dirty mind

i've got dirt on the mind.  well, actually i've got spring on the mind.  the weather here in slc has taken a lovely turn towards blustery, lovely spring. and though i know more snow will fall, this is the point in winter we all anticipate--the first thaw.  from here on in, winter is just so much more manageable. 

with the sunshine and mild temperatures, we've been out in the yard a lot this week.  all my garden beds were in need of some massive attention and it felt so good to rake and dig and tidy.  signs of spring were everywhere.  we had a nice little grouping of crocus pop up and i discovered lots of daffodil pips creeping up to find the sun. cleo and i even found an errant bird egg nestled deep in a plant.  cleo cradled it and wrapped it in a warm scarf hoping it would hatch, but so far nothing.   i like to think that i have a green thumb, but really what i have is the enjoyment of sitting in the dirt and watching nature on that tiny scale.  i get over-stimulated out hiking and camping. i still love it, but i find it hard to take that much nature in. i always get a sensation that the incredible vista i'm seeing or the glistening lake in the distance is fake.  it looks like "scenery" to me on that grand a scale and that has always been bewildering and a bit frustrating to me.  but sitting on my own little 2x2 square, i can really appreciate the action before me...the tiny ants going about their work, the worms happily digging in and out, the drops of dew on the fringe of my lady's mantle leaves, the mottled dusty trunks of the tall, straight aspens,  flecks in the granite pebbles....so much beauty and it is in my very own yard!  

in fact i think one of the biggest boons of moving away from new york was coming back to a place where i could claim my own land. i missed having a garden so much when i lived the big city life and it still thrills me to be able to walk out my door and grow stuff.   and this year i'm even more pumped than normal about my garden because i am really committed to creating a better food producing garden than i've ever had. flowers, and a couple tomato plants, have always been my primary interest, so this will be a shift to dedicate energy to growing my own food.    i hope to share my garden plan once i formulate it!

i think one of the best things i can do to ensure my garden's success is to make sure my soil is healthy.  every spring i buy big bags of compost and add them to my soil but this year we have taken matters into our own hands and started a compost pile!  we are able to do it pretty painlessly thanks to this nifty little machine we got for christmas (thanks mom!)  made by a company called naturemill.

it is basically an automatic composter that we keep in our kitchen. you just add food scraps and it automatically turns it, creates the correct conditions (heat, cultures, etc.) to break down the waste, and every two weeks we get a new batch of rich looking compost.  it is relatively odorless, though whenever i open it up to throw something in, cleo says "eww, earth muffins!" so to say there isn't a smell would be lying. you can buy the naturemill online or i just learned williams sonoma is now selling them.  this little device is pretty spendy, but i've seen links about how to make your own composter with just a plastic garbage can, or you can always do the old pile in the corner of the yard trick as long as you turn it occasionally.  check out different composting options here: http://www.recycle.slco.org/html/compost.html

not only will composting make my garden more productive and beautiful, it is also a major way to help meet my goal to go more green this year.  composting is a big step towards taking ownership of the waste my family creates.  it helps turn it into something productive and useful (why was i paying for compost again?), and by keeping it out of the landfill, i am doing my part to help stop global warming.   i read some pretty compelling facts on this subject: 

the average american generates about 4 lbs of garbage each day. 60% of household waste consists of biodegradeable food, garden and paper waste. 

composting organic waste saves 30% of our trash from going to the landfill 

in 1998,  the us generated 22 millions tons of food residuals and composted only 2% of that waste

in the landfill, organic waste decomposes without oxygen which causes it to give off methane, a greenhouse gas with 21 times the impact of carbon dioxide. composting averts this problem and creates a natural soil fertilizer and conditioner.

(all factoids courtesy of how to reduce your carbon footprint by joanna yarrow.)

