Washin’ them dishes, feedin’ them swine...

We have ditched the dishwashing detergent and with it phosphates, plastic bottles, bleach, other crazy chemiclas, and expense and instead have opted for our own simple concoction of one part borax to one part baking soda and white vinegar in the rinse. We also make sure ther is hot water in the tap before running the washer. One of my friends used this, but wasn't happy with it because of her dishwasher. There are many recipes out there, but this one works well in our dishwasher and is so very simple to make. I know some of you have been doing this for a while, but I am amazed when I go this long without know that I could have been making this all along. I've been duped!

Somewheres in this universe there’s a place that you can call home....

I love gardening.
And, somehow I forget over the winter how much I love it. I think that is a good thing, because I get to re-experience the joys every year. I learn something new each season, grow something different, try new ways. I do not have a large garden at all, but rather have my "flower" beds planted with yummy veggies. The eating part is scrumptious (tonight's dinner included homegrown carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes), not to mention the other obvious benefits of saving money and "eating local."

But I also love how gardening is such common ground amongst folks. It makes for such pleasant conversation. You can ask anyone who has even one tomato plant about it in the summer, and their eyes light up. Gardening conversation spans political affiliations, nationalities, income level, religious views, and age. It is a great common denominator. I can ask anyone about what they are growing and learn something or just bask in their description of something they have grown to love and to know as if in a deep intimate relationship.

I also get a kick out of the sharing part of gardening. In my neighborhood, we hand cucumbers over fences, leave squash and peppers on each other's doors, and water when we go out of town. There is a elderly Laotian couple that baby their garden with umbrellas and constant tending and grow beans that I have never seen before and peppers that make you sweat when you look at them. The lady speaks no English, but we've swapped veggies, and she'll gladly take our grass clippings if she sees us out. The above grapes were dangling in our yard from another neighbor and he invited us to pick as many as we can handle. What comraderie amongst neighbors!

I also get so excited to grow something new. Here is my first watermelon. Isn't it precious? We only have the one, but the vine that we grew from seed, transplanted, loved on, watered, talked to, babied, has sprouted and has several flowers. I have found great recipes that involve the mint (harvested today and drying) and watermelon together. Yum!

And, lastly, I stand in awe that things grow that we can eat and that this binds us a human race. I can't wait to make pickles and salsa, and ask you about your garden, and hand you a tomato. I am grateful that even if you have been a gardener for decades, you can appreciate my oohs and aahs for my first watermelon and tiny carrots.
All pictures and thoughts captured today from the garden.

We love earthday

We are famous!
Well, not really, but we are here.

But I've been sniffin' too many eggs

We'll in case you were worried, the kids had PLENTY of eggs for Easter this year. We have an obscene amount of plastic. I remember the good ole' days of real eggs.. The good news is we'll have enough for the entire neighborhood next year. And, if we wanted to jumb in them like a the balls they have a Chuck E. Cheese, we are in luck.

Eli's Earth day poster. Hey! Mother Earth needs YOU!

And, look how snazzy they were on Easter morn.

Somehow, I also remember the eggs actually being hidden instead of an egg free for all....

She left here last early spring, is livin' there, I hear

I often think that the "New Year" would be better celebrated in the Spring, when nature itself is renewed. It is unrealistic to really start jogging or eating local in January anyway. As we shrug off the cold, grey weather and start to notice buds, dogwoods, and irises, we also make plans for summer and spring. I have read a couple of great books lately that have inspired and encouraged me to make positive changes in our health and daily routine. We already do pretty well, but I found a few resources that I am excited about:

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (the MUST read for Rutherford County this Spring)
The Omnivore's Dilemma

Avalon Acres (Our co-op)
Hatcher Farms (Our local Dairy)

A great organization:
Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee

Valentines can't buy her

Say what you will about the love holiday..

But, I love it!
Especially homemade love..
Seen above is Ollie's card- box to take to school. He made everything himself with all recycled or reused materials (the LifeSavers were given to him, and he decided they fare better as decoration than as a treat. I agree.)

There are 20 kids in his class, so I did write the kids' names on them, but he did the rest.

The stickers were hand-me downs from my grandmother's collection, and the candy was pushed on us by another loving grandmother....

And, of course Eli is creative. Seen here in his undies and with plastic hearts over his "boo-boos."

See, love is grand.

I liked our cards the best as they were the only homemade ones, and Ollie did, too.

And, by the way, it was raining Saturday morning, and I saw a young guy riding his bike in the rain with roses sticking out of his jacket pocket. Que romantico! I loved it.

Kids are strange when you're a stranger..

Okay, two quick things:

1) It is getting to cold to compost and my little hold container under the sink gets so very full before I feel like traipsing back to the way, way back of my less than an acre back yard. It's called sacrifice people..

2) Eli woke up at 3:48 this weekend screaming and throwing a 2 year old fit because he wanted a donut. Hmm.... Okay.... Nope no donuts in the house, can't help you bud, so please for the love of everyone in this house Go.back.to.sleep... He kicked and carried on for about an hour, but I guess he probably just tired of the moaning. He was inconsolable. I think he MAY have had 3 donuts his entire life, so who knows..

