Etsy

Finally something new in my Etsy shop!

What a crazy week - three sick kids, two with ear infections, freecycling, organizing, purging, trying to figure out if we should go gluten-free with Fletch. Alas, I found a few minutes of relaxation in making a new Buttercup Bag.

Meatless Monday

I always seem to turn to pasta on Meatless Monday, probably because my family isn't big on veggies. Last week Mr. Greenhab tivo'd an episode of Guy's Big Bite on the Food Network and made Guy's Paccheri Pasta with Cauliflower and Spinach his special Meatless Monday request. (Minus the spinach...and capers...and he wanted tomato sauce instead of whole tomatoes...and I didn't have paccheri, so I had to use penne rigate. But besides that it was totally the same.)

It was sooooooo good. And if it hadn't been Meatless Monday I would have thrown in some shrimp or mussels. Mmmmm!

So what did you have for Meatless Monday?

And the Wembe Winner is...

Mel and Moses who said...

YAY! We've been using bar soap for our hair and natural castile soap for our bodies for a while =) This one sounds heavenly! I've been looking for new ideas and I'm glad you brought up etsy. I haven't thought to look there! Thanks for hosting this =)

Congrats! Mel, please email me at greenhab.goods at gmail with your address and I'll get this delicious chocolate Wembe soap right out to you!

Homemade Peanut Butter Cups

Pardon me while I pat myself on the back... Not only did I figure out how to make peanut butter (it's actually easier to make it than to get in the car, go to the store, and buy it) but I whipped up some home made peanut butter cups while I was at it. You can find instructions, with photos, over at Make it From Scratch today.

Gluten Free Casein Free

I wrote the other day about Fletcher's sudden milk-free diet. While his perfect behavior lasted almost a week, he seems to be getting back to his normal self again. It's been suggested that we go gluten-free as well since gluten is very similar to the protein casein found in milk. Read more in my post on the Green Phone Booth today~ A whole new food challenge...

Wembe Natural & Vegan Soaps

Right behind recycling and bringing cloth bags to the grocery store, switching to bar soap was one of the first things we did in our journey to live more sustainably.

I used to love all of those scented shower gels from Bath & Body Words and Victoria's Secret, so switching to plain while bar soap was a little, well, boring. Over the past few years though, the bar soap industry has really exploded. Especially with the creation of sites like Etsy, you can find bar soaps in every size, shape, and scent out there.

I've become somewhat of a soapaholic, buying bars when I find them on sale or find interesting "flavors" that I can't pass up.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by a newish (launched last summer) company called Wembe, to try out their new line of soaps. Wembe is a Paraguayan company that uses all pure and natural ingredients in their soaps - no silicone, petroleum products, parabens, sulfates, phenoxythanol, polyethylene glycol, synthetic fragrances or dye. Many of the ingredients are certified organic (where possible) and 94% of their products are vegan.

Wembe sent me one of their Coconut Exfoliating Blend bars saying,

"This is not the common coconut soap. We use two varieties of coconut to create the sweetest smelling and most nourishing blend. It is astringent and slightly defoliant to smooth and relieve dry, rough skin."

Goodness knows I could use that! It's been such a dry, cold winter here in Colorado that my skin feels like it's falling right off.

I was happy to see that the soap came wrapped in a piece of brown paper, rather than plastic, that I could throw into the compost pile.

The first day I used it, I was in heaven. The little exfoliating bits of coconut made me feel like a kitten getting a good all-over-scratching. Ahhhhh... I might have overdone it though because my skin was a little pink and over-exfoliated. Note to self: be gentle, no matter how good it feels! After that, I switched to using it about once a week, which was perfect. I think I'd try one of their smoother blends next time.

Wembe has a variety of other bar soaps - both exfoliating and smooth! - like their Avocado Cleansing Blend made with avocado oil and cashew leaves, or the Green Blue River Blend made with white sands from the Parana River blended to soothe tired feet.

And, lucky you, Wembe has offered to do a giveaway to Greenhab readers just in time for Valentine's Day. They're offering up a bar of their (vegan) Chocolate Cleansing Blend to one lucky winner~

"This delicious blend is full of active elements. It acts as a skin softener, an antioxidant, and can help smooth wrinkles. Chocolate, the jungle's greatest aphrodisiac. Do you need to hear more?"

