soft paper and can be recycled when done, chlorine-Free, all the ingredients are on the back and will tell you what each ingredient truly is (that's one great thing about Seventh Generation - they don't hide ingredients!). If you are chemically sensitive you won't be offended by the smell because it has natural plant derived ingredients for the scent and come in the Scent Free option if you are extremely chemically sensitive to scents. The sheets can also be composted if you don't want to recycle them!

Cons: if you like a scent on your laundry after it hits the dryer -these are not for you. They don't leave a heavy scent on clothes which I like, but if you like that fresh from the dryer with some sickening sweet smell you don't get that from these. 65 sheets per box which is fairly typical for most dryer sheets, but does not come in a huge box. If you want to buy it in bulk i would check out Amazon.com as they typically can offer many Seventh Generation products in bulk. The sheets are brown paper sheets - sort of like a paper sack. For some this might put them off a bit for the rest of us it means it can be recycled or composted!

I personally would say that over all they are great! Being able to compost or recycle them is wonderful and truly feels like I'm keeping all my waste out of the landfill.

It took some getting used to with the brown paper look, but they don't stick to your clothes like traditional dryer sheets so no surprises finding a dryer sheet up a pant leg! So I suggest you give it a try. Don't let the price scare you and don't forget Seventh Generation often offers coupons on their site. So no excuses! Give 'em a try and tell me what you think.

Picture from Seventh Generation Site.

I'll Admit it

2010-08-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Ok I'll come out and admit what I think many have suspected for awhile -- I've been shopping more at Wal*Mart.

whew.
Man it feels good to get that off my chest.

I try not to buy clothing and things like that because I can't stomach buying stuff that was made more then likely by a child in another country. Low prices does not mean a good deal. :(
same goes for toys. I'm still making Noah buy more sustainable gifts like purchasing water for a developing country. He doesn't like that. Oh well.

But as for groceries, while I still do as much shopping as I can on the loss leaders at other grocery stores; however, I have to admit that Wal*Mart is cheaper. Of course we all know why they are cheaper -- its just because they can purchase in HUGE amounts and being the largest retailer in the world sadly they have the upper hand on some items. When I do shop I try to buy things that are organic or are from a company that has more sustainable practices. Although, there isn't a ton of companies that are "in" at Wal*Mart that have sustainable practices there are some. What is hard is knowing that companies like MorningStar Farms is owned by Kellogs....or StoneyField now owns Brown Cow and how they sometimes have to source out organic milk from as far away as New Zealand.
I get it.
Shopping organic is not easy nor is it always what we want.
Which is why growing your own or making it from scratch is more likely to be closer to home then some of the organic companies I try to support.

I'm getting off track here.

But I still need staples like milk, sugar, flour, spices -- you know staples! while I would love to be able to afford having my milk delivered in the pretty glass bottles that you can return the next week....sometimes the sales in the stores and using a coupon is just a better deal. I don't know...we've toyed with the milkman idea for awhile now, especially since I insist on Organic Milk only.
I did have to stop my Terra Organics delivery because it was just getting to be too much and to expensive. But I miss it terribly. Especially since we didn't grow any good lettuce this year in my garden!! UGH! Store bought lettuce is gross and I can't do it.

So I feel better admitting I've been shopping at Wal*Mart. Let me tell you though - when I realized how much I was shopping there I then realized I was also buying a lot of stuff i normally wouldn't buy that have a lot of packaging. Shame on me. TV dinners are my weakness. Sometimes I just don't want to cook or try to come up with an dinner idea. But then you think about how much waste I'm making which means I'm also putting more trash out which means I might have to upgrade to a bigger trash can -- and the list goes on.

Anyway....now that I've admitted my fault I'll probably scale back.
I just have to try harder to avoid it and stop justifying the "savings" I'm getting there. Its not a big savings in the end when you think about the overall cost of how Wal*Mart treats their people at the store level as well as those who manufacture for them. I need to stop.

Besides, if my beloved Top Foods went out of business because of the Wal*Mart across the street I think I would be hurt....and partly responsible.

Biking Again..

2010-07-24T16:58:00.001-07:00

So I've started biking again to work. I could have been biking for the last month or so, but have been lazy.

Now I really don't have an excuse because I need to save the gas AND they built an overpass on my route that literally saves me about 10 min off my drive time. Its also got a sidewalk on it so I won't DIE. Best part about the new overpass -- its not open to vehicles yet! Yay! So I'm probably breaking some law by biking over it while its still closed to car traffic, but dang it - I need to use it.

I found yet again while riding that its not a chore. In fact, I sort of feel like I'm a part of some secret club or something. Its very liberating too! I don't' have a fancy bike for sure (I'll admit I bought this bike about 10 yrs ago at Wal*Mart) and I have a silly helmet with daisy's all over it, but I enjoy it a lot. I'll miss it when I can't do it anymore.

Currently I can bike to work due to yet again hubby being out of work which means I don't have to tote Noah to day camp. I've only technically started riding for about 2 days this past week, but hey, that's 2 days I saved on gas and biking early in the morning is like working out right?!

For some people its running or walking, I think I've found its biking for me. I hope to one day when hubby has a job and the world is all well to get a new fancy commuter bike - like a REAL bike the people spend $100 of dollars on. Not spend, $20's on. I do hope that maybe I can find a used one or a floor model one because looking at the costs on bikes makes me gasp a little. But my biker friends say that its worth the investment and you earn it back quicker by not using so much gas anymore.

I really have my eye on this one because it has no chain! How awesome is THAT?!

Anyway here's to saving gas this summer people. :) no go ride!

Cleaning the Bathroom

2010-07-17T18:12:00.000-07:00

Personally I loathe cleaning the bathroom. I like the look afterwards, but the cleaning process it self makes me shudder. I especially hate cleaning the shower/tub. Our tub is pretty much a small lake so I have to STRETCH all the way across the thing while perched on the other side to scrub it.

But I clean with the MOST possible green options out there. Obviously people clean with a lot of bleach in the bathroom, but cannot stand bleach - it gives me a raging headache. I will however use Seventh Generations Bleach if I feel the need to SUPER clean something.

Hubby brought this Scouring Powder by Seaside Naturals home awhile back, but it was hidden under the sink in my son's bathroom. I figured I would give it a try since I'm getting low on my baking soda and I needed something with a bit more grit in it to scrub the tub.

It ended up working out really well!

Best part is I can name and understand the ingredients on the label. Here is the ingredient listing: Baking Soda (I know what that is!!!), Borax, Washing Soda, Sodium Perborate, Clay and a blend of pure essential Oils. That's it! Best part is I honestly do know what each item is an know that its safe for me not only use, but also safe to use around Noah and my dogs. 100% to the core! Gotta love it!

I was impressed enough to check out their website and here is a little about them:

Seaside Naturals, Inc. manufactures and markets high quality all natural cleaning products. Seaside Naturals goal is to become a leading household brand for quality natural and organic home and personal care products.

The Company pays close attention to every ingredient used in its formulations to ensure each ingredient is classified as natural by the Natural Products Association and effectively serves its intended purpose while providing a pleasing aroma that is safe for people, animals, and the environment and adds value to the consumer's household.

They sell everything from that Scouring Powder to general cleaners -- all 100% Natural. Yay!

I'm not sure where Hubby bought this, but they do sell all their items online and have a listing of where its available. At the very least just know that you could also mix baking soda, borax and washing soda yourself to make a very similar powder. How much of each you would use I don't know yet, but I can honestly say its worth the extra time and effort to make your own cleaning items. If you don't want to do that know you can buy Seaside Naturals!

Shaving Stuff

2010-06-28T20:09:00.000-07:00

Ok as a lady I'm supposed to shave my legs, but I'll be honest I hate to do it because I usually cut my leg up so bad that it bleeds for days.
And I don't live where I need to wear shorts all the time and here in the great state of Washington I'm so white I blind people if I do.

But when I do shave I don't use conventional shaving creams/gels/foams/etc.
Nor do I use some fancy eco-happy shaving cream.

Instead I use plain old conditioner (which usually is eco-happy conditioner).
Yep I just rub it on my legs when I get in the shower to soften the hair a bit which means I don't have to get the water super hot to soften the said leg hair.

Then depending on if I need to reapply a little bit more conditioner I shave away.

Trust me on this it works!
Besides its cheaper to use conditioner, you don't need to use some gel that is in a can that you can't recycle, you probably have conditioner laying around anyway and your legs will be conditioned! Its like in the shower lotion. Less need to use lotion when you get out.

Try this one!
I promise you'll like it. Unless you are super allergic to certain creams -- then I promise you nothing.

Oil dependance or just a bad disaster?

2010-06-17T17:47:00.000-07:00

Ok ... here goes

I would rather not be one of the zillions of people who want to voice their opinion on this oil spill crisis, but I feel like I need to say something.

I'll admit I drive so clearly I use oil. I'm not a shining example of someone who strives to use as little oil as possible - I do what I can, but I do drive so I won't win any arguments on that side.

But what I'm frustrated about with people is their choice to just start pointing fingers at BP chastising them for off shore drilling and safety and on and on and on.

We get it.

Off shore drilling is clearly a disaster waiting to happen, but we have them all over and now people want to take notice?

Its like fair weather protesting in my opinion.

But we forget about the other things that we as a society use that contain oil - even us "greenies." Its not just for our cars anymore. Oil is in more then I think any of us even knows or WANTS to know about. Here is a list here, here and here.

Doesn't it amaze you that the things we use everyday contain oil and I mean petroleum oil like what is leaking in the Gulf of Mexico. We as a society are so dependant on petroleum is almost mind blowing.

Can you imagine trying to survive without pain pills?

Yep, they have oil in them. And here we are worrying about the safety of seafood from the Gulf -- too late you already ingested oil today more then likely in cough syrup or when you rubbed Vaseline on you.

Scary isn't it?

Go look at those lists people!!

Be educated about ALL that we use with oil - its not just our cars.

I also want to say after listening to the president give his address to the nation after speaking with the BP execs, that Mr. Obama I'm sorry when you said this: "The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet. You know, the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon. And yet, time and again, we have refused to settle for the paltry limits of conventional wisdom. " The comparison of our ability to produce enough planes and tanks for WWII doesn't compare to the damaging effects on an eco-system. This is world altering -- and not something we can just repair or build.

When an animal goes extinct its a bit bigger deal then building a tank. I hope it won't come to that, but looking at these animals and seeing tons of animals of the sea wash up on shore breaks my heart. And no I don't put animals before people -- I'm not going there. I'm just pointing out that when a fish breathes its last breath because of our greed for oil I feel partially responsible. That fish could have fed someone or fed another animal in the sea -- its an ongoing cycle.

This is bigger then putting a man on the moon.

I don't think what to think anymore.

However, I want to see it.

In some sick way I want to witness the devastation that my own greed for oil has brought upon the Gulf of Mexico. I don't think I will get to see it anytime soon, but I'd like to help in some way. This is a big deal -- its EPIC.

What are your thoughts?

Or do you even care anymore?

2010 Seattle Green Festival

2010-06-03T07:09:00.000-07:00

Join us at the Seattle Green Festival June 5-6
Welcome to the Seattle Green Festival®, a joint project of Global Exchange and Green America. Named one of the top 10 green cities in the U.S. in 2005 by National Geographic's The Green Guide, what better place to celebrate an urban community's vision of green than Seattle? Led by the Office of Sustainability and the Environment, the City of Seattle is proud to co-host the Green Festival in the Pacific Northwest.

Seattle Green Festival is where you will discover some of the best green products and services the Northwest has to offer. Through Seattle Climate Action Now!, Clean & Green Seattle and the city's many other climate projects, you'll learn how neighbors, community nonprofits and city departments are working together to make their city a healthier place to live.

Seattle Logistics

June 5-6, 2010
Saturday – 10am – 7pm
Sunday – 11am – 6pm
WA State Convention & Trade Center
800 Convention Place
Seattle, WA 98101

*Article was SHAMELESSLY stolen from the Seattle Green Festivals Page. Go check it out for more info on how to get in for cheap & what will be there this year.

Recycling At Its Best

2010-05-31T20:48:00.000-07:00

I'm pretty sure a yard sale is recycling at its ultimate best.

You typically can't get better then most prices and you are shopping used while supporting locally. (the local part is a stretch I know)

But MAN even on a gray, cold, semi-misty rainy day we had people out in Droves at our sale which netted us quite a haul for our son's school tuition.

People in general weren't too bad with the prices. I had to go low on a few things, but it was worth it in the end. After all I don't need anything else to be added to my own personal load of stuff! I would say that about 85% of the stuff we had our sale was donated by others who also didn't need anymore stuff in their lives.

Any of that stuff that didn't make the cut was sent to the free pile that was taken from about 8 boxes to 3. Oh the Free stuff. More junk you don't need or could even want.

But no sense in sending it to the dump - someone might actually use it and it'll stay out of the dump for at least one other person. Here's hoping anyway.

So how well did we do? Well we did about $1000 just for one sale. Thats not too shabby dontcha think??

Thanks to everyone who helped and made it fun and FANTASTIC!

Local Meat Options

2010-05-08T19:45:00.000-07:00

Awhile back I talked about how I really only wanted to buy local chicken or other meats (not for myself as I don't eat any red meats). I failed to find anything local until I got an email the other day about it from my Terra Organics Delivery Service.

If you live in the local Puyallup, Sumner, Tacoma area and surrounding and are looking for meat options try some of these!
Now I haven't tried any of these yet, but at least here are some options.
Here was the email:

We are frequently asked to reveal our source for local, healthy meat. We love Cheryl the Pig Lady, Thundering Hooves and Heritage Meats. In fact, we will soon be offering products from both Heritage Meats and Thundering Hooves. In the mean time, there are a couple of other options out there for you, the discerning and conscientious eater.

I can't speak from personal experience (yet!) about our first referral, but Inger Owen, and her husband, Dave, operate Fraction Farm in Eatonville, WA. There, the couple raises antibiotic and hormone-free pastured poultry and is WSDA certified for on-site slaughtering. The requirement for on-farm slaughtering is that all meat is sold from the premises within a 48 hour window and is never frozen. That means that you can buy your bird the same day that it was harvested and bring it straight home to the rotisserie. Their next farm day is Sunday, May 16th, from 10am - 2pm; whole chickens are available for $4.00 per pound. Email Inger at inger@fractionfarm.com for more information.

The second referral is Bruce Dunlop, from Lopez Island Farm. In addition to restaurant sales, an on-farm retail stand, processed jams, syrups and chutneys, Bruce sells pre-ordered meat out of the back of his pickup truck in the Proctor District of Tacoma. Once a month (if we're lucky) he makes the drive down from Lopez with his delicious pork, beef and lamb. His next trip is planned for early June, so email him at bruce@lopezislandfarm.com if you'd like to be put on the mailing list to receive an order form every month or so.

