Our new toy!

So, a couple of weeks ago a very lovely woman that we go to church with asked us if we would like this:

Some family members had left it in pieces in her barn, and it had been there about 10 years. We had been thinking about buying a swingset for Brianna and had even priced them at Lowe's. I probably don't have to tell most of you that outdoor "play yards" can be very expensive, so we thought we'd give this one a shot.



After hauling it home, it was like putting a puzzle together. We couldn't find any pics of it online to help us out, but we (Chris mostly) figured it out and got it set up. Then, he scrubbed it clean and we were surprised at how good it looks. And, of course, we are happy to reuse something in perfectly good condition instead of buying new.



We are incredibly grateful that this woman gifted it to us... I foresee it bringing many hours of fun and play to our future!

Wordless Wednesday

Score!

If you have been reading my blog very long, you may remember that I LOVE a great deal. Well, last week, I scored BIG TIME!!! Woot!

My friend's neighbor has a little girl that is about 3 years old. The neighbor decided to clean out all of the little girl's clothes that she had outgrown. This little girl has an unbelievable amount of clothing, and her mom really just wanted rid of it.

My friend invited me over to go through the clothing and buy some of it from her neighbor. I only bought about a third of what was there, and here's what I came out with:
There are a total of 69 pieces, including:

21 pairs of pants (including jeans)
3 pairs of overalls
3 pairs of shorts
2o tops
3 sweaters
4 jackets
1 puffy vest
4 dresses
4 pairs of shoes
5 pairs of socks
1 hat

The neighbor only charged me $22 for ALL of that! I couldn't believe it! Most of it is name brand, and because the little girl has so much clothing, most of it looks like it has only been worn a time or two. In fact, TEN of the pieces I bought STILL HAVE TAGS ON THEM!!! Plus, it's in a variety of sizes, so B will be wearing this stuff for a long while.

I am seriously SO. EXCITED.

This is what you get...

when the tree-hugging daddy picks out an outfit for the baby!

What earth-friendly little pair of footie-pajamas!

This is the shirt that Momma picked out:

MUCH cuter... don't you think?!?

*grin*

Surprise Tomatoes!

As you all know from this post, Chris and I mulch much of our food waste. Generally, Chris uses the rich, dark soil to fill in low spots in the yard (he's a bit obsessed with having a level yard... is this just a guy thing or what?).

In late spring, we had purchased a small container of cherry tomatoes. Then, we went out of town and the tomatoes spoiled, so we threw them in the mulch bin.

Earlier this summer, Chris noticed a tomato plant growing where he had poured the soil from the mulch bin.
These photos are obviously from later this summer, after the plant(s) have grown quite large.

The plants have kept us in a steady supply of cherry tomatoes all summer long.

Kinda cool if you ask us!

Hybrid shoes?

Husband is on the road this week. Today, after a hard day at work, I came home to a little present on my doorstep.

Husband bought me these cute new shoes!

Although they aren't my usual style, I'm excited about wearing them! The box they came in looked like this:

What?!? Hybrid shoes???

Here's what is written on the side of the box (kinda cracked me up!):

Keen believes in living a Hybrid life, one that brings together work, outdoor passions and a commitment to other and to the environment.

We've re-imagined this box from the beginning and considered its impact every step of the way:

1. 100% recyclable

2. Uses bio-degradable materials

3. Less materials, saves trees

4. Natural water-based latex glue

5. Less printing, using only soy based inks

6. Reduced labor and power usage in production

7. Weighs 25% less, saving space and fuel in shipping

8. Folds flat, allowing for easy disassembly and recycling

Haha... I can't wait to see what else my man comes up with!

The Mulching Post (as promised!)

It's been several weeks since my recycling post, where I promised to do a post about mulching. Since I know how much you've been anticipating the mulching post, I decided to finally put you out of your misery and give it to you *grin*.

When Chris first approached me with the idea of mulching our food and yard waste, I was not on board with it at all. I didn't know much about it and was afraid that it would stink, or attract animals, or just be really gross in general.

As hard as it is for me to admit this, I'm actually glad that we mulch. The process is really neat.

Here is our set-up:
As you can see, this is a simple $10 plastic trash can in which Chris has drilled holes. We first put grass clippings, cedar mulch (that we took from our flower bed), a few leaves, twigs, and other yard waste in the trash can. With a little water, oxygen, and time, the yard waste began mulching (turning to soil), and it was at that point that we started adding food waste to it as well. We put pretty much any food waste in it except for meat and dairy products. This includes potato peels, egg shells, moldy bread, apples cores, orange peels, banana peels, etc.

Chris stirs it about once a week (sometimes more) and here is what it looks like on the inside:

You can actually see a piece of potato peel (red skinned) in this photo. The waste mulches quickly and doesn't stink at all. In fact, when I open the lid to toss in my apple core or whatever, it smells like fresh dirt.

We are able to use this dirt in our flower bed, to fill in low spots in the yard, or for our garden that Chris is planting this year. It's a great way to keep biodegradable waste out of the landfill and use it for something profitable!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Since going green seems to be all the buzz these days, I decided to do a post on a few of the things Chris and I do to cut down on our waste.

I'd like to start by saying that these are just a few of the many things we can do to help out the environment. We are not obsessive about pollution, global warning, and other environmental issues. However, we do believe that since God has given us the privilege of living on this earth, we should be good stewards of the blessings given to us.

The first, and probably simplest, thing we do is reduce our consumption of "one-and-done" type items (such as plastic bags). We purchased the black bags in the photo below at Wal-mart for about $1 apiece, and use them for all of our shopping.
If you don't care for bags that say "Wal-mart" on them, there are much cuter bags you can buy that serve the same purpose :-). We keep three of the bags in each of our vehicles so we always have them when we need them. This same concept can be applied to many, many other things (such as water bottles and dishes). We also try to not buy individually packaged things when it's possible to buy items packaged more in bulk (less packaging equals less waste).

Now, because we live pretty much like typical Americans, we do generate waste. Of that waste, we try to recycle everything that is recyclable. We, unfortunately, do not live in a community that makes recycling very easy, so we have this set-up in our garage:
The top two flatter bins are for slick paper (mostly junk mail and a few magazines we get in the mail) and newspaper/phone books. On the middle shelf, we have our cardboards bin (red lid), and our office/regular paper bin. The shelf below that holds the metals bin (this holds mostly soup cans, although in this photo you can see a diet DP aluminum can) and the plastics bin.

Once the bins get full, we load them in the car and take them here:This is our local recycling center. We take our bins and dump them in the appropriate "window". We have to do this about once every three weeks.

Recycling can be a hassle at times, but we feel that it is worth it. Because we try to keep our waste to a minimum and we recycle, we only generate about one bag of trash a week. It ain't easy bein' green, but once we made it our way of life, we hardly notice the hassle anymore.

Stay tuned for my next green post on mulching!