the giraffe life

It's common knowledge that you can borrow books for free at the library, but look what I got to take home with me (forever!) from my library:  a new bookcase/bookshelf display-type item! It used to hold children's books but a bigger, two-sided shelf replaced it. So it was outside with a free sign on it! I couldn't believe my good fortune - I think it will be perfect in the baby's room. My plan is to give it a good scrub to try to remove those adhesive marks and then fill it with books! Thankfully my parents saved some of my books from when I was younger and I've received a few as gifts so I'm excited and ready to get set up! Acquired anything for free lately?

Last garden update of 2014 - crazy!  The strawberries have completely covered the bottom edge of the left garden bed. I'm hoping that means an even better harvest next year.  Very little still growing, food wise - just the beans and my volunteer tomato. But the flowers continue to fare exceptionally well, the marigolds and zinnias in particular. (This is my first year growing marigolds from seed. I usually just buy plants, and they always do well, maybe doubling or so in size. But this bush blows my mind.)  The black eyed Susans out front are dead and shriveled, though I can't bring myself to cut them down just yet. I'll probably wait another week or two to start the cold weather prep. How's your garden? 

Usually my garden is winding down in September (the cucumbers are certainly finished). We've already had cool nights in the 50s (10-15° C) so I know the end is near. But! I have bean plants and strawberries that aren't ready to call it quits.  The strawberries I planted are some odd variety that produce fruit twice per season (I had no idea they even existed until I started to notice a lot of fruit on my plants and looked it up). They've put out a ton of runners this season so I think the harvest will be even better in 2015! And the bean plants I planted in late July are still growing. No signs of bean pods yet though. I knew I would be cutting it close by planting mid-season, so next year I will definitely plant them in the spring. Check out this volunteer tomato plant - it's growing out the side vent on the compost bin! It has 8 green tomatoes on the vine, ha! Mr. G is pumped. Oh, and while this isn't from my garden, it fits nicely here:  I bought...

It's that time again! Mr. G installed the rain barrel for me. In a previous life, it carried olive oil from Greece. One good rain fills it up and then I use it to fill my watering can. We've used it for 2 summers now and it makes a huge difference on our water bill. On to the garden beds. So much green: The garden's growing quick! Take a look at last month for comparison: And that "cage" you may have noticed around one of the beds is a rabbit fence. Rabbits are adorable, and I love when they visit our yard to munch on clover, but they were eating the strawberry and cucumber leaves like crazy. So we had to do something. Thankfully the strawberries shrugged it off and a month later, they look like nothing happened: The potatoes have definitely taken off! I watched a youtube video and found that I haven't been burying them quite enough so I have to go back out tonight and take care of that.  Because squash have a way of taking over, I only plan...

It's hard to believe that my garden bed looked like this a couple months ago . . But now it's looking pretty good.  We decided to build another bed this year in hopes of growing more plants in general, but also adding some perennials like strawberries. I'm so grateful to Mr. G for building it for me! He bought three 8 foot long boards (2.4 meters), cut one in half, and screwed them together like a giant frame. It's a good size for me because I still have easy access to the middle. He finished right after Easter, so I planted the strawberries and potatoes then, and got around to all the seeds this past weekend since we have officially passed our last frost date! :) (I'm taking pictures from the opposite angle this year so the compost bin won't get in the way.) And somewhat related to gardening, we gave Mr. G's mom a flower pot full of annuals for Mother's Day. Hopefully she enjoys them! Are you planting a garden this year? 

My local library saves me a ton of money! Since I stopped buying books in 2012, I've checked out and read 142. So I'd estimate the library has saved me about $1500 (minus 75¢ in late fees :) ) just in the past two years, and who knows how much in my lifetime. In return, a while back I decided to volunteer my time. But I make a terrible volunteer. I was told to move the biographies from one set of shelves to another, which of course meant looking at every volume, carrying it across the library, and then reshelving, making sure all the books were in the proper order. And that led to me studying each spine, wondering who the person was, briefly paging through to see if there were any interesting photographs, filling a piece of scrap paper with names of people to google, and setting aside biographies I wanted to check out immediately.  About an hour later when I had only managed to move about a hundred books (and had reached my checkout limit of 20), the librarian graciously sa...

