Merry Christmas Everyone!

I wish you happy and healthy holidays full of joyous time with family and your loved ones. Often the holidays have become a time to stress about shopping, money, preparing meals, etc, this year I ask that you take the time to sit back, relax and be thankful for the time spent with family friends and loved ones.

We have a tradition in our house of opening up our new Christmas pyjamas on Christmas Eve. This year, I went with a matching pair!

This one is as close to a family picture we could get.. trust me they are never perfect! The dog is trying to eat the cat and the cat is clawing away in fear. This one might be the definition of the awkward family photo. But in the end, aren't the imperfections of family what Christmas is all about.

From my family to yours we wish you a Merry Christmas

Joyeux Noel

Feliz Navidad

Buon natale e felice anno nuovo

Froehliche Weihnachten und ein glueckliches Neues Jahr

Mele Kalikimaka ame Hauoli Makahiki Hou

Merry Keshmish

Boas Festas e Feliz Ano Novo

Felices Pasquas Y Felices ano Nuevo

Nadolig Llawen

En frehlicher Grischtdaag un en hallich Nei Yaahr

Kellemes kara’csonyi u”nnepeket e’s boldog u’j e’vet

God Jul and (Och) Ett Gott Nytt Ar

Gle[eth]ileg jol gott og fars

Hristos se rodi

Linksmu Kaledu Macedonian: Sreken Bozhik

Prieci’gus Ziemsve’tkus un Laimi’gu Jauno Gadu

Nollaig Shona Dhuit

Tchestita Koleda; Tchestito Rojdestvo Hristovo

Kala Christouyenna

Vesele Vianoce. A stastlivy Novy Rok

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia

LL Milied Lt-tajjeb

Sung Tan Chuk Ha

Sawadee Pee Mai

Maligayang Pasko

Pozdrevlyayu s prazdnikom Rozhdestva is Novim Godom

Chuc Mung Giang Sinh

Milad Majid

Een Plesierige Kerfees

Natale hilare et Annum Faustum

Mo’adim Lesimkha. Chena tova

 However you express the joy of the holiday season to others around you, I wish you a happy, healthy holiday season.

Christmas Joy & Shopping Pain

Cramped parking lots, long line-ups, and short tempers… all words my fiancé would use to describe Christmas shopping. In his defense, Christmas shopping can be very stressful but not if you plan ahead.

Have you ever gone out Christmas shopping with a list of people in your head for whom you need to buy Christmas presents? Me too. And I always ended up over spending and forgetting people.

You can make Christmas shopping a little less stressful and A LOT more budget friendly by following a game plan. Start with listing out everyone you are buying Christmas presents for. Then I usually start a couple weeks before I go out shopping, researching online and getting ideas for presents. This way, I am able to plan a budget for each person. You need to commit to your budget, it is really easy to say, “I think I will get that instead, it is only $10 more”. $10 per person can really add up.

It doesn’t end there. Before I go out shopping, I make a plan of action. What stores I am planning to go to and what I am getting at each store.

It all sounds like a lot of work, but honestly it makes things so much easier. Mike and I went out this afternoon and as he says, “It was relatively painless.” We were able to get presents for more than ten people on our list in just a couple hours.

Taking some time to make a plan doesn’t sound so bad now, eh?!

9 DAYS LEFT

When you are out and about this Holiday season, just take a minute to remember what Christmas is all about. It isn’t about getting the latest and greatest presents, but it is about enjoying some time with your family and friends and helping those less fortunate.

Tis the Season!!

The shopping malls are filled with people trying to get the latest and greatest toys for their friends and family. Once purchased, those gifts are wrapped into beautiful packages and placed under the Christmas tree.

There is only one problem... most wrapping paper purchased in stores is not recyclable. So all of that beautiful wrapping paper ends up being thrown into a landfill and takes years to decompose.

This year, I set out on having one my greenest Christmases and at a lower cost than traditional wrapping to boot.

What you need:

·        Christmas Ornaments – 5 for $1.25 from the Dollarstore

·        Packing paper – 40’ roll for $3.99 from most business supply stores or I recently found 25’ rolls at the dollarstore for $1.25 each

·        Brown paper gift bags – 2 for $1.25 from the Dollarstore

·        Ribbon or twine – various prices (I have a bunch left over from last year)

·        Christmas themed stamp – I ordered a Christmas tree one online, I am just waiting for it to come in

·        Oh and don’t forget the hot chocolate and cookies!