I'm most excited about the chicken option! No more caged, cheap chicken for us! I can't wait. If I do get a chance to try any of these soon you know you'll all be the first to know about it. Also note that Cheryl the Pig Lady is almost always at the Saturday Farmers Market at Pioneer Park in Puyallup. She's really sweet and has some great veggie starts to!

Green Birthday

2010-05-08T19:40:00.000-07:00

I had a very green birthday this time around.
I just turned 32 yrs old the other day and it was surprisingly
Green.

And not in the way you would think I'm sure.
I didn't have a green cake or get green gifts -- in fact, I had none of that.
I went away for the weekend and just enjoyed the beach and did nothing. I bought one thing to treat myself, but it was made by a local artist using natural materials (it was a driftwood cross with some shells and glass).

I didn't get a bunch of gifts or had a party, nothing like that. You could say that because I was going out of town in a car is wasn't THAT green of a birthday, but for me this was pretty green. I hardly drove at all when i did reach my destination. Rather opting to walk everywhere including to get my groceries. I stayed in quite a bit enjoying having a room to myself and walking all over town.

All in all it was a green birthday.

Happy Green Birthday to you if yours is coming up!

Use this Font to Save Ink

2010-05-08T19:33:00.000-07:00

A recent IT department study from the University of Wisconsin has discovered that using the Century Gothic Font will actually save ink when set as your Font.

All you have to do is change the Font on your documents or emails and when you or someone else prints them out it'll use less ink because it has thinner lines.

Brilliant!

And who would have thought.

I changed my font at work so if anyone does happen to print my emails at least they are forced to save some ink on my part. Its a small thing to help you not only save ink, but save on ink costs!

image from here

My Stuff vs. My Need

2010-04-24T21:04:00.001-07:00

This might seem like an oddly titled post, but bear with me here.

I will be having a garage sale at the end of May -- just like the rest of my town does from May to September. i think people drive to Puyallup just to find the good deals and not just on cars. Side joke that only Puyallup people will get sorry.

Anyhow, we are wanting to keep my son in his private school, but due to our lack of funds (also known as Hubby doesn't have a job for the past year lack of funds) its making it incredibly hard to imagine having that happen right now. Especially when the school can only cover about $1500 out of the $6500 we will owe. Ouch. Yes its expensive, but so worth it. I know God wants Noah there, but he's going to have to answer a few prayers about it.

So we are starting with the yard sale.
I'm asking for my friends and family to donate stuff to our sale in exchange for us to gain more fundage towards Noah's school. I don't know if it'll work, but I have a feeling we are going to get a flood of response about this.

So now I'm looking at the stuff around my house and all of a sudden they just seem silly. For example, we have so many sheet sets. I was shocked at how many we had and I don't know why we have so many. We only have 2 beds to put them on in the first place. Now if you have been reading this blog for awhile you know that we gave a single mom about 7 sets 2 years ago. And here we are again reassessing what we have.

Now when I look at my stuff I think, is this more important then my son and what we want for him? He wants to go to his school next year and I want what he wants. Giving him the best is worth it to me and if that means I go without some stuff then so be it. Besides it's so cleansing to go thru your stuff and see everything so clean and open!

Back to the sheets. We are only keeping 4 sets for Noah and 5 for us. And we are going to sell 4 more sets at the yard sale. Not to mention a bunch of blankets and things that I wonder why I was hiding in a closet to begin with!

Its hard.
Don't get me wrong I'm all about keeping the stuff to a minimum but this time around its feeling like I need to purge more stuff then we ever thought possible and its for an amazing cause! And really? Do I honestly need 10 sets of sheets?? I think not.

Obviously whatever doesn't sell we'll donate, but I'm really going to start praying that God'll bring a flood of people to the sale and just blow us away with whatever happens in the next month while we gather up stuff. I'm having a lot of expectations for this in my mind and I'm believing they'll come to pass.

Isn't it funny how when we start accumulating stuff especially when we move into our first home we think we NEED it and then something happens in your life and those things seem so small. Suddenly my need doesn't seem necessary anymore.

We're doing this for Noah and sacrificing our stuff hardly seems like anything. I would sell so much if it meant Noah could stay at his school for another 6 years! (that's how many years he'll have left after 6th grade! CRAZY!)

For now before the sale hits, I'll be trying to sell some stuff thru Craigslist and the like to see if I can get top dollar first and the rest will be liquidated. Everyone loves those sales where most stuff is around a $1 or less! I know I do!!

So if you wouldn't mind praying the weather holds out too that would be great! Thanks People and remember Yard Sales are a GREAT way to Recycle not only your own stuff but other peoples stuff too.
Here's to yard Sale Season!

Earth Week

2010-04-18T18:56:00.000-07:00

So Earth Week probably officially started yesterday, but I saw a really neat thing in a Target ad that I had to share.

In your April 18th Target Ad there is a section that shows all their Eco-Friendly items and Targets sustainability commitment.
In those pages there is a little section that says Recycle=Reward.
And it says, "Send us 5 Target plastic bags, Get a coupon for $1 off any Reusable Bag valued over $1.49. With this offer, Target and TErracycle are partnering to help you save resources. Learn more about TerraCycle and our commitment to the environment at Target.com/eco-friendly."

And you just fold over the page and it has a postage paid envelope you can make out of the paper flyer to mail in your Target Bags. I say, even if you don't want the $1 off coupon for a reusable bag, just send in 5 bags to be recycled anyway! This is a Win Win situation. I don't think I even have 5 target bags right now, but I'm going to look anyhow.

Very cool Target and Kudos to this idea! Keep it up ;)

Here's a little video from the TerrraCycle peeps! Shows how they turn our trash into something cool.

Looking for a Gift

2010-04-17T16:07:00.000-07:00

So I've decided to start getting people gifts the Give from now on. No more getting crap for kids or silly gifts that will just one day end up in the trash because its breaks. And let's not forget that most toys are made in China with workers slaving over them for pennies. No thanks.
Of course Noah is probably going to hate me for being "that mom" that gives stuff that like this, but so what. Its not like he's buying it with his money.

Here are some ideas:

Feedprojects.org
FEED Projects goal is to reach hungry children through the sales of our FEED bags. FEED bags raise much-needed funds for WFP school-feeding operations and awareness of the problem of child hunger.

All FEED products are made as eco-friendly and fairly as possible. Our bags are produced with high-quality, 100% organic cotton and natural burlap. We work with only audited and certified fair labor facilities. It's important to us to visit the places our products are made AND the places our donations are going.

Of course don't forget about Charity: Water.

They have really snazzy looking gifts that go A LONG way in helping people in developing countries. The simple gift of water sounds so small, but think about it. Water is what brings and keeps us living. I think water is so important and is why God mentions water over and over in his Word.

World Vision's Gift Catalog

Its year round that you can buy a goat or chickens or supply a micro loan for a women! Some gifts get you a gift too. And they do have gifts that provide supplies or clothing to children state side so if you don't want to donate to someone in another country you can provide something here too.

Oxfam is another one similar to World Vision with a lot of great gift giving options. You can even buy poop. I'm NOT joking. My favorite is the mosquito nets as they are a simple gift that goes a long way in protecting children from deadly bites. They are only $18. What a steal!

World of Good on Ebay has over 15000 eco and socially conscious goods available for Sale.

Don't forget our good friends at globaldaughter.com! Great gifts that support women in Nepal.

I need to get a gift but I'm going to let Noah pick it as its for his friend. Let's see what he chooses!

2010-04-07T19:54:00.000-07:00

I apologize for not writing in so long. I have had some computer issues and they are finally better.

I know I said this last time, but I'll write more soon!

I just need to build up my green momentum again and get to penning some of my thoughts about this stuff!!

I will say we have 4 new baby chicks who are about 2 months old now and our greenhouse is in use! Not to mention I have more soil to plant additional beds.

I'll post pictures shortly about that. Trying to grow more from Seed.

For now here are some pics of our Organic Delivery service that I can only dream our garden will look like this someday!

Blessings people!

Method Laundry Detergent

2010-03-24T19:24:00.000-07:00

Method has new Laundry Detergent out that some of you may have seen and were curious about. So I bought a bottle the other day only because i had a $2 off coupon - $2 off is pretty snazzy. You can snag the $2 off coupon HERE if you were thinking about trying it anyway.

So it comes in 2 different sizes, 25 loads or 50 loads. Each bottle only requires you to pump 4 times and that will clean one standard load. For smaller loads you can do 2 pumps or larger or really dirty loads just pump 6 times.

Here is what Method says about it on the bottle: "Just a few tiny squirts and our ultra concentrated patent-pending Smartclean Technology delivers big cleaning power. Biodegradable, 95% plant based formula, 70% less detergent, water & plastic per load then conventional 2x detergent, hypo-allergenic, smells like Heaven"

So I've used it on a couple of loads so far and it seems to work fairly well. Probably one of its most inspiring things is Noah can use it and do his OWN laundry and not complain the bottle is too heavy or I worry he'll dump a couple of gallons of soap in the dispenser. Seriously mom's its easy to use - kid proof in fact! Ok keep it for the older kids as you don't want to eat the stuff, but you get the idea.

I got the Fresh Air scent and the smell is ok and comes out smelling like it from the dryer. I personally don't care if my detergent has a heavy smell because to me it makes me think it wasn't rinsed properly if it smells like the detergent. It comes in Fresh Air scent, Peony Blossom and Free & Clear (unscented).

I was surprised it actually worked. I don't' think I'll keep buying it as to me it seemed a little $$, but if it was on sale I would totally scoop it up.

I need to do a little price per ounce comparison with my current Ecos Laundry Soap to see if its truly cheaper. Its been awhile since I bought it the Ecos bottle since its a big jug from Costco.

Of course its recyclable (I can't recycle the pump however) and its made from 50%-70% recycled plastic.

I would think if you were elderly or had issues with pouring those big jugs this would be Heaven sent. Its SO light and tiny it almost makes you think you are not using it right. I had to read hte label a few times to be Sure I was dosing correctly. Another great thing is because its so light it wouldn't take a lot to ship it. Having trucks laden down with large laundry soap jugs makes for poor gas mileage and you can't ship as many at a time as the tiny bottles. Super Eco-Plus! :)

The only thing I didn't like was when it pumped you had to hold it up a little high to pump it into our HE Machine's (front loading) little soap dispenser. Since I don't add the soap directly to my clothes like a top loading one it made it a little difficult. Just had to flip it right side up a few times and made sure I wasn't holding it nearly upside down when pumping.

So go try it. Its at Target and $2 is worth it. It was originally $7.99 here for a 25 load bottle so with my coupon it was a good deal. Obviously you are going to pay more then traditional cheap laundry soap because it is plant based, but so worth it.

Now go for it!

For more info from Method Laundry click HERE.

Charity:Water

2010-03-19T22:38:00.000-07:00

So keeping with the whole water theme, my fellow blogger friend Karen pointed out this really cool site called Charity:Water.

Probably the MOST cool thing about them is that when you donate just $20 it can provide water for one person for 20 YEARS. Yes, you read that right, 20 YEARS. Pretty freakin' awesome if you ask me.

Here is their mission statement: "It’s hard not to think about water today. In the western world, we face growing concerns about our stewardship of the world’s most precious resource. There’s talk of shortages, evidence of reservoirs and aquifers drying up, and of course, plenty of people who simply don’t care.

But forget about us.

Most of us have never really been thirsty. We’ve never had to leave our houses and walk 5 miles to fetch water. We simply turn on the tap, and water comes out. Clean. Yet there are a billion people on the planet who don’t have clean water.
It’s hard to imagine what a billion people looks like really, but one in eight might be easier. One in eight people in our world don’t have access to the most basic of human needs. Something we can’t imagine going 12 hours without.
Here, we’d like to introduce you to a few of those billion people. They are very real, and they need our help. They didn’t choose to be born into a village where the only source of water is a polluted swamp. And I didn’t choose to be born in a country where even the homeless have access to clean water and a toilet.
I invite you to put yourself in their shoes. Follow them on their daily journey. Carry 80 pounds of water in yellow fuel cans. Dig with their children in sand for water. Line up at a well and wait 8 hours for a turn.
Now, make a decision to help. We’re not offering grand solutions and billion dollar schemes, but instead, simple things that work. Things like freshwater wells, rainwater catchments and sand filters. For about $20 a person, we know how to help millions of people.

Start by helping one. "

They work with many other organizations that work in other countries and donate 100% of the donations to their work with building wells or providing yellow jugs like pictured above. They have proof of all the locations of where wells are or the yellow jugs are too! From Google Maps you can view every spot where their works are at. Its pretty incredible.

I decided after viewing their site to donate water by purchasing The Little Black Box as a wedding gift for a friend who recently got married on the Beach. I thought it was fitting that they got water since they were not only married by the water, but are now honeymooning by the water in Maui. And spending just over $32 (tax & shipping) for a wedding gift that literally keeps on giving is pretty snazzy. I don't know if they'll think the same thing, but hey! I got them something right?! ;)

So if the water links I listed below didn't motivate you enough check out Charity:Water and imagine giving to someone for 20 years for $20. A dollar a year people! I think you can handle that much. Now go donate.

P&G & Pur Water

2010-03-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

Ok the other day I was flipping thru my newspaper I bought at the store ( don't judge me for buying a paper!) and came across the P&G Brand Saver coupons.

The front of the paper said that when you use one of their coupons it equals 2L or One Day of Clean Water for developing countries. The coupons range from items from P&G ( Proctor & Gamble) as Oil of Olay, Head & Shoulders, Swiffers, Pringles, Tide, Febreeze, Old Spice, Secret, Cascade, Dawn, Bounce (are you sensing a theme here??), Iams, Luvs, Always, Tampax and Oral B. And the list keeps going. I hope you saw the interesting theme of items that P&G sells on a daily basis. Mainly items that are not good not only for the environment, but also not good for you. Most of the items P&G sells have chemicals like Sodium laureth sulfate and acetone which ironically enough can harm our own drinking water, but are chemicals most families never think twice about.

I'm torn about this issue and offer P&G is offering. On one hand P&G and Pur are correct, there are over 4000 children who die DAILY due to poor drinking water. That just makes me sick and I don't know how those of us can sleep at night knowing that children can't even find clean drinking water and can die from such simple things like Diarrhea. And the packet they offer to developing countries is extremely easy to use and cleans the water of 99.99999% of bacteria.

What could be easier??

And being able to provide a child with a DAY's worth of drinking water is a good thing. We in the US waste more water in our showers then some kids get in a day anyway. Humbling.

But on the other hand, I can't purchase any of those items and put them into my home knowing they will pollute the inside of my house worse then outside. And lets not forget about all the packaging most of these products are packaged with.

It seems so easy doesn't it? Just use a coupon, you save and you help save a child. Brilliant marketing wise -- prey on the feelings of those of us with children.