SHOCKING aren't they?  and definitely as shocking was realizing that our garbage can is literally half as full each week.  we were throwing that much useable garbage away.   i love thinking that from this point forward, my yard will be the beneficiary of all that lovely, lovely waste.  

bake some bread, eat some bread

I've now mentioned a few times that one of the lost basics I want to master is making my own bread.  The thought of doing this has always seemed daunting and like so much effort, and just that alone was enough to dissuade me from taking the idea any further. Bread baking also seems pretty divorced from the reality of today. No one has much time to sit around and watch dough rise.  Plus it requires lots of ingredients and it feels a little forced to dedicate yourself to the endeavor when the store offers a pretty decent loaf for under $3.50!   

All that being said, I've always liked the idea of baking my own bread because I think there is an underlying artistry or craft to it that seems really fulfilling.  And I never get tired of the way a gooey loaf rising in the oven smells. If I could choose a personal perfume, a smell that is Allison,  I think it would be this smell with a dash of fresh basil and orange zest thrown in and maybe a hint of violet? People, and dogs, would follow me around wouldn't they?  Of course another huge reason I'm interesting in learning to bake bread is to help revive the tradition of it.  This used to be such a fundamental part of life, especially part of a woman's life, and I can't believe that in just one generation this knowledge has drifted out of the mainstream.  For the most part it seems like only serious cooks and hippies are baking their own bread these days!   Bread making just seems like a skill to have tucked away in your backpack for a rainy day.  Something you can bust out if you have to or more importantly, if you want to. And like so many things I learned this past month, I think baking bread will help me to continue to slow down and learn to savor the hours long process of kneading, rising, baking and eating.  

Besides all this, there is the nutrition factor.  Homemade bread is good for you!  It is full of fiber and it has no preservatives.  Wheat  (in its whole berry form) is like a little nutrition capsule containing 26 essential vitamins and minerals.  And did you know that if stored properly it can last basically forever without spoiling and will retain all this essential goodness?  They found wheat in the pharoah's tomb for hell sakes.  I was shocked to find out that once wheat is ground into flour it loses its nutritional value very quickly. Within 24 hours 45% of its nutrition is lost and within 3 days  we are talking 80-90% is gone!  White flour already has all these nutrients removed from it (and then it is artificially enriched to add a few of them back in)  but even if you buy whole wheat flour at the store, this means the nutritional value has already been zapped because it was ground weeks, maybe even months, before you brought it home and baked with it.  

All this led to my decision that if I am going to bother to make bread for my family, I am going to bother to grind my wheat fresh.    This choice took me on a journey to buy wheat in bulk and a wheat grinder.  Hello new world of food storage enthusiasts and health nuts!  And for those of you also in Utah, we are in the land of food storage. Thank you Mormon culture!  It was very easy to track this stuff down.  I was able to buy my 45 lbs of hard white wheat at COSTCO for $23!! It is locally produced by Lehi Roller Mills. Crazy.  The grinders are sold online at many places but I bought mine at a very cute local spot called John and Jenni's Bosch Kitchen Center.  It is a veritable baker's paradise in there and they were super knowledgeable.  There are affordable hand wheat grinders on the market and I know this is what women did for eons, but I'm embracing technology on this one, and I bought the lesser expensive of the two good machine grinders. I am now the proud owner of a L'Equip Vital Mill and I'm so stoked on it!   (The NutriMill is the superior product--bigger capacity and it is quieter and easier to use--but I felt saving the $100 was worth it. I'm a novice after all.)   The Vital Mill set me back $169.99 but it already has felt like money well spent.  I can't describe how freaking industrious and old school I felt opening up my bucket of wheat, scooping it into the mill and turning it into beautiful, fresh flour.   The whole process seriously takes less than a couple minutes to get a good 10 cups of wheat flour.  The machine is pretty loud, akin to an airplane taking off in your kitchen, but it doesn't last for long.  And man, that flour is silky and powdery and wonderful.  

Once I had the flour part down, it has just been a matter of finding recipes for bread.  I've checked out a couple of books at the library and consulted my recipe guru sister so I'm just trying to find the one that will be my go to recipe.  The bread making process is definitely a learning curve.  I've baked 6 loaves of bread in the last week and I can't say any of them turned out perfectly.  There is something missing in each...and I haven't yet learned the subtle art of trouble shooting what went awry.  But I have to say that I like trying to do something that is a bit about trial and error and finding the best way on your own.  Adjusting for altitude, for my sorry oven, for my nonfat milk, all these variables make the whole process seem like something to master and I think that is what will end up keeping it interesting and making me feel like I've really learned a craft. It's a like one part science project and one part edible art.  