Step 1 – Wrap the present with packing paper

Step 2 – Add ribbon to the package

Step 3 – Tie the Christmas Ornament to the ribbon to add a special touch and some sparkle

Step 4 – Stamp the paper with your Christmas stamp once or multiple times. I will be using the stamp as a gift tag to write who the present is to and from. Not to say that most of my family and friends will know a present wrapped in recyclable paper is from me!  

 

It’s as easy as that. Now you have beautiful Christmas presents under the tree for a fantastic green Christmas (but I am still wishing for snow). Plus by adding the tree ornaments to the wrapping, your friends and family are getting something special to add to their trees as well.  

Next, you have to break the habit of pulling out the garbage bag on Christmas morning and throwing everything in sight inside. When growing up, I can remember sitting in a sea of torn wrapping paper and the adults in the room coming with garbage bags to clean everything up in one swoop!

Break the cycle and pick up the recycling bins this year.

I hope that answers your question Paul! Happy Holidays everyone. Remember Christmas isn’t just about the stress of the shopping malls and spending money, but about taking the time to enjoy the company of your friends and family and to be thankful of the blessings you have in your life.

Green Eggs and Ham… and Coffee?

Keurig, Tossimo, Mr. Coffee, Nespresso, Tim Horton’s, Starbucks, etc.

… How ever you get your morning coffee, have you thought about how it affects the environment? We just added a Keurig to our home and before I knew it I realized I have no idea what to do with the K-cups.

So with a little research, I came to this:

Type	Recyclable?	# of years to biodegrade in a landfill
Tim Horton’s / Starbucks Paper Cups	Plastic lid is recyclable in your blue bin. Paper cup can be disposed of in your green bin / compost.	Plastic lid  - 15 years + decades longer Paper cup – 15 years
K-Cups (Keurig / Mr. Coffee/Nespresso)	There are three layers to every K-cup. The foil lid can be pulled off and recycled. The coffee grinds inside can be disposed of in your green bin / compost. The filter inside the cup is made of paper and can be recycled with paper products being sure to remove as many food particles as possible. The outer plastic shell is not recyclable.	Full cup – hundreds of years
T-discs (Tassimo)	Similar K-cups, T-discs have three layers. The foil lid can be pulled off and recycled, but you need cut out the barcode in order to recycle it. The filter inside the cup is made of paper and can be recycled with paper products being sure to remove as many food particles as possible. The outer plastic shell is recyclable where recycling programs exist.	Full cup – hundreds of years
Home Coffee Percolator	Coffee grinds and filter are 100% biodegradable in your green bin / compost	Filter and coffee grinds – 1 year or less Note – the coffee filters (white ones) have some bleach in them, but with all my research the amount is minimal and can be decomposed without worrying about adding chemicals to the compost.

(Note – the above information is dependent on brand and could differ accordingly)

In the end, the tried and true home coffee percolaters are the most environmentally friendly. So why have so many switched to this new one use system that puts billions of plastic cups into landfills every year? Convenience… isn’t that the answer all the time these days?

I won’t continue on a tree-hugging rant because frankly no one wants to hear it and… we bought a Keurig last week! So what are our other options if we have these brewers at home:

Keurig Option – EcoBrew Elite (http://www.ekobrew.com/)

(Picture taken from - www.ekobrew.com)

This seems like the best of both worlds, saves on money and there is virtually no waste. Only problem, Mike and I don’t drink coffee. So it isn’t our best option for the coffee alternative K-cups, however I will keep researching. In the meantime, my work has a program where they collect all the used K-cups and return them to the manufacturer for proper recycling and disposal.

As for the Tassimo, their brand includes the slogan “The barcode brews it better”. Because of this, they have not come up with an alternative reusable pod (that I can see). That being said, their pods are recyclable as noted above, so it is slightly more environmentally friendly to start than most K-cups.

As for your morning Tim Horton’s or Starbucks coffee, think twice before tossing them in the trash. Every year, 58 billion paper cups are thrown into landfills. In order to make those cups, 20 million trees are cut down and 12 billion gallons of water are used. (stats taken from - http://www.thebetacup.com/about/).

