Friday Random

*Have been watching reruns lately. Man, I can't wait for 30 Rock to come back to me. Just as funny the second time around. Love me some Tina Fey.

*Sammy's new favorite show is Wipeout. Between that and America's Funniest Home Videos, he is set. LOVES when people fall in the water...

*I haven't finished a book for July yet. Started about 12, though. If I could finish them, August's total would rock.

*I like a deal as much as the next girl, but seriously? Wow. Stupid.

*Sammy's birthday cake. Sharon and I put it together Sunday evening. SO GOOD. Thanks to kulturblog for the inspiration and design!


*I have a concussion. This is my...third? fourth? one. All stupidly acquired. Doesn't make it hurt any less, though.

*I'm completely in love with this line of toys. IN LOVE, people! And I smelled the dump truck yesterday - it smells like a lovely pine forest.

*Have you ever seen such a look of complete bliss before?


*Song of the week:

(hey jealousy, gin blossoms)
I love the gin blossoms. LOVE. I heard this in a store the other day (cringe...) and some punk kids were discussing their musical merits and summarily dissing them. I felt so protective of the music! This is my college experience, right here.

A Simple Life: Part the Food

We eat vegetarian about 75% of the time. We have been incorporating local foodstuffs into our routine more and more. Other than bananas and nectarines, our produce this summer (since May) has been 100% local. I'm so proud of this! However, I know we can do more in this area and will continually work on local, organic food making up the bulk of our groceries. I want us to live strong and healthy. I want Sammy to grow up thinking organic eating is normal. I know we won't go totally organic, but I think 75% is a reasonable goal to shoot toward. Today my smaller goal is to weed out the last of the boxed foods to take to the food pantry and then set up my pantry full of things that are good for us and that can be used in a variety of home made meals. (As the tomatoes outside slowly ripen, I'm already excited to try this!)

This switch in thinking has led me to read Mark Bittman, Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver. I'm particularly drawn to the concept of making up a pot of beans once a week and incorporating them into your meals. We both love beans and eat them regularly anyway, but I love this new level and look at it as a challenge.

We joined a local CSA this spring and so far, it doesn't disappoint. As the weeks dragged on in endless spinach and lettuce, I started to waver, but now that we are half way into weeks of squash, beets and a variety of other stuff, I'm strengthened! What a fabulous way of guaranteeing fresh produce, in season. Especially as we just start on our home gardening journey. We also have put a deposit down on a fourth of a cow (raised hormone / antibiotic free, of course!). It's a ridiculous amount of meat and I'm anxious to see how long it will last us. Since this is our first year, we'll need to keep track for better ordering next year.

My new favorite pasttime is scouring vegetarian and cooking blogs looking for meal ideas. Here are a few I've found that are on deck, menu-wise, in the next little while.
*Ok. So not a food recipe, but I'm still loving the homemade toiletries as well!

*Garden sliders

*Tomato soup

*Cucumber berry salad

*Avocado pocket

*Veggie soup

*Zucchini Soup

*Grilled Veggie Sandwiches

*This green bean, corn and tomato salad will be perfect this week with fresh green beans from the market and yesterday morning's tomato haul from our plant in the backyard:


*And this entire blog is lovely. She is a daily inspiration for the type of life I'm trying to cultivate!

A Simple Life: Part the House

When Isaac and I bought this house, we were given a little grief by a few people. It wasn't big enough, didn't have a big enough yard, didn't "have land to grow on", etc. We both laughed and wondered if any of those saying these things really knew us. It was like we were spitting in the face of some sort of "ideal" and it made people uncomfortable. However, our house fits us perfectly. We wanted something small (there's only three of us!) and our house is small, but it's designed well and feels like it has a lot of space. We didn't want a big yard to be a slave to (and, truthfully, hired landscapers was one of the first things we did so we didn't have to worry about mowing and upkeep), so the yard we have is perfect - big enough to grow a garden in the flower beds, room for Sammy to play and the perfect corner for a gazebo with a firepit (currently under construction). As for the "land to grow on"? Seriously. What would Isaac and I do with that? Get animals? HA! I joke...

When we started looking for homes, we looked for ones that would fit us and weeded out the ones that would have us fit the house. The first house we almost bought was a townhouse, and beautiful, but nearly 2500 square feet. When we learned Sammy would be an only, we canceled our contract. I was so sad; Isaac's still sad about the money lost! I had just picked the colors and floors and cabinets and now someone else would get them. But it is a good thing (trust me...I tell myself that daily as I drive by it on the way home!). We didn't need something that big, so we refined our search and this house fell into our lap. It seemed to play into what Isaac and I value most (responsibly sized, in the heart of the city, able to greenly update as needed) and we jumped at the chance to buy it. The fact that we'll have it paid off in ten years or less? Cherry on top.

In my "who knows when or if it will ever happen" dream plan for this house, I would love to have solar panels. I'm just sad that they are so terribly expensive. I've been reading a lot about urban homesteading and my list of somedays are getting longer, as urban homesteading is a concept I'm happy to embrace. It's something that resonates in my soul. I would love a solar cooker for the back porch and think I'll save up this winter to get one next spring (how much cooler cooking will be in the summer!). We've been playing with ways to use the a/c less, and while I'm not quite to the point of giving it up completely per the latest trend, I do want to use it the least amount possible. Thankfully, this hasn't been too sweltering a summer (yet) to experiment. Lesson #1 learned? Heavier curtains are a lifesaver and once we replace our (YUCK) sliding glass door with (YAY!) pretty french doors with the blinds in the middle of the two panes of glass (so not to get dirty...)? Even better...

We're clearing the yard this summer of all ornamental shrubbery. Next year we'll plant an apple and cherry tree and use the existing flower beds as a garden - including the front flower bed that will become a mini strawberry field. Yum... Once all of this is done, we'll be on our way to at least partial self-sufficiency with the freedom to travel and shirk "expected" responsibility as we please.

I'm So One of Those Moms...

My baby is three. How crazy is that?



He is funny and crazy and smart and handsome and just the best of kids. Happy, happy birthday my darling Sammy. YOU I LOVE!

A Simple Life: Part the Explanation

Everything we've done since we've been married has been designed to play into a very simple life. Neither of us wanted a life that was elaborate or fancy; well, maybe wanted, but knew it didn't fit our core values. We wanted scaled down and slow; room to enjoy. We wanted to be surrounded by things we love and bring the best of things into our living. For Isaac, that means regular purging. I sometimes have to stop him from just wanting to get rid of too much! I love a good purge o' items as the next, but Isaac goes that one extra step. For me, it means living our life as organically and greenly as possible without sacrificing things important to me. I'm happy, so far, with our steps in that direction.

This concept of a simple life is one that has grown with me and the lovely thing about this philosophy is that it doesn't matter where I live, I can espouse it anywhere. It's rooted in ideals I started developing in high school. In my early 20s I lost sight of what was really important to me at the core, but over the past decade have slowly started to rediscover my true self. Living a simple life, for me, isn't about depriving yourself. It's about you taking ownership of stuff and commitments; only taking on what you can handle and living responsibly and with passion. A few years ago, Isaac and I sat down and went through what our core values were and we try to base decisions for our family off of those. We love to travel, we want to be secure financially and operate with zero debt. Organic living was high on my list and being able to help Sammy with college, etc was high on both of ours.

With all of this in mind, I wanted to write about our lives and what we are doing or have done in relation to this simple life. Over the next week, I thought I would outline different areas and try to convey what we are doing so that going forward, I can outline goals and steps with the background in mind.

First up, our house. Our little, tiny oasis in the city.