This and that

I'm trying to keep up guys, I swear. But before I get to blog, I have to catch up with my own life first... so let's do it together, shall we?

First, my daughter turned 12 a few weeks ago. I planned on writing a whole post about that but time has passed and I still haven't been able to get a good photo of her birthday necklace. That was our idea for keeping the overload of presents down when she decided to invite her friends over: a birthday necklace. We asked that in lieu of a gift, every friend was to bring one special bead so that she could make a necklace out of all of the beads. It was quite a good idea (if I do say so myself!) and I will certainly try to find a reason to post a photo of it down the line. The party was an evening cookout and bonfire and we totally lucked out with a beautiful day for it in mid April! I was only a little concerned about how the girls would react to our zero waste attempt at a big group meal, but I don't think anyone even batted an eye.

Before we ate, I explained to all of the girls that we don't use disposable products in our house. I told them that they could serve themselves whatever they wanted, and when they were done they could give any scraps to the dog (I deliberately didn't feed him much during the day) and then take their plates inside and wash them. You know what? They all did it! It's not that I'm surprised really, the kids in my daughter's class are all great kids... but it was so nice to come into the house and find a dish drain filled with clean plates! Very helpful.

Cups and water were set out with labels so that everyone would know which cup was theirs. We also had spritzers in cans which were redeemed the next day at work.

And of course, we had cake and marshmallows.

Overall, it was a hit. And I had most everything cleaned up pretty quickly before I went to bed.

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My kids have also been growing and it has come time once again for clothes and shoe shopping (woohoo). I am grateful that they all understand why we don't buy things new and are learning the ways of shopping at second hand stores. There was also a bi-annual kids consignment sale that even had clothes that fit my 14 year old boy - if you have an older boy, you know that most clothes don't make it to become second hand in decent condition, so this was certainly a score.
I found my youngest a pair of shoes that match his older brother's shoes exactly:

So freaking cute.

We also hit a salvation army, which I didn't have high hopes of when we first walked in... but we actually found exactly what my oldest needed: a suit jacket for his graduation in June and a pair of skinny jeans that fit him (I know, I know... ridiculous). We found more too, but those were the important things.

We do have a rule though, if you bring "new" stuff in, you must get rid of older stuff. Ideally one to one, but sometimes I make my daughter purge more... it's so easy to find her hand me downs and good second hand stuff that she has way more than she needs most of the time - plus, I love being able to pass her older stuff on to certain friends that I know will give them a new life with their daughters.

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One thing that has been happening recently that I hesitate to mention is that customers have been giving me gifts. Now, normally I wouldn't accept gifts from customers because it's doesn't really feel right, but these have been odd circumstances where accepting was pretty much unavoidable.

One day I was helping a customer to her car and when she opened up her amazingly clean and pristine trunk, there was one lone bag in there. I put the box of groceries in and she picked the bag up and told me that it was a neck pillow that she had bought but never used - would I find someone who could make use of it? At first I was going to turn her down, but she looked so desperately like she needed it out of her life... and at the same moment I had a flash of how my kids fight over the one neck pillow that we keep in our car for when we traveled... so I politely accepted it. She was so pleased! My kids were too, consequently (it's much nicer than the one we have).

Another day, a customer was complaining about having too many cards in his wallet. So may cards! He pulled them out to show me, he was visibly annoyed by them all. Then he told me that most of them were gift cards that people give him. He grabbed a random one to a local package store (if you aren't from MA, that's like a liquor store that sells everything) and told me that he doesn't even drink. Trying to be polite, I asked him what he was going to do with it then... and he handed it to me and asked me to please make use of it. Once again I went to say "no thank you" but he really didn't want it. He told me that I could throw it away or give it to someone if I didn't want it... so of course I had to take it. What the heck.

