Simply Going Green

Today I thought a lot more about "Going Green" than I usually do.
Because it's EARTH DAY!!!
this is a topic I have given more and more thought to as my interest in, reusable, sustainable, and recycled products has increased.
today I'm going to talk about a few ways I have gone, or intend to go "green".


1. I use cloth diapers. It is estimated that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are consumed every year in the U.S.
Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill. No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but apparently it's estimated to be about 250-500 Years!!!
I still buy about one box of diapers a month, and I'm hoping to get that lower in the next few months. 

2. (when it's warm enough) I use our clothes line to dry our laundry

3. I recycle. it's so simple, recycle and you are already making a huge difference! just recycle.

4. I currently have boxes and boxes of plastic baggies, but when I'm finished with those, I hope to buy some recyclable/reusable ones for sandwiches and snacks for Patrick's lunches. I go through anywhere from 5-10 sandwich bags a week.

5. I'm a subscriber to Honest.com. I've started buying my household cleaning items, baby items, and even stuff for Patrick and I at Honest.
I get any 5 items I want a month for $40.
Honest is a website that sells affordable Eco friendly household, baby, and personal items that aren't made with all the harsh chemicals that so many other products are made out of.

These are just a few of the things that I do. but every day I'm dreaming up new ways to go greener.

Also, In the long run I truly believe in doing everything I can to keep this world clean and safe.
I also believe recycling and reusing products will save money (green).





 

Simply Cooking

Lets talk about food today! 

I LOVE to cook, especially for my family. and recently both Patrick and I have been trying to eat healthfully, and have been cutting animal products out. mostly meat, but other products too as time goes on. my ideal end game would be "loose" vegans. 

You may think I'm crazy, but I've done the research, I've read books and am reading more, I've also watched a few very educational documentaries.

I'm trying very hard to Educate myself on how to live better and how to feed my family food that is life giving. I don't want to live in ignorance, and just put whatever I want in my body. it's not at all affecting our budget either.

here are a few recipes of some of my most recent favorite trials. In all honesty though I never follow recipes, everything I make, I just throw together. Here are the rough recipes though.

#1: Throw together Vegetable Quiche. (Vegetarian)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

1 Onion 

1 Package of Asparagus

1 Sm. Package of Mushrooms 

10 Baby sweet peppers (or one big pepper any color)

1 pre made pie crust.

5-6 eggs 

1 cup of any kind of cheese 

Directions:

saute all the vegetables in a skillet with coconut oil (or olive oil) and then pour them in the unbaked pie crust scramble the eggs and add about half of the cheese into the egg mixture. next, sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. 

put the quiche in the oven for 20 minutes or until the crust has browned. 

  It's literally throw together, so use whatever you have in your fridge!

#2 Eggplant Parmesan - (Vegetarian)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1 Eggplant
1 C plain or italian bread crumbs
1-2 Eggs as needed
1 Tablespoon of  Italian seasonings
1/4 C Parmesan cheese 
1 can of tomato sauce or one jar of pasta sauce if you go with the tomato sauce add some of the Italian seasonings to that.
1 C of Mozzarella cheese 
Directions:
get a cookie sheet out and slice the eggplant and sprinkle salt all over it very liberally on the cookie sheet. I'm not sure what this does, but trust me, it makes it so much better! after about 20 mins. flip them over and salt the other side. 20 mins on that side and then wash them off with water and pat them dry with a paper towel.
Now, combine the 1C of bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese and 1T of Italian seasonings in a bowl. and then the eggs in another. Bread the eggplant and set the breaded ones aside.
In a skillet, heat some vegetable oil or coconut oil and fry the eggplant till golden on both sides. set aside. in a 6X6 pan spray with cooking oil lightly and then put some tomato sauce on the bottom, then layer the eggplant down on top of the sauce. once the first layer is down, cover that with sauce, then some cheese. layer sauce, cheese, eggplant,  until you are done with the eggplant. put the pan in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese on the top is melted.
it's super yummy!
you can also serve this with pasta, but we just eat this with salad. 

#3 Vegetable Bean Pasta- Vegetarian
 1 lb of any kind of pasta that you want. (whole wheat is best)
1 pkg of mushrooms
1 zucchini
1 can of great northern beans
1/2 teaspoon of red pepper flakes
salt and pepper to taste

cook noodles. Saute Vegetables and beans in coconut oil. add the pepper flakes. once everything is cooked, mix it all together.
*this is an extremely easy meal, it's very simple, and bland, but super delicious!! Add as many spices as you want to make it more exciting!