Vanilla is one of my favorite smells and flavors. So much so, that whenever I bake, I double the amount of vanilla the recipe calls for. A few years ago I read Make the Bread, Buy the Butter , a book about which foods are worth it to make from scratch at home, and which foods you should just buy ready made (an excellent book - well worth the read). The author made her own vanilla extract and blew my mind! I was shocked to find out there are only two ingredients.  So I made my first batch of vanilla that week, using vanilla beans from amazon.com and cheap vodka. Delicious! (And much cheaper than $12 for the 1/4 cup or 60 mL bottles they sell at the grocery story.) I'm on the last dregs of that original batch so I made more over the weekend. Now, to wait patiently for 3 months! :) Basically, you cut 8-10 vanilla beans down the center and scrape the insides into the jar. Throw in the bean pods and 1 1/2 to 2 cups vodka. The vodka will still be clear when you first pou...

I love popcorn. It's easily my favorite snack. I'll eat it plain or topped with salt, butter, or cheese (anything but kettle corn, really). But pre-made popcorn is expensive around here - 3 or 4 dollars for a bag of 10-12 cups of popcorn. Microwavable popcorn is cheaper, but I felt awful throwing those plastic-lined bags in the microwave since I'd given up cooking leftovers in plastic. And unfortunately, microwave popcorn has a lot of added preservatives/chemicals. (Some boxes even have warnings not to breath in the fumes when opening the bag!) Then I noticed my farmer's market sold popcorn kernels and the bag even had instructions on making it at home on the stove. I followed the instructions with disappointing results - the oil splattered in my face when I added the kernels, the popcorn launching itself out of the pot, unpopped kernels, burned kernels. Ugh. I tried this process about 5 times before giving up and looking for other options. Nothing jumped out at m...

I remember helping my grandmother wrap presents and being amazed by how neatly and beautifully she could manipulate the boxes, wrapping paper, ribbons, and gift tags. She did every step with ease and it turned out gorgeous. Now that I've been wrapping presents for about 10 years, I would say I can adequately wrap a gift if it's an easy shape (rectangular prism, please!) but not with the same fluidity as my grandma. I also don't get the same pleasure from crafting a wonderfully wrapped present. And it kinda bothers me that all that my hard work gets torn up and tossed to the side in about 12 seconds flat.  So for the past few years, I've been using more and more gift bags and boxes because they are super easy, can be reused from year to year, and look just as pretty when the opening is through. Here's part of my stash: Paper and cardboard gift boxes, fabric and paper bags, giant fabric bow, and free wrapping paper (a charity mailed it to me in hopes of a dona...

This'll be my last garden update for 2013! Can you believe we only have two months left in the year?  We had a few overnight frosts last week, so everything was looking cool when I took this photo around 6:30 in the morning. (Pretty soon it'll be time for  hot chocolate for breakfast !) Mr. G and I trimmed all the Black-Eyed Susan stems right before Halloween (they grow into the path and we didn't want any issues with trick-or-treaters) so they're resting in the garden now until the spring. Then we'll put some in the compost and some out in the woods house to decompose.  And the 30x30 update. Just to refresh your memory, this was a challenge I'd read about on RA's blog back in October, and I decided to join in. The basic premise is to pick 30 things to wear (clothing and shoes) for an entire month. You can read her thoughts for October  here . Here's what I decided to wear: This challenge turned out to be extremely difficult for me - and I...

Finding gum in recyclable packaging is tough - I've been looking at my local stores with no luck. But on a recent out-of-the-way trip, I stopped at Whole Foods for some other things and stumbled upon this gum. It's packed loosely in cardboard, contains only vegetarian ingredients, costs $1 for 16 (albeit tiny) pieces and is nearly 100% natural (there are some synthetics in the gum base). Since I chew gum sparingly, I'll count it as a win. Do you know of any completely natural gums? linking up for Wordless Wednesday

Need a laugh this morning? p.s. I use a Ladycup :)

I recently discovered that Whole Foods recycles number 5 plastic containers, so we're saving up. It's not perfect (I can't bring myself to make homemade yogurt) but this is better than throwing away all those cups!