And then just last Sunday I was having a random conversation with a customer while I was working at the front desk. We were talking about birthdays and when he found out that mine was two days after Christmas, he instantly had sympathy (that I no longer ask for by the way - I'm over it)... he looked thoughtful and then drifted out the front door without saying goodbye. Ok, whatever. People come and go all day and you never know what to expect.
And then, just like that, he returned and put a bunch of tulips in my hand while I was busy chatting with another customer. And then he was gone.
I didn't even get a chance to turn this one down, and I'm glad.

Happy spring to everyone!

Marshmallows

I have to start this post by telling you about my friend Alana. She just wrote this amazing book that speaks to me more than she might realize. It's all about making things at home instead of buying them already made.
Here, meet her herself:

I have to say that I feel a special connection to Alana since she and her husband used to live in our house - they had their first child in our recording studio even. I am also very honored that Alana used one of my favorite recipes in her book!

But enough about that, let's talk about marshmallows.

Alana's book came out last week and I bought it right away. I flipped through the pages in awe of the things that I now feel even more empowered to make. I went to her book signing where she served a few of the tasty snacks from her book (and some maple popcorn too!) - and that's where I had the marshmallow. See, my daughter's birthday is on Saturday and we decided to have a cookout and bonfire for her party. As I bit into that marshmallow I realized that bonfires required marshmallows and that I had been subconsciously ignoring that fact until just that moment.

So, I went home and opened the book and tried my first attempt at making my own marshmallows.

Besides having to shop somewhere other than my cozy co-op for the ingredients, it was easier than it seemed. The end result was pretty satisfying, if I do say so myself... although, I can certainly see how this particular recipe will only get easier and tastier the more that I make it.

Here they are, 63 delicious marshmallows waiting patiently for Saturday to come (there were 64, but we has to try one of course). Obviously I can't give the recipe away since it's in this newly released book, but you can buy the book yourself and make your own!

Now, how do I keep the troops from testing a few before Saturday??

Thanks Alana!!

Natural egg dying

Ultimately, I'd like to bypass the obligation of holidays these days... but that's pretty lame of me so I suck it up and make the best of each one that comes. I try to keep them as simple as possible and with minimal waste.

Easter is one of those holidays that I tried to ignore, but of course my 5 year old is excited about it. Egg dying, egg hunts and chocolate... ok, I can make this work without making a big deal of it. I do have to work on Easter, but I don't mind. I will make time in the morning to satisfy the 5 year old's needs for the day, then be glad that I don't have to cook a... ham? I think that's what people eat on this holiday. The more simplistic I try to make our lives, the less I understand some of these holidays or the need for them. That sounds kind of scrooge-like, I know - but really I feel like we should be celebrating life and nature always. Appreciate things in every moment, why only once a year?

Anyhow, you might have been hoping to read about egg dying, not my philosophy on life, so I will move on.

I decided that it was time to start working on my natural egg dying skills, which, until now, didn't exist. As always, I try to take the simplest (ok, easiest) route, so I opted to only dye two colors: yellow and blueish teal (or whatever color it turns out as. I basically went for the colors that involved ingredients that were cheapest and easiest for me to grab.

Before I tell you about my experience, let me start by sharing a decent chart of natural ingredients that work for egg dying (taken from this blog):

Color	Ingredients
Lavender	Small Amount of Purple Grape Juice Violet Flowers + 2 tsp Lemon Juice Red Zinger Tea bags (Celestial Seasoning brand)
Violet Blue	Violet Flowers (no lemon juice) Red Onion Skins (boiled) Red Wine Hibiscus Tea
Blue	Canned Blueberries Large Amount of Purple Grape Juice Red Cabbage Leaves (boiled)
Green	Spinach Leaves (boiled) Fresh Basil (boiled)
Greenish Yellow	Yellow Delicious Apple Peels (boiled) Fresh Parsley (boiled)
Yellow	Chamomile Tea Orange or Lemon Peels (boiled) Celery Seed (boiled) Ground Cumin (boiled) Ground Turmeric (boiled) Green Tea Carrot Tops (boiled)
Golden Brown	Dill Seeds
Brown	Strong or Instant Coffee Black Walnut Shells (boiled) Black Tea
Orange	Yellow Onion Skins (boiled) Carrots (boiled) Paprika Chili Powder
Pink	Red Grape Juice Fresh Cranberries / Cranberry Juice Raspberries Beets Juice from jar of Pickled Beets
Red	Lots of Red Onions Skins (boiled) Canned Cherries with Juice Pomegranate Juice Raspberries