#4 Tomato Basil Stuffed Zucchini- Vegan
Preheat oven to 350
1 Cup of cooked Quinoa
1/2 Cup tomatoes
1 Tablespoon Italian seasonings
2 Tablespoons fresh Basil

half and hallow out 3 zucchini. Mix the above ingredients together and pile the filling into the zucchini place into the oven for about 10 minutes or until zucchini is cooked.

*to change from vegan to vegetarian, add cheese on top. you could also add ground beef or chicken to the mixture. 

 

I'm always trying new things, so if you ever need ideas, let me know. also, I'll continue (so long as you like the recipes) every now and then, putting meals up that I make. 

Give me feedback, let me know what you think. 

Simply Keeping up 2

I'm not a regular blogger, I hope I'm not disappointing anyone out there because of that. I'm sure I'm not, but just in case I am, calm down and stop checking your computers every 5 mins to check and see if I put up a new post. I'm sadly, incredibly inconsistent.
the last few weeks have been busy bit I've just been trying to keep up with the house and it's been going very smooth, nearly everything in the house has a home and I'm thrilled to be living here. Every morning I'm so thankful to be living in such a beautiful home. Here is the living room with the new carpet and our new sectional. 

like I said in my first post, Patrick has 5 guitars and not only do they take up a lot of space, but they are the objects of Autumns affection as of recent. so I looked on pinterest and got some ideas. this is the final product of our guitar project.

now on to other things. 

Although I've worked on my basement in the last few weeks, there is still a lot to do and I'll be working on that in the weeks to come. I've found that since my house is in a great place, I'm not very motivated to address other issues that don't mess with my daily life.

Fitness and self control are my biggest goals this month......and extend till forever. 

let me explain, I've gone back to my diet of trying to cut back on animal products and We just started a membership at the local YMCA so I am going to try and spend an hour at least 4 days a week if I can hack it. 

Now comes the more difficult part, I want to start trying to bake more for Patrick. I thought I would try it for a few days and he LOVES IT! my husband is an all around happier person, if he has cookies around to snack on and it doesn't require much from me other than a whole lot of self control. So far, I'm not doing too well but I'll be working on it. I just can't seem to turn down my cookies or cake! :) .

I'm still slowly working on unplugging myself and Autumn, but it's seeming like a slower process than I had thought. I need to learn to live in silence which is a think i don't think I have really ever done. 

Until next time......

Simply Unplugged

Today was a weird day for my thoughts.
I never knew this about myself fully until today but I'm pretty much a major spaz!
Patrick was supposed to get our new furniture today but this morning i started worrying that it was going to over power our small space, so we decided to exchange the sectional (before we picked it up) for a sofa and love seat, the ones we wanted had a one month waiting period (we had already taken the other furniture out of the living room) and they took up just as much space as the sectional (i actually think more) it was just a different look. Sectional Vs. sofa and love seat. SO, I actually called Slumberland and did just that, exchanged the sectional for the sofa and love seat, threw in a matching chair for the same price and it was done, no problem. i thought i felt good about it but then I got really anxious about it for a number of reasons and got to the point where I just didn't want new furniture anymore (which is still an option I'm toying with). without going in to the details of my totally unneeded, dramatic and very dramotional freak out I called Slumberland and told them i wanted the sectional again....such a fickle girl. I did make sure though that I could return OR exchange it if i hated it. i think most of my anxiety came from the fact that i think the sectional might actually offer the maximum seating and comfort for our living room but if it looks terrible it's my poor husband who suffers he will already have gone there, loaded it up and then having to take it back I hate to ask, but I know ultimately he doesn't mind, even if he does fine my incredibly crazy sometimes.
And now you know me just a little bit better!
But thats not even what this post is supposed to be about!
I have a challenge for all of you mamas out there (if you want to) but this is mostly for me. This may not work for some of you but you can decide if this would be worth your while or not.
I've been doing a little reading about technology and children, mostly screen time. And I've been observing Autumn in front of TVs, computers, phones, ipads, and my Kindle.  Although I think technology is super important for children to know how to use because its such a prevalent part of our society and world now, I do think that young children can be very negatively affected by over exposure to screens. So I'm challenging myself to a week Unplugged (in front of Autumn).
For example, when she is awake the TV is off. When she is awake and playing no checking my email or Facebook on my phone or computer. No screen exposure for her at all. and I'm fully engaged. there are so many reasons that I want to try this one of them is because like most babies Autumn is very curious and distracted by things and I want to take away some of her biggest distractions. I also want to work on my actions in front of her.
When I was pregnant with Autumn, I would see parents with their kids at a park or at the grocery store or anywhere and they would be looking down at their phone, completely unengaged with their child and I thought to myself "that will never be me". Yet the other night I was down on the floor with Autumn and she played with her toys while I did something on my computer. what I was doing most definitely could have waited till I put her to bed. I could have spent that time playing with her, but I chose to be somewhere else and I want to be better than that. don't we all?
I know that sometimes we have to do our work and being as close to our children or babies is the best we can do and that's great!
but I guess what I'm really challenging is, do your very best to be engaged with your children for as long and as often as you can.
 I'm not going to say that it's going to be a perfect week without any exposure, but I think at the very least this will challenge me to be more aware of my actions in front of her.