I think instead I'll consider BUYING the packet from Pur directly rather then giving into buying the items associated with P&G. What do you think? They state that only $30, ONLY $30 PEOPLE can provide clean drinking water for a YEAR! A YEAR!!! I pay more for my own water bill and I waste water in ways I don't even want to talk about. To donate, click on the link below and at the bottom right hand side there is a link for Donate Now.

Don't bother supporting P&G's products -- go right to source and donate. Save yourself from polluting chemicals and products, but Save a child.

For more information about the Children's Save Drinking Water Fund go to http://www.csdw.org/csdw/home.shtml

Badger Balm

2010-03-04T07:14:00.000-08:00

I purchased the Badger Balm about a month ago now and was waiting to write about it so I could give a full review on how it works.

Because of some of the stress in my life lately I've had a lot of trouble sleeping so I thought I would look for more herbal and natural remedies to help it. I was also looking for headache items as well.

I stumbled upon this on Google and read a lot of reviews on it (on Amazon.com) before I committed to it. The price wasn't an issue as the reviews said the little tins lasted forever. So I went ahead and took the chance and bought the sleep balm shown here and also the Headache balm.

I was able to try the headache balm first one night when I came home from work with a nice headache. You just rub a little of the balm on your finger and rub it on your temples, neck, behind your ears or on the area where your headache is. I just rub it on my face and sometimes behind my ears. Amazingly it worked. I didn't think it would, but it did. I don't know whats in there, but it worked. I haven't used it for one of those knock your socks off headaches and I don't get migraines (thank you Jesus!) so I can't speak to that, but if you have let me know how it worked.

As for the sleep balm, it mostly helps me relax to fall asleep. Its doesn't work like a sleeping pill where it makes you fall asleep, this helps you just relax your mind. Which I need because I'm like most women where my head hits the pillow and my thoughts just start a-going. Here is what Badger Balm says about the sleep aid: "A dreamy night balm rich with precious oils to calm, encourage, cheer and relax poetic badgers and other restless wanderers. Just rub a little balm under nose, on lips, on temples or other pulse points. Or use the oil for after-bath moisturizing or soothing massage. The aroma does the work. Rosemary is the traditional herb for clear thinking, confidence, and memory. Bergamot is mentally uplifting. Ginger is strengthening and confidence-inducing. Balsam Fir is refreshing, like a walk in the woods. Lavender is the traditional sleep herb; fresh and relaxing. But Sleep Balm doesn't make you sleepy! It helps quiet your thoughts, then you fall asleep naturally.
Ingredients: *Extra Virgin Olive Oil, *Golden Yellow Beeswax, *Castor Oil, and Essential Oils of *Bergamot, *Ginger, *Rosemary, *Lavender & *Balsam Fir."

Another great feature of the Badger Balm is all ingredients are now Certified Organic and its a small local company. They also have items for children as well. I recommend purchasing from their website directly, but you can buy it on Amazon.com. Don't take my word for it! Go try it yourself. I think you'll be amazed and find that it works!

Consumerism at its Best

2010-02-27T11:27:00.000-08:00

So the Wii Fit Board is quite a popular thing as some of you may know. The weird thing is this has been out for over a year now, but there is a little shortage of them around WA. Let me explain.

We started looking for one when we got our Wii (on a trade, we traded a guitar for a Wii) because I had heard its a great tool for working out and staying active.
So we started seeking them out online on places like Craigslist or Amazon.com and amazingly there wasn't any. Eventually we found one at the store and James bought 2 thinking he could sell the other one for some extra money.
Well that one additional Wii Board turned into about 10 more that we bought and sold again at a higher price. People are crazy wanting these.
We had someone this week drive from Ellensburg to our house here in Puyallup which is about a 3 hour drive AND you have to get over the Pass in the Mountains. That's crazy.

People are just not willing to wait for items to return back into the stores so they are willing to spend whatever to get what they want WHEN they want it. And of course, they want it NOW.

We discovered that Nintendo and other game makers are not making a whole lot of any video game accessories or systems due to the Chinese New Year. So production is a little delayed. And getting items from overseas like China and parts of Asia where nearly all video game items are made take awhile to get to us. Slow boat from China type of thing.

But thanks to the great American need for stuff NOW, I have my Wii Fit Board paid off in full and I had some extra grocery money this month.

I know you are probably thinking that's extortion to be buying something for around $100 and then selling it for an "X" (I'm not telling you HOW much we made, just know it was enough) amount more then the retail price. But you know what? It worked and while we are done doing that it just goes to show that consumers are CRAZY when it comes to wanting something.

Imagine if consumers were like that about paying off their debts? I don't think we'd have such a high rate of consumer debt if they had the same passion to pay off their debts as they are about getting MORE stuff.

Just crazy.

What You Spend On?

2010-02-20T20:46:00.000-08:00

My husband and I are going thru the MHA Program which is thru the US Government for our mortgage. Part of going thru any mortgage process is pretty much showing them everything you've spent money on for a couple of months.

When we had to fax in the last 2 months of our bank statements I wondered what they would think when they saw what we spent on.

Would they wonder why I continue to give to World Vision?

Would they understand why I bought all that stuff from Target and Old Navy during December for my Christmas Families?

Would they just think we went crazy at Christmas time on ourselves and Family?

Would they understand why I get frozen strawberries at Top Foods for $7.99 a bag?

Would buying Organic somehow not justify how we spend our money?

Would not buying enough groceries somehow make us look bad?

All of this runs thru my mind when I consider them looking deep into our money stuff. I wonder what they would also think when they saw our Giving Portion (section A I believe) of our taxes. Would they think we gave too much?

Would giving somehow make them question our spending?

Doesn't that seem backwards? That giving would somehow raise a red flag. I don't think it will, but I would hate to think that they would question us or question why we give at all. I would hope they look at our finances and say, "they gave." and that's that. Just that we gave. We didn't spend. We gave.

We gave more this year then any year we have in the past. And while that might sound prideful, for me, it makes me look at how much we COULD have given in the years we had a lot more. Instead in our leanest times we gave as much as we could. I think God really has shown me that even in our "leanest" periods we can still give A LOT and still have enough left over.

I'll let you know if anything comes up from all that we've given and our MHA process. I just thought you might like to think about how you have spent and/or given this year. Doing our taxes always reminds us of how wealthy we are and how much we really DID have over the past year.

No more Chicken

2010-02-15T18:53:00.000-08:00

Its official. We are out of commercially raised chicken. Now if I want chicken I have to commit to my promise to only buy chicken that was raised either humanely and locally or Organic. All of the above would be nice!

I only have about 4 more lbs of ground turkey as well.

Once all those meats are gone, I don't intend to buy anything less then high quality, humanely raised chicken. Its a tall order for sure considering the costs, but I'm thinking it'll help curb some of our meat eating period. As of right now Hubby and Noah hardly eat any red meats (Noah eats them mainly at school) so when they do eat a lot of it they feel pretty ill.

Believing I can stick to this. It'll be hard especially in light of our financial situation and having one less job, but I think it'll truly make us rethink not only what we are eating but how Much we are eating. Time to scale that back as well.

First CSA Delivery

2010-02-08T20:43:00.001-08:00

It finally came last week and I was waiting to write about it so I could actually taste what was in my box!
And here it is!

My box contained as you can see:
2 Lemons
3 Pears
3 Oranges
3 Applies
Radishes
Red Leaf Lettuce
Carrots
1 Cucumber
Tiny Tomatoes
Cauliflower
Cilantro

OH the best part was the Cilantro!! Oh its amazing and it was so big and healthy. Still eating it nearly daily right now. This is the "Small" box when I order from Terra-Organics which as you may recall is a local CSA delivery service.
I forgot to mention that all of the item are Organic and as much as they can from local farms. Obviously some stuff is not local, but in the paper they include with your delivery they have the miles your food traveled. Most of my food was from WA to California with the Tomatoes being the farthest away in Mexico.
On our little paper was recipes to use the Cilantro as it was the special "featured" item in our box this week and tips on how to store it.

I think this is going to be a match made in heaven. For one I hate to shop for produce. I'm one of those people who wish someone would do it for me and while I love to support local, its hard to do that sometimes when the Farmers Market is not in season. My box only cost me $25 and to me that is a great deal for Organic, local produce AND Free delivery included in your cost.

Each week your box is different and they email what is in your box that coming week. Their website is extremely user friendly and you can even opt out of any veggies or fruits that you don't want to see come in your box (no thanks Bok-choy!).
And if you DO have an issue with items that came from too far away they have an all Washington items box so you only get what is locally within the state for the season we are in.

I will continue to let you know what my box is like each week. So far we haven't polished it all off, but Noah did eat all the fruit (except the lemons) in about a week. For that, I'm super happy about.

here's to happy organic eating everyone!!

PS. if you ARE in my area and want to try out Terra-Organics let me know as I think I get a Finders Fee ;) Hey, I like Free stuff just like everyone else!

Coupon Debate

2010-01-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

You may remember I wrote about whether or not couponing was truly "green" when you consider the waste coupons - or the products you buy with them - really have.

So after shopping most of December and some of January with coupons I came to the conclusion that while couponing is great and SHOULD be utilized because its free money IF you are planning on buying that product anyway, but its not for me.

I found that most of the coupons I was using were for things that had A LOT of packaging and were companies I didn't feel totally comfortable buying from. All I could think of was that line from Food Inc when they say, "Every time you shop, what you buy is like a vote. It sends your vote to the manufactures and tells them you want more!" (not a direct quote obviously!)

While I might have saved a great deal on 20 cartons of Yogurt when I saw how it filled up my trash and was full of corn syrup, suddenly that $1 savings didn't seem worth it anymore.

So I cleaned out my coupon folder last night and sent off all the coupons I wouldn't be using to the troops overseas and only took out the coupons for items I felt good about using and companies I wanted to send my "vote" to by buying their goods.

I didn't feel one bit sad about it in the end. I can't believe I was resorting back to how I ate when I was a kid - out of a box mostly - and eating stuff that was beyond processed, it was unrecognizable.

But I still need coupons for those items I DO want to support. So here are some links I found. Check them out and let me know how you do! Some of these are not coupons in the literal, take to the store sites, but directories and code sites. Remember shopping online is the best and most eco-friendly way to shop!

Green Coupon Codes (for online shopping)

Mambo Sprouts (coupon booklet that can be emailed or mailed - new one coming out Feb 2010!)

Go Green Deals

Happy Hippie (Eco-shoppers directory)

Ecobunga (Green giveaways and deals)

For some of these I'm going to add as a link to the right hand side of my blog so you can shop with these later!

All of these great links were found at Ecoki.com

Image courtesy of Raleigh for Hire blog

Pantry Challenge Update

2010-01-28T21:24:00.000-08:00

January is basically over and I wanted to give you a little update about how we did trying to eat out of our pantry and using what we had rather then going out every week to buy something for dinner.

We did good to be honest. I only had to buy the usual stuff like Soy Milk, Milk, Sour Cream and that was about it. I did however buy some canned fruit and canned tomatoes when they went on sale because I just needed some fruit so badly!!! And the canned tomatoes can always be used for other meals. Now I just need to USE them and not let them sit in the pantry collecting dust.

Some of our meals were boring (think Cereal) and some were fantastic! We had this one meal called Chicken Barley Stew and it was off the back of the Barley Box. I had my doubts, but it turned out great and will be a recipe we do again.
Now the Chicken Cheese and Rice recipe off the back of cream of chicken soup was a flop. Didn't cook well and ended up being so boring and bland.
As part of my challenge I also went thru the freezer trying to use up stuff that needed to be used and stop collecting freezer burn! It was good to clean the freezer out a bit too.

I still look at my pantry and marvel at all that's in there. I can't imagine how it is for some families who might go weeks before having anything in their pantry's. It makes me feel a little sick to be honest. So I'm thinking of donating some of our food to a lady who just moved in down the street from us who was living in her car before someone found her a rental.
I think that's a God reminder when I think about Giving. We have SO much and while Hubby might not have a job right now, I still have food and I don't live in my car.
We are so richly blessed I'm almost overwhelmed thinking about it.
I thank God that even if I did clean out my pantry to the shelves I'd still have $$ to put food back into it. After all I do have a job and many don't.

We're going to keep at this pantry challenge. Why stop? Its a great challenge a reminder to all we have in our lives.

We are so blessed.
Be blessed today!

Terra-Organics

2010-01-24T15:30:00.000-08:00

We have a few local CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture) around us, but most of them are pretty $$ and while I want to support local sometimes its hard to swallow those costs. Usually the Farmers Market is going on and they are there anyone so it makes it easier and I don't have to drive far.

The other day I was leaving to go to work and noticed a delivery van down the street that said Terra Organics. See now i got really excited! A company that delivers?? Even BETTER! I found them online and discovered they are very local -- using even some of the farms down in the Valley here.
I think the fact that they deliver is what gets me. Many CSA's don't deliver and I understand why and I don't know a whole lot about this company but I'm thinking of signing up. They deliver either weekly or bi-weekly and every season the boxes of produce changes. You can choose from different sized boxes and styles as well. There is a veggie box, a fruit box, a Washington only box (think only seasonal to WA and local) and mixed boxes of fruit and veggies.

So I think we're going to give them a try.
I already got me Fresh eggs. Might as well take advantage of those who are really good green thumbs when it comes to growing produce!!

I'll let you know how it goes. If you are local check them out here: Terra-Organics.com

If you are looking for a local CSA in your area check out Localharvest.org for more information about CSA's.

Bye Bye Commerically Raised-Chicken

2010-01-17T18:54:00.000-08:00

Hubby and I have been watching WAY too many documentaries on Chickens and how they are raised for meat.
It started with Food, INC and then we watched a few documentaries online about food and food production that it made us decide we couldn't be purchasing chicken unless it was raised humanely and in an organic or semi-organic manner.

Did you know that most chicken produced for our consumption is housed in huge long building typically without windows and the chickens just walk around in their own filth? They drink from little waterers that have steroids in it and antibiotics in it to make them fatten quickly. If the chicken dies it just dies and the other chickens walk all over them! Its disgusting and totally inhumane. The chickens become so fat so fast they can't even hardly take 2 steps before collapsing. Their legs cannot support their own weight because we as Americans want bigger, fatter, cheaper chicken. So the industry supplies it, but at what cost?
It was horrible to watch those chickens just try to walk and breathe and all I could think of was the giant bag of Frozen Fatted Chicken in my Freezer. That's when I said no more.

So what does the label on your chicken really mean?

"100% Natural" Chicken: According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) - "100 percent natural" means the poultry doesn't contain artificial ingredients like preservatives. But experts warn - there are no guarantees.

"100 percent natural - remember - no inspections are done. So we don't know if those claims are really true," says Shannon Wallace, R.D., registered dietitian with Baylor University Medical Center at Dallas.

Organic Chicken: Chicken labeled as "organic" must meet much stricter standards. Inspections are conducted and organic chicken cannot contain artificial ingredients, hormones or antibiotics. But are those really harmful to consumers?