I decided to use turmeric and red (purple) cabbage. I start by boiling both ingredients in separate pots. It would have been cool to do a third pot with both of them together to make another color - I will experiment more next time.

Once it had boiled, I cooled it down with ice to move things along and drained them, then transferred them to bowls.

As you can see, we used brown eggs for this experiment. I think that next time I will try and buy the organic free range white eggs before they sell out at our co-op, but meanwhile I'm not entirely disappointed with the results from the brown eggs. However, white would have been much more impressive for sure.

Once transferred to bowls, you will need to add approximately one tablespoon of white vinegar for each cup of liquid that you have. My daughter pulled out her caran d'ache crayons to draw on the eggs before we dropped them in the dye, which was a nice touch on the end. Once we dropped them in, I was glad that I had chosen large bowls because I realized that they would have to sit there for a lot longer then when we used to use those commercial egg dyes. In fact, I decided that it would be best if they just sat in the dye in the fridge overnight.

In case anyone is curious, six eggs fit nicely in one wide mouth mason jar... you might even be able to fit a few more. I think I might just put the dye right in the jars next time and plan for overnight dying in the fridge for maximum color.

This morning when I took them out, I decided to add one more color to the mix - I poured some red wine into a bowl, added vinegar and dropped a few of each of the eggs in there to see what would happen. Once again, white eggs would have made a huge difference, but it still added a nice subtle red shade to what we had. I wouldn't suggest leaving eggs in the wine for too long, I noticed that it starts to take off color a bit.

Here is what we ended up with. I kind of like them actually... and I look forward to more natural egg dying in the future! I can see that this is an art that I might just have to master.

Enjoy!
 

I Scream

You scream, we all scream... but really it's more like polite begging in this house. "Please may we have some ice cream for dessert?" I don't often have ice cream laying around, even though there are a few ice cream containers that are recyclable with the paper, so the answer is often "no"... But not anymore.

Back at Christmas/Birthday time (they are the same time for me), my partner got me this bad baby. He even got it second hand (but in great condition) - it's perfect. However, our supply of local cream dried up somewhere around the same time that I received it, so it has only known a life of sitting in it's box in our back kitchen waiting patiently for me to acknowledge it's existence.

And yesterday, I finally used it! We just got the first batch of cream for the season and even though I should have made butter... I decided to try out ice cream instead.

I searched around for a basic vanilla ice cream recipe, something simple to start me out with... but it was hard to find a recipe without egg whites in it. I just wanted simple! Anyhow, this is what I finally ended up with and it ended up perfectly delicious:

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4c sugar

Mix ingredients together and add to ice cream maker according to the instructions of your specific maker. I mixed mine for about 20 minutes and then it was done.

I used organic raw cream, milk and sugar, but whatever you've got will work. I really did try to do this without an ice cream maker, but I don't think it's possible without some real challenges.

I look forward to making lots of delicious ice cream flavors this summer!

Things to come

I was going to write last week but time slipped away from me, as it so very often does. I'm sorry. With the weather as nice as it has been, who wants to sit in front of a computer? Not me, that's for sure. I want to be outside hiking or daydreaming about things to come... because that is what spring does to me.

In spring, there is so much Possibility. You can start fresh with a garden if you didn't get around to it last year (of just failed altogether to maintain one). You can clean things off and fix things up. You can spread your wings and step outside when you feel stifled and cramped by being in doors.