So if that morning cup of joe is what you need, just take a second to think of your impact on the environment with each sip. Maybe instead of 58 billion paper cups among the billions of K-cups and T-discs, you can reduce it by just one… in the hopes of that number getting smaller and smaller with each cup.

Carbon Farming

I was watching Dragon’s Den the other night and came across a great young couple that are doing their part to keep our environmental karma in check. Brad and Rebecca took over their family farm in Manning, Alberta to create forests that would never be cut down. Their goal – to sustain their family farm, create habitat and address climate change.

This goes back a little bit to my Wild Weather post, referring what impact we have on the environment in our daily activities. The average person has an ecological footprint of about 5 tonnes per year, in Brad and Rebecca’s farm, that’s 20 trees. The Carbon Farmer Inc. is a company Brad and Rebecca have created so that individuals, groups, companies and the like can pay to have trees planted and never cut down. You can start to restore habitat in Canada for just $1.99.

For less than your morning coffee, Brad and Rebecca will plant a tree and take care of it in your name.

With all of my research into the idea of Carbon Farming, I decided to take my environmental impact into my own hands. We just purchased 5 trees in Brad and Rebecca’s forest; 2 Lodgepole Pine trees and 3 Trembling Aspen trees.

Right after you purchase your trees, you are emailed your specific planting code that allows you to add an optional message that will be displayed when you explore the forest.

Check ours out - http://createyourforest.ca/explore/ We are in the top left corner.

Have you been inspired to be more conscious of your environmental karma?

Writer’s Block

Sorry everyone, I know I have been a little less than consistent with my blog posts the last couple weeks. After five months writing this blog, I am running out of things I think will interest you.

So as I keep posting week after week, I ask that if there are any questions you have or topics I haven’t touched on that you would like to read about, just let me know.

I am open to any of your ‘shades of green’ questions.

Keep it green,
Dawn

To rake or not to rake?

After spending 4 hours on Saturday raking and bagging up leaves, I thought to myself why am I doing this? The only answer I could logically come up with is, “well everyone else does”. To me it is about the keeping up with the Jones’ syndrome! You know, when you do things only because all your neighbours do and you don’t want to feel like they are judging your lawn every time they walk by.

So I have done some research to see what other alternatives we have to raking and bagging leaves:

1.      No rake, no bags. Leaving leaves on your lawn and mulching them with the lawn mower is a good way to insulate the grass over the winter. However, the leaves need to be in moderation. If there is too thick of a bed of leaves on the lawn, there is a risk of suffocating the lawn and creating disease. Once the leaves are all dry and crunchy, take the lawn mower over the lawn to mulch up the leaves. In the spring you are left with a healthier lawn and soil and very few leaf remnants on the lawn.

2.      Compost the leaves. Dedicate an area in your backyard for the compost, pile up the leaves and let them go to work. You do however need to make sure you turn the pile to ensure the correct amount of moisture.

3.      Planter beds. Mulch leaves and use them to build planter beds. This would be the most natural mulch, with no added chemicals and colouring.

And there are many other alternatives out there, just make sure one of your alternatives isn’t raking on a windy day.. not fun!

I wish I would have thought of all of this before Mike and I spent our afternoon filling 25 bags of leaves for compost by the City. So for now, we will continue to ‘keep up with the Jones’.

 Have you tried any of these alternatives?

Wild Weather

Hi  Everyone. Sorry for the late post, it was a rough week last week and I am still a little devastated. Okay that might be a little bit of an exaggeration but it definitely wasn’t a fun couple of days last week.

I am sure you guys have all heard about ravaging effects of Hurricane Sandy on North America. Here in Niagara we did not get anything close to the devastating conditions that New York was hit with, but we got A LOT of rain and very strong winds for a good four days straight.

If you haven’t heard, here is an idea of what effects Hurricane Sandy had on New York:

(Picture taken from news.nationalgeographic.com)

So how did this affect me? Well we got water in our basement (…again) and what looked like a free swimming pool in the backyard. It was more of an inconvenience than anything. My prayers go out to the people of New York City and the surrounding states that lost their homes or worse their lives because of this super storm.

All of this crazy weather got me thinking. When was the last time a hurricane of this magnitude hit North America that far north? From my Wikipedia reference, the most recent deadly hurricane to hit the New York City area was 1938. 74 years later, 55 people died.

I find weather very interesting and completely believe in the ‘greenhouse effect’ or what is commonly called global warming. The United States alone emits 20% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Actions in our daily lives are effecting our environment in ways that most people wouldn’t even begin to imagine.

