wedding-times are fun-times

My older sister got married on May 22nd, and I thought I might share a few highlights!

One of my duties was to make the groom’s cake… which was a fantastically successful experiment. This particular groom is on a strict no-HFCS diet, with some other requirements too. He loves Clif and Kashi bars though, so this was the perfect solution for him…

…a cake made from Clif Builder Bars and Kashi Chewy Bars. There were three layers–the bottom (not visible) was square and had a layer of chocolate Clif and one of peanut butter Clif, the second was peanut butter Kashi, and the third (the star–for the Air Force, it was a motif on the invitations as well) was oatmeal raisin Kashi. Basically, I crumbled the bars in a food processor (after removing the chewy layer on the Clif bars) and melted them down with some milk before placing them in various pans and freezing them until they were hard enough to safely remove from the pans. I then stacked them up and drizzled white chocolate (HFCS-free, of course) over the whole shebang. I actually never got a taste of it, but my uncle, who is also on a strict diet, thought he was cheating until I told him what the cake was actually made of. He said it tasted kind of like a brownie. So I think I did a pretty good job with that one.

Also, we went camping for the bachelorette party, and I petted a goat. I never knew they had such crazy eyes!

And in case you saw my new haircut in the last post, this is how much I cut off:

And of course, the happy couple (with my sister in her custom-designed wedding dress made by her fashion-school graduate friend):

fantastic links, and an easy tip

For an incredibly simple way to cut down your shower time, water consumption, and product use, all you have to do is… cut your hair! I recently had easily over a foot of hair cut off and was amazed at the immediate changes in my morning routine. It’s fast, easy, and cool for the summertime. But I’m one of those girls with no emotional attachment to my hair (plus, I think the androgynous/boyish look is completely adorable). To the rest of you–it’s worth it to save the world, right??

See, it's not too hard, right?

And here are a few things that have caught my eye recently (or not so recently):

An encouraging post from Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries about Americans returning to the garden.

Two from No-Impact Man, Colin Beavan: A 90-second video from 350.org and a summary of Al Gore’s recent call for the US to move to 100% renewable energy by 2018.

This book looks amazing… and I want it. Badly.

So this scarf isn’t exactly new, but I LOVE it. Too bad my knitting skills are right about here and I have finished exactly one scarf in my life… maybe someday I will actually learn to do basic things like read the pattern for that scarf. We’ll see.

These look amazing… see:

I told you.

This resource for finding local food producers looks very helpful… and kind of like something I was thinking about doing for my honors thesis… if I ever learn flash. I’ll probably explain that more later.

Small is Possible: Life in a Local Economy looks like a book worth reading. I’ll have to add it to my list.

An interview on Grist with the author of another book that looks worth reading: Bottlemania.

get excited–cloth pads!

So,

two weddings (and being MOH in one)

one high school graduation (for the little brother)

one college graduation (for the brother-in-law)

one Air Force commissioning (also bro-in-law)

five accompanying parties to throw and/or attend

one return flight from Ukraine to welcome home (with boyfriend on board)

and

two weeks of summer camp

do a pretty darn good job of keeping a fledgling blogger from her blog. Oops. My apologies. Anyway, as a welcome back to whoever may be watching, I’ve compiled a list of links having to do with cloth menstrual pads (and one for tampons). I haven’t personally made my cloth pads yet, but I need to get on it, considering that time of month is sneaking up quickly! Once I do, I’ll offer my thoughts. I could rehash a lot of things here, but there’s a terribly long and informative discussion that I’m going to link to (and highly recommend reading), so I’ll just say this: reduce, reuse, recycle. “Disposable” anything is a huge waste.

Fantastic discussion full of advice and personal experience at Crafster.

Several different styles at Adahy’s Cloth Pad Patterns

Cloth pads with removable inserts at sew green and a way to donate them to a good cause.

An interesting idea for reusable tampons.

A clever, minimal waste pattern from Jan Andrea.

UPDATE: I tried the pattern from sew green last month, and while it was simple and easy (I made two pads from quilter’s cotton in about 10 minutes and used peices cut from an old towel for inserts), it felt like wearing a diaper, and I wasn’t used to the wings (being a previously all-tampon kind of girl). So we’ll see what this month brings…

sweet treats

So, I’m all about experimenting in the kitchen–whether it’s food to go in my belly or on my face. Today I whipped up a quick face mask that left my skin feeling clean and healthy. I didn’t even think to measure out what I was doing, but luckily, it’s not complicated at all, and the pictures I took show the ratio of ingredients. When I get around to making my avacado mask again, I’ll be sure to stop and quantify what I’m doing for you. Without further ado, the Lemon and Honey Mask (gel, really, but let’s not get technical).