You can hang your clothes on the line.

You can build a bonfire when the sun goes down and have quality time with family and friends.

You can take a walk with your family and find creatures doing their spring time stuff (even if they are a little confused about the early onset of record breaking unseasonably warm weather).

I'm not going to lie, the warm weather might be freaking me out a bit, but it certainly is enjoyable and rejuvenating. And of course, it's got me thinking.

I am thinking about my kids and what will come next for them. My oldest is getting ready to go to high school next year and we have been trying to figure out where the best place for him to go might be. I am trying to help him find ways outside of school to pursue the things that he really wants to do, specifically theater and film work. This is a whole new realm in parenting that seemed to happen so quickly, even if I have had almost 15 years to prepare for it. While some of my friends are just starting to have kids and just trying to figure out where to send there little ones to preschool, I'm in uncharted territory over here... but luckily I am finding new friendships in some of the co-parents that I've known for so many years, but just never really connected with like I can now. Now we can relate as we navigate the teenage years together. New friendships are great and definitely contribute to personal growth - I highly recommend it.

I am thinking about myself too. I am ready to get back into shape and the warm weather is my best friend since I refuse to spend money on a gym. I take a walk everyday now, and sometime even get to squeeze in a hike - this morning I hiked up Monument Mountain with a friend and laid in the sun on the rocks at the top. (So if you see me limping tomorrow, it's because my legs will be mad at me!)
I am thinking about my own schooling and where it might lead me. I am loving doing art, and surprised when I find satisfaction in forms of art that I haven't touched in 15-20 years of my life.

And of course I am continuing with my "get rid of stuff day" every Friday. We are making some dents - you'd think they were big dents if you saw what I have hauled out of here... but inside our home, it doesn't even feel like we've scraped the surface. I have donated, sold, passed on and straight up thrown out bags upon bags of "stuff". Some of it was good quality stuff too, things we've had since my oldest was a baby, sweet sentimental things... but in the end, I would rather have someone else enjoy these things and give them more life than to have them sit around unused in our overfilled home.

Well, that is enough computer use for me - I've got to hang more laundry and do some of my homework. As long as it's not raining and I'm not at work, you can find me outside in the sun!

Simple food

It's Friday again and here I am, posting. I tried so hard this week to post earlier, but life just has too much to hand me right now, so Friday it is.

And I haven't gotten rid of anything yet today, but it's only 9am, so there is plenty of time for that. For those of you on the edge of your seats wondering what might go today - I'm thinking some of the hallway pile for sure... but I think today I might dig into the secret corners of my fridge and freezer and free up some space in there. See, I have this awesome kitchen aid ice cream maker that I've been dying to use - but I got it just in time for the fresh local raw cream to stop flowing. Well, I heard a rumor that a calf has been born and I might just yet see some more of that cream, so I need to be ready. I've never used this ice cream maker, but I do know that it needs to chill in the freezer for 24 hours before use, and that requires some work if you've got a freezer like mine.

Anyway, I wanted to touch on food today. I've been trying to actively clean up my diet a bit. I spent the week not drinking coffee or alcohol and having freshly squeezed citrus juice every morning. Another thing is that I have at least one, but often two salads every day. I am also trying out beans again. Beans aren't my favorite, but I feel like I would crave less meat and cheese (my real downfall) if I ate more beans. So, this week I started with a batch of adzuki beans.

I used to cook beans from scratch all of the time, but I got burnt out on them. It's been too many years to count since I've cooked them, long enough that my kids aren't used to eating them very often at all. Adzuki beans are good to start with because you don't have to soak them... however, I don't mind a little overnight soaking. Just because I didn't trust myself to remember, I referenced this recipe, mostly because it was the first one that I came across that seemed simple enough.

Next week I think I am taking on garbanzo beans (aka chick peas).

