Ah, it's actually warming up a bit, and tomorrow it's supposed to be 57 degrees and stormy. I think that counts as "in like a lion" don't you? I hope so, anyway!
But, as it gets to maybe be looking like spring (and I spotted daffodils poking up in the front garden), I start to think about all of the projects that I'd like to do. I thought maybe I'd make a list so I don't forget anything. This list is not in order of importance or timeliness, just as I happen to think of it.
paint stairway and hallway (tan or taupe or something bland)
make new curtains for kitchen
make curtains for dining room
re-cover screen in dining room
repaint DVD cabinet and Jeff's cabinet and footstool in living room
take dog-joggers off bikes
clean up area in front of The Folly's parking space
re-caulk windows
weatherproof doors
general weatherproofing
replace back porch steps
make shade for back porch steps area
just pick a damned color and paint the bathroom
Hm. That's all I can think of at the moment. I think that's plenty. :) *You'll note that a lot of it's painting. We've been in the house for over five years now, and things are starting to need to be painted, and well, after five years, I'm getting a little tired of the rest of it.
To hard boil quail eggs, put in pan, covered with 1 inch of cold water. Add a splash of white vinegar. Bring to a boil, uncovered, over medium heat.
When the water comes to a boil, remove from heat and cover. Let sit for four (for originally room-temp eggs) or five (straight-from-the-fridge cold eggs) minutes.
After the time is up, drain out the hot water and rinse with cold water. Fill pan with ice and cold water and let the eggs sit until they are completely cold. Peel.
(Chicken egg in photo provided for size comparison with quail eggs.)
It's overwhelming sometimes, trying to be "green." You have to drive places, you have to eat, and you need to save money. Making big changes can sometimes seem impossible.
But you don't have to make big changes. Sometimes little changes are just - if not more - effective.
Here are some super-simple things you can do to help save the planet (and often save some money, too!):
Food
Eat less meat. I'm not saying go vegetarian, but one less meat meal a week can do a huge amount to reduce global warming. Eating less meat means less CO2 emissions, as well as less need for cutting down trees for land to grow feed crops, and the less fertilizer needed to produce feed crops. I'm not saying that you should go vegetarian (though it's tasty!), but why not try one less meat-based meal a week. You'll help your pocketbook, too.
Eat locally-grown produce and produce that's in season when you can. Don't buy tomatoes in winter unless they can actually grow where you live. Don't buy winter squash in summer. Not only will they not taste as good, but they have to be transported long distances, contributing to global warming as they travel. Shop at a farmer's market when you can and get to know your local farmers. You'll probably save money, too, since out-of-season produce can be pretty expensive!
Eat less processed food. There's nothing wrong with a can of diced tomatoes in winter, but try not to eat that day-glo mac & cheese too often. The more steps required to process your food, the more it contributes to global warming and other environmental troubles. Stick to little-processed fruit, veggies, and whole grains. If you can't bare giving up your mac & cheese (or the kidlets won't let you), cut out something else. Don't buy baby carrots - sure, they're cute, but they're cut down from bigger carrots, using energy when they do.
Shopping
Buy less. Do you really need that brand new t-shirt when you have a drawer full of them that you never wear? Each thing you don't buy saves energy and chemicals.
Repurpose what you have. Do you need a new storage container? Do you have something around the house that would work just as well? Could you cover a shoebox with pretty paper or fabric and use that? Will an old mug or cup hold pens? Can an old Easter basket be painted and used to hold magazines? Can an old peanut butter jar hold nails?
Use your own bags. This is high on the list of "granola" signals, but you don't have to do it all the time. If it makes you uncomfortable, just do it where other people are likely to be doing it, too: the farmer's market, Trader Joe's, health food stores, and gourmet markets.
Around the house
Replace incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs. Even one will make a difference if you put it in a light you use often. If you don't like the light it gives off indoors, use it for your porch light. Though they cost more at the outset, over time they save considerable amounts of money, not just in replacements, but even in heating costs, since they give off less heat (we used to have to unscrew at least one of our overhead light bulbs in the living room in the summer because they made the room so hot. We switched to fluorescents and haven't had that problem since - and we haven't changed the bulbs since then, either!).
Use the sun for heating. You can save energy in the winter by opening the drapes on sunny days and closing them at night. The solar heat will help warm the house during the day, and you'll keep that heat from escaping at night. In the summer, close the drapes during the day to keep the heat from the sun out.
Stop drafts. If you have an old house like ours, this is a never-ending battle. Don't try to do it all at once, but anything you can do will help. If you find a new draft, wither fix it then or make a note of it to do sometime later. You'll save energy in both summer and winter.
Don't feel that you have to do all of these at once. Try one and see if it works for you. If it doesn't, try something else. Or, try to implement one new one each month. But don't sweat it. Remember, every little bit counts.
I was bored and looking for something to do, so I made myself a new lunch sack for carrying my breakfast, lunch, and snacks that I take to work.
It's just a couple scraps of cotton that were in the craft room, with white grosgrain ribbon for handles. It's fully lined with pink cotton and the whole thing only took a little over a half an hour to make.
And I'm still bored. What should I do now? Hmmm ...
My last lunch was getting a little random, since we ran out of fruit and were pretty much out of veggies other than the broccoflower. Had enough cabbage left to make more lime wasabi coleslaw, though!
Overall, I think Use It Up Week went well. It was even used as a theme for two lunch groups on flickr! Personally, I made a big dent in the stuff in the fridge, pantry, and freezer, so I'm pleased with how it went.