"The USDA does not make any claims that organically produced food is any safer or more nutritious than conventionally produced food," adds Wallace.

Grain fed Chicken: This is supposed to mean the chicken was not fed animal by-products, but just like "100 percent natural" and "free range," there is no outside monitoring for this claim.

Free Range Chicken: And probably the most confusing label of them all - "free range." Chicken labeled as "free range is supposed to be leaner, but again, experts warn the claim can be deceiving.

"Free range does not always mean that the animal has been in an open area its whole life. It may only mean they were in a restricted area and let out into that open area one time during their life," says Wallace
From HealthCastle.com

Obviously just because you purchase meat labeled Organic or Free-Range doesn't get you guarantees, but its a start and it sends a vote out that says This is What I Want to manufactures. If we all bought more Organic items it wouldn't be so expensive, but instead we literally flock to the cheap meat assuming its just as good as the expensive stuff.
But if you knew that your chicken might be laced with Arsenic would you think differently??
I'm serious people, read the article.
Sure, it was approved by the FDA, but we all know many items are approved by the FDA and they are not good for us! Think of those Twinkies in your cabinet that can survive for the next 40 yrs. That is not right. Ick.

So I used up the last of the bagged chicken today. Now I do have some chicken still left, but that giant bag is finally gone. I might just have to stop eating chicken all together eventually and I don't eat it on a daily basis anyway so it wouldn't be all that hard. I'm pretty into being a flexitarian as much as I can.

Before you go shopping for that mega-bag of chicken at Costco consider the cost of its price. Its not all its cracked up to be really. HA! Cracked! Pun intended.

Picture from HERE.

Clean out the Pantry Challenge

2010-01-07T21:32:00.001-08:00

So we are doing this Pantry Challenge thing where you try for a month to use all that is in your pantry before you head out to the store and buy more stuff which in turn will probably add to your even increasing pantry!

We are on day 7 of this challenge and while I can't say I've been perfect (aka: I went shopping!) it has made me think about all we waste because its just chillin' in the Pantry getting older and older and how we just pack up more and more stuff into our pantries.

I probably have some stuff in there I had from when we moved in here over 5 yrs ago now. I know you might be saying Yuck, but have you looked in your pantry lately??

For me shopping for groceries is like going shoe shopping for others. I get a thrill out of finding good deals and just live to go to the store. A grocery store for me is like my mall! All the colors and pretty stuff.....but let's face it. At least 85% of it I shouldn't be buying because its not good for me and at least another 5% I can't eat period. So I have a 10% chance of buying stuff that is good for me and my family. I will confess I have bought lately many items I shouldn't have if I was truly trying to life my Green lifestyle. Mostly things that have a lot of waste such as TV dinners or soda. Ahhh yes....Soda...well i call it Pop, but it sounds so cheesy writing it down. I love me some good ol' Pop. But I shouldn't drink it as it makes me so ill because I hardly ever drink the stuff now.
So I buy Hansen's soda instead. Love the stuff, probably still not the best because again its made out of pure sugars and I'm already a sugar addicted person. OH the horrible cycle I subject myself to!

Anyway, I'm getting way off track here.
What I'm trying to say is cleaning out your pantry is a good thing because it reminds us of ALL we really have. Some people have pantries the size of my walk-in closet! How much food does one family need anyway? More then likely we are families of 3-5 and having a closet filled to the rafters isn't wise to begin with -- it could lead to over eating and snacking because its there and available.

So my pantry is full and we are going to make what we can and of course as part of the challenge include your freezer and fridge in the clean out process. Just work with what you have. If you don't have something to make a meal, oh well. Google Meal plans and stick to it or use those as a guide to come up with meal suggestions. Consider using the recipes on the backs of the boxes or cans in your pantry. Some of those recipes are amazingly good and use little ingredients. I know I'll be breaking out my crock pot for this challenge as well.

My goal is to use up as much as I can and then when we start to see the back of the pantry and the bottom of the Freezer then I'll go shopping. Obviously if I am at the store I'll need to question like I do for any shopping trip if I truly NEED this grocery purchase. Perishables don't count (eggs, milk, butter, you get the idea) because clearly you will need to restock those.
Anything you don't need in your pantry please donate. Food banks always need your items in and out of season.

Let me know if this is something you plan on joining me in and I'll keep you all posted.

No Impact Man Review

2010-01-07T21:09:00.000-08:00

So I watched the No Impact Man Life-umentary tonight. (I made up that word can you tell??)
It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. It was one of those documentaries that made you think about life and if you are making a difference and how far would you be willing to go.
He honestly didn't do anything we haven't seen numerous other Greenies do throughout the blogging community, his was just more recognized by the Media. And living in NYC made it a lot harder for him in some areas of his life then some of us who have the luxury of having property to grow food on or not having to go up flights of stairs!

I like Collin B. to be honest. I think he's real, honest and comes across as just another guy. He is a little too left for my taste in that he's an admitted liberal, but doesn't come across in this movie on a crazy left wing liberal -- he is just him.

His wife is who makes the movie. She wasn't too keen on this idea and as a self professed shopaholic she was not completely sold on some of the phases they did. I think the no fridge thing about made her flip out, but having no fridge taught her how to cook and be more creative in that area.

Here is the link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9Ctt7FGFBo

Its Good to be Back

2010-01-04T20:17:00.000-08:00

Hello my green and filled with purpose buddies! Welcome to 2010 and I swear I'm back.

Sorry for the month Hiatus, but I just didn't have time last month to truly pen out my thoughts like would have liked to.
But I'm back and I don't quite know where to start....

Let's start with all I'm still doing that's good when it comes to Purposeful living.
I can't say I've been perfect -- in fact far from it. I will admit to slacking on some of my own rules about green living.
Oh sure I still use cold water washes for the laundry, eat my organic eggs, stay home and not drive that much, drink tap water, recycle every little piece of paper and/or piece of cardboard I come across and other misc things i can't think of right now, but I have been slacking.

I need to confess and then I think I'll feel better. Here's what I've done and I'm not proud of.

1. (and yes its #1) Shopping at Wal*Mart
2. I have been buying prepackaged and/or ready to cook foods
3. Taking long showers
4. Using the heat a lot
5. Using the dryer
6. Printing things A LOT when really I don't need to
7. Not supporting local businesses and getting commercially prepared stuff
8. Taking more baths then I even want to confess to
9. Shopping and buying clothes that were clearly made by some sweatshop child/person (Old Navy)

Now I honestly want to defend all those confessions (because its been REALLY cold, wet, out of work husband and I've worked A LOT of overtime and am just to tired to care sometimes) but I won't try to defend all my evil non-green ways! Ok they are not evil (minus the Wal*Mart one, that's pure evil and a complete frustration for me) but they do bother me.

Which is good!
If I wasn't bothered I would be worried that my own preaching hasn't even effected me!
But it has and its good.
My conscience has been whispering on occasion that many of my "choices" are probably not the best and I should reconsider them and just suck it up and pay more for stuff!!! UGH
And while I might not have a lot of readers, you still inspired me to be accountable and WAKE UP. So thank you! You didn't even know you did that! ?! Way to go!

I have no excuse about the Wal*Mart excuse except I have been worried about feeding my family with having only one income--that income being mine which falls pretty much around the poverty level -- but we do have unemployment so we are SO blessed with being able to receive that. God is good though and he's provided in so many ways that it blows my mind some days. See now if I had just trusted I wouldn't have felt guilty about going to Wal*Mart because I wouldn't have gone. UGH. Time to cut it off and move on and just stop. Time to make my changes and go back to my simple living anyway.

The past month has been hard though. I'm not going to lie. Its hard to live this "green" lifestyle sometimes when you don't have a lot of money coming in, but at the same time if I'm smart and look for coupons for example its not so hard. Just remembering to live simply like I constantly preach is really all I need to do. Plus if I just remember I probably don't NEED a lot of the things I obsess about anyway.

I did make good choices for Christmas though. We bought at least 4 gifts from the World Vision Gift Catalog and from Oxfam (which is like World vision where you buy things like animals or a mosquito net for example) for some family members and for others well I didn't get them anything. I got my mom some little bowls from an antique shop we were at and she bought me a little mini-vacation with her. So all in all it was a green Christmas and there was not a lot of spending of the green so it worked out good. Noah had to pick only 3 presents (because that is what Baby Jesus got and you can't argue with baby Jesus!!!) and he stuck to his 3 gifts and was happy in the end. He understood that we weren't going to be showering him with gifts anyway. We took him to Seaside, OR as part of his present and he was overjoyed with just going to the Arcade and swimming at the hotel pool. Having cable helped too!! ;)

So I wasn't a complete loss over the past month or so. All in all Its good to be back. I hope you are glad too and here's to 2010!

2009-12-21T19:06:00.000-08:00

Sorry I haven't posted anything in so long. I just have needed a break and am working a lot of overtime to make some extra cash.

More to follow in 2010!!

Merry Christmas ya'all!

Baking more Efficiently

2009-12-03T07:41:00.000-08:00

Here's a great article from Planet Green about Energy Efficient Baking!

Check it out!!

10 Tips for Energy Efficient Baking

Just Be Thankful

2009-11-26T18:02:00.000-08:00

While many across the USA celebrate their Thanksgiving with Organic, Free Range turkey's and all homemade and handcrafted side dishes, many like myself will not.
Oh I did get a Free Range Turkey this year, but we did have many items out of a can or a box (at least those can be recycled!). I got to thinking that it doesn't matter how you got your meal or where it came from.
Even if you ended up buying that $0.40 per lb turkey at Wal*Mart or your cranberries were bathed in Corn syrup, it doesn't matter.
As long as you were thankful and with people you love thats all that matters.

So this year maybe you didn't make all your meals fresh from your garden and your turkey was probably commercially grown in the dark with steriods --- JUST BE THANKFUL.
If each of us were just thankful for what we have or even just be thankful for WHO is in our lives I think we'd all live in a pretty neat world.

Sometimes we get so wrapped up in making sure everything is perfect in a our little green world we forget about the important things like People and Giving to others.

Don't let this holiday stress you out because you worry that you supported Wal*Mart (Like I did) or you bought something not so healthy -- forgettaboutit and just be Thankful. Because if you start being Thankful for things everyday rather then just on Thanksgiving you'll be thankful year round.

Happy Thanksgiving 2009 Everyone!
Here's some Thanksgiving Quotes from HERE to inspire you to start being thankful....

"Be thankful for each new challenge,
because it will build your strength and character."
Author Unknown, from Be Thankful

"If a fellow isn't thankful for what he's got,
he isn't likely to be thankful for what he's going to get."
Frank A. Clark

"When asked if my cup is half-full or half-empty
my only response is that I am thankful I have a cup."
Sam Lefkowitz

Feeling grateful or appreciative of someone or something in your life actually attracts more of the things that you appreciate and value into your life."
Northrup Christiane

Thanksgiving Meals

2009-11-22T15:29:00.000-08:00

I know many of you saw that I collected items to provide meals for local families in our area.

I don't want to seem like I'm "flaunting" what we did here and I won't get into TOO much detail about it all so some stuff can remain private, but I DO want to flaunt those who helped and how many people we all helped feed.

Here's a quick recap: We gave to a total of 8 families.

Here are the stats:

Family #1 - 1 adult & 3 kids -6, 7, 8

Family #2 - 2 adults & 2 kids - 11, 9

Family #3 - 2 adults & 3 kids - 12, 9, 4

Family #4 - 2 adults & 3 kids - 4, 6, 2

Family #5 - 2 adults & 2 kids

Family # 6 - 3 adults & 4 kids, 11 & 3 teenage boys (one son was a vegetarian)

Family # 7 - 2 adults & 3 kids Family #8 - 2 adults & 4 kids, 11, 11, 6, 1 & a baby on the way

Total: 40 PEOPLE!!!

All the families ranged from needs like just not making ends meet to as bad as was laid off and then had a heart attack. I think possily one family wasn't as honest as they could have been about their situation -- I think she was "double dipping" from us and a Food bank, but in the end we still followed thru. Mostly because Hubby said we'd give her the meal even though I wasn't ok with it.

While I wasn't present at giving all the meals I know they were over the moon excited abnd blown away about how MUCH we gave them. I think they were expecting just a turkey.

Here is what one of the families said:

Marcie & James & all, I dont know where to begin. This blessing is overwhelming to us and was/is so very needed. Thank you for helping our children believe in miracles. Thank you for shining hope into our lives. We appreciate this so much.

Here is what was donated that I didn't have to provide a CENT for! When I said I was going to do this, God just BLEW our minds with how many people lined up to help. james and I didn't have to provide hardly anything in the end.

Even complete strangers offered to help.

Here's the stats on what was given and put into their meals:

*Reusable bags to put the items in! HECK YA!!

*Rolls including 6 bags donated from the Pioneer bakery in Town Puyallup

*Turkey''s including a To-furkey for a veggie Teen!

*Roasting pans

*Foil

*Pumpkin Puree for pies

*Whipped Cream

*Pie Crusts

*Evaporated Milk

*loads of stuffing

*Cranberry Sauce

*Canned Veggies

*chicken noodle & tomato soups

*black beans

*Canned Sweet Potatoes

*Gravy

*Sparkling Juice

*Spices for Pies

*hot chocolate

*Pototoes

*Cash that was used to buy additional turkey's

And I'm sure I'm leaving stuff out because THAT was how much was donated!!

So wow. Thanks for all my FB friends who helped me do this!! Without you guys I couldn't have done this and I mean it. Here's to next year where we'll blow these stats OUT of the water. This has been our biggest year yet and sadly it has been the year where more people were in need. God Bless you ALL this Thanksgiving! Who knows what we could do for Christmas....hmmm......

Oh Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen...

2009-11-15T17:28:00.000-08:00

Oh its coming --- its rapidly approaching us and I'm ready! 39 days and counting as of today.
BUT wait!
Lets not think about those Black Friday deals or the Holiday deals. Let's think about the Great Commission and what it means to us.

Christmastime shouldn't be a time to stress ourselves out. IT should be a time to GIVE GIVE GIVE. Last year we celebrated Christmas by only giving gifts that were either Used or gifts that gave back like items from the World Vision Gift Catalog. Honestly being able to give my brother 5 chickens in his name and sponsoring a child to name a few is a great gift that I can pretty much guarantee won't be duplicated and if it is it'll be worth it!

This year for us won't easy ad when I got my WV Catalog I was sad because we probably won't be able to give as much as I gave last year. However what we are doing is giving time and help in as many areas that we can.
Last year we donated 3 Thanksgiving meals to local families we picked randomly online and we are doing it again this year too. I didn't want to do it this year because I had no idea HOW we could do it let alone afford it, but God is so good when you commit to doing something for others He makes a way. This year we are doing 7 families and are feeding a lot more people in those families! Loads of kids this year. And amazingly God has provided for us by inspiring people to help provide food and funds to make this possible. I'm beyond humbled by what God can do in such a short amount of time. It all has come together very nicely and considering this is just complete strangers offering help it just goes to show that God can move anyone to help. I have received emails from people saying they are inspired to do more and if that is all I had gotten out of this effort it would be enough.

