Welcome to our Go Green Challenge: 4 Weeks to an Earth-Friendly Home! Find more posts from this series here. As a reminder, we are focusing on reducing the amount of waste we send to the landfill this week. **************************** This is a guest post from Frugal Living NW's new contributor, Shelly Koetje. My first exposure to curbside recycling was watching my mom flatten tin cans before putting them in our newly issued yellow recycling bins. I’m pretty sure my brothers and I laughed as she told us she was making the world a better place for her grandchildren. Now I’m the crazy lady retrieving things out of the garbage that should be in the Keep Reading
Go Green Challenge: Recycling
Go Green Challenge: 4 Weeks to an Earth-Friendly Home
Happy Earth Day! If you're like me, Earth Day brings the crushing guilt of exactly how bad I am at caring about the earth. It reminds me that I am nothing more than a greedy, wasteful American who thinks the world is my oyster and I can scrape it out of its shell regardless of if it belongs to me or not. It's the exact same feeling that washes over me when I look at a piece of plastic that can't be recycled curbside. Or the pair of holey sneakers that could be made into a basketball court for poor kids. Or the mound of food that I let go bad in the refrigerator. Or the bag of poop-filled diapers that are encased in two layers of plastic so my royal Keep Reading
What’s for dinner? This week’s menu plan (4/22)
Menu Planning happens the same way in our house almost every single week. After the kids are in bed, my husband and I crash on the couch and watch a movie (or just enjoy the sound of silence) together. He suggests dinner ideas that sound good, and I attach them to days, based on our schedule for the week. Just like that we have a menu plan! I have veto power, but I find that often the hardest part of creating a menu plan is that initial inspiration. I'm happy to cook if I have a plan. My husband is the exact opposite. So we make a good team, and it starts the week off on the right foot. Here's what's for dinner at my house this week: Monday -- Keep Reading
What’s for dinner? This week’s whole foods menu plan (4/8)
I started the Advocare 24-Day Challenge last week. If you're not familiar with the program, it's a twenty-four day comprehensive supplementation and nutrition program designed to give your body the jump start it needs to help you reach your goals (weight loss, energy, and/or overall wellness). It starts with a ten-day cleanse eating whole foods and grains while eliminating dairy, coffee, sugar, and processed carbs. (Don't be scared off by the no coffee part. They offer a great Spark drink.) The second phase continues the same eating plan while adding in a small amount of dairy and whole grain carbs. My husband lost 18 pounds last month on the Challenge Keep Reading
What’s for dinner? This week’s vegetarian menu plan (4/1)
We will be eating crackers and peanut butter all week long. Ok, not really, but with weather like this it is so tempting! I just want to stay outside playing in the dirt all day. Suddenly my little tribe is hungry, and they're all looking at me. So, in the interest of keeping everyone fed and happy, I will try really hard to take off my gloves and lay down my shovel before five o'clock... and stick with this menu plan. Here's what's for dinner at my house this week: Monday -- French Onion Tart, Raw Tuscan Kale Salad Tuesday -- Black Beans & Rice, salsa & guacamole, fresh pineapple Wednesday -- Quinoa Patties, roasted butternut squash, Keep Reading
Review of the 2013 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport
This is a review on the Mitsubishi Outlander Sport by my husband, Will. The 2013 Mitsubishi Outlander Sport is one from that androgynous breed where you can’t quite figure… Is it a car? Is it a SUV, a mini-van? No, that doesn’t make sense. After I pulled a U-turn barreling over the road-dividing, curb-style median that separates traffic, I figured out that this is at very least an SUV and quite possibly a time machine. At the touch of a button, I roll back the giant moon roof that extends over the front and back seats… oooh. Another button illuminates the strand of blue LED lights around the perimeter of the moon roof… aaah. This must be the Keep Reading
Broccoli Gribiche recipe + how do you boil hard-boiled eggs?
Broccoli Gribiche The week before Easter brings to mind happy childhood memories of brightly dyed eggs. The week after Easter, however, reminds me of opening my lunchbox to find egg salad sandwiches in strange shades of blue or pink. As a kid, I viewed hard-boiled eggs as a fun tradition before Easter and an unfortunate problem afterward. Well, times have changed. In the All About Eggs post, I mentioned how much my family likes eggs, a cheap and versatile protein. I like keeping hard boiled eggs in the refrigerator to use as a portable snack or topping for salads. Originally, I'd planned to title this post "How to Make Perfect Hard Boiled Keep Reading