Thinking Of 2012 Resolutions

Have you thought of any New Year's Resolutions for 2012 yet????
Over at The Geen Phone Booth she has some good ideas there like not buying anything new that is somthing I will think about for sure. I also would like to shift away from drinking diet soda, It is a real problem for me. I am also looking into getting these two books: "Eat vegan on $4.00 a day" & "The 30-Day Vegan Challenge" and really start eating more fruits, veg. & beans.
It's always fun to start a New Year!

Plans for 2012 - Keep Track Of Items Bought!

I have been thinking about trying to keep track of everything I buy next year! I want to try and limit my buying to only those things I REALLY need. I have tired in the past to keep track of what I spend on food, but there too things get forgotten and sales slips get tossed. My husband is also a big problem in this area as he NEVER keeps track of his spending, so it gets on my nervous that I know where every penny that I had control of went but he has no idea where his money went. But this year I am hoping to really be aware of our spending!! We honestly never buy much of "un-needed" items but I do see for instance that I have a number of one subject notebooks, books that could have been inter-library loaned instead of bought ect.
I have been trying to declutter most of the areas in our home, and already it is giving it a better feel. It's funny no sooner then I started decluttering our stuff that a work buddy of my husbands started cleaning out their place and you guessed it tossed the stuff our way.... But hey, I got a great couch that is in almost new shape that I really needed so it's all good.
Until next time - God Bless!

Lots of Reading Material

My husband stopped at the library and bought home a couple of the books I am dying to dive into:
Not buying it, My year without shopping by Judith Levine
Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza
Complete guide to safe herbs by Chris Meletis
I also got A year by the sea by Joan Anderson, a gal on one of the blogs I follow: The 4 Buschel Farm suggested and it sounded good.
So much to read and so little time..... : )

A Couple Of Change I'm Really Proud Of.....

I am pretty proud to admit I have really addressed my paper towel addiction! I used to be a mega user of paper towels, I would go thru one of those huge 12 roll packages that cost like $15.00 a week! But I am happy to say I now down to a 2 roll package and I am making it till the end of the week : ) I have placed dishtowels out by the sink for drying my hands which has helped save. My biggest user problem was picking up after my dogs/cats messes, I would use a ton of paper towels for these messes, but now I use newspaper. We receive each week a penny saver paper which is free and given out to all the homes, I used to recycle them but decided to try using them for the animal messes and it worked out great. Now I know I'm not really helping things by just switching from paper towels to newspaper but I have to say I cut the newspaper in half and use only one sheet and that goes along way so for sure I am saving some trees there.

My daughter and I have been meat free for months now and I am LOVING it! I am so happy to know I am not reponsible for killing an animal ever time I eat something! I feel sooooo much better inside too, I no longer have that heavy feeling you get from having that hard to digest meat sitting inside my gut. During the summer we were buying fruits/veg. from a local farm stand but they closed down for the fall/winter months which has been such a disappointment. I am now finding I am going more for the sweets again instead of a fruit.

Still need to do alot more, but I'm a work in progress : )

Great Blog I Found!!

I found a great blog which I have been spending a great deal of my time at recently reading over her past posts: "Live Ready Now" . I have ordered a few of the books on interests that her blog has gotten me thinking about from my library:

"Natural health magazine complete guide to safe herbs"

"Lasagna gardening : a new layering system for bountiful gardens: no digging, no tilling, no weeding, no kidding"!

I just love when I get that crazy feel inside about something, it's strange I know, but I find it so exciting waking up in the morning with something new to learn about....

Liebster Blog Award

The Liebster Blog Award started (sometime in the recent past) in Germany to encourage traffic to hidden gems of blogs with 300 followers or less. So it is an award you receive, but also an award you give (share the love kinda thing). If you receive a Liebster Blog Award you are asked to choose 3-5 other bloggers and link back to the blogger that gave you the award. Thank you, Jessica @Teachable Moments for this honor.

These are a few of the Blogs I enjoy that I would like to pass this award on to:

The Bergblog Phyllis always has such great ideas and is always so helpful when I ask countless questions.