When I think about how hard things are for many right now to reach out and help others in need it makes me realize I still have so much to be thankful for. We might not have 2 incomes anymore but that didn't stop us from giving and it didn't stop others from giving either. I think we forget that people actually like to help and want to help, but don't know how to start it.
I'm here to say just start it yourself. Don't wait for some committee to begin or some organization to help, just start it on your own. I have people who are helping me by donating food and I'm so far from any sort of organization!
It makes me want to do more and be more seeing how people are reaching out to us and we're just a family of 3 who wants to feed those around us.

But for me I want to live by Matt 6:3, "But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." We honestly don't want people to know we are doing this (I know you are thinking then why did you say you were doing this on your Blog??) and very few people know we are organizing meals or going further then just the meals. We consider ourselves the ones in the background that suddenly its provided. Whatever "it" is we want to be able to find ways to provide for it.

Its like one gal said in her letter to me when I told her I was going to donate a meal to their family. She said, "They have no idea right now that we are receiving thanksgiving dinner from you. I want to show them again that having faith even when things seem impossible, is always the best way to go."

I think that says it really well. That its so great to have Faith even when things seem impossible. Wouldn't you like to be one of those people who isn't looking for the glory in providing for someone, but offering them hope and then being the Hope they were looking for? Oh its so so good and I thank God that we are helping provide for people who are short of Hope right now. And its always nice to remind people that there are good giving people out there.

Blessings...

2009-11-14T14:05:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've been so MIA lately.
I'm working on a little side project that is very time consuming and leaving me little time to write anything meaningful.

I will post soon about what I'm working on!

Is Using Coupons Really Green??

2009-10-30T21:17:00.001-07:00

So as some of you may remember Hubby has been out of work since June and I've really started to dabble in the fine Art of Couponing. I didn't realize how much many mom's and people just lust after the allure of Couponing.

Part of the whole coupon thing has been good and sometimes I can see why its such a waste and is NOT very green. Here are some of my reasons why....

1. Coupons are printed on paper. You can't escape the fact that they are either printed in Newspapers, given away somewhere or printed off from online sources -- paper in some form or fashion has be involved to get the savings.

2. If you do print @ home, you use a lot of printer ink. Now hopefully you recycle your ink cartridge or refill it somewhere, but printing these coupon suckers uses a lot of ink. Because I have a color printer it naturally prints colored ink all over some of my coupons which in turn makes me use more ink then I want to even THINK I'm using. And no, I haven't figured out how to print only in black and white when I print from online sources.

3. If I don't use the coupon or it expires before I use it, I wasted what I printed from offline. I don't even want to think about how much I've wasted in this area. Yes, I'll admit at times I printed off coupons in "hopes" I'll use it, but then it doesn't happen

4. Coupons are generally for items wrapped in WAY too much packaging or are for items that are just plain NOT good for you. There never seems to be a shortage of coupons for junk foods like Pop Tarts or Corn Syrup laden cereals. I wish that more "natural" or Organic food producers would be more generous with their coupons!! But because major manufactures out there fill the market with foods we can't seem to get enough of which makes their prices lower, it pushes the little natural food coupons out of the running and they can't offer such savings. Don't even get me started on items wrapped in too much packaging. That's a given RIGHT there. I can't let myself fall into that trap!!

5. Coupons make us spend more money then we originally intend to. Now I'm not one of those consumers that buys something just because I have a coupon, for me the coupon has to be worth it and none of this "buy 2 save $0.50" junk. I want my coupons to be at least $1 or more off the item. Doubling a coupon is great if I could figure out a store that does that around here.

So while I do think using a coupon can be effective for many people, please consider what you are buying first before you either print off a coupon or buy that Sunday paper just for the coupons.

Here are some great things about coupons or ideas on what to do with them!

*Coupons can be used to get things for free! Follow coupon blogs or sites to find the best deals. There are truly people out there that scour ads and then tell you where you can find the best deals, including Free items.

*Coupons that you don't use while at the store just set them next to the item for someone else who might truly use it. Consider it as "Paying it forward" for that next person and bless them with something you might otherwise throw out.

*They are recyclable! ;)

*Coupons are a great way to teach kids to save money. Noah is really into finding great deals and he's started to grow accustomed to seeing us use coupons at many things.

*There are coupons out there not just for grocery items. Consider searching for coupons for local activities and events. We usually find coupons for things like the Zoo all the time. Its worth it!

*Coupons can save you money! I don't deny that one and I'm getting really into seeking out coupons while using the grocery ads at the same time. That way I can find a coupon for the items I need and no more unnecessary printing or spending.

Happy Couponing!!

Homeopathic Meds for Kids

2009-10-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

I score an entire box of Homeopathic Medicines for FREE from the Boiron Co. How Cool is THAT?? ( I had a picture of my gift box, but I can't find it!!)

I thought when I signed up for them it would only be sample sized packs, but I got 3 full size products from their Winter line! While I'd love to say I'm excited to use them that would be wishing my son sick!

However, if and when my son does get sick you can bet your buttons I'll be using this stuff!

We received Chestal Honey Cough Syrup, Coldcalm Pellets and Oscillococcinum. All products are Homeopathic and for kids! All of these are also available in products for adults as well.

I'm pretty sold on a lot of Homeopathic options and while I understand and do believe there is room for conventional medicines, I think as a society we rush to medication to meet and relieve our pains too quickly. Often times we don't even know what is in our medicines and not only do we ingest them we also give them to our children. After all who hasn't heard of some scary recall on medication for children?! that's madness.

I recommend trying some Homeopathic options when you get your next cold and especially since Flu season and the Swine Flu seems to be all everyone can talk about these days! I'm so sick of hearing about Swine Flu that I want to puke.

I'll let you know how it goes if we do try these items out on Noah in the future. And Thanks to the Boiron Co for blessing us with such an awesome gift!!

PS. You can score a $1 coupon for any of the items I listed above HERE.

WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price -- teaser trailer

2009-10-18T13:30:00.001-07:00

For more information about why I struggle with shopping @ Wal*Mart check this Documentary out.

Confession Time

2009-10-18T13:08:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't blogged in awhile, but I've been avoiding what I preach against.

Here I know and understand why buying @ Wal*Mart isn't the way to go and I have found myself shopping there in the past month or so. The first time I went back was to get some groceries and I just felt like I betrayed by precious Top Foods, Fred Meyer and local veggie market. It wasn't a good feeling.

But you see, hubby hasn't had work since end of June and well , its catching up with us. We are very lucky to have unemployment, but going with months and months of a few extra hundred dollars a week is rapidly depleting my bank account.

And sadly because Wal*Mart is so huge they can offer cheaper prices on some items. I do find that because I have changed our diet so much there is less I can buy now. I used to purchase a LOT of single serve type stuff and prepackaged items, but not much if at all anymore.

I'm finding this to be a vicious cycle that I can't seem to get out of.

With Wal*Mart I found myself giving into buying MORE just because it was cheaper and leaning back into some of my poor eating habits. Just shopping there made me start to imagine buying things like another Game System for Noah or a better TV....I haven't entertained ideas like that in a VERY long time and it disgusted me.

Please know, If you shop there, I'm not judging you-- please don't think I am -- I'm just trying to explain some of the struggles I'm dealing with when it comes to shopping there.

So while I haven't bought much aside from groceries for myself I did buy a pant & shirt outfit for Noah for only $2 one time and since it doesn't fit it'll be going to the Giving Tree this December along with about 6 toys I found for less then $3.

So what do you think about that? Do you think its ok to shop at places like Wal*Mart or the like so you can bless people?

Since places like the giving tree, Salvation Army, Toys for Tots or Food banks even don't allow used gifts to be donated we are stuck in wanting to give but struggle with shopping at places that offer affordable items.

That's where I'm at right now. Its not a good struggle. What do you think?

personally I love to give and want to bless regardless of where it comes from, but in the back of my mind I think about that girl on Wal*Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices and I feel pretty small....What do you recommend oh Blog readers?

Pic from HERE

Bag Refund

2009-10-17T15:13:00.000-07:00

Target is offering a $0.05 cents for every reusable bag you use at check out!

Finally, its about time more big box stores jump on board with encouraging the public to use a cloth bag!

Happy Shopping

EASY Green Tip

2009-10-04T18:52:00.000-07:00

So you know how you look into your closet and the first thought that comes to mind is, "I have nothing to wear?"

Well, consider re-arranging your closet so everything looks new. I think that when items are in the same spot ALL The time it looks the same and we are not interested in what we have. Consider that clothing stores rearrange their stuff ALL the time so everything looks fresh and new!

I thought of this tip when I was thinking the same thing in my closet the other day. And yes, I rearranged my clothes that are hanging. Now its like my closet has a whole new look even though I have no knew clothes to speak of!

This is a fast easy way to know what you got in there and well, its time to change out the seasons and break into our winter clothes anyway. So get to it!

Picture from RealSimple.

Winter Chicken Coop

2009-10-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

This is our chickens new coop. OH they still have the other one, but Hubby needed something to do so he built a winter coop - at least that is what I call it. Its fairly large, maybe a shorter shed size and the front door opens so we can clean it out and gather the eggs.

Their Eglu will be used primarily to be a chicken trailor and this one will be for sleeping. Plus its big enough we can now house more chickens. But its really big for the 3 we have.

We used all the wood and nails AND the roofing from recycled materials from a play house we had for Noah. Now that he didn't use it anymore it was perfect to tear down and rebuild into this. Pretty snazzy don't ya think??

Don't Stop Believing!!

2009-09-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

So have you ever wondered if I get tired of living how I live?

Don't you think at times I just want to go out and drive a big ol' Hummer and eat tons of pre-packaged food and then throw it out the window??

Or do I look longingly at the paper towels when I go down the paper aisle at the store?? It would be so much easier to clean up dog barf with paper towels....

As a whole when I think about how I've been living for the past couple years I think nope, I don't get too tired about how I've changed my life and at times I think about how lucky I am to be living so in tune with life. That sounds so high and mighty I know, but seriously when I took the time to really slow down and appreciate life and what I do on a daily basis its so freeing!

But yes, sometimes I get a little burnt out and drive myself crazy thinking about little details like if something i buy is truly sustainable or if what I put into my body is good for me! (I am more concerned about the food I put into my body)

At first it was maddening,but then you slow down and realize life isn't that complicated and God never intended for me ot worry about the smallest detail. Thats His job.

I read a lot about other people worrying about global warming or chemicals in our waters or plastic leeching into our food. While I think all those things are valid thing to worry about, I don't think we should worry so much we stop enjoying life and all it has for us. For me, its something as simple as just feeling the sun on my back or browsing thru the Farmers Market and thinking about the pumkins that are finally here! For some of us thinking about silly things like Pumpkins sounds so boring I know.

But what brings you passion that isn't man made or isn't something entertaining like football or movies?

Maybe its your kids or something in your home that always makes you smile. Something tells me that when a DR says to think about something that makes you happy or relaxing you think more about sitting on a Beach then thinking about some Football game. ;) nothing against Football I swear.

So maybe hanging my clothes on a clothesline makes me feel all homey and warm inside just like baking something from scratch and hearing people rave about it. Its all good and you know what? It helps the environment -- the environment around me -- and that makes a planet Happy.

So don't stop believing in what you do to help the World be a better place. When Global warming seems at its peak just look to your happy place and go from there!

Picture from Flickr.

No spend confession

2009-09-24T18:07:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't written in SO long.
So lets start with how the no spend challenge is going.

Well I haven't really Spent anything that wasn't needed or required. You could argue that I didn't need to pay for most of the flowers for my boss after her dad died, but I felt it was a necessary purchase and it helped her. Those flowers are still in her office after a week later so they lasted pretty dang long.

AND I guess you could argue that I didn't need to go for the weekend to the Beach with my son and blow $20 at the Arcade and dinner at least 2x during the weekend....and I remember candy and fudge being involved at one time....

Ok Ok so I spent.
I needed that weekend away though. My son and I had spent very little with each other over the summer and I needed a break. So yes. I spent 2 nights in a hotel (but we got the cost down at least $20-30 a night on each hotel) but they both had free breakfast that we made SURE to stuff ourselves on. We only ate one meal on Saturday - Free breakfast & a really late lunch. Then we snacked on stuff and killed time on the beach for hours. It was great. We didn't drive hardly at all except to get there.
So all in all, it was worth the money we spent on it. I consider experiences not truly part of the no spend challenge.
Ok OK I'm stretching it I know.

But honestly and I mean it, aside from going on our trip we really haven't bought anything we didn't need. Today in fact I did not want to pack a lunch so I considered going to the store and buying something. So I called my husband and said lets have lunch together and he brought food from home.

I want to also point out I've been careful at the grocery store, but I did have a bit of a weakness with some pudding purchases......sigh....I needed to use up the milk....weak argument.

All in all, this has been good and eye opening. I'm actually enjoying to see how long I can go now and make this no spend stuff last! Should be fun!

Some Revelations

2009-09-13T13:01:00.000-07:00

Going thru this no spend challenge I've learned a lot about my spending habits in the 2 weeks we've been doing this.
You all know of course that the grocery store is my biggest vice. Its the ONE place I probably will always struggle with. I think like most women we seem to have this urge to stock up and have a lot in our pantries. I don't know if we think we need to always prepare for another Y2K or if its just part of our female nature to hoard up food or supplies.

While I sit here all smug that I don't throw away my money on silly stuff like fancy cars or pretty clothes, but I do need to be sure what I am spending my money on its truly a reflection of my heart.
19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Matt 6:19-24 NLT
I'm reminded in this scripture that just because I might not spend on "things" that might rust I need to seriously look at where my finances are going in the first place.
Is my money funding the Kingdom or is it just working for me?
I do think making the investment of sponsoring a child thru World Vision is a great investment and sending my son to a private school is another worthy investment, but what else can I do?

Can I fund other ministries that have the same passions I do?
Honestly the ideas are endless and as I sit here avoiding working out a Budget I look at my bills and think about what I could really do with that money if I didn't have other responsibilities. Darn that power bill! ;)
BUT while I might have bills I can't avoid like my power bill there are things I could to cut back so I DO have extra left over to expand the issues I see fit with not only a check, but also with my time.

there is so so so much more I could do that I'm either avoiding or just plain not realizing I could make a change in. I'm going to go crunch some numbers now. ...OH that budget!

Forgive Me, I spent, but BOY did I pay...