Doing all this for a silly loaf of bread may seem like a waste to some, but for me I feel like it is reclaiming a bit of turf that somebody decades ago decided wasn't worth my time. (Sara Lee?  Pillsbury? Wonder?)  But why not?  Why not care more about what I put into my body? Why not reshape the way I value my time and accept  that baking bread can be 4 or 8 or 12 hours of my week?  Why not experience how to make something on your own from scratch and forgo buying it every time? So here I am on the bread learning curve, learning to embrace the imperfections in my mis-shapen and wee bit burned loaf.  But I didn't have to learn to enjoy eating it...that just seemed to come naturally.   yum.

time

"know the true value of time, snatch, seize and enjoy every minute of it." -lord chesterfield

time is a funny notion.  we all want "more" of it and yet as rational people we already know that each day has the same number of hours, each hour the same number of minutes.  it is fixed.  so why does one day feel eternal and the next like a lighting flash?  what creates the disparity in feeling?  

the answer i think it rooted in attitude and in management.  the days i feel negative and heavy tend to drift by at a snail's pace.  there is so much that "goes" wrong. i snap at the kids a hundred times. i break a dish or spill my blueberry smoothie on the carpet.  i keep a running tally in my head of all these little ticks and snags and it garners me a boatload of exhaustion and consequently the day feels long.  on these days i let time have its way with me and i take the backseat, i don't plan and i don't pursue.  i just bob up and down and drift, moving neither forward or back.   on a happy, emotionally sunny day, time seems to fly. i'm motivated to do and see and conquer.  these are the days that i mysteriously clean my house, make stew, have a play date, send an email to a long lost friend, watch a movie with jaren, and still remember to take the garbage out and take care of the kids.  things just flow and the time zips forward.  having energy and a helping of positivity makes me manage my time better.  i can harness it and accomplish and i am pretty sure accomplishing things leads one to more happiness.  and i'm not talking Accomplish with a capital A, i just mean getting things done that you want to; crossing things off the old to do list whether it is daily chores or a creative or  professional project. there was a great quote related to this on the happiness project yesterday..."“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.” --Charles Kingsley   

and right now something i'm enthusiastic about is milking my time for all its worth!  getting back to the notion of time management, i can't help but feel that limiting needless activities is the most direct way to "create" more time.  last month's project really woke me up to the idea that staying home and doing less is a path not just to leading a more frugal life, but to leading a more relaxed one and one that allows me more quality time with those i love.  i am trying to rush around less which means i run fewer errands and scale down on my socializing and the socializing my kids do.  i'm trying to focus inward on my home, my kids, my own sense of personal enrichment.  and i'm actually finding that doing this does seem to, as if by magic, create more time.  i am finally reading those books, creating crafts with my kids, having family drawing night, baking bread, organizing my fridge and my underwear drawer, creating a food inventory, starting a compost pile...so many things that i always let slip out of the agenda before because i felt too busy.  there are still many, many things left undone on my to do lists, but i really believe i'll wade through them if i keep my focus on doing less.  weird, can doing less mean i will end up doing more?  

i will learn to respect you, budget

this week, post experiment, has been a tough one.  i've found myself relentlessly tempted to over-spend but feeling twice as guilty about it. the residual habit of not spending money is there (in its infancy) and it has made me agonize over what i do spend.   i've been working hard at staying on the proposed new budget but am quickly realizing just how limiting it really is.  it doesn't allow for any extras and coming off last month's scarcity, i seem to be more in the mood for extras than i thought!  i'm trying to reign it all in but in "real life" and not the vacuum of last month's experiment, it is more challenging than i would have guessed. 