Home *School* Home This blog was one of the first I found when starting out homeschooling and have loved it ever since.

Toad Haven Homeschool I so enjoy reading about the adventures this family takes and all of the learning they do!

Alston Academy Rhonda does such a great job teaching her daughters & I love reading about her lunch ideas too!

Journey to Excellence This is a new one I found and am loving it! I really enjoy when parents of teens post what they are doing which is hard to find.

This is just a small list of some of my favorites, I really hate just posting a few because it might hurt some of my other bloggers feelings so please know I LOVE you all!!

Freeze Yer Buns Challange 2011

I am joining in on the Freeze Yer Buns Challange 2011 over on the Crunchy Chicken Blog. Living down here in Florida you all might think winters are a breeze, but we have cold weather. It might be milder by up norths standards but being that we are not used to the cold weather it hits us hard. We have lived down here for 8 years and last year I think was the worst winter for cold temps yet. We have issues with our heating/air conditioning unit if we use it on a steady basis our electric bill runs sky high, We haven't been able to afford someone to look at it. We do have a fireplace in the livingroom which I hope to use a bit more this year to help take the chill off during the evening time.
I look forward to the challange of keeping our temp. in the house as low as I can : )

Getting Back To Blogging!!

I am up set with myself for not keeping up with this blog!
I have been bogged down with family things and my new interests have been taking a back seat which I really need to address, since I was soooo loving the new me who was excited again about something.....
To catch up it has been well over 5 months now of going vegetarian and I feel GREAT! I have no interest at all to eat meat!! To be honest when my husband cooks it, I kinda get sick from the smell of it.
We have been enjoying a number of the Boca & Morning Star Farms products. They fill the void of needing a "meat" on the plate and they taste fantastic. The cost is getting kinda high on their products which is getting to be a problem for me in my budgeting for groceries each week. Have you seen the prices of food lately? They are skyrocketing, each week I am seeing a price increase on a large number of the items I buy : ( It's hard to keep a pricebook of where to buy at the lowest price since the stores change the prices so often.
Need to stay on top of it since we spend a huge chunk of the little bit of money we get each week on it.
Until Next time....

Been On Vacation - Catching Up Now

You know you have recycling on the brain when your neighbors mobile home goes on fire and all I can think of while watching the firefighters fight the blaze is it is such a shame that all those parts and pieces (ex. windows, doors, wood deck, ect.) are all gone. The mobile home had been empty for a long time and was in foreclosure so I guess the bank owned it. They are now left with just the metal at the bottom of the mobile home which has the wheels on it. Haven't heard yet what caused the fire, we had no lightning so not sure if it was set or maybe an animal ate the electrical line but what ever the reason it is now all gone. We have a number of homes which are empty in our area so just hoping this isn't something that is going to be happening often.

I have still been reading as much as I can (I have been away on vacation to my son's house where he still does not recycle! I kept telling them how long things stay in the landfill trying to get them to recycle...), I am reading "Sleeping Naked is Green" I had to inter-library loan that book so it cost me $2.00. I am thinking of copying her ideas of trying to make a small green change each day, as for the book so far I am getting the feel that she is doing this just for the book not that it is in her to make the changes (does that make any sense?) which I am not enjoying. I'll let you know more about it after I finish it.

I have been doing wonderfully on not eatting meat. It has been very simple for me so far. I did have a seafood sub at Subway. They said it is imitation seafood so I figured it was okay. My husband has been the biggest hurdle so far he wants his meat. I can hardly stand the smell of meat cooking now, it is sooooo gross smelling it's hard to cook it. I wish I was a better cook and could whip up some better vegetarian meals that maybe he would like - I gotta work on that.

I have also have been trying to rid my home of alot of the clutter. I love the way Bea from Zero Waste Home has such a peaceful home, nothing extra just calming. I tossed out both my love seat & recliner chair both were in horrible condition and were used only by all my dogs. The living room looks so much cleaner now, I hope to tackle the whole house!