2009-09-12T18:15:00.000-07:00

So I will confess to spending the other day on Wednesday at a restaurant. Now wait, wait before we freak out here. I can explain.
One thing our family is really into (especiallyright now) is free stuff. My husbands birthday is coming up next week so he signed up to get free meals and stuff from local restaurants. I guess we needed SOME way to get around our "no spending at restaurants" rule.
Sigh.
So he had a free burger at Red Robin and I felt guilty that we were getting not only a free hamburger with endless fries AND a free sundae just because thats what they do. So I vouched to get the cheapest thing on the menu which was a salad.
I got a Ceasar Salad and helped wolf down a basket of fries and the sundae. It was good at the time, but my body isn't used to eating such greasy stuff not to mention creamy stuff. I'm more of a baked and vinegrette type gal.

My tummy wasn't having it and that night I spent the night living in my bathroom helping the salad and the rest leave abruptly. ICK. I think I may have had a bit of food poisoning, but man it wasn't good and my cheapest thing on the menu ended up costing me a day of work to. NOT good.
So I lost a day of work, spent the night in the bathroom and spent about $10 for the meal including a very gracious tip.

So I spent and I paid. Forgive me. While I tried to be frugal it wasn't happening in the end. Now with any "free" things we have for birthday's I'm not going to spend anything extra, but I would leave a great tip just because I'm sure that servers get jipped all the time with the free stuff or gift card spending.

There you go. I spent, paid thru the nose and feel pretty guilty about it.
BUT if you are wanting free stuff for your birthday here are some links. Most of these links might be for WA only, but hey its worth the click right?!
Pretty much every single one of these links below we have a coupon for. I know, I know. Its an obsession and probably should not be allowed when we are not supposed to be spending.
HUGE sigh...

Happy Birthday Hubby! (on Sept 16)

Red Robin
Baskin & Robbins
The Ram
T.G.I.Friday's
Buca di Beppo
Cold Stone Creamery
Black Angus Steakhouse
Del Taco

And for more really great Free items check out It's Hip to Save (love this blog for freebies!!) or my other favorite place for free stuff is Wisebread.com and click on their daily Freebies & deals page.

Keeping Up with the Jones

2009-09-07T17:50:00.000-07:00

Obviously I don't keep up with the Jones anymore and never really did because logic wouldn't allow me to consider it, but I do sometimes wish I could keep up with the Eco-Jones if there is such a family out there.

But for many of you out there you wish it was possible to live more eco friendly ALL the time. we wish we could bike to work daily with no thought to rain or snow or we wish we could make our own food all the time and long to grow all our food.
I sometimes pour over eco magazines only to depress myself. Its like looking at a Good Housekeeping magazine, but instead with an environmental twist! Their healthy gardens that seem to be all over their yard and not a piece of chicken poop in sight! Ahhhh to have that beautiful backyard...
Alas, that is not our house, but at the same time I hope that many will want to keep up with our family and the examples we are trying to leave on those in our lives.
We went over to our friends house today who wanted to give me a bike and during our visit she suddenly had the urge to go thru her recycling bin to be sure her hubby wasn't tossing whatever in there.
She had been cleaning out her garage and I was telling her about how great you feel when not only you have a clean garage, but you feel a sense of relief to have stuff be gone. Later I read on her Facebook how great it felt to be giving stuff to people who not only needed stuff but welcomed it! See now that's something to be inspired by.
Maybe my presence inspired her a bit. I suspect most people feel guilty around me at times when they have a lot of things or their trash is overflowing, but I hope not! I would rather inspire thoughts about change and the desire to push living further by really taking a look at what we own and if we need it.

So if everyone in the rest of the US continues to keep up with the Jones's I think I'll blaze my own path and maybe just maybe people will want to keep up with the Davis's! ;)

No Spend almost didn't happen

2009-09-07T15:38:00.000-07:00

SOoo I wish I could treat not eating poorly like I do this challenge!
Today I seriously wanted to spend money by going out to eat with the family, but it didn't happen.
I couldn't imagine confessing to you all that I didn't even make it ONE WEEK without spending on something silly like eating out when my pantry is bursting.
BUT I made it.
And I ate junk when I got home. GRRRR.
Can't win them all.

More later people!

Buy Nothing Check In

2009-09-06T17:43:00.000-07:00

So here we are 6 days into our Buy Nothing challenge and so far so good. We did have some close calls however for me. Visiting the grocery store is clearly my weakest point and I need to be more aware of not only if I truly need those groceries or not. I think I treat going to the grocery store like those who go to the mall. I might believe in my head that shopping at the mall is the most evil place when it comes to shopping sustainably but clearly the grocery store isn't any different.
Poo.
Big test was yesterday we went to the mall because Hubby had to visit radio shack because a charger he bought there won't work anymore. Being at the mall wasn't too bad. We didn't' go into any stores and really jut walked around because it was raining outside.

Here is what we bought so far on our "allowed" list of items:

Food which included a block of cheese and milk. The money I used for this and the 2 items below came from a reimbursement from work so really it was like free $$. Ok thats a stretch
Dish soap (Seventh Generation) which thankfully I had a coupon for
Tissue for Noah's classroom that I technically got for free because the coupon I had for the dishsoap got me $1.50 off of 2 items. The tissue was $1.26 so that made it free! Well sort of..
My prescription. Can't avoid this one. At least its generic and cheap
A light bulb for my car. Didn't want to get pulled over for a burnt out tail light
Gas for the cars both mine and hubby's

And I think that is it. Thats pretty good for a week worth of not spending!

Challenge today was we went to the beach about 2.5 hrs from here and I really debated on getting something to eat there rather then eat the stuff we packed. BUT I overcame my desire to cheat (there was $5 burning a hole in my wallet!!) and we finished up the stuff I packed and ate here at home.

Here is some stuff I've done during this challenge to keep us busy and some stuff I've done to help further our goal in this challenge:

The Library. OH library we LOVE you. Even hubby got a book and has ready at least 3 chapters. That is a miracle!
Cooking. I think I've made 5 loaves of banana bread recently and 3 batches of cookies.
Trading. We are now trading coffee with a lady down the street. We give her coffee and she now will gives us food. Like this week she went crazy and gave us 2 jars of spaghetti sauce and 3 pouches of Bertolli spaghetti/pasta sauce. Score! She's one of those coupon crazy ladies who does the whole "double the coupon" thing that I can never master and get stuff for dirt. Works for me. I get the coffee for free anyway!
I closed my American Excess Card and while I transferred the money from a line of credit thru my bank it felt good to stick it to AMEX. They recently raised my rates just because so I decided I would rather have the $$ from my finance charges go somewhere local then AMEX. So into my credit union that amount went. now I can monitor it closer and make sure I'm staying up on making a dent. Its easier to make a dent when you can see the amount.
I recently found a bunch of free puzzles we are trying to master. There were no boxes so its been interesting! ;)

How is your buy nothing challenge going anyway?

Cool pic from here.

No Buy Challenge

2009-09-03T19:02:00.001-07:00

Ok so here we are 3 days into the challenge and I while I admit to buying stuff I can honestly say it was needed items.
We have decided that we'll also being saving receipts from all our purchases including "necessary" items so we can take an honest look at what we are buying.
So far I can name where I have shopped and what I bought which is good because I honestly can't say if I could always do that.

The one thing we are struggling with is if giving to others counts as necessary or spending?
We discovered that World Vision will be at the Fair in about a week and the last time they were there I bought 2 chickens. I'm really into supporting others with things like benefit them for a long time like a chicken! Having chickens myself I can see how special it would be to others. I think we decided that helping others DOES count towards necessary purchases. Its not for us anyway.

We have also found ourselves to be especially creative in just the past 2 weeks. Before September started we were slowing down the buying and really hunting for free stuff. Our favorite find is a free coupon for a drink at Taco Bell. Now it does have a cup that can't be recycled and a straw thats plastic...thats the only downfall with this free stuff! There is a lot of waste!!

But again just learning things like how the "free" stuff doesn't exactly benefit the world around me has given me room for pause. ITs a good thing.

I'll be posting my receipts soon and I'll try to do it weekly so you can see if I'm truly being honest about what I'm spending my money on. So far it hasn't been hard at all, but just wait --- the Fair is next Friday and a weakness.

September Begins!

2009-09-03T08:04:00.001-07:00

Remember the No Buy Challenge started this month!!
I'll write more soon about how its going and if I need to confess any buying!

Homemade Green House

2009-08-30T16:20:00.000-07:00

Here is our homemade greenhouse. Everything on it was either free, recycled or salvaged from being tossed. The only thing we had to buy on it was the little orange things that you use with your screw so the tarp doesn't rip off as easily. I'm sure that's the technical way of saying it to! :)

The structure was from an old car port that some use for a car, a boat, a carport--whatever. Basically it has a tarp that is fitted on it. This was just the metal frame and I made a comment one day to hubby that those things would make a good greenhouse because its like a little house. Well, when I tell things to hubby he immediately latches onto ideas and sets out to do it. So last year we found that metal frame, cut it down so it wasn't so tall and made it a little shorter too. Then we tried to cover it in very thick plastic, but a good wind storm was all it took for it to be ripped apart. Then it sat without anything covering it in the yard for almost a year. Until hubby located at his job site very thick plastic that is like a more plastic version of a tarp, with the the lines running thru it so give it more of a structure and makes it more durable.

It was going to be thrown out, but hubby made sure that didn't happen.

Now hubby has no work so he decided to go ahead and make it. And here is a little pictorial of the whole event.

Structure with the plastic sheeting after we did the roof.

STRETCH IT out tight so no wind can get underneath the roof.

Front View

Inside with some small plots for now.

Complete with a little potting station and window to vent out the back.

It gets really hot in there so I'm thinking we might be able to grow not only starts for next spring, but also for possible food in the winter. While it wont' be heated it gets pretty hot in there now so we know its possible. Books area already on hold at the library to learn more about Greenhouse gardening. We are very lucky to have such a large backyard to support something like this. Even if you don't have a large lot, you could still have a tiny little greenhouse on your deck if you were so inclined to make it happen. Imagine what you might be able to grow. More later about that once I get things to grow!

Buy Nothing Challenge

2009-08-25T21:51:00.000-07:00

So I've been toying with the thought about a buy nothing challenge for a long time now. Obviously being frugal and being "green" go hand in hand. A truly frugal person will make stuff LAST.
Crunchy Chicken a fellow Seattle blogger has done this challenge a couple times and she's brutally honest about her spending so I decided to follow her lead and do our own family Buy Nothing Challenge (BNC) starting in September.
I copied that picture from Crunchy's blog and to read more about it click here.
About a year ago I read most of a book called, "Not Buying it, My Year without Shopping" by Judith Levine and while I didn't' finish the entire book the idea fascinated me. A whole year? How interesting and difficult! I wondered if my family would truly be up to it.
And since Hubby isn't working I figured this would be a great way to curb any non-essential spending in our more tight times

Hubby and I sat down and made out a few rules and here are some we came up with:

No buying anything new or used
Goal is to pay down some of our bills and prepare in case hubby is out for a long time
No buying of extra groceries unless both hubby and i agree its essential
No lame excuses about something being such a great deal we can't pass it up
No Eating out. This includes Sonic's Happy Hour...oh so sad....
No eating out includes Coffee Shops
No iTunes downloads for me unless a giftcard is available to me

But here are some items that are allowed or AKA: Depletables

Food (must be agreed upon)
Prescriptions
Dog & Chicken Food
Gas
Any emergency parts for vehicle's that require repairs or else it won't operate. This also includes necessary appliances like the Fridge
When buying any necessary items like food we seek out the cheapest, most local and/or organic items. Or items should have a coupon if possible. not always possible at farmers markets, but hey if we NEED it then a coupon is encouraged.
Bathroom essentials like toilet paper, but I have about a 5 month supply so I'm not worried about it. I will be using up all we have of things like Shampoo or toothpaste before any others are purchased. Part of the challenge is to see how long we can go without "stocking up."
We can barter or trade to get items, but no money can be exchanged for items
Bike repairs can be included in "vehicle" repairs
school items that Noah might require, but will seek out free or see if others might have it before breaking down and buying it
Gift cards can be spent if we are given any or have any, but no going over
Experiences like going to the Zoo or visiting someplace local could be considered not spending if both parties agree its ok. Supporting locally is tops on the list if an experience is desired and again, coupons encouraged
If having to buy something comes up for us to bless someone else then spending is allowed

As a whole we just want to see not only how long we can make things last, but also to teach ourselves that spending isn't necessary. Plus, I want to prove to myself that it is possible to go without and its OK. I don't spend a lot, but I'll admit sometimes I get a little nervous because I'm one of those, "Its such great deal I couldn't pass it up" people. While I do shop locally and think globally when I shop, there are times when I get weak in the knees at great deals.
Noah is getting into this and last night we told him about it and he didn't seem to fazed by it until we said no eating out. That kind of floored him a bit. Tonight he said, "You have to get the washer fixed Dad and you can't do ti because you can't spend." I think he'll be a good accountability person for this challenge.

Would you join me? I'm hoping to start a trend and keep it going for as long as possible. Its important that we as consumers (and CONSUME we DO) consider how much of our spending is necessary. If it takes 21 days to form a good habit or break a bad one, then 30 days should be a breeze! I'm thinking of turning this challenge into as long as possible, but I don't want to get to proud yet. This isn't going to be easy and I'll be the first to admit. I think I'll be in search of Free stuff A LOT more next month, but hopefully I'm not looking for Free just to amass more things.

So think about it. Let's start this on September 1st and go from there. I will try to confess as often as possible.....Let's hope anyway!

So Sorry my Friends

2009-08-22T09:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't exactly written a very moving post lately!
I have been working a lot of overtime lately at work (take it when you can get it) and the thought of sitting down at a computer and thinking wasn't appealing last week.

I'll write something soon I promise.

Until then check out this article from Green Living Tips and Micheal Bloch.

Hydrogen peroxide - a greener alternative to chlorine bleach

Chlorine bleach is a chemical that most of us have in our homes. It's very handy for multiple applications including cleaning and disinfecting; but may not be all that earth friendly. A good alternative to consider is hydrogen peroxide.

Most of the debate about chlorine bleach (sodium hypochlorite) stems from its ability to form more toxic byproducts such as dioxin, furans and other organochlorines when reacting with other elements.

Hydrogen Peroxide on the other hand, is simply water with an extra oxygen molecule (H2O2) and breaks down into oxygen and water. It's certainly kinder on the environment. H2O2 is produced by both animal and plant cells and is formed naturally in the environment by sunlight acting on water.

Many industrial bleaching operations, such as those used in the production of paper, are increasingly moving towards the use of hydrogen peroxide for a greener bleaching process. It's also the active ingredient in many "oxygen" bleaches and is used extensively for lightening hair.

Do be careful when purchasing and handling this substance as some commercially available "food grade" hydrogen peroxide is 35% pure, highly corrosive and can be toxic or fatal if ingested at that strength.

Hydrogen peroxide should be diluted down to 3% as a base for most applications. It's also readily available in 3% solution from your local pharmacy or drugstore; which is probably the preferable and safer way to buy it, especially if you can take your empty bottles back for exchange/refilling - that can help cut down the cost.