Garden update time! I'm going to attempt to take pictures of the garden every month or so to see how it changes (in years past, I've forgotten about this idea around mid-July, so I thought maybe posting it on the blog would keep me going). You can read about my garden plan here , although it's already a little out of date since those Sweet Williams refuse to die. Not that I mind, but I was told they were annuals when I planted them 3 years ago, and they just keep coming back. Hmmm. The cucumbers have started to sprout.  The marigolds are doing so well because I bought those ;) I love marigolds - the cheerful color, the heartiness, the longevity (mine usually last til the very end of October)! I planted zinnia seeds in here, (which I've never grown) so we'll have to wait and see. All this growing going on makes me think spring is officially here - yay! And here's what greets me as I go back in the house: They crack me up!

Happy last Thursday in April! I hope you've enjoyed the mini green changes this month :) My final suggestion is to think about the packaging. This is especially true in the grocery store, when it's easy buy a ton of stuff wrapped in plastic. For example, my local store sells two brands of organic ketchup. One in a glass bottle and one in a plastic bottle. I choose the ketchup in the glass bottle because plastic is a finite resource (it comes from oil  so we'll run out eventually) and it doesn't recycle well . Same thing with potatoes - my market sells them loose for 69 cents a pound or $3.45 for 5 pounds in a plastic bag. (Same price!) I prefer to buy them loose because I can pick out exactly the size and amount I want, but also because I can avoid the plastic bag.  So my challenge to you is on your next shopping trip - consider the packaging. Try the pasta in a cardboard box, the loose oranges, the milk in a glass bottle. It might be another painless change that ...

Happy Friday! Meet my newest additions (and first attempt at indoor gardening): The first one is an air plant. Both it and the adorable pod hail from Bird and Feather , which I chose because it's supposed to be easy to keep alive. (We'll see!) The pansy was a gift from my hair dresser (so random and sweet!), hence the aluminum foil "pot," haha. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to rustle up a tiny pot for it or transplant it to the garden.  Do you keep indoor plants? I was so excited to find both of these aren't toxic for cats .

Hopefully I'm correct in assuming that the people reading this blog are female . . and if not, you may want to skip this post ;) Today's mini green change is: I think periods suck. The hassle, the cramps, the mood swings, the incessant food cravings ( always for weird stuff that I don't have at home!). BUT life goes on. Let's fast forward past the complain-fest. Enter something new - this cup - which I heard about from Crunchy Chicken . I read all her posts about it, and then I turned to the ladies on this forum , who gave even more information (down the nitty-gritty). It probably took me 3-4 months to work up the courage, but I finally ordered a Ladycup (the forum will help you figure out which brand you want) in 2009. And after I made it through my first period wearing it, I haven't looked back.  (Are you wondering why I said after my first period? Well because there was a lot of crying, panicking, and general hysteria the first time I tried to take i...

Happy Thursday! Today's suggestion is: I think this suggestion comes as no surprise, considering I'm a vegetarian . But I'm not trying to be pushy, honest. This really is an easy way to be a little greener (and save a little money). This infographic shows it better than I could with words: Basically, we can feed more people with less land and water if we focus on growing plants. I bet you already eat tons of vegetarian meals, but here are some common ones: 1. scrambled eggs & toast 2. strawberries 3. pancakes 4. tomato soup 5. spaghetti 6. PB&J with bananas & almonds Want more ideas? Try Post Punk Kitchen , Vegan Yack Attack , Nature Box , or The Vegan Stoner . Let me know how it goes if you decide to try it!

One of my on-going goals (and passions) is trying to be more environmentally responsible. Since Earth Day is coming up (April 22nd this year), I thought I'd feature a "bonus" post every Thursday this month about a tiny change you could make to tread a little lighter (no pressure!) and maybe save a little money, too. I'll still be posting regular stuff MWF, so feel free to skip Thursday's posts (and let me know what you think in the comments). Here's the first one: Keeping short and sweet for this first one:  use half. The next time you reach for the toothpaste, dish soap, detergent, shampoo, whatever - use half as much as usual. See if it gets you by. You might be pleasantly surprised.  It's kinda like your first shower after a massive haircut - you still put a quarter-sized dollop of shampoo in your palm because that's what you always do. It's just a habit. I've found I can often get away with less without compromising cleanliness and y...