Over One Month Being A Vegetarian

It's been alittle over one month now of cutting out meat. I can honestly say I feel a whole lot better inside my body (That sounds crazy, doesn't it?). I feel lighter, I don't think I have actually lost pounds but I feel bouncer... I have had no trouble staying away from meat because I have been buying the Morning Star & Boca products which have helped alot.
I have also had a bit more energy & not sure if it is from not eatting meat or if it is pre-menopause, menopause or what but this lady has been feeling frisky : )
I could just kick myself for not starting this sooner in my life!!!! It has always been something I wanted to do but always put it off.
I am reading two GREAT books:
The Kind Diet by Alicia Sliverstone (I am still reading but LOVE it!!!)
Natural Energy Boosters by Carlson Wade
Both of these books are very easy to understand which I love!!! I have been trying to read thru Michael Pollan's books and have had such a terrible time with them. I just can't seem to digest the info. in them, that is why I am so glad I found these books alot easier for me to understand : )

Baby Chicks!!!!

Here are my baby chicks I picked up from my local feed & grain store, Aren't they just adorable??????

They are just so cute, I LOVE them : )

The two lighter ones are golden sex-links, the dark one is a partridge rock & the greyish one is a light brahma.

I set them up for now in a bird cage I have and placed them in my wash room. They don't really need a heat lamp here in FL. since our weather is so hot already but I set up a lamp with a regular bulb to add alittle warm at night.

I must say they are pretty loud already.... I thought I would be up all night but they settled down after awhile.

So far they all look really good : )

Every Change Makes A Difference!

I have been reading a wonderful blog: 100 Days of Real Food
It has given me another "eye opener" reading this blog! I can not tell you how many times I have assumed something is on the healthy side with out really looking at the label, How wrong I have been! One example is, I have changed my family away from white bread which I was so proud of but when I looked at the wheat bread bag label I was shocked : ( The list of ingredients is so long I can't even begin to write it here for you.... and this is on "bread" something that I would of thought just took a few ingredients to make!
I also have been buying a granola bar that my daughter & I love (it does have chocolate on the outside of it) and took a peek at the wrapper, oh my gosh here again a mile long of words I can't even pronounce. I am now commited to reading the labels of the food we are eatting and make some changes in this area also!

My daughter & I watched a dvd yesterday as part of her homeschooling lesson, It was called: Strange Days on Planet Earth 2 I was stunned but again on the things that we are doing to the earth and its animals!!!! I think this dvd needs to be played for all highschool children, I really think we need to start making the young people aware as early as we can of the affects that are happening to the earth. The second half of the dvd showed how the plastic we are dumping from our garbages are getting in the ocean and the birds guts are full of it! They cut open a dead bird and showed you all the little pieces and even a pacifier! The mother birds are mistaken some plastic pieces for food and actually feeding their baby birds this stuff and are killing them in the process : ( Here again I am really going to work on buying products with as little plastic as possible! I have found a blog about a family who is really keeping a close eye on every product they buy and are trying to go without buying any with plastic: Modern Muse
Like the dvd said every person with making even some changes will make a big difference, I am commited to making changes!!!
P. S. - Also, I want to mention that my daughter has now jumped on board with me about the "no more plastic" in our garbage after seeing that dvd so that is one more person to be making changes - Heck Ya! : )

Books, Books And More Books

Okay I have offically gone Book Nuts again!
I just can't stop, I am a sponge and want to soak up as much information as I can about vegetarian cooking, nutriton, recycling, less waste ect....
I went into the library and came out with 7 huge mega sized books to read,
"The Organic Food Shopper's Guide" by Jeff Cox
"The Unhealthy Truth" by Robyn O'Brien
"A Slice of Organic Life" by Sheherazade Goldsmith
"In Defense of Food" by Michael Pollan
"The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
"SuperFoods HealthStyle" by Steven Pratt
"Natural Energy Boosters" by Carlson Wade

I just finished reading "Better off Flipping The Switch On Technology", I enjoyed reading the adventures of the couple trying to live the "Amish" type way of life. The ending was a bit disappointing (I won't go any further then that so as not to ruin the book for others). One nugget I took from the book was how with so much more work for them to do each day because of using less technology ex. no computer, tv, telephone, microwave, dishwasher, washing machine ect. they still felt they had more time during the day.... I can so agree with how the computer will eat up your day if you let it!!!!! Lately with my thirst for finding out all I can on my new interests I have been spending WAY too much time on!!!! I need to add that to my list of things to change : )
What do I always say "Too much to do, Not enough time"....