Let me sleep in your meadows with the green grassy leaves

Hey Moms, I love this Green Mom Finds, and they are having a contest. Go here to enter for free plastics without harmful chemicals.

Or maybe it's the weather or something like that

But we skipped church last Sunday to go splash around
At Fall Creek Falls
It was a long hike
And we got wet
But, I am pretty sure, it is what heaven is like

People are crazy and times are strange

Late post from Thursday: Go watch this
Thanks Auntie Erin, I've been thinking of this for 2 days.

You see somebody naked you say who is that man..

In honor of my green post today, Ollie and Eli enjoyed playing in the mud and then the soft spring rain. I made them strip before trekking strait to the bathroom, and Ollie was the happiest I may have ever seen him. He was naked as a jay bird laughing at the top of his lungs in the rain, muddy as all get out. He peed with gusto, sang, and made mud pies. It was with sweet sorrow that I drug his lilly white booty in for fear of indecency and our neighborhood living. Such rebellion and glory in his sweet eyes. The day was followed with a good hard bike ride with the 2 showered pigs in tow. I love summer.

An' he just smoked my eyelids and punched my cigarette

I know that I have posted a link to this before, but I didn't mention how cool I think it is. I would never in a billion years want to be a tattler, narc, whiner, moaner, groaner, BUT, I love this website. Am I like Big Brother?? I reported 2 people this week. I am a militant, disgusted, ex-smoker, and I truly believe that if people just realized how many resources and how much money they were wasting, they wouldn't act so trashy.

Here are a few facts (cut and pasted from http://www.stoplitter.org/)

$11,000,000. Yes, you read those zeros right. That's $11 million tax payer dollars our state spends picking up the trash Tennesseans throw down on the ground. That doesn't even count what your city pays to pick up litter in the incorporated areas.

12,000,000 miles are driven each year picking up litter in our state. Think about all the gas that is needed to fuel trucks for litter pick up.


18% of all littered items end up in our streams and waterways as pollution. That means litter in our state travels to other states and eventually ends up in the ocean.

So when you report them:

With the information you provide to us below, we will send a friendly reminder letter to the registered owner of the Tennessee vehicle informing them of the negative consequences of their littering actions and providing them with educational materials. The letter will include information about how to contain their litter and inform them that litterers can be fined up to $1,500.

Now go bust some butts.

You left me standing in the doorway, crying...

standing diapers + cloth diapers = messy and near bout impossible

So "they" say that standing diaper changes are beneficial for several reasons. "They" say that the child participates more in the process instead of just lying there letting the adults be in charge of the pottying phenomena, that the child is more actively involved in the process. "They" also say that this will ease the transition when it comes to potty training. I like all of these things. But, we also try to use mainly cloth diapers, and putting the two concepts together isn't really that easy. Just throwing that out there. Oh, and for your parenting pleasure, food for thought on disposable diapers:

Cut and pasted below from here:

Eighty percent of the diapering in this nation are done with disposables. That comes to 18 BILLION diapers a year. Each one has an outer layer of waterproof polypropylene and an inner layer of fluff made from wood pulp plus super-slurper sodium polyacrylate that can hold a hundred times its weight in water.
Those 18 billion diapers add up to 82,000 tons of plastic a year and 1.3 million tons of wood pulp -- 250,000 trees. After a few hours of active service these materials are trucked away, primarily to landfills, where they sit, neatly wrapped packages of excrement, entombed undegraded for several hundred years.
It is illegal in most states to dump human waste in landfills. That law is simply unenforced when it comes to diapers. Theoretically they could infest the water leaching out of the dump with bacteria and viruses (polio, hepatitis, dysentery), though that has never been known to happen. Perhaps the other ingredients in leachate are toxic enough to kill human pathogens. Perhaps the diapers are so nondegradable that they don't leak their contents.

** My note--- "They" also say that these damn things take 500 years to biodegrade. I seriously think about this every time I opt to use one. OOOHHH, and plus we bought a box this weekend for back up/ grandparent/ Evan using, and they were $30. Geez....

*** "they" are people that I have heard such things from, but that I am too lazy to search further on the internet about to back up****

Your cracked country lips...

Or Green Thursday...
When I was in middle school, we used to say that if you wore green on Thursday, that meant you were horny...And, no I'm not, but I thought that Thursdays would be a great day to discuss the latest green trend in the household.
I have given up chap stick. I know, no big deal, BUT it is dear readers, it is. I don't use make-up or hair products, but I was a burts beeswax addict, and I didn't even know it. The fact remains the soothing balm is a product that has to be purchased, shipped, and bought, and I just wanted out from under those chains. Like a true addict, I told myself that I wasn't addicted, that I could handle it, quit anytime, but sure enough for the past week or so I have been suffering from distinct withdrawl symptoms. Shakes, sweats, no just kidding, but my lips feel like they are growing a new layer of skin and becoming tougher. They have ached, peeled, and cried out for moisture. I have given them a touch of Vaseline just to ease the transition, but no more minty goodness, uh-uh. I mean LOTS of people world wide make it without constant moisturizing, surely, I can too. This will be especially tough in mom's house as she has a tube of the stuff strategically placed at every chair, in her car, purse, under her pillow, etc....