And speaking of salad, I was so pleased when my good friend Jen from Woven Roots Farm handed me some fresh picked greens from her greenhouse the other day.

It's nice to serve food to your kids and tell them that a friend had just picked them that morning, when there is still snow outside on the ground. They were thrilled and I think ate extra in appreciation. It's good to have connections.

Lastly, the other thing that I have done already twice this week is bake macaroons. They are such a good simple sweet snack.

It's really pretty easy and I already have it down - my favorite kind of recipe because it's easy to whip up impulsively.
Let me share it with you.

Yummy Macaroons:
2 1/2 cups of shredded coconut
1/2 cup of honey
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
Heat the honey up on low heat. Once it is easy to stir, add egg whites and coconut. Keep on low heat and stir for about 2-3 minutes until it is well mixed. Then remove from heat and add both extracts. Stir well.
Grease a baking sheet. With damp hands, take the coconut mixture and make small balls. Squeeze with your hand a few times to help hold the mixture together. Place each ball on the cookie sheet - they can be somewhat close together because they won't expand. Bake for 20 minutes.

And if you want to, you can dip them in melted chocolate once they are cooled. My daughter really wants me to do this for the next batch... we'll see.

Enjoy!

Get rid of things day

That's it.
From now on, Friday (formally known as my day off) is now going to be known as the day that I get rid of stuff. We'll call it "get rid of things" day.

Every Friday I try to chill at home and decompress from the week, but I also try to get some stuff done around the house. I usually do some laundry, cook some food for the week, attempt to do a little homework (haha!) and occasionally, clean... but inevitably I have a break down about how much STUFF we have and how it is everywhere. It doesn't help that our living space is a tad too small for our family size, but that is no excuse. Also, my 5 year old plays all day using his amazing imagination, and he tends to build everywhere... which creates even less space in the house. Don't get me wrong, his stuff is usually pretty amazing but enough is enough!

Today it was the books (again) that did me in. Messy bookshelves make me crazy, and it's really not fair to think that a 5 year old can constantly maintain a neat anything without prompting. So we went through all of his bookcases and filled a huge cloth bag with books to take out of the house. We took some of them to the local used book store and sold them for store credit and only came home with two new books. The rest of the books will go to the book swap at our co-op so that others can take advantage of them if they want them.

After that, I started tackling some of our hallway pile. The truth is, I try to pretend that this pile isn't really there, which is not how I want to be handling it at all. The pile is the result of the big kids cleaning their room out so that they could finally get rid of their bunk bed and install the loft beds that have been waiting for them. The loft beds are great because now they have more space, but getting rid of the clutter was a huge help. However, a lot of that stuff was put in the hallway for me to deal with (clothes to give away to friends or put aside for my youngest, etc.)... and I'm certainly not holding up my end of the bargain.

But now that every Friday is going to be the day that I get rid of things, I hope to have that hallway empty soon! I think the rule will be that I have to get rid of at least one thing, but preferably one BAG of things every week. This absolutely includes physically removing the item or items from the house.

Oh man, I hope this works out!

Meanwhile back on the ranch... we finally have a little bit of winter.

And I can feel a little bit better about all of that snow gear that is taking up space in my home - we actually have a reason for it now... at least for a few days.

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Hey, I know that I haven't been posting much so while I have you, let me tell you about my toothbrush. (Aren't you excited??)

There aren't a lot of toothbrushes out there that aren't plastic and don't come in plastic packaging. I have found a few - you can read about them on this blog post. In the end, I am really happy with my preserve toothbrush that comes in a mail back pack. The toothbrush itself is made from 100% recycled plastic (mostly yogurt containers and other #5 plastics that are sometimes difficult to recycle), and the packaging that it comes in is designed to be saved so that you can slip your toothbrush back in and mail it back to the company... postage paid. The used toothbrushes get ground up and turned into plastic lumber (used for picnic tables and park benches, etc.)

This is how we will be doing things from now on around here.