Organic Food

Last night I watched "Food Matters" WOW! That's the first word the comes to mind. It is so interesting and informative on the affects of "We are what we eat" theory. Having food battle cancers is mind blowing! It really all makes sense to me, how the body can heal it self if you give it the right fuel.
Which brings me to vitamins, I have never taken vitamins in my lifetime. I never really gave my kids vitamins on a daily basis (Kelly started taking the chewy adult gummy type ones recently but we stopped because they are pretty expensive). I really want to look into getting some vitamins for us to take after watching that dvd, I can't belive how many years I have been going without them.... One Dr. hit home when he said "There is no reason the average person should be tired in the afternoon" - That's me ever day! I am always tired and always without any energy.
They also suggest a large glass of water in the morning before you eat or drink anything else - I drink no water! You can see a pattern forming here : (
They feel you should eat organic food, that the pesticides are just ruining the fruits & veg.. Well I live near a potato farm and you would not belive the way they spray the heck out of those plants, I can imagine all that pesticides are leaching down into the potato as it grows. I actually have an organic co-op down in town that I would like to check out but really worried about the cost.... They say in the dvd how we are willing to buy the best car, the best house, ect but we are willing to put the worst food into our systems that we should be spending less of our money on those other things and spending as much as we possible can on getting the most healthiest food for our families.
I'll let you know how my shopping goes tomorrow.

The Need To Stop Using Plastic & Recycle More!

Okay my eyes have been opened lately with what I have been finding out about! Two things I will talk about in this post is plastics and the amount of garbage we are making....
My daughter & I watched "Planet In Peril", The first thing she said to me is "God must be really mad at us for taking such bad care of the earth"! This from a 16yr. old who really doesn't show much emotions one way or another on many topics...
It really has given me more of a boost to do what I can to make changes in a number of areas!
I recycle cans, plastics, cardboard & newspapers, but after some of my reading I am finding out plastic just doesn't really recycle very well. To top it off the plastic that does not get recycled is causing such issues in our oceans! Can you imagine 8 football fields covered with plastic water bottles is the equivalent of how many are discarded every 5 minutes in the United States...
The chemicales that are coming off of the plastics are causing such heath issues too that I really want to limit my families use of them.
Here are some ideas for getting started not using so much Plastic.
Contact your local recycling center to see what items they can recycle, You will be amazed at some of the items you can drop off there, Here is an example of what my town can take. Also check out this great searching tool for what you can recycle & where.
It sure is alot to digest and it really is all mind blowing how much we have abused the earth : (

So Many Books To Read, So Little Time...

I always seem to get excited about something and then I go overboard with it...
That's what is happening now with my new "Green " life, I have my library working on getting me a ton of books I want to read - I actually have two going right now:

"Better Off Flipping the Switch On Technology" by Eric Brende
This young couple try and live an "Amish" type life with no modern technology, I am enjoying the book so far. I have always had a interest in living around the Amish. I find them to be very interesting, but I doubt I could go that bare bones...

"American Wasteland" by Jonathan Bloom
Talks about how wasteful americans are with our food, I've only just started it so can't comment on it yet.

I hate having two books going at the same time! But I am so wrapped up in all of this I want to learn as much as I can "Right Now"....

I also really can't wait to read "Sleeping Naked is Green" by Vanessa Farquharson. To be honest I don't really like technical books, I would rather read an enjoyable easy read book.

If you have ready any goodies that you can suggest I'd love to take a look at them : )

Going Vegetarian...