Ingredients: honey, juice from a very small lemon, olive oil, fresh mint, and cornstarch

First, pour (and squeeze or juice) all the liquid ingredients into a small bowl, like so:

Next, crush your small handful of fresh mint, like so:

Add the crushed mint to the liquids and transfer to a small saucepan. While still cool, whisk in 1-2 tsp. of cornstarch. Heat on high until boiling, then remove from heat and pour back into the original bowl. Allow to cool until it’s not painfully hot, and then rub on your face and let sit for however long you like. Rinse off with warm water and a wash cloth. The finished product, here:

And, if you want lovely (but slightly time consuming) sweet treats for your belly, head over to Bakerella and whip up some cake pops–I’ve lovingly dubbed them “sugar-coma on a stick.”

getting off the bottle

So, it’s not quite as serious as alcoholism, but using shampoo and conditioner creates waste and may introduce you to icky toxins, like the paraben family (good info from Allie’s (Green) Answers here and here). So in an effort to reduce my plastic waste and toxin-absorption, I’ve cut them out of my morning routine (along with lotion and face wash).

Rebecca over at The Herbwife’s Kitchen recommends making the change gradually in her wonderfully informative post here. I’m really bad at waiting though, and as I already had pretty limited shampoo/conditioner usage, I cut it out straightaway (I was using a Suave shampoo and Herbal Essences conditioner, with showers ever 2 or 3 days) and went for a glycerin-based soap. Enter: Pacifica’s Nerola Orange Blossom, part of a three pack of soaps my mom had given to me as a gift but I never got around to using.

First of all, it smells heavenly. Secondly, it is made of all natural ingredients–no animal products or testing. And thirdly, it is packaged in the tiniest little bit of thin plastic around the bar of soap, which is kind of unnecessary with the adorable paper packaging they have, but at least it’s only a little bit, right? Anyway, I love the stuff, and I started just working the soap into my hair right from the bar. It does the job pretty well, though I did have a few borderline-greasy days at the beginning. The Most Exciting Part though, is that my hair, which has always been somewhere in between wavy and straight, air-dried into the most luscious waves with no help whatsoever! It’s a beautiful thing.

Recently, I’ve started using a baking soda solution (I don’t have any measurements here… I just put about a teaspoon of soda into a small bottle and fill the rest up with hot water and mix). The only issue I’ve had with the baking soda is rinsing it all out. Sometimes I’ll catch tiny little grains of the stuff in my hair after I get out of the shower and have to rub it out with a towel. I still need to try the natural bristle brush, herbal rinses, and apple cider vinegar that Rebecca mentions in the post above, but so far, I’m really liking this transition away from your everyday shampoo and conditioner. The hardest part of the whole deal has been not having that slick, smooth hair that conditioner gives you–without it, I hate running my fingers through my wet hair, but I just towel dry it, and just let it sit while I get ready, and it does it’s own thing. And that is amazing. I was wondering how I would reconcile having to use either styling products or a blow dryer (using electricity) with the whole waste-reduction aspect of this little experiment, but I’m finding that I don’t need to interfere with the natural state of things too much anymore.

And I have a feeling that a post on the wonderousness of baking soda is coming soon, so get ready!

Oh, and I just have to share this… I met two of my most favoritest musicians EVER. Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova! Beautiful, kind people.

digital can’t compare

My sister is getting married next week. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Last November, there was a new boyfriend, and ten days later–before I even had a chance to meet the guy–she was engaged. Her hubby-to-be is a fantastic guy, but I still am a little sad that he’s stealing away my big sister.

Anway, weddings mean presents, right? So I’m looking for one. These adorable clocks from infinity arts at etsy are the front runners. According to the artists, Justin and Mary Potts, these clocks “are made using earth-friendly SDF (sustainable design fiberboard), made from 100% recycled wood pulp and formaldehyde-free (unlike its predecessor, MDF), and painted with voc-free, biodegradable milk paints!” Sounds good to me.

in the belly of the beast

I like my job, I really do. And I love the grocery store where I work–I miss it when I leave for college each fall, and throughout the school year. But after reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which I mentioned in the last post, I just can’t look at my lovely grocery store in the same way. It’s the end-result of the monster of industrial agriculture.