All you have to do is leave a comment. Let me know that you've already made the switch to bar soap, or that you'd be willing to give it a try. I'll announce a winner on Friday, January 22nd.

In Brown Family Health News...

We've had health issues and discoveries on both ends of the spectrum this week. I never knew I could be in pain, yet happy all at the same time. Well, except for during childbirth I suppose!

Right before Christmas I had a cancer scare which turned out NOT to be cancer, but a milder issue. Last week the doctor ended up doing some work on my lady parts and hopefully all is now well.

If that wasn't enough, I started having some pretty major tooth pain and had to visit the dentist. He found that two of my ancient fillings needed to be replaced but, because they were so large, the two teeth would need crowns instead.

All was well for a few days after that, then suddenly I was in a lot of pain in said teeth. After several days of this, one of the glands in my neck swelled up to the size of an egg and was so sore I couldn't turn my neck. The dentist couldn't find a reason for the tooth pain but he did put me on strong antibiotics for the gland.

That was Thursday night and, as of today, I haven't had much tooth pain for 12 hours. I think I'm on the mend! Thank goodness, because we were talking root canal to figure out what the problem was.

But the very BEST NEWS EVER.... I think we discovered that Fletcher cannot have milk. I know, you're thinking "Well why would that be good news!?!?"

Fletcher has always been a difficult child. At one week old, we took him to the doctor and said "Something is wrong with him!" and we've felt that way ever since. He's an angry boy, difficult, has lots of tantrums, power struggles, he's defiant, oppositional...the list goes on. Most people say "He's a kid; that's how kids are." and I agree, but he is this way to an extreme. (And now that I have three kids, I can definitely say that this is not how they act in the least!)

I describe it to people as feeling like I'm in an emotionally abusive relationship...with a 4 year old. In my darker moments I've found myself asking him "Why do you hate me? Why are you so mean to me? Why won't you just love me and be nice to me?" through tears.

Marc and I have read book after book, tried every parenting and discipline technique that we could find. We've tried to find a label or a problem with him - ADD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder, Sensory Integration problem - and while some features of each fit him, there wasn't one that we really felt described him to a T.

Last week I heard another mom describing her daughter as being moody, going from one extreme to the other in seconds, her daughter would swear at her, she was unhappy, couldn't concentrate, etc. She also worked with therapists and doctors to no avail. Then someone suggested that she remove milk from her daughters diet. She did and saw an immediate improvement.

It turns out that it's not a milk allergy, per se, but the inability to digest (or metabolize maybe?) the protein casein found in milk.

I took Fletcher off of milk the second I heard this. It's been 5 days and he hasn't had a tantrum, there have been no power struggles, he hasn't been in time out, he's been happy, he hasn't argued with me and he's had several "perfect" days (where he gets all of the stickers possible on his daily sticker chart).

He truly is a different boy. He's still a 4 year old. He still runs laps and gets into mischief when he's bored. He still pokes his brother and sister and gets into arguments with them. But he also listens to reason. He doesn't argue with me, he listens, he uses his manners, he isn't short tempered or demanding.

He's the child I always wanted.

While I'm being honest, I haven't really enjoyed parenting up until now. I mean, I love him more than anything in the world, and I wouldn't trade him for anything. But I'm exhausted and broken from 4 years of raising him. And I mad at myself for not figuring this out sooner. I feel like I missed out on what could have been a completely different baby and toddlerhood experience with him.

But regret doesn't change things, so now we move forward on a dairy-free diet with this newly discovered sweet little man. After all that's happened in the past two weeks, I feel like I have new lease on life.

Pan(try)cakes

This weekend I made pancakes for breakfast, using up some frozen bananas that had been hiding in the freezer and a little bit of applesauce that was nearing the end of its life. I made a triple batch and froze them (reusing a tortilla bag) so the kids can have a quick, healthy breakfast before school each day.

The kids go through phases when it comes to breakfast. Some weeks they want eggs every morning, other weeks they want waffles or pancakes. We can go through a box of Eggo waffles in 2 days, so this is much more economical...and healthy...and has less waste.

In the kitchen...