I have to say it has been a bit easier then I thought moving away from meat.
I did not tell my family early last week what we were having, just cooked it up and put it out on their plates and they ate it.
We have been doing pretty good, We did have hotdogs one night.... : (
We are using a number of the Boca Foods & MorningStar Farms "meats" to help us replace our need for the meat on our plate.
Some are better than others, We tried the MorningStar chicken nuggets tonight, Not our favorites. We loaded on BBQ sauce and they were edible but not really what I was hoping for. I really need to write down the ones we try and which brand we like better so as not to keep buying the ones that are so so.... This week at Target the MorningStar products are on sale for $2.99 each but so far we are liking the Boca brand a bit better.

No More Paper Plates

I'm pretty proud of myself.... I have done away with paper plates!
I used alot of paper plates in the past because they were so much easier for me and required no washing of the dishes. We wasted soooo many plates just using one for a sandwich and tossing, such a waste!
I went to the Dollar Tree and looked around for a light weight plate, I was hoping for a pyrex type but they didn't have any of those. They did have a Coke-Cola plate not sure what they are made of but they are really light which I was looking for, I paid $1.00 for each plate and bought 4 of them. I am really trying to NOT buy new things, I want to buy used but this time I really wanted to stop the paper plates useage a soon as possible and these worked for me.

What Awakened Me To This New Journey

Sometimes things just jump out at you which makes you think "What the heck have I been thinking or doing for the past say 26 years"?...
That is the kinda feeling I got when I read about the Johnsons Family and then found Bea's blog "The Zero Waste Home" . I have always hated my disposable generation's attitude of "buy it new,use it up & throw it out"! I have to say I have been apart of that mind set also for many years which is strange to me because both my parents lived thru the depression as children and always treasured each thing they owned, used up every once of food that we had, fixed things instead of buying new, ect. but I think they had is so hard that they gave me way to much stuff of everything that I never valued things but in my heart I always new it wasn't a good thing to be throwing out so much stuff.
One story that comes to mind is when we used to gather my uncles & cousins together and all make a trip to the dump, those days you could drive right up to the massive pile and dump off your garbage, you would also see the huge holes they would be digging to burry all this junk and I don't mean just household garbage there would be ovens, chairs, couches, anything you didn't want was at the dump and had to be disposed of. My family would always do some "Picken" and find some great treasures we would take home with us. My father always said what a shame that so many people threw things out that could easily be fixed or just given a fresh coat of paint and would be as good a new.
Anyway, all this has given me a renewed excitement to try and NOT throw out so much things to load up the landfills & to find ways of using up what we have!

Paper Towel

Okay I will admit to you all right now I am a major paper towel user : (
This is one area that I CAN really make changes... What I have done so far is get out the dish towels my mother-in-law gave me for Christmas and am using them to dry my hands, dry dishes ect. which has been going very well.
My biggest problem area for using paper towel is for getting rid of dog waste! I have a number of dogs and need to pick-up alot of dog waste over the course of a day. Yes, I have been also using a dreaded plastic bag to assist in my pick-up so that even adds to the problem area since I want to move away from using plastic bags altogether.
I have been looking into dog waste composting, not sure if that will work for me or not still thinking that over.
I will be reseraching the web for other ideas on how to stop using so many paper towels.
I did find this site which has alot of ideas & tips:
How to Live Green

Where To Start....

I am busting at the seems to start everything I am hoping to change in my life (see "About Me" on the side of this blog).
But where to start.... My first goal is to try and eat only vegetarian meals. I am not a very good cook to begin with and I have to say we eat very limited vegs. (corn, cream corn, peas & stringbeans and all are canned). Our fruit intake is even worse, I hate to say it but we seldom have fruit to eat. We always have some kind of meat at lunch & dinner. Seldom do we eat breakfest at all. Soooo you can see this will be a big undertaking trying to change our way of eatting. I know it won't happen over night but any changes I can make will move us into a more healthier way.
My first step has been to get some very beginner vegetarian cookbooks from our local library & since I am hoping to get my daughter to become involved with my journey I am going to get some children cookbooks also:
Kids Can Press "The Jumbo Vegetarian Cookbook"
"Vegetarian Cooking For Beginners"
Both books are very basic but that is what we need at this time to just really get an understanding of being a vegetarian.