Yes, it still has it’s positive aspects–the best produce in town (of the large chain stores, of course, the farmer’s market is a bajillion times better), an extensive health food section for your average grocery store, and Chinese food that will make you ridiculously fat and happy. If you read the previous post, you might guess that most of that glorious Chinese food is off limits now, and it is. But I had the lone vegetarian dish–vegetable lo mein–during my break today, and have decided that it will be my unhealthy treat for when my arteries need a good clogging. Oh, and for all of you plastic-phobes out there, dining in the grocery store’s seating area means eating on a real plate, with real silverware! The only shortfall is the styrofoam cup, but that’s my own fault for forgetting my water bottle.

Then there’s the dark side, when you move away from the naked produce smiling happily up at you and into any other part of the store. It’s all covered in PLASTIC. Even the bulk bins are accompanied by little environment-killing bags on a roll. And when you move away from the edges of the store, everything is not only ensconced in plastic, it’s all PROCESSED too. It’s evil to the core! And for hours on end, I stand at a register, happily asking “Would you like paper or plastic, today?” ringing up all of this food. I always hope they ask for paper–I’ve heard most of it’s made from recycled paper, but I don’t know the specs on my bags–and I always smile when they say, “No thanks, I’ve brought my own bags,” and I get to give them a $.05/bag credit. Then I fill those reusable bags with countless little bags of plastic. And it makes me sad all over again.

The worst part of it is that what’s inside those plastic bags is indirectly derived from petroleum (unless it’s organic). It probably has at least one of the many products derived from corn, such as high-fructose corn syrup, and that corn is grown using fertilizers made from petroleum. So we’re eating food grown with petroleum that has been wrapped in a product made from petroleum, all while we’re running out of oil and complaining about high gas prices. Oh, Lord.

why I do not eat meat

I hate to break it to you, but in my multiple reasons for switching to a vegetarian diet (as of Sunday, May 4th–I’m a recent convert, I know) there is nothing about the poor animals’ suffering. While I believe the way animals are treated in CAFOs is ethically wrong and horrible, I would be completely willing to eat animals that have been born, raised, and slaughtered in humane conditions that are sustainable and allow them to behave as their nature would have them. Unfortunately, for most of the year, I live on campus at a lovely university, and I can be pretty sure that these qualifications are not met by the company that provides our food (time to write some letters, I think?). So, if I have no qualms with the heartless killing of innocent creatures, why go to the trouble of adopting a vegetarian diet?

I’ll start with the reason that first started me down the path–I’m going to Scotland in the spring for a semester of studying abroad. I am so excited about this that it’s kind of hard to put it into words, so I’ll just tell you that I’m pumped. I’ll be living in Findhorn, an ecovillage on the northern coast, with 10-20ish other college kids participating in their Community Semester. Yes, I appreciate the irony of flying half-way around the world to learn about sustainable living, but I’m young and have wanderlust, so it’s just something my conscience will have to deal with. Anyway, the cuisine served in the community kitchen at Findhorn is vegetarian, so I figured why not start getting ready now? Thus the expedition began.

Reason #2: My family’s health history is scary. I’ve said it before: I’ll be lucky to live past 40 without some terrible ailment. There’s cancer and heart disease everywhere, endocrine disorders, cholesterol issues, you name it. So my goal is to live as healthily as possible, because I kind of like life.

Reason #3: The vast majority of meat produced in the US is floating on a vast ocean of cheap corn (I can’t remember if I’m stealing this metaphor from Micheal Pollan’s amazing book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma*, or not, so I’ll just be safe and give him some credit), which in turn is based on cheap oil, which as we all hopefully are starting to grasp, will not last forever. It is a completely unsustainable system that is costing us through the health of our landscapes and bodies.

Reason #4: The most important one–we can feed a heck of a lot more people on grains and produce than we can on meat. I remember briefly discussing in freshman biology the principle that only ten percent of something an organism consumes becomes more mass on that organism (I can’t remember the name of this little fact for the life of me). So basically, a cow eats 100 pounds of feed and makes 10 more pounds of cow from that. So instead of 100 pounds of food going directly to humans, it’s reduced to 10 pounds of food. We need to stop growing all this corn for cows–which isn’t even what they’re supposed to eat in the first place–and instead grow food that people can eat. I, for one, think global hunger sucks. Let’s do something to fight it. Vote with your stomach

*There’s no link for this one–get it at your local library or independent book store!

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what I’m currently appreciating: Pandora Radio, and couscous from the bulk bin at my favorite grocery store