And is our purpose not the same on this earth

Or Rainy Day Women, Weekend Update, and Chance Encounters..

Earth day weekend proved itself to be a glorious and appropriate celebration for one of my favorite holidays. We opted to stay close to home this year thinking it not so green of us to drive all the way to Nashvegas. We scored free trees, wildflower seeds, Stop Litter tatoos, and I happened upon an old high school acquaintance who runs the local recycling pick-up. I haven't seen this cat since like '92, and we weren't close friends, yet it does make you feel good to see familiar faces. I also, on the same day, ran into a best friend of mine from the 7th grade. It totally weirded me out man. She is cousins with my Dos Amigas business partner and friend. I have moved around so much in my life that these encounters are rare at best. To have 2 in one day is just incredible. Friday night, another old time buddy contacted via email. It's a small, small world.

Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones

Recently, as a TVA customer, I went here to fill in an online energy survey. If you are TVA customer, you HAVE to do this, if nothing else for the free box of goodies that came to our house a couple of weeks later. This weekend I was giddy with excitement when it arrived. In the box were 2 florescent light bulbs, 2 low flow water faucet attachments, foam pads to insulate behind our electrical outlets, and a little whistle contraption that tells me when my air filter needs to be replaced (which we haven't even been using lately thanks to all this nice weather we've been having!)It was sort of like this, but free. ALL FREE! I know you've been dying to know, but our daily energy usage is down by an average of 7 kilowatts a day this month! Yipeeeee. Now go save the planet.

PS. Did you know that Bob Dylan doesn't have one song that includes the word energy?!!

I'm an American, aquarium drinker....

Greetings from the 'hoochie! The kids and I tagged along as tourists to Chattanooga with Evan who had some sort of Geography conference this week. Hotel sleeping went great thanks to the pack n play, and we saw all the sights including: The Aquarium, Lookout Mountain, Sea Monsters on the IMAX, and the fabulous children's museum. Chattanooga is a lovely town, and one of our favorite parts was riding the free electric shuttle everywhere we needed to go. The shuttles have been free and electric since '93. Goooo Chattanooga!

Free-Recycled-Composter

Beautiful, perfect day!

Come one, come all martins!
The eclipse from the other night.

Free -Recycled-Composting! What great words to put together! The sunshine today was truly a blessing, and we took full advantage of it. We started the day with a walk to the park, played some b-ball, and went down the slide a couple of times. (Eli said, "one-two, freee" before going down to my huge surprise!) We then came home and finally erected a compost bin! I have been bugging E about this for a while, and was even sneaking rouge pile behind the shed. We called a local store and asked them to sell us some pallets, they said, "no, but you can have them for free." Sooo, I picked them up, and now we have reduced our household waste by approximately 20% and will have some good fertilizer for our herbs and flowers come summer. Yay!

Consume Less

The most simple, yet profound way to save the earth and minimize our impact on the environment. I feel like most Internet advocates of saving the environment get caught up in product review, and though I agree that smart purchases are an integral part of small foot prints, I am underwhelmed by advice about which product is best. I am feeling disgruntled as I know that our family is not doing everything we can to be good stewards of the land, but every energy saving tip that I've heard, we already do. I always get excited when I see a list of things you can do to save the world, and then I realize that there isn't really anything new on them. We will continue to make major changes as our budget allows, like better insulating a couple of windows that aren't new in our house and purchasing a hybrid car or better yet (when I convince the hubby to change) one that runs on pure french fry grease. In essence, I know voting with your dollar is important, but, simply put, buying more in no way helps the environment, even if it is buying smarter.

On that random note, Nader through his hat in the political ring again today. I love his stamina and dedication to his message. I saw him speak once when I was in college, and I've liked him ever since.

The Ying & Yang green weekend

So this week, I am sneaking my thermostat even lower. I was proud that we were keeping it at 68, and turning it off or like 50ish when we go out of town. Come to find out, that really isn't low at all! I think that I am going to turn it down by one degree every couple of days until my family senses something's up. So we are at a steady 67 now. Someone is home all day and practically up all night, plus baby can't be covered in blankets yet, so well leave it at that for the time being. We are installing a purple martin house this week, too as we prepare for Spring, yay!

On the flip side, Ollie's new fascination is Monster Trucks. Evan took him to a rally this weekend as part of a birthday celebration. I am sure the trucks weren't running on french fry grease, but they had a great time, non-the less. I am not entirely sure where Ollie heard about them, but, we'll live through this stage, I am sure. No way in H.E. double hockey sticks is the kid driving one of those enormoous things when he is a teenager, so he better get through it soon. He'll be walking. Or maybe we'll spring for a dirt bike if he's good.