i think i might just be an all or nothing kind of gal. maybe i do better with total restraint instead of just some constraints...does that make sense?  i read recently on the happiness project blog, which is a new fave of mine, that people fall into two categories: moderators or abstainers.  these terms are basically shorthand for whether you find it easier to go cold turkey without something or to moderately indulge in it.  i can see that i don't have the budgetary control to moderately indulge, at least not yet.

i had an interesting experience yesterday that got to the heart of the matter.  i met my friend and her kids at the library for storytime and then she innocently said "let's go up the street and grab lunch before the girls have school." it made sense, we were all hungry, but my inner dialogue was saying "no, eating out for lunch! this will break my budget!"   i wouldn't have thought twice about spending like this a month ago, but suddenly the thought of unplanned spending made me feel really uncomfortable. but instead of saying no, i went.  the situation pointed out that i don't have any practice at defending my budget and vocalizing or admitting my budget constraints to another.  other than last month, i've never told anyone before that i couldn't do something because i didn't have the money.  if i didn't, i would either make up an excuse about why i couldn't do said thing, or more often i would just do it anyway and put it on the credit card to be dealt with later.   

i have never been accountable to a budget and i can see now that is the most important aspect of staying on one. i have to own it.  i have to agree that i'm not going to just "ballpark it"  for  the amount i can spend on eating out, but instead i must stop eating out when said money is spent. end of story.   i need to accept that the budget is my ally, not my foe.  i'm skipping little stuff now so i can reap big rewards later, maybe a reward that includes an airplane ride and a warm beach?  i'm skipping stuff now so i don't have to worry about that credit card stuff and ever living beyond my means.  i think people can respect that, right?   so what should i say next time i'm invited to something that will violate my budget?  the proper language evades me. this is new territory.  i am reminded of my friend once telling me that her parents dealt with her and her 6 siblings' constant requests for new clothes and toys by saying one simple phrase "sorry, we can't afford it."  there's no debating that, there's no come back one can offer.    now i just need the balls to say it out loud to someone and mean it.

i hate goodbyes, so let's not say one!

my experiment has officially come to and end. i broke the $15 budget at costco buying a pack of $37.99 diapers and some much needed staples we were completely out of.  in that one purchase i spent more than i have in the last 30+ days.  it made me feel a little dirty and a little bit exhilarated all rolled into one.  having the month come to an end is a relief, but i have to admit feeling a little sadness too.  the experience has been amazing and life altering. self-imposed scarcity has forced me to reflect on my spending habits and my relationship to money and consumption.  being home more proved to be a great source of inspiration too. i feel i was a better, more creative parent and it allowed me to re-jigger my whole sense of how much time i have in each day, i.e. the less i did out and about, suddenly the more time i felt i had at home to do projects, color with the kids, have long tubs or walks, etc.   i have re-examined what i'd like to fill my time with--and it is definitely NOT mindless errands and scurrying.  

i'm still processing the highs and the lows of the whole deal, but other than straight up saving money, a few things really stand out to me as true lessons learned. we saved so much dough by not eating out. and eating from our pantry was a revelation.  without a doubt it held out (see photos above--things are depleted but we STILL have food left) and it held some surprises for us.  we whipped up some great meals from what we had including homemade hummus (thank you 6 cans of garbanzo beans!) and chili verde. throughout the month we ate more left overs and i think i made less quality food because i had fewer "luxury" products to work with, but everything was definitely edible and definitely homemade!  previously, i think i probably made too big a production out of what to feed the family. in the end no one really cares as long as there is something to eat.  

the secret to being able to feed my family on $15 a week was already having a stockpile of food available.  so here is one major lesson learned: if you have food on your shelves and in your freezer, eat it!  don't let useable things you've already paid for gather dust. i will now first create meals and meal plans from the things i have, not the things that sound good or that i feel like eating.   i know everybody eats and cooks differently so my pantry staples won't necessarily be yours, but i'd say for me a few things saved us this month: 

1. having plenty of frozen meat in the freezer. i tend to make meal plans based around the meat so the fact that i had stew meat frozen meant i'd make a stew one night or when i realized i had kielbasa and hot dogs that spawned the grill night idea where we cooked out and had baked beans w/  our dogs, or the pork roast + green enchilada sauce i had led to chili verde in the crock pot etc. 

