Everyday Life for Four Seasons

It feels really good to have a clean desk, clean bookshelves, and cleaned-out dresser drawers. It feels really good to know that Jeff is finishing up the wall repair in our bedroom and is almost ready to paint. It feels really good to know that we're repainting the bedroom our favorite shade of green (Benjamin Moore "Harbour Town"). It feels really good to know that all of my baby and toddler gear and clothing is being prepped to sell and give away. It all feels really good!

Happy Birthday to ME! The cupcakes I made were delicious. I took "Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World" out of the library and am now addicted to it. I had to return it today but I'll only be without it for a week or so because Jeff bought it for me and it's coming in the mail very soon!!!

Watering the seedlings...


Weeding the flower garden...


Watching flowers grow...


Washing [my last load of diapers ever. This is not something I feel the least bit sentimental about]...


Wondering how the little pea plants will do...


Whiling away the time in the sandbox...


Wearing nothing on our feet...


I should add a few more:

* Working out (I'm loving the rowing machine workout lately)
* Whipping up dinners with local, available ingredients (today we had spring rolls made from the mushrooms, carrots and bok choy I got at the Farmer's Market)
* Waking up alert and happy without coffee
* Wimping out on saying "No" to eating up leftover birthday cupcakes, knowing that even more will be made tomorrow (for my birthday)
* Wondering why we don't eat these delicious cupcakes every day of the week
* Wrapping up loose ends as I work on cleaning my desk

Whew! Spring is wonderfully busy and alive here at our home. Have a great day.

We spent the weekend in New York City! 'A' has been asking about the city for a while, so we decided to take a trip down for her birthday. We took the train from Albany and the ride was wonderful. Although we were confined to our seats for almost 3 hours, it was significantly better than a plane trip because we didn't have to wear seat belts, there was more leg room, and best of all, there were things to see out the window! We followed the Hudson River the entire way to the city and it was really neat to see how different it looked in different towns.


We did a whirlwind tourist trip: American Museum of Natural History; Central Park; Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty; playground at Union Square (new! and very nice!); a visit with old friends; vegan ice cream at Stogo in our old East Village neighborhood; and finally, Times Square.

We not only acted like tourists, we looked like them. All of us wore our jeans and fleece jackets, putting us squarely in the upstate NY/Vermont/Maine category. I wore my sneakers for comfort. There would have been a time in my life when I would have rather died than wear such an outfit to a major city, but that's over, at least for now. We have two little kids and we needed to be comfortable.

We all had a good time, as good as it's going to get when you're traveling with small children. They did a great job of walking and keeping up, of dealing with the cement city when they're used to trees and green grass, of taking it all in, even when they wanted to rest.

The most stressful part of the trip (for me, anyway) was the food allergy issue. It is so hard to travel with food allergies! Once upon a time I wouldn't have been so worried about it, but now that 'A' has had some close calls and seems to break out in hives more often than she used to, I worry. We went to Whole Foods to pick up dinner supplies for the girls. For the most part it worked out, until she ate the strawberries. Organic strawberries, no chemicals. No problem, right? They made her mouth red and her lips swollen. Then I tasted one and felt my throat and tongue get all tingly and tight. Yuck. It must be the pollen on the strawberries, because neither one of us has ever had trouble with them. Even when food doesn't seem like it will be a problem, we find ourselves surprised. Maybe it's Mother Nature's way of punishing me for buying strawberries in New York in April.


We're back home now for a while. We've got some spring weather to soak up here, some growing plants to tend to, and I have a wildly messy desk that needs some serious TLC.

My small changes update:
Today was my first day without coffee. I switched to from 75% to 100% decaf last week and I didn't even notice the difference without the coffee today. Good!

I've decided through trial and error that I am going to try washing the roots of my hair every 2 or 3 days. I had finally gotten the ends so nice and healthy (the grease finally reached the ends, making them look healthy) and then I messed it all up by using conditioner one day, which did nothing but dry my hair out even more.

Cats: Still going strong with the flushable Swheat Scoop and outdoor living!

Food: We're eating smaller portions. I cut out sugar in my coffee. We're getting there.

What are your small changes?

She's FIVE! 'A' is 5 years old today. Wow! It seems like just yesterday that she was born.


I made her a birthday crown and a painting smock (photos to come next week). 'H' gave her a bell for her bike. Her relatives all sent wonderful gifts and each and every one sent a birthday card covered in glitter. She loved every minute of today.


Tomorrow and Sunday we have some birthday fun planned. I'll be back next week with details!

Outdoor living has arrived!

After this winter, I have finally realized that the winters here in upstate New York are just the right length for me. Crazy, right? I'm used to a milder Southern New England climate. The winters there aren't as harsh, and spring comes earlier, with more of a bang.

I like the way winter here seems to go on and on, and just when I think it's never going to end, it does. The end of the "dead season" matches my personal tolerance for it perfectly. It ends when I'm ready for it to end.

I love the way that spring comes slowly. The buds start to form on the branches and the bulbs start to pop up, but it happens a little bit every day, not all at once. I'm never taken off guard by it. I'm fully aware that the transformation is taking place. It moves along at a snail's pace, and I look forward to seeing a bit of new growth every day.

And in between those moments, Mother Nature gives us a few surprises, like the nice warm weather of today...