Simply Keeping Up

It's been a while since my last post.
I lost my motivational steam after I tackled the kitchen and I decided to take a week off.
To be honest, my kitchen was what motivated me to start de-cluttering my life and since that's done it's been hard figuring out what to do next.
don't let that fool you though, Although I do have a small home there is PLENTY to do! 
now I'm getting revved up again, this week and next week I'm hoping to make some more huge changes.
I'm finding that my 'diet' may be negatively affecting nursing Autumn and so I'm back to "normal" and just cutting sugars.
I'm hoping I can start integrating exercise into my morning/daily routine but I have yet to get that under control.
This week my goals were/are just to keep up and finish organizing my office. I'm also hoping to get to my DVDs and junk drawer. 
Next week, My big focus is to make our basement less scary and more of a liveable space
 We just bought new furniture, I'm hoping it will warm our house up for us and make the living room more of an inviting space. We are putting the current living room furniture into the basement and so I thought maybe I should figure that space out.
I had originally thought that I should tackle that space with Patrick because there is the potential for painting, and even some building that would need to go into making it a more liveable space but I realized that he is so busy these days and I am perfecty capable of doing a project like that all by my self.
I'll be posting pictures soon of our new living room and our basement soon!
Thanks for keeping up with me!! 

Simply De-cluttering a very small kitchen

When Patrick and I got married a year and a half ago a great deal of our gifts were for our kitchen. Most of that was my fault, I like kitchen gadgets and there are just so many to choose from at the stores we registered at.
That being said though, we use the same things and never use the others. I still have things in my basement unopened.
Our kitchen is pretty small, so in order to fit all of our kitchen items in our small kitchen I bought a giant shelf to store all of it. In the past few months I have become more and more resentful towards that shelf. About the same time I started reading the book Loving Simple, I decided that the shelf had to go.
Well, it took all day and I moved probably half of the items that I don't use very often down to the basement, but I'm thrilled! And I feel like I have a new kitchen!!

BEFORE

AFTER

this is the stairway going down to our basement that's right off of our kitchen. I'm now going to use it as a pantry and storage for the larger things.

BEFORE

AFTER

Simply detatching.....Isn't so easy

Today was a great day! I got a great deal done on my "small" projects. I was able to tackle our china cabinet, our dresser, Patrick's closet (with his help), and my closet! And we even slept in till 10!!
Patrick got the day off because it was too cold for him to be working outside so we slept in with Autumn till about 10 and around 11 I started going around my house collecting things that we didn't need and started going thought the china cabinet.
After all the work I did today I think the common theme is inordinate attachments. I decided to throw a lot of things away that a lot of people just wouldn't. And I also held on to things that other people would not have trouble throwing away.
My two examples are my wedding bouquet and underwear. I bet you can't guess which one I had a harder time letting go of!?
I easily threw away the dry mess that once was my wedding bouquet. Underwear though ,I was inordinately attached to because I put a lot of money into them and my best friend and I used to decorate underwear so I had a harder time just chucking every other pair.
My closet was easier than I imagined it would be. I was able to part with a lot more than I thought I would be able to.
I still hope to get rid of even more but this is a really good start and Im really happy with it. I think in attempting my ultimate goal of simplifying my life, I'm about half way there. I will probably go through my house one more time before our garage sale this spring and after the sale everything unsold is going into our car and taken to Salvation Army. Once it leaves, I won't let anything back in. 

here are some pictures of the projects that I tackled today! 

                                                  BEFORE

           
                        

    AFTER

This is the pile of garage sale clothes that came out of my closet.

I forgot to take a before picture, but i promise you it was a mess

All the stuff that I was able to get rid of in one day of purging.

Tomorrow I'm going to attempt to do my kitchen which will probably take all day. I'll be sure to post about that and ill make sure I have before and after pictures!