2. japanese sticky rice in the rice cooker and pasta are always good cheap eats and you can make stir frys and pasta dishes with just about any ingredients you have

3. making my own whole wheat pizza dough (something i already knew before this month started) was a huge boon because it is cheap, kids love it, and you can throw anything on there and it always feels like a meal

4. in the canned good department chicken broth, diced tomatoes, and a few different kind of beans are invaluable. pretty much all world cuisines except maybe asian (?) incorporate beans so i found ways to use up those cans of black, kidney, pinto, navy, and garbanzo throughout the month

5. eggs, milk, butter and flour really are the staples to keep on hand because when in doubt you can always bake something with them or do breakfast for dinner.  my sister reminded me of the simplicity and beauty of crepes...they always taste great with sweet things like nutella or jam but the savory crepe is also awesome for dinner. enjoying one with toasted nuts or fruit and cheese or simple sauteed vegetables is super delicious and so, so cheap.

6. parmesan cheese is a must.  i don't know what it is, but throwing a sprinkle on pasta, salad, or eggs makes the dish feel fancy to me. i won't live without some quality shredded parm in my pantry

7. frozen berries are a godsend when you don't have cash for fresh produce.  my kids pretty much subsisted on bananas, canned pears and smoothies made with frozen fruit this month.  smoothies seem to always be a big hit with kids because they seem like a treat and who can resist a twisty straw and something pink in color?  and i love them because my non-diary loving kids get a serving of yogurt and milk plus fruit and a little flax seed all rolled into one. 

so what is next for me?  i'm going to try to stick to the budget i outlined a few days ago and i'm hopeful that i'll be able to do it. i feel like this month of consumer 'detox' has changed me and hopefully modified my habits for the long haul. i'm going to try to remain more of a home body and try to make examined choices about what i do buy and when and where.  

as for the blog, it is pretty addictive. i have loved keeping a record of this journey and i've so appreciated all the support i've received from my family and my friends.  i have been so moved by those of you who have told me that reading this chronicle has made you ask your own questions about spending money and consumption. thank you all for making this month a wonderful experience and for sticking with me and listening to my hair brained ideas.  

i have more hair brained schemes a-brewing!  over the next year, i'm planning to delve deeper into some forgotten basics our culture seems to have lost.  many of them i've mentioned already in the course of this month like learning to bake bread, "putting up" more food via canning and preserving, starting a productive food garden to feed my family, getting a chicken coop going and maybe even doing some hunting and gathering.   these are tough times and i'd be super honored to continue to be a voice helping to remind us that we can do with less and explore other options, maybe even just things we forgot we knew how to do or could do. i probably won't update the blog as religiously, but i certainly hope you will check in now and again (or sign up to receive feeds/or follow the blog) because i'll be here blabbing away!  

home sick from home school

both my kids are sick so instead of doing all the fun preschool mom mode stuff i had planned to celebrate going green and recycling this week, we are schlepping to the doctor, administering motrin, and watching pink panther cartoons. my ears are ringing from the whining and coughing fits.  ah, motherhood.  the sole thing i enjoy about my kids being sick is the opportunity to make an heirloom family recipe: toasted cheerios. my grandmother made them for my mother when she was sick, my mom made them for me and ame, and now i make them for cleo and flynn. tasting a little bit like homey oaty popcorn, they are delicious and infinitely comforting.  you just melt a bunch of butter in a frying pan, pour on the cheerios, and stir them around until they turn into golden little o's. then generously add salt.  if you eat them with a glass of sprite or orange juice you just might turn into a sick allison circa 1983.  

so let's just pretend that i have gotten to do a bunch of fun reading and crafts with my kids this week so that i can rave to you about the 'green' books i've found that i cannot wait to share with you!  though i talk to cleo a lot about what a lovely planet we live on and all the miracles around us in nature, it is difficult to explain to a preschooler that pretty much everything we do as humans harms our planet.  it is hard to put global warming and the pros of recycling in a nutshell, especially for a kid that giggles every time you say litter bug.  so i've decided that for this stage of their little lives, the best way i can educate my kids about being green is to help them revere the planet by getting out in nature and enjoying it; but also by teaching them about waste and better ways to use the things we have.  