As I mentioned in a post on the Green Phone Booth this week, I've joined Money Saving Mom's Eat From the Pantry Challenge. This is a make-your-own-rules challenge where you're encouraged to eat up all the things you've stock piled or forgotten about in your pantry, fridge or freezer.

You can still go to the grocery store as much or as little as you'd like. Some limit themselves to dairy and produce at the store, others have a goal of spending under $100 for the month. It's all up to the participant and anything goes.

My goal is to use as much from the pantry or freezer as possible in each meal. I'm allowing myself dairy, produce and bread at the store, but trying not to buy anything that isn't meant for a specific meal. Meaning, no stock piling because something is on sale!

Because one of our bigger goals this year is to move away from canned and boxed food, this will give us a great jump start on getting it all out of the pantry. We're also considering getting rid of our old deep freeze that holds a lot of meat, so I've been discovering all sorts of things in there.

Here's a view of our pantry. Yikes, looks like it's time to organize in there again.


Maybe next year it'll look more like this. Ha!


Here are a few of the meals I've made so far~

Shepherd's Pie - A different variation of it at least! Ground beef (freezer), cooked and mixed with beef gravy (pantry), layer of corn on top of that (pantry), topped with seasoned mashed potatoes (pantry) and a bit of cheese. Bake at 350* until bubbly and brown. It was pretty darn good for a boxed/canned/frozen meal.

Chili - Tomato sauce (canned, pantry) mixed with kidney beans (canned, pantry), chili seasoning (pantry), and a few grated carrots and onion that were close to death in the fridge.

Improved Spaghetti Sauce - Found two cans of half-used pasta sauce in the back of the fridge, as well as a bag of mixed veggies in the freezer. No one seemed to like the sauce or the veggies (which is why they were still there). I gave the veggies a whirl in the food processor to make them unidentifiable...


...then added them to the sauce along with some of the aforementioned dying carrots...

...and a little berbere, which is an Ethiopian seasoning my kids love. I think they knew something was up (the veggies) but they did eat it.

That's some of the more creative (for me) cooking I've done this week. We've also had some of the old standard pork chops and stuffing type meals as well. I'm pretty much a by-the-recipe-book cook. I'm not very good at it and, honestly, I don't really know what kind of seasonings and flavors go with what, so it can be a little scary to try to throw things together. We'll see if I learn anything over the next few weeks!

Dodging the Draft

This is probably very far from being our biggest insulation issue in our drafty old house, but Mr. Greenhab brought home these nifty "Socket Sealers" today. They're used to insulate outlets that are on exterior facing walls. I popped them on throughout the house in a matter of minutes and, in roughly 27 years, we will have recouped our $3.00 through energy savings.

Ha ha ha!

Anyhoo... You just remove the outlet cover and pop on the pre-cut piece of insulation...

...then put your plate back on. Easy-peasy!


Once on, the holes where your plug goes are still exposed, so I recommend using safety plugs like this to block any incoming drafts. I know I'm not particularly crazy about the fact that they're plastic, but without them I can feel a pretty strong draft flowing in. You can easily find these at thrift stores or on Freecycle, so at least you can forgo buying them new.

As an added bonus, they're made in the good ol' USA and don't come in any superfluous plastic packaging, just a cardboard box.

Meatless Monday

Okay, so I know it's Tuesday, but I never got around to posting this yesterday. Here's my linguine in cream sauce with asparagus for Meatless Monday --->

A few months ago I read an article about Baltimore area schools going meatless on Mondays. I thought it was such a fantastic idea that we adopted the concept at home and over on the Living Simple & Green board at iVillage as well. Then I found out that Rebecca (aka Greeen Sheeep) with whom I blog over at the Green Phone Booth has a Meatless Monday Flickr pool.

Since my resolution this year is to get serious about greening our food, I thought this would be a great challenge for our family. It's small enough that everyone can agree to play along, yet reducing meat consumption by one day per week can still make a big impact.

Did you know that, on average, Americans eat about 8 oz of meat each day, which is twice the global average?

I'm happy to say that I definitely don't eat that much! In fact, as I start to become more conscientious about what I'm eating, I've found that I don't even eat meat as much as I thought I did.