Here's the fridge after Use It Up Week:
Pretty empty, except for the condiments, of course. Though we really did use up quite a few of them, even though you can't tell. Click here for the photo of what the fridge looked like last week.
It snowed a few inches last night, so it seemed like a soup day. On the right, you can see my soup all taken apart, ready to be combined and heated up in the office microwave.
There's veggie dumplings, fried tofu, carrots, green onion, snow peas, yellow pepper, and soba. The base was a soy ginger broth from Trader Joe's. Also included were fruit salad and a cream bun.
And here's the soup all put together! Very yummy. Very filling. Perfect for a cold, snowy day.
In addition, I used up an apple, a kiwi, and the tofu with this lunch. Plus, though I opened a new bag of dumplings, now they're in the upstairs freezer so we'll eat them.
Lately, it would seem that there are those who believe I've become invisible and/or deaf. This is annoying. It has also led me to develop a (partial, I'm sure) list of stuff that I just don't care about:
panty lines
the latest fashions
getting older
hair color
the state of fingernails or toenails
the lives of celebrities
dieting obsessions
how much stuff other people have
religion
sensationalized crimes
status
Some selected commentary:
If panty lines bother you, wear looser clothes or go without panties. Or, get over yourself. No one's looking at your ass.
You will get older. There is nothing you can do about this. Well, there is a very effective way to stop the aging process: die. It will also solve the problem of your hair going grey, which, depending on genetics, is probably also inevitable.
Celebrities are just people. They may be prettier people, but they're just people. I've met some celebrities. Some are nice, some are idiots, just like everyone else. They're not special, they're just famous.
If you want to lose weight, eat fewer calories than you use. You can go on an all-chocolate diet and this forumla will still work. You can eat anything in the world that you like, and this will still work - you just probably will have to eat less of it than you'd like. What won't work is bitching about your weight while you eat a meal that could feed a small family.
Kidnappings and murders happen to people who aren't blonde and pretty, too, you know.
Use-It-Up Week is a week of discovery. Sometimes, those discoveries are fantastic, "hey, these go great together!" moments of synergy. More often, they're of the "good thing I found this is time!" variety. The sweet potatoes in today's lunch are an example of the latter type of discovery.
Not that the sweet potatoes aren't good with their topping of sour cream and salsa (used up the salsa!), but I discovered them just as they were about to turn into soup without the benefit of a pot.
So I sliced off the nasty bits, and using my new, how-did-I-live-without-you chopper, I diced then roasted them. They probably could have stayed in the oven a smidge longer, but they were still good.
Other lunch items are a salad with cranberries and gorgonzola with blush vinagrette (didn't use anything up, but I'm close on the lettuce, and I used up a different dressing for use with my morning snack!); a faux-chicken patty with mayo and mustard packets discovered lurking in the lunch drawer (yes, I have a whole drawer for all my lunch accoutrements, thank you); and more chocolate cherry strudel (that'll probably be gone by tomorrow).
As I sit here, huddled in my heaviest winter coat in my office, I'm really looking forward to my lunch today.
The fruit salad used up a star fruit, a blood orange, a kiwi, and some more of the kumquats. The peanut noodles used up the last of a jar of peanut butter, a red pepper, and last week's celery. The lime wasabi slaw used up the remains of a jar of mayo. And the chocolate cherry strudel used up a can of cherry pie filling.
Food will probably be getting a little weirder later in the week, but this lunch should be quite good!
I've been getting a little tired of our dishes lately. There' nothing really wrong with them, but we've got open cupboards in the kitchen, and I'm just getting a little tired of looking at them.
So I went to the thrift store and picked up some fun and pretty vintage dishes to use to change things up a bit.
I really like all of them. I still need more, especially bowls. Hey, if you're a thrifter and see any of these patterns (or anything that you think I might like, looking at these!), I'd love it if you'd pick them up. I'll happily pay for them, and shipping. You can see closer pics of the dishes here, here, here, and here. Think pinks and blues and greens and yellows. See that little bit of the kitchen curtain back behind the red bowl? That. :)
Also, Jeff is turning a spare room upstairs into a tiki bar - think 1950's bachelor pad rather than totally and completely tacky - though there will be a definite tacky element! So, I picked him up a vintage ice crusher and this plate for decoration:
I did my shopping for Use-It-Up Week, and I bought way less than usual! This is it:
And here's what the fridge looks like at the beginning of Use-It-Up Week:
And I've decided what we're having for dinner tonight: pasta with goat cheese, sun dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, and spinach. Not bad for stuff out of the fridge!
As I was making my lunch last night, I realized that I have lots of open containers of food, half-used items, and generally, just a lot of stuff in my fridge and cupboards. So I'm declaring next week to be Use-It-Up Week.
Normally I do my grocery shopping on Friday, but this week, I'm only going to buy stuff that we're actually out of (or are going to run out of, and we actually use consistently every week, like celery and limes and toothpaste). Nothing new that's for a specific meal. I'm going to try to use what I have already to feed us this week.
We're certainly not going to starve. We have pasta, polenta, plenty of canned goods, our freezer is stuffed, and we've got eggs and cheese. We could, at minimum, eat a different omelet for dinner at least three nights. I'm thinking a spinach and goat cheese omelet sounds tasty. That's not deprivation. But it does use what we have.
Anyone else have cupboards and fridges that are stuffed? Interested in joining in on Use-It-Up Week? If you are, here are some online recipe searches to help you come up with ideas for using what you have. They all allow you to search by ingredient.