at the library i've discovered some great tools to help me with this.  there is an awesome little picture book by melanie walsh called 10 things i can do to help my world  which has 10 perfect little eco-tips paired with adorable illustrations. my favorite just might be "i use both sides of the paper"  since that is a serious problem around here.  we've probably de-forested western washington by now!   the ideas are simple and direct and perfectly worded for preschoolers.  the other picture book i found that i loved, and sadly see is out of print, is called the garbage monster by joni sensel.   the little girl in the book won't do her chores and take out the garbage so the garbage turns into a robot style creature and comes to take her out instead. she fights back by realizing "hey, you aren't garbage at all" and de-assembles the robot by sorting its parts into recyclables and things she can use again.  it is pretty cute and cleo seemed to really enjoy it.  another gem i found is called make it! by jane bull.  the tagline on this book is "don't throw it away-create something amazing!" and the entire thing is dedicated to showing how to make things out of paper, plastic, metal, and fabric scraps that you might otherwise throw away.  there are some seriously cute projects inside.  i am fired up to make some paper jewels and junk mail mache bowls as soon as the kids stop coughing.

and for those of you with little ones in the slc area, all these books have inspired me.  come earth day on or around april 22, i'm going to host a big earth day craft extravaganza so start saving your junky paper, plastic bottle tops, and old gloves, and plan on bringing your kids over to hear some of these books in person and make some cool stuff!  email me at aharbertson@comcast.net  if you want to be added to my email list for this event.   

nuts and bolts

i'm not a coupon clipper and anytime i ever actually have clipped them 99% of the time i forget about them and leave them in my wallet or in the car (alongside my re-useable bags.)  every week since i moved back to utah i get those annoying grocery store circulars in my mailbox. they basically advertise the things on special at the main grocery stores in the area. i used to take those papers straight from mailbox to the recycling bin and not even look. but a couple weeks back i happened to notice a store was offering bananas for $.49 a pound at just the time i needed some for flynn and only had $2 left in the weekly budget.  so i went to this store and JUST bought the bananas on special.  

since then i've been paying attention to the weekly ads and i've started to see the value in price shopping when you are on a restricted budget.  this weekend it was worth my time to hit reams up for the $.60 sour cream and $1.29 gallon of milk. (have you ever shopped at reams?  it really is an experience, up there with the library in terms of people watching.)  and i'm already eyeing harmon's $.99 5 lb bag of potatoes.  that's a crazy deal!  the funny thing is that before this experiment i wouldn't have been able to tell you what the REGULAR price of sour cream was. i just never paid attention to the minutia of individual item prices because i never shopped with an actual budget in mind that i could not exceed.  it was basically irrelevant to me if i spent $129 or $149.  

as i formulate my plan for where my budget goes from here, i'm finding that knowing exact prices of stuff does matter.  studying your receipt and having a ballpark idea of what something usually costs (and therefore knowing when something is really a good deal and on sale) is useful.  individual prices are the building block of the budget.  duh.   i'm trying to figure out a realistic food budget going forward and right now i'm thinking of structuring it a bit differently than just a lump sum for everything.  i'm going to try out a new approach and break the budget down like this: 

$30 per week for what i'm going to call my  grocery add ins--the stuff i need to make specific items in the recipes i've planned for the week and fresh perishables i need to replenish like milk, yogurt, etc.

$50 a month for replenishing pantry staples like flours, sugar, syrup, butter, meats that i freeze for later use, etc. 