We awoke to a foggy yet sunny morning. The heavy rain clouds that sat over our house last night have given the sun something to do today. It's supposed to be unseasonably warm today. Seems like a good day to move slowly and savor each step.

This fabric is going to get ironed out and made into a birthday present for 'A', who turns 5 on Friday...

This is something we'll be watching soon... along with this, which I've yet to see...

Have a great night!

What a wonderful day!

We attended our Unitarian Universalist service and the girls each received a pot of daffodils during the service. It's springtime! UUs may not celebrate Easter but we do celebrate new life, emotional rebirth and all things that Mother Nature touches.


I spent the afternoon outside with the girls, cleaning up the yard and getting outdoor furniture ready for the nice long warm season ahead. All this warm weather is getting me excited about cooking again. A trip to the Farmer's Market yesterday yielded the same produce we've been seeing for a while: beets, onions, mixed greens, and potatoes... but this week, I'm inspired to cook differently. Tonight we enjoyed a gourmet dinner composed of roasted potato wedges with fresh rosemary; roasted beets; crushed cannellini beans with sauteed garlic and olive oil; mesculin greens with dried cranberries and a homemade dressing of shallots, honey, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar and olive oil; sliced baguette; and local goat cheese to mix with everything. Delicious, just delicious!


Above is a photo of our bedroom in its current state. We had wet walls, so Jeff ripped them out. We patched the moisture sources and now it's time to get the walls back up. It takes time to get it all done! For now we're camping out with 'A' and 'H' in their bedrooms.


So, it's time for an update on the "no-poo" routine. It's been 5 days since I last used shampoo. I've tried a few different things: just water; baking soda paste with a cider vinegar rinse; and today I used Jeff's peppermint castille soap with a vinegar and cold water rinse. I understand that there might be a few weeks where my hair looks a bit oily, before it all evens out. It's not that bad yet. I'll keep you posted. In the meantime, I was wondering where my hair dryer fit into the plan. My question was answered today when my hair dryer sparked and burnt out as I started to use it. I guess that answers it.

Today marks the first time Erma has been outside, wandering the yard, smelling the woods, lounging in the sun, in 13 years. Good for her. She turns 17 years old in a month.

I'm a grouchy environmentalist today, frowning on a whole bunch of things we're doing in our household that make me feel upset. I'm tired of ruining the planet. Sure, we have made a lot of changes that are positive, but there are always more things we can do, new ways to respect Mother Earth.

My One Small Change for April is actually a number of changes, things I am able to commit to today because I'm ready to move ahead.

1. No, this first one is not a joke. I'm going to try to go without using shampoo. My sister and Jeff were talking about it recently and I was pretty grossed out, but after learning more about it, it might not be so gross after all. It will take a few weeks for my hair to look good again, for the oil production to level out. Even though we use natural shampoo and conditioner, this is a good step because it will eliminate all of those plastic bottles. And if we didn't already use natural products, this step would be even better because the chemicals in ordinary shampoos are just so darn toxic and horrible for our health and the health of our planet.

2. The cats. I'm sick and tired of scooping their non-biodegradable, horrible-for-the-planet cat litter. When I was little, our cat didn't even have a litter box, she just went outside. So, it's back to nature for my cats. I'll use Swheat Scoop in the box for their nighttime runs (flushable! made from wheat!), but during the day, they are to be outside, spending time in nature. Now that it's warming up, they can do this. In fact, they're outside right now (begging to come in). Done.

3. Coffee. I've whittled myself off of straight-up caffeine. Now it's time for the next step: Stop drinking it entirely. Even though we buy organic, fair trade coffee, it's time to say good-bye to this habit. I sweeten it with sugar (the horror! Sugar is just plain horrible for the planet, period.) and I lighten it with soymilk (Silk started making organic soymilk again but who cares? Soymilk doesn't have the lightest carbon footprint and I hate the little plastic caps that come with each half-gallon container). There's nothing green or eco-friendly about my coffee habit. I'm going to wait until my current container of soymilk is empty to start this one, okay?

4. Food. Sure, we eat local, organic produce, which cuts down on the carbon footprint of each meal. Sure, we don't eat meat, which also reduces the footprint. But we still eat a lot more food than our bodies need to. Part of reducing means... reducing. So we'll be reducing our food consumption.

I think that's it. I think that's enough!

Back from Florida, finding a few photos from the trip to share...


Today is April 1st, so in addition to thinking up a few April Fool's jokes for my kids, I'm thinking about how my One Small Change project for March went. To sum it up, it didn't go well. I still have no idea how to change my bag situation! I did iron together a few pellet stove bags but since the plastic bags smell while I make them, I am thinking that the whole process is a bit toxic and shouldn't be done often. I tried to cut a pellet stove bag into a long strip to knit something from it, but it didn't knit up well.

I asked our farmer, Michael, what to do with all of the produce bags and he didn't know if he could take them back and reuse them. That seems a little gross to give them to someone else. He's thinking of offering bulk greens for sale, in which case I could use my existing bags. But I have SO MANY! Still no answer on what to do with them.

I didn't make bread bags yet. Waiting to find the perfect flour sacks or tea towels in a thrift store.

So that leaves me with nothing for March.

What are we going to do in April? I'm thinking about that today. I plan to head over to the One Small Change site to get some inspiration.