For breakfast I usually have a small meal of yogurt with granola, some bread, or oatmeal. Lunch varies - if I'm having left overs it may include meat, but if I'm making something fresh I often have salad, or cheese, crackers and fruit. Dinnertime is a little different since I have to please everyone (and usually fail in that regard). We typically have meat for dinner 4-5 nights per week. I'd love to get that down to 3, but that would mean tying down my husband and forcing vegetables down his throat. A girl can only eat so much pasta!

I think everyone who reads along here is well aware of the environmental impact of meat by now but, in case you're wondering, here are just a few of the issues:
"The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century." Guardian.co.uk

"Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests." -NY Times

In the same NYTimes article, two geophysicists at the University of Chicago calculated that, "if Americans were to reduce meat consumption by just 20 percent, it would be as if we all switched from a standard sedan — a Camry, say — to the ultra-efficient Prius."

If you haven't joined the Meatless Monday movement, jump on board. I'll be posting about my MM adventures here and on Twitter. You can follow me on twitter by going to http://twitter.com/cmkellie. Each Monday look for the #meatlessmonday tag for great tips and ideas from fellow MM participants.

New year, new goals...

I posted over on the Green Phone Booth yesterday about our goals regarding food this year. It's the area we've put the least amount of effort into greening thus far in our journey.

I can't say that we've been completely "brown" in this area. I've learned to can some fruits and veggies; I've started making things like muffins and banana/pumpkin/zucchini breads from scratch rather than a package; and we've eliminated almost all individually packaged items like yogurt cups and single serving oatmeal.

You can read all about our food-related goals over at the Booth, but I'm thinking less meat, preserving more local foods when they're in season, getting away from store-bought cans (with BPA in the lining), making more from scratch, and having a more successful garden this year.

Here are some goals we have in other areas~

Bathroom

I'd like to find some recycled toilet paper that is somewhat soft and also affordable. I've also been mulling over cloth wipes for a long time and think I'm ready to at least test it out. Crunchy Chicken does a challenge each year that intrigues me. One of her posts on this issue has some interesting facts about annual tp usage~
"...if all U.S. adults used only..."virgin fiber" with 0% recycled content or post-consumer waste, the environmental cost is approximately (not including the issues with Dioxin):

78.2 million trees

1.35 million tons of air pollution

32 trillion gallons of water

2.1 trillion gallons of oil

18.75 trillion Kilowatt hours of energy

I've also been mulling over shampoo bars instead of shampoo in a plastic bottle. The thing is, I use a shampoo/conditioner in one right now so that I only use one plastic bottle instead of two. If I switch to a shampoo bar, I would still need a bottle of conditioner...unless there are conditioner bars too? Something I need to research.

Energy

We had an energy audit recently after we received an electric bill for $650+. More on the audit later, but we've identified a few things we need to save up for doing and a few things we can do ourselves right now. We're planning to do the "right now"things, well, now.

I need to make drapes to cover some of our windows. Mr. Greenhab will be caulking some drafty windows and walls and inserting foam into outlets that are on outside walls.

There's even been some talk about getting rid of the chest freezer in our basement....GASP! I like to be able to freeze chicken stock, soups, berries in the summer time, etc., so we may look at a more energy efficient model, or just see how we do without one for awhile. The one we have is very very old; we bought it at a yard sale a few years ago. I'd rather give something like that new life, instead of seeing it go to the landfill. Plus, if we buy a new one, there is the manufacturing impact. But with all the energy it uses...well, let's just say that cost is Mr. Greenhab's biggest concern.

One of my easier goals is to remember to turn off my laptop at night, which I rarely do. Yesterday, Mr. Greenhab put all of our electronics (with the exception of the Tivo) on a power strip, so we've been turning them off when not in use. Oh! And we got a Kill-a-Watt which I can't wait to try out today.

Stuff

As much as we try not to buy things we don't need, I still feel like I'm just swimming in stuff. I'm planning to weed through our stuff over the next few weeks, room by room, and donate things to various charities.

As I said over at the Booth, we don't normally make New Year's Resolutions per se, but we do try to continuously make improvements and set goals, so I'm sure I'll be adding to this list as the year progresses.

Happy New Year everyone!