If you choose to dilute a 35% solution yourself, add the hydrogen peroxide to distilled water rather than the other way around and wear gloves, body and eye protection when doing so.

Hydrogen Peroxide tips and uses

- Keep it out of direct sunlight and in a cool place, as exposure to the sun and heat will quickly break it down into oxygen and water; rendering it ineffective. Store it in a dark bottle and remember to keep it out of reach of children.

- Dip your toothbrush in a 3% solution of hydrogen peroxide solution to help kill bacteria on the brush after brushing.

- A tablespoon of 3% hydrogen peroxide solution in a cup of water can be used as a mouthwash - swish for up to 60 seconds once a day; but don't swallow and be sure to rinse your mouth out afterwards. This can also help whiten teeth.

- Hydrogen peroxide in a 3% solution applied to a rag can be used to clean benchtops and cutting boards to help kill salmonella and other bacteria

- Half fill a spray bottle with a 3% solution and then top it up with water for use as a bathroom and toilet disinfectant and cleaner. This is especially useful if you have a septic, greywater or blackwater treatment system as it won't harm the bacteria in the treatment areas - the hydrogen peroxide would have diluted to a point that renders it harmless by that stage through the interaction with flush water.

- Mix a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution with two parts water in a spray bottle and use on areas affected by mold. You can try a neat 3% solution for areas like bathroom tiling, but be careful on the strength in relation to painted items as it may bleach them.

- Make a whitening toothpaste by mixing baking soda and enough 3% Hydrogen Peroxide to form a paste

- Use 3% hydrogen peroxide to sterilize cuts and abrasions - the fizzing you'll see occur is normal.

- To help kill bacteria such as E. Coli on fruits and vegetables, add a quarter cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to a sink full of cold water. immerse, rinse with cold water and drain. By killing bacteria this will also help keep fruit and vegetables fresher for longer. You can also use a spraybottle containing a 50/50 mix of 3% hydrogen peroxide and water - just spray and rinse.

- Add a cup of 3% hydrogen peroxide to your whites wash in place of bleaches

- Remove bloodstains from clothing by blotting stain with 3% hydrogen peroxide, then rinse promptly with cold water to avoid bleaching of the fabric.

- To remove yellowing from lace curtains or tablecloths, fill a sink with cold water and a 2 cups of 3% hydrogen peroxide. Soak for at least an hour, rinse in cold water and air dry

So there you have it - hydrogen peroxide can not only be a more earth friendly replacement for chlorine bleach, but has many more uses around your home!

In researching this article, I found all sorts of weird and wonderful tips relating to ingesting and inhaling hydrogen peroxide. Some claimed cures for cancer and many other ailments. Please, consult your doctor before ingesting hydrogen peroxide - bear in mind that it can be quite corrosive in higher concentrations and cause damage to your respiratory and digestive tract.

Michael Bloch
Green Living Tips.com

Funny Pic

2009-08-15T19:24:00.000-07:00

You probably will have to make this bigger, but I love what this has to say about plastic silverware.

The Sleeths Make it on the 700 Club

2009-08-12T22:20:00.001-07:00

You have probably noticed all the books along the right hand side of my blog and have figured out that I was inspired to do this whole Green living by the Sleeth Family.

They were on the 700 Club the other day and thought you might like to see what they look like! ;)

I don't particularly like the commentary at the end of the video. The lady was like, "OH its just so hard to can..." and blah blah blah....But I'm sure she meant well.
I couldn't get the video to embed itself but click below to see video. Its short.

Enjoy!

click HERE.

School Supplies 2009-2010

2009-08-09T17:48:00.000-07:00

School is rapidly approaching and like most parents I'm scrambling to get all the school supplies they need.
thankfully we don't' need those $70+ calculators yet, but we still need things that I always wonder why. Like Tape. I mean really? Tape? Don't rip your papers and if you do then deal with it. I suppose the tape if for the teacher, not for the kids, but still.

Anyway, once again like we did last year we went thru Noah's already existing school supplies and are recycling them again for this year. I mean how many new pairs of scissors does a kid really need?
We found the usual stuff, but this year we scored even more. We only had to buy a few things (like tape) and I truly got to thinking how badly do these kids really need new supplies year after year.
I would guess that most kids don't need much except for maybe pencils, pens, paper and glue in most cases.
I'm sure last years backpack and lunch box would work just as good as well as last years scissors. I'm not sure why we think all kids require new of this and new that. Noah's been using the same package of colored pencils since 3rd grade (he's going into 5th) which to me says they really are not using those types of items THAT much for me to justify buying a new pack.
Recycling truly is about reusing and reusing last years supplies isn't so bad.

Now mind you, if you are buying supplies for those kids who don't have school supplies or teachers who need the supplies not only for themselves, but to help maybe some children who can't get the basics, then by ALL means -- Go Crazy. But if its for your kids and they have drawers full of pens, crayons, pencils, pencil cases, backpacks, etc then consider not buying new. Just reuse.
Think about it every kid in America were to use say their scissors from last year. We would save in packaging, shipping, boxing it up, making the item and your last years pair being added to the never ending supply of stuff in your kids rooms. It would make a huge dent. Statistics on that item being reused. I have no idea. It just would be a savings not only on how it effects our resources, but also your wallet.

It wouldn't hurt to teach our kids to stop expecting the new school year to automatically mean a whole new wardrobe full of clothes, brand new backpacks and supplies. If they don't' get it each year they won't expect it all the time. Sure you will get those kids that just have a fit using last years scissors or using last years backpack, but it won't kill them to learn that a lot of kids DO go without and for some they don't' even have simple things like pencils.

You might be thinking you should just take some of your last years stuff and give it to school or teachers and that would be a great option as long as its cool with them. A lot of preschool or kindergarten teachers take crayon scraps and melt them into little cupcake sized crayons for little hand to use. Pencils, paper, scissors can always be used. I bet if you looked you would find more items that you had never even dreamed were left over from last year -- that probably were not even used. I dare you to look into it. I promise your wallet will thank me. ;)

We did have to get paper, pencils & glue sticks, but I expected to have to buy something. Like Graph paper. I wouldn't have had that around just because. And no I'll be honest I didn't buy the fancy 100% recycled paper or the eco-happy pencils. I'll be honest those were just too $$ and hard to find what we needed. Now i know that sounds like I'm being not very eco-friendly by not going out and buying the Green labeled stuff, but here is what we didn't have to buy and I think you'll get the picture:

a backpack
a binder (which BTW was giving to us for free @ the Green Festival. So its green!)
pens
hand sanitizer (again from 3rd grade. We don't believe in using the junk)
some pencils ( I had a pack left over from last year)
a bible (required for Noah's private school)
highlighter
erasers
pencil sharpener
Colored pencils. He is still using the same 2 packages from 3rd grade and possibly 2nd grade. the boxes themselves have seen better days, but DANG 2 boxes?? I saved some $$ there.

And I'm sure there are other things I forgot, but that's a pretty large amount of stuff I don't have to buy this year considering his list. Now i just have to find Eco-happy Kleenex and paper towels which I'm sure I'll get from Seventh Generation who I love. Gotta show the school peeps how we roll at our house.

Also, when we were at Target today Noah and I found little pencil holders made out of recycled Frito bags. So I let him get one. Terracycle makes them and i personally LOVE what they do.

So go clean out the closets before you go back to the store. It'll help us get out of the mindset of buying NEW NEW NEW every year. Makes Christmas shopping easier when you narrow down the school stuff.

No Cable - Almost 1 yr Anniversary

2009-08-05T18:34:00.000-07:00

It will officially be one year without any cable as of 8/27. Amazing. We made it a whole year without cable. The only time we saw cable was when we went on vacation and even then we hardly watched it. Funny this is when we did watch cable on vacation, we watched movies or Animal Planet.

Sure there are times when I just want to fall down and cry because I just miss the crap out of Project Runway, but those feelings got less as time when on.

We as a family have gained so much in having no cable. It amazes me sometimes how creative Noah is now that he isn't' distracted by TV anymore. There are sometimes he gets too wrapped up in watching some shows on our Roku player, but because he has no commercials to distract him he doesn't sit for hours on end before the throne of the TV.

Now I can see that some people might say having no cable, but having a Roku player is no different then having cable. I can see a relation to it, but honestly there are only so many movies I want to see that Netflix offers and the TV shows available for Roku are not the most current ones that's for sure. What I do love about the Roku player is I have to think about what I'm going to watch and for awhile my husband and I made a point to watch Quantum Leap (all 6 seasons) as a couple together. We loved it and now that we saw all 6 seasons I'm almost a little sad about it. Now we are watching The Office, but it took me about a season to truly get into it.

ANYWAY, I have a point I swear, in the past I would have came home, turned on the TV just to have background noise on. I wouldn't really watch anything and now I feel relaxed when I come home without having the TV on. Its pretty rare for me to come home these days and see my son parked in front of the TV. Now he's usually upstairs playing with Lego's or something along those lines.

One of the best things has been when we got rid of cable, suddenly Noah didn't play video games as much anymore. I don't know why, but it just didn't draw him to it I suppose. Sure in the winter he played them more, but since its been warm he's outside a lot or just playing with his toys. Its about time he plays with those toys!! ;)

I challenge you to consider giving up your TV or at the very least your cable. Its not so hard and I save over $80 a month not having cable. I promise you that bundle package you have for phone, cable, Internet and whatever else probably isn't worth it anyway.

Your sanity and peace of mind is so much more rewarding then having cable. Besides, you always have the Internet to watch some TV as well.

Its a thought!

This Economy Sucks or Does it?

2009-08-03T19:35:00.000-07:00

It seems like you can't avoid this statement anymore.

"The Economy is horrible"

"Job loss on at an all time high"

And that list could go on and on.

I'm not going to knock that things aren't hard right now. Just ask my out of work husband who has been out for going on 6 weeks now because the Construction industry isn't exactly booming right now. I'm lucky to even have a job since I was laid off around this time last year due to job cuts and my position was sent overseas. So I know things are NOT great and ideal right now.

But this type of economy does make us as Americans rethink our spending and how we live As Americans we are not exactly the most responsible in our spending and we use up more of the Worlds resources then many other countries combined.

Consider some of these facts:

-Americans constitute 5% of the world's population but consume 24% of the world's energy.

-On average, one American consumes as much energy as
2 Japanese
6 Mexicans
13 Chinese
31 Indians
128 Bangladeshis
307 Tanzanians
370 Ethiopians

-Americans eat 815 billion calories of food each day - that's roughly 200 billion more than needed - enough to feed 80 million people.

-Americans throw out 200,000 tons of edible food daily.

-The average American generates 52 tons of garbage by age 75.

-The average individual daily consumption of water is 159 gallons, while more than half the world's population lives on 25 gallons.

-Eighty percent of the corn grown and 95% of the oats are fed to livestock.

-Fifty-six percent of available farmland is used for beef production.

-Every day an estimated nine square miles of rural land are lost to development.

-There are more shopping malls than high schools.
Mindfully.org

Maybe not having extra cash to spread around we might actually consume less as a whole. Even if we stopped buying so much meat we might actually need less corn which would mean less corn would stay here in the US and could be sent overseas to a country that truly needs it.

Now don't get me wrong -- I get the whole idea that we have to spend to "stimulate" the economy and spending isn't bad, but it would not hurt some of our friends or neighbors to rethink their spending and what they spend their money on.
I think this is a good time in the US. Its a time to stop and think out our purchases more thoroughly. Its a time to save a little money. Its a time to not be so consumed with all the "toys' that are out there and its a time to not have to worry about "keeping up with the Jones'" anymore.
So does this economy truly suck for you?

If it does, take a moment to be thankfully for what you already have and know that there is someone else out there that has it worse off then you. That person might truly have needs rather then wants. Consider that person ahead of you before you consider yourself. Living a selfless lifestyle is so rewarding. Maybe even be so inclined as to have a Gratitude journal or read this blog that just comes up with 3 things everyday they are thankful for. It sounds so silly, but I promise you it'll be the start of a huge change in your life.

It seems like a stretch to go from Economy to being Thankful doesn't it?
It isn't though when you see the big picture. Suddenly seeing the small stuff in life and taking the time to just slow down and enjoy life suddenly the Economy and its issues don't see so scary anymore.
Take it from Madame Blueberry, she thought she needed a lot of stuff but discovered it wasn't about stuff or stimulating the economy!

I thank God for this day,

For the sun in the sky,

For my mom and my dad,

For my piece of apple pie!

For our home on the ground,

For His love that's all around,

That's why I say thanks every day!

Because a thankful heart is a happy heart!

I'm glad for what I have,

That's an easy way to start!

For the love that He shares,

'Cause He listens to my prayers,

That's why I say thanks every day!

Welcome New Readers! (or I hope you keep Reading!!)

2009-07-23T18:24:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that some of you have stumbled across my blog from the recent link posted in the News Tribune and the Puyallup Herald! Welcome!

I probably should better explain exactly what I do on this blog, who I am, what I am setting out to do and why I bother....

Well first off I want to say, I'm not the best writer in the world. For a long time when I first started this blog I spelled environmentalism wrong for about 6+ months. I would guess you probably don't want to take advice from someone who can't spell the words about what I'm trying to preach! Totally respect that.
I'm better at using spell check now.
But in all seriousness, I write this blog because I think Christians are either unaware or just don't see it as their responsibility to care for all that God has given us. That includes his precious creation-- Man.
While I'm not perfect in the LEAST when it comes to some of the things I preach about, I do know that I want to share that this truly is easy to do. This being Living a more aware lifestyle to how we treat the Earth and the things in it.

I'm not a very educated person in this stuff by any means. I avoid talking about things like Global Warming or air quality because I just don't know enough about it and when I DO read things about it I start to glaze over. I think we could all stand to be more environmentally aware of more simple things like recycling or conserving or just plain caring rather then reading huge books about Polar Bears dying because the polar ice Cap is melting so rapidly. (Mind you, I like Polar bears I really do)

So I try to keep it simple because its just easier that way and its less likely I'll make a fool out of myself by saying something that sounds like I'm a complete idiot.

If you are reading this thinking, "ah well she's one of those religious fanatics" just know I do write some about God, but I'm not like that at all. Just ask my other non-green friends if I'm one of those bible bashers and you'd be pleasantly surprised. I keep it simple even when it comes to my preaching. No sense in shoving God down your throat when you care barely stomach having to separate your recycling!!
But don't say I didn't warn you that I would talk about God! ;)

I like comments and I wish I had more readers that left them. I know I get people who read my stuff, but as you can clearly see I have few followers at this time. So feel free to leave a comment! And if you are feeling REALLY inspired then follow me on Blogger! Mostly I just want to know what you want to read more about when it comes to the cliche term of Green Living.

So with that, I welcome you.
I welcome you to my little Green world.
Remember God is Green too.

