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Vermicomposting with Children

April 17, 2012 in DIY Life, Homeschooling, Indoor activities, It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, Natural Gardening. Sometimes Organic, Pinterest, Crafts, and Home Decor Projects, Raising these kids, Staying Home Didn't Kill the Feminist

I won’t say it’s a boy thing– since it isn’t. But the Small People do love insects, arachnids (spiders), and annelids (worms). Now, because they are tech-age kids, they will dig for a few minutes, give up, then move over to stand 8.5 inches away from my leg, waiting for whatever worms I find. It makes my chest hurt that they don’t have enough patience to dig for their own worms. Which begins the choruses [...]

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Dirtbag

April 7, 2012 in Adult ADHD Isn't a Bad Thing, DIY Life, It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, Natural Gardening. Sometimes Organic, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling

Dirt. Soil. Gardening. Add good plants to bad soil and you might as well just go ahead and throw them in the garbage. Usually. Bad soil equals plant stress, which is like hanging a neon welcome sign for disease, bugs, and looking crappy. I want to submit our yard as the master gardener final exam. Look- a representative sample of every turf weed in NC. As you embark on your manual weed control (aka, hand [...]

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The Lorax Project

March 27, 2012 in DIY Life, It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, Natural Gardening. Sometimes Organic, Pinterest, Crafts, and Home Decor Projects, Politics, Raising these kids

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing’s going to get better. It’s not. Sigh. People I just… sigh. Perhaps Dr. Suess had a bit of the Nostradamus, or maybe the warning theme of corporate greed and environmental waste was appropriate in the Seventies, too (cough-COUGH). Not like there weren’t any gas/environment/recession problems back then, right? Zach missed a Nate the Great play last week that I – GASP- had the gall to [...]

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Kitchen Remodel: Phase II

January 29, 2012 in Adult ADHD Isn't a Bad Thing, DIY Life, It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling

Remember the Phase I post from a few days ago? You wonder– is she actually done?! Done is often such a subjective word, don’t you think? It’s like perfect– can the pure meaning of those words exist in the world of paint or furniture placement? No, really– JB wants to know if done exists in someone else’s house. Ahem. So the answer is no, I’m not done. But I’ve met the first major milestone– a [...]

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Kitchen Remodel: Phase I

January 25, 2012 in Adult ADHD Isn't a Bad Thing, DIY Life, It's Easy Being Green, My Disorganized Mind, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling, Thoughts from a SAHM

Yes, it’s Phase I– of Version 4. This isn’t the first transformation for our kitchen and all the big ticket items (new floors, cabinets, appliances that aren’t brown) have long been paid for. But thus far, the total investment in Version 4 of Redesign That Kitchen is $56. $50 for low VOC Benjamin Moore paint + $6 for sponge rollers. Everything else (to include the materials for the building projects) existed down there in the [...]

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No, Don’t throw that away!

November 30, 2011 in Adult ADHD Isn't a Bad Thing, It's Easy Being Green, My Disorganized Mind, Pinterest, Crafts, and Home Decor Projects, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling

I am sort of a hoarder-light. There are so many things that I can look at and think, “NO, that’s not GARBAGE! It can be reused. Into what, I have no idea.” My darling husband is more of a, once a shower curtain, always a shower curtain kind of guy. So when our dog decided to protest the Small People by eating most of the puzzle pieces JB would have tossed the leftovers. But I [...]

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Craft Bonanza

November 29, 2011 in It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, Pinterest, Crafts, and Home Decor Projects, Politics

This time of year is Merry Important! (New phrase, courtesy of Z.) Love: My version of holiday decorating–especially with the Small People. This kind of magic is important to them– they have no idea what all the social implications are behind a Made In China Snoopy ornament, or the amount of money and fossil fuels that are wasted in the name of Griswald. They don’t conceptualize the vomitous greed that is stabbing someone with an [...]

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My Creative Mind

November 21, 2011 in Adult ADHD Isn't a Bad Thing, It's Easy Being Green, Just Life, My Disorganized Mind, Pinterest, Crafts, and Home Decor Projects, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling

Long before I had my own children, I overheard a stranger lightly scold her child’s use of his “creative mind” at a grocery store. That child was 1) old enough to know better, and 2) opening all of the freezer doors to knock down the carefully arranged boxes of food. What does that story have to do with this post? Um. Nothing. Except I can’t use the phrase, creative mind without also thinking troublemaker. And [...]

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Why DIY?

August 1, 2011 in It's Easy Being Green, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling

Warning: Image Heavy! I get accused of being cheap at least weekly. Personally, I prefer frugal, or to use the latest buzzword for practitioners of the frugal– Upcycle. A fair bit of it frugality and being all eco-happy. Why DIY? A fair chunk originates with just being here more, seeing ugly too much. Or trying to get really old and ugly truly clean. Why DIY? Personal satisfaction for something, that once done will remain done [...]

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Those Childhood Phrases

April 20, 2011 in It's Easy Being Green, Natural Gardening. Sometimes Organic, Raising these kids, Raising these Parents, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle by Upcycling, Thoughts from a SAHM

This one: “This hurts me as more than it hurts you.” Muttered right before the ass whoopin’. To give mom credit, she never said that “hurt you worse” phrase. My Dad? He said it often, but he was never crying. As a child I was calling bullshit (silently, in my head and stuff) whenever the topic came up. Now? Well now I think I may know what Dad meant–it had nothing to do with the [...]

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