11.19.2010

Just a little bit hippie

Apparently you can take the girl out of the co-op but a little bit of the co-op will always stay with the girl. I think working at Whole Foods for 5 years can also have a bit of an effect. There are things that I do in my daily life that are second nature to help nature. Recycling is a given. We do not have a compost pile, but all my food scraps do go outside for the soil and animals. We choose to cloth diaper our son. We have reusable shopping bags that actually get used. We replace our appliances with energy efficient ones. We switched all our light bulbs to CFLs, once LEDs come down in price and the CFLs start going we will use those.

Lately I have been starting to wonder what else can we do to become more green. There are some things that just aren't feasible for us at the moment like only having one car, air travel, and walking to my most frequented store but there are lots of small changes we could make that could be very effective. I have been researching going paperless in the kitchen. There are quite a few sellers on Etsy that have reusable paper towels. I am not sure how on board Dave will get with this, but I'm willing to try. I have some cloth wipes that we never used that could easily become reusable napkins. We already have tons of cloth dish towels. I don't think we will ever become a reusable toilet paper house but we do buy recycled toilet paper.

What else can we do as a family to become more green? I think this is more important to me know because I am responsible for raising the next generation...well, at least a small portion of the next generation. My children could end up having a huge impact on the world though. Who knows? I don't what them to feel entitled, I want them to feel empowered. I have to lead by example though. These are just some of the thoughts running through my head these days.

Completely off topic, but Betty Crocker German Chocolate cake mix and coconut pecan frosting are such a great combo. Totally yummy! This probably is very hippie of me though.

11.05.2010

The crafting bug

When I was pregnant with Archie I never really got the whole nesting thing. It was fun decorating his nursery and all, but my baseboards are still dirty, my cabinets never got a scrub down and I am not even going to talk about our bathroom grout. Yuck! What I did have the strong urge to do, however, was crafting. Making invitations, cards, scrapbooks, photo mats, photo books, etc... I think I am getting that urge again.

Today I made address labels. I got some nice chartreuse labels from Archiver's and then stamped little designs on them after I printed them up. I also want to make a calendar. I looked at some templates online, but didn't really find anything I liked so I am going to do this by hand. I have this great 11x17 ivory paper that I can really do some neat things with I think. I bought little hooks and hole punch reinforcers at Office Max yesterday and now I just want to dive in. Archie has other plans though. He is totally content when I am paying 100% attention to him, but as soon I try to do anything for me the sh*t hits the fan. Smart kid.

The last few weeks I have spent reorganizing our digital media on my desktop. We had folders all over the place with crazy headings and no order whatsoever. It had been driving me nuts for years! Now all of our pictures are organized by year>month>date on our external hard drive. Dave is also looking having them all stored on a server somewhere too. I reinstalled Picasa and now my pictures are in organizational heaven. Yeah!

I have been also been doing a belly book for our new little one. I used this journal for my pregnancy with Archie and it was a lot of fun. I decided to continue the tradition because each pregnancy should be cherished, not just my first one. I keep it right next to Archie's baby book so I can update them at the same time.

Well that concludes my crafting desires list. that's not actually true because I still want to create a year 1 Archie scrapbook, a dog scrapbook and a cat scrapbook. Maybe when all the kids are out of the house and we're retired!

11.02.2010

I'm portable!

Having a desktop PC and a 1 year old really aren't compatible. He is not content to play in just one space for any length of time. All that changed yesterday though when Dave's new laptop was delivered to our front door. Archie wants to hang out in the front room? Great! Archie wants to go back into the family room? No problem! Archie wants to practice climbing stairs? Maybe I should actually set the laptop down for this one.

Anyway. I don't think I will be able to do a full recap of the last 4 months because too much has happened. Vacations, babies, pregnancies, birthdays, weddings. In a word, life happened. The biggest news for our family is the addition that is growing bigger and better over the next 6 months. We are expecting baby #2 in May! Sometimes I wonder how are we going to manage two under 2, but we will cross that bridge next year.

Archie turned the big 1 year old last month. We had a few neighbors over for a get together and had a great day! I think that was also the start of U of M's losing streak though so it was an almost perfect day. The obligatory give-the-baby-a-cake-so-he-makes-a-gigantic-mess was a success. Four colors of frosting all over his face, clothes, high chair and eventually in his eyes made some great photo ops. At his 12 month check-up he was also in the 97th percentile for height and his weight percentile went up into the 70th percentiles. He is definitely Dave's son!

Unfortunately I do not have any any photos on this laptop so this will be a word heavy post. We are going to get me a laptop sometime over the next 2 months though. Once that happens I will really be able to blog it up for real until the new baby comes. Well I've got a little boy who is showing signs of being ready for his morning nap. Maybe I will be able to add some photos from my desktop during his nap. We'll see!