Thanks!

picture from HERE

Puyallup bloggers cover vacations, sustainability | The News Tribune - Northwest | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination

2009-07-22T18:08:00.001-07:00

Puyallup bloggers cover vacations, sustainability | The News Tribune - Northwest | Seattle-Tacoma News, Weather, Sports, Jobs, Homes and Cars | South Puget Sound's Destination

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More Pics of the Green!

2009-07-17T23:05:00.001-07:00

Here is my latest picture snapping I have taken recently of our greenness

Little Raspberry bush that could! Getting there!
Lettuce gone wild. Note to readers: do not let your lettuce get so huge. Its A LOT of greens to eat.
Oregon Snap peas. Hubby loves the and eats them off the vine. Sorry the pic is sideways.

Zucchini! They just one day grew and now they are growing like crazy! Got a good zucchini recipe I'll take it. I will have enough to try many recipes.

Broccoli! It grows VERY big. I had no idea. Gardening for us is learn as it grows. I have already started freezing it because we have so much. This is one of 3 bushes we have overtaking my garden right now. Time to trim them back. Its pretty awesome really.

My backyard with the picture of greenness. Hanging laundry, chicken grazing in the middle, garden growing and grass dying. Ahhhh its the life....!

Riding my Bike To Work

2009-07-15T20:30:00.000-07:00

Ok so I have been biking to work on and off for the past 2 weeks. It has been an experience thats for sure!

I believe I ride about 6.2 miles (according to Google) going down to work and about 5 miles coming home. Its shorter coming home because we have a HUGE hill that is like a death trap that I would need to go back up to get home. There is little shoulder on this hill and people basically drive about 80 mph to get up it. So I call my husband at the bottom of the hill to come get me. I know, I know, that isn't really biking ALL the way to work, but I don't want to die yet so I'm sticking with the calling for now.

It hasn't been easy I'm not going to lie. I wish I could say I was so moved to ride my bike everywhere which in a lot of ways I do, but its the going home part that is hard. I'm just beat after work and I have a desk job! I will say however that I do feel more energy going into work after biking in. After work not so much, but I enjoy my time alone on the road just me and my bike. I don't have the best bike in the world so that might be part of the problem, but I at least have a bike and I like to use it so its good enough for me.

Riding into work has gathered a lot of interest from my co-workers though. They really seem genuine about asking how far I ride, how hard of a ride it is and some have even said they would consider riding in as well. Let's hope that happens because then we could have a bike pool or something and ride in as a group! In my dreams yes, but it wouldn't be so lonely.

I'm not sure how much gas I've saved yet, but its not just the gas savings its also for my health. But I will admit that biking into work makes me think I have the liberty to eat a lot of junk food! Obviously I can't lose weight by doing that!

I'm sure if I keep riding into work I might see some changes in my health. I am able to ride longer and faster without getting winded as quickly which is very cool. Clearly I'm gaining more stamina.

Just saying I rode my bike into work is empowering! Yes, I do get sweaty, especially coming home on a hot day like today was! How do I combat the sweat? Well I drink a lot of water and I change my clothes completely. I have some baby wipes just in case I smell really bad, but really I don't stink up the workplace and its like a good sweat rather then a bad BO kind of sweat.

Consider how much you drive somewhere that is close and maybe think about dropping some of those trips all together or bike it! Its is worth it even though yes, its hard and sweaty at times. Biking isn't something I love yet, but I will say its growing on me very quickly!

Confession Time

2009-06-28T21:08:00.000-07:00

"Forgive me Green living for I have not been very motivated lately."

Now I'm not Catholic, but I feel the need to confess to you all that I haven't exactly been motivated lately oh about well anything and that includes my Green Living.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not driving a Hummer or eating out of Styrofoam boxes every meal, I'm still doing my usual stuff, but as for going above and beyond and for lack of a better term "Be the change" I'm not doing that currently.

I recently had a comment posted on this post about how my recycling efforts are going at my church and in my City. To be completely frank, it has gone no where because I haven't done jack diddly squat about it and I feel kind of guilty and surprised all at the same time.

For one I am surprised people actually read my blog or even find it. I forget that in the age of Google the power is just at your fingertips, but I truly am always surprised when I get comments from people who don't know me personally. Its pretty awesome and well, makes me take notice more about what I might say on this blog.

The question was if I had implemented any sort of recycling program first at my church and at the Farmers Market. That would be a big fat no, BUT the question made me realize I needed to get off my duff and DO something--ANYTHING-- about that. So tonight after I read that comment I immediately went to the City's website and the Markets website. I have to start in some way and I know email is pretty simple and HELLO I could/should have done that quite awhile ago. To be honest when I volunteer at our church's booth AT the Market I feel a little guilty I hadn't done anything (mostly because our booth is RIGHT next to a trash can that is emptied about 2-3 times in the time the Market is open).

As for the Church question I haven't done anything, but I need to just do it and tell Pastor I'm doing it. He's pretty easy going and I think if I showed up with some blue recycling bins one Sunday and said, "Use these and I'll empty them" he'd be ok with that. Might even let me say something on the mic about it. I could even go so far as to buy compostable cups/lids for the coffee they serve on Sundays. Might be pushing my budget, but hey gotta do something and it should last us awhile.

But as a whole just having someone comment on my blog that is for one thing, Local and interested really got me to thinking that I should be doing more that is outside my home. I need to literally listen to my readers and be the example. As much as i don't want to be an example, if I say something I need to at least have something to show for right? Sure I might have to get out of my comfort zone, but if it inspires someone else to do it then that's great. The ripple effect right?!

So to you FCC Chapel, thank you. Thank you for reminding me to wake up and not be so stagnant in my "green lifestyle." Just like I wouldn't want to be stagnant in my walk with Christ, I need to be the same in this as well. I already am thinking of what I can do to stop being so lukewarm and start being more on fire about this! Feel free to contact me if you would like more of a personal suggestion to your question. I screen all my comments before they are published and feel free to leave a comment with your email address and I won't publish it.

Blessings to you all! Anyone else want to pony up and confess anything? The confessional booth is open!

The Ladies & Garden

2009-06-27T08:36:00.000-07:00

My lady chickens are loving their little Omlet house and love to free range all over the yard, but no eggs yet. Hopefully by Aug or maybe even July we'll see something!

The last batch of eggs I bought at the grocery store I wondered if I would have to buy any again after those. Its sort of a weird feeling to think about not buying things at the store. I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong, but at the same time its so liberating!

Have a garden is almost the same way except in the winter I do'nt know how to grow anything yet. Might try my hand at it this year. We ahve things growing this year I had NO idea we even planted. We have Zucchinni's and a giant sunflower that I vaguely remember planting, but it took and is taking off big time. My broccoli is growing pretty well too.

I'll post pictures soon on my garden so you can see its progress today. I'd like to keep planting more, but I'm also quickly running out of places to plant in our little raised bed. Time to make another one! Yay!

Sometimes I shake my head at what I have been able to accomplish growing things. I would have never imagained that I would do this one day. Its all very good and very eye opening at the same time. I wouldn't consider myself a master planter by any means, but its a start and one less thing I have to pick up at the store.

More later. Sorry for the lame update!!

1- yr Anniversary of No Meat

2009-06-16T07:36:00.000-07:00

It will have been nearly 1 yr next month that I offically stopped eating read meat and Pork. I had done that on and off for years before this, but I never took a WHOLE entire year and completely avoided the stuff.

Now I wouldn't have ever actually ate the picture on the left here, but it just goes to show how much meat is engrained in our society here in the US.

Let me tell you it is HARD to find non-red meat/pork options. Swine flu didn't scare me, but man it really showed how much meat is in our food chain. Only time I ever came up to a bad meat situation was actually about a month back. I had ordered Minestrone soup thinking it would be like ALL other Minestrone soups with veggies, pasta & beans. But no. This soup for some strange reason had Bacon in it. Ick. I ate maybe 2 bites before I figured it out and then I just sort of picked at it. I just couldn't break my promise to myself that I wouldn't eat those piggies.

I still miss pepperoni pizza. Its the one thing I absolutely struggle with. But I have overcome. I do still eat chicken and fish still. I have found it must be really really hard to be a complete vegetarian because going out to eat there are literally no veggie options. Sad considering our societies health would benefit from eating from fruits & veggies for sure. This is why making your own lunch is such a great thing! And sometimes its the only option.

So I've made it a year and I'm still cutting back on a lot of the foods I eat. Next up is trying to eliminate Corn Syrup from my diet. I have been reading so many labels lately and we are actively trying to avoid it, but this one is much harder then not eating meat. I think it would be easier to be a Vegan then remove corn syrup. Thanks Ya'all!

Sabbath Day

2009-06-09T07:05:00.000-07:00

I haven't always given much thought to the Sabbath Day and that is sad because I know my God wants me to have a day to just rest. I have gotten better at taking time to slow down, but I will confess to not taking much time for God and for my mind.

Because I've always gone to the types of churches where its just

"GO GO GO!!" I don't have a lot of teaching on the Sabbath, but

I got to thinking about how important it could be if we all did it.

In Serve God Save the Planet Dr. Sleeth does talk about how he takes a day of rest and his family observes it as well. He even takes it further to point out that if we in America DID take a day of rest what it would do to impact or environment.

Imaging taking 100s if not millions of cars off the road or stores being closed for just awhile and how much energy that would save! Or if we were really extreme and on the Sabbath we truly didn't work and we didn't cook meals in the oven or the microwave, no TV is watched, no mowing of the lawn, no energy really be put out for vacuuming or laundry. It would be huge.

And if you thought about it, even if we didn't all take the same day off, but took off just one day -- any day-- to be our Sabbath even that would make a huge impact.

I think ti would benefit our well beings and our relationship with God. We would truly be showing God we want to learn from him thru his Word or just showing God we have obedience to take some time out of our busy lives to just do nothing.

What is doing nothing??

Well, its simply that.

Imagine getting up in the morning after you got to sleep in and no alarm clock to jar you awake.

Imagine sitting outside maybe in a hammock or on the lawn just staring off into space or reading a book for hours if possible. Maybe taking a nap later in the afternoon, this time outside to feel the breeze.

Imagine just making a simple lunch of already prepared items like fruit, veggies, cheeses and bread. Something simple that requires nothing more then putting it in your mouth.

Maybe you sit outside and listen to your iPod belting out the Worship tunes.

Whatever it is that doesn't expend a ton of energy on your part is resting. I think some of us couldn't even do that. We couldn't even slow down if we wanted too. Our Adult ADD forces us from taking time to slow it down and just do nothing. I will confess to running around like a crazy person on weekends to get chores done or run errands. I think I could put off that Costco trip for at least one day don't you think?

Maybe you can't do ti weekly, but what if you tried to do the Sabbath at least monthly? Or when you are vacation devote a day of doing nothing. I suspect that those days might be the ones your kids remember the most because you are actually playing WITH them, not along side of them.

Give it a try and let me know how it feels! :)

Picture from HERE.

Chickens & the Eglu

2009-05-27T22:25:00.000-07:00

This is my chicken coop: the Eglu by Omlet. It is a fantastic little coop--pricey, but I can move it around and clean it by just rinsing it off or emptying the tray. It is a great little thing for a small little flock like we now have and they seem to really like it. They do enjoy being outside I know that. They are loving the sunshine, the clover in our grass, and all the other fun things they can peck at to their hearts content outside. More on this later!!

Reason's Why Biking is Better

2009-05-25T18:56:00.000-07:00

Ok so I'm for SURE not one of those fancy bike rider type people. I don't have the cool bike shorts and matching tight loud looking top that CLINGS to all parts, but I do ride my bike so its a start.

While riding my bike tonight from the store I was thinking of some reasons why riding my bike is better then driving.

When I ride past a Prius, I feel all smug like I out did them. Take that low emission car-- my bikes got NO emissions. HAH!

I can cut thru parking lots without fear of a ticket.

While everyone else is lined up at the light, I keep right on going to the front of the line. Oh yeah. (I do obey the traffic laws though. I'm not one of those bikers that thinks I have the right away everywhere. now THATS annoying)

I always get to park right in the front. Like right next to the entrance. What car can say they can do that?!

I can never lock myself out.

I won't over shop and buy what I don't need because I don't have room for it. I barely have room for my purse.

I know people look at me while riding and feel sorry for me that I'm on a bike, but I feel empowered. I feel like I'm taking charge of my health and my well being by being on a bike in the first place.

I can see into people's backyards.

I can go under the speed limit and no one cares!

I really do get to feel the wind on my face.

No one arm tan for me. I can get a whole body tan (depending on much skin is showing)

Sure I can get helmet hair sometimes, but it beats having convertible hair.

People are usually really nice to bikers and let me cross more often then walkers. I'm faster.

I can easily change my bike color if I really wanted too. I haven't yet, but if I wanted to it would be cheaper and faster then repainting my car.

I don't freak out about scratches or dings on my bike body. Meh.

I don't need insurance! I have health insurance so that pretty much covers me.

There you go. I know I'm being silly in some of these, but really they are true. I don't know that I'll ever get one of those tight bike outfits or not. I do have the pants, but the top kind of makes me shudder a little bit.

Picture is from HERE.

New Garden & Chicken Pics

2009-05-25T18:22:00.000-07:00

Here are my girls I call them. Yes and then there were only 3. Started with 6, but 2 were killed by my evil chicken killing Pug Maggie (yes even Pugs want to kill small animals too apparently). Then one was a Rooster. we gave Red the Rooster away to someone who can keep Roosters in their town. They are not allowed within the City Limits were we live. So now we have Scrappy, Little Red and one that is unnamed.

Here is my Raspberry bush and more tiny raspberries. The one that is the most bushy is getting on a couple years now. Takes while to build them up, but we hack ours back so it won't overwhelm our yard. Not that it would be bad thing since i love Rasberries.

My blueberry tree. Its trying. We just got it this year so it'll be awhile before it starts making blueberries, but gotta plant them while I can!

Ahhhhh .... my tomato plants. I have 4 total, 2 different kinds, Roma and Spitfire. Hoping to make more salsa and tomato sauce this year. Made quite a bit of tomato sauce/spaghetti sauce last year. There's a Basil plant there in teh picture as well, but it had an accident where it took a DIVE off my deck and basically smashed itself. I wasn't too happy about that.

And lastly here is my raised bed. Yes there is fencing around ti this year. The dogs are getting too curious and liked to jump in it and SMASH all my plants. that didn't make me happy. In the top left corner is my strawberries and some peas. Then 3 rows of lettcue (I like lettuce) and some broccoli. Broccoli we are trying thsi year for kicks. Not sure how it'll work, but what the heck. Same for garlic. We'll be trying garlic too.

Only frustrating thing this year is I seem to have caterpillars or something eating my lettuce. Ick. Gotta pay better attention to those things or else I'm going to have a bug infested garden rather then edible treats.

So its not the best pictures, but its just a brief look at how our garden is growing!

I'll be posting pictures soon of my new chicken coop when it arrives. It should (it better be!!) be here tomorrow.

CHEERS! Happy growing!