$50 a month for costco items  

this food budget adds up to $220 per month to feed my family.  and considering that I'd like to keep our e's (entertainment, eating out, and other "extras" ) to $50 per month, our expenses (other than all the bills we pay each month) would be under $300, $270 to be exact.  after this extreme month this budget sounds plush, but i know it will still be difficult to accomplish and i'll have to work hard and continue to reign in my spending.   

i think the main thing that will make this budget realistic is being super organized about knowing when to buy things and where is the best place to do so.  i think costco offers a lot of values but for me it has mostly been a budget buster.  i'm working on coming up with a list of the items we really like to have from there (cashews, frozen mixed berries, omega eggs, boursin cheese...) as well as the things that really are cost-effective to buy there (diapers, dishwasher soap, blueberries....) and then i will just have to start keeping an updated master inventory and stagger when i replace things.  obviously this will mean sacrificing some. for example,  the month i buy ground beef for the freezer, there won't be much cash left for anything else.  but instead of just buying the 12 pack of fuji apples anyway, maybe i will just buy 2 fuji apples at the normal store instead.    the same deal for the pantry staples, once i've identified the things i've really found to be necessities to have on hand (more on that later)  i will have to start keeping a master inventory and replenish little by little, not necessarily as needed.  

does this make sense?  will i be able to do it?  do these numbers sound crazy?  if anyone out there has feedback or a way they structure their budget that works for them, i'd love to hear about it.  

and because this post has been so nuts and bolts serious, i thought i'd share a site i found via Evan Kleiman's Good Food radio program which i regularly podcast.   the site is grocerylists.org and it features hundreds of random found grocery lists collected from grocery carts, parking lots, etc.  it is surprising how funny and interesting reading what other people shop for can be.  you get this little window into their lives by how they shop and what they eat.  you can tell if someone is having a party or if they have a zillion cats.  it is pretty fascinating. the lists are compiled into a book called "milk eggs vodka" but you can check out a sampling of the lists at   http://www.grocerylists.org/lists/100/

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my favorite color is now green

one of the byproducts of our culture's over-consumption, perhaps the most serious one, is the huge amounts of waste we generate when we consume just about anything.  food, power, clothing, driving...pretty much nothing in our collective lifestyle is exempt from creating some form of waste.  we are the world's number one shoppers and we consume the lion's share of the natural resources and made goods on the planet.   the statistics about our carbon footprints, global warming, mass consumption, etc. are everywhere.  i have always heard these numbers, and not being a numbers kind of gal, have been able to pretty easily push the true implications of those digits aside.  that is until i saw the series "intolerable beauty" by the photographer  chris jordan.   some of his images are featured above, but if you have a sec, check out his website.  the whole series is amazing, as is his other work, most of which critiques consumerism.    actually seeing the sorted piles and piles of waste that we all helped generate put things in perspective for me and has made me think twice about where the stuff i chuck actually ends up.  might there be a better place to take this?   could someone else use it?  do i really need to "upgrade" to the new, new thing?  it seems funny that i am so willing to amass stuff and take time and care in picking it out, but i'm not willing to hold on to it when its no longer useful or stylish and not willing to give much thought to how to properly dispose of it. 

for my last week of this project, i'm going to try to make my home "more green" and set up better systems for dealing with the waste my family generates.  the way i see it, recycling and better using resources really is the ultimate testament to being intelligently frugal.  it costs less to repurpose something than to buy it brand new.  and in terms of the energy required to create something,  not having to start completely from scratch saves a ton of energy.  i read a great little book yesterday at the library called how to reduce your carbon footprint by joanna yarrow.  it is chock full of good ideas and statistics on ways you can help save energy and the planet.  here's a good one: "recycling one glass bottle saves enough energy to power a computer for 30 minutes." or how about this?: "in the u.s. each year, as much gasoline is spilled when filling lawn mowers as in the exxon valdez tanker disaster." 

i am planning to set up bins for the recyclables not currently accepted by salt lake county's semi-pathetic system.  I found out that there are still places in town that accept glass so i plan to start making an adventure out of taking our glass and our cans to these individual recyclers.  if you want in on this action, let me know! i think it will be fun for the kids, and bonus, we could actually get some spare change back from all our beer cans! maybe enough to see a movie or just buy more beer? if you want to know what else you can recycle and where to take it in the salt lake vicinity check out http://www.recycle.slco.org  and download their recycling guide. i've got other ideas to share but the superbowl and the stew i made are calling out to me.  it is so nice to be home and revved up for one last week of budgetary battle!  

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