·         Driving your car. Driving automobiles is one of the biggest factors human population is having on the environment and the use of fossil fuels.

·         Using electricity. This includes everything from using your toaster in the morning, using your computer all day at work, to using the stove to make dinner.  

To put it into perspective a bit, burning fossil fuels is not bad only because it is negatively effecting our environment through the emission of greenhouse gases, but fossil fuels are a limited resource. In North America, we are importing up to 94% of our fossil fuels. There is a risk that the world’s supply of fossil fuels will not be enough to sustain our use.

Rather than waiting for industry to catch up technology wise, we need to take steps now to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. So what can we do?

·        Turn off your computer monitors when not using them. A lot of people think to turn off their computers at the end of the day but how often do you think to turn off the monitor as well.

·        Ride a bike. If you are just running to the Tim Horton’s on the corner or to the corner store, why not get out your bike or take a walk. And while I realize that isn’t a realistic alternative for most people, if you take a second to think about what the emissions from your vehicle are doing to the environment, you might consider it.

·        Car pool. Car pool where it is an option. Do you live in the same city as a co-worker, could you drive to work together and alternate weeks/days?

·        Take the bus. Public transit has developed in most cities and it is easier than ever to use.

·        Do you go to the gym after work? If possible, get a gym membership for a gym near your work so you don’t have to drive there.

·        Ladies, leave the straigtener off until you need it. We all know the straightener takes less than a minute to heat up, so why do we often turn it on 5-10 minutes before we need it so it is ready to go?

·        Unplug appliances when you are not using them. Even when off and plugged in, an appliance will still be drawing on electricity.

There are many different things you can do to be more conscious of your use of fossil fuels, so just take a second to consider other alternatives available.

Have a great week.

Extreme Couponing.. It’s Not for Me!

Have you ever seen the TLC show, “Extreme Couponing”? These men and women treat couponing as a full time job. Clipping thousands and thousands of coupons and paying mere cents for hundreds of dollars worth of groceries. Take a walk through their house and you would find walls of toilet paper and shelves full of items much like a grocery store, all items they likely got for little to no cost. Sounds great right? I think is sounds fantastic in theory, but in reality it is not something I, or most people, would ever have time for. Plus, who has room to store all of that stuff?

I use coupons but by no means am I an extreme couponer. I am very busy most days and don’t have time to look for coupons so I need them to come to me.

Disclaimer – Beware of enticing coupons. If you don’t usually use the product/service, then the coupon is of no use. Don’t just buy something because it is on sale, buy it because you need it and will use it or consume it in your every day life. It is easy to get into trouble with those enticing buys (Groupon is a great example) where you buy them and never use them.

Where to find coupons:

1.     In the mail – You know all that junk mail you get that usually comes in the door and goes right out into the recycling? Take a look through it one day you would be surprised what you could find. There is usually a P&G (Proctor & Gamble) coupon book that comes out with everyday cleaning and household products.

2.     Save.ca – This website is an assortment of coupons you can print at home or order online to be mailed to you. All for free.  The benefit of this is that you can look through the coupons for the products you need or buy on a regular basis and just pay less.

3.     Daily deal websites – Groupon.com, Wagjag.com, LivingSocial.com, etc. A lot of the time, these sites will give you 50%+ off of regular prices for products/services.

4.     On product coupons – When you buy products, sometimes these include a coupon on or inside the packaging. I find these to be the best coupons because they are for products I am already buying and usually the expire date allows me to use the coupon by the time the product runs out and I need its replacement.

5.     Finally the best coupon is no coupon at all. Price matching – There are various stores that allow ad matching. All you need to do is give the competitors flyer to the cashier on checkout and they will match the price. A couple examples of stores that ad match include Walmart and Freshco in my area, but I am sure there are additional.

A lot of people say that they just don’t have access to good coupons, I believe you just need to know where to look.

Now once you have all those coupons how to you organize them? I don’t think I have the most organized system, but it is the only way I remember to use coupons and be aware of what I have.

On the end of my cupboard in the kitchen, I have a magnetic white board that I keep all of my current coupons on. This way the coupons are staring at me every time I go in the kitchen.

·        I check the coupons before I go out shopping to make sure there is something that I can use.

·        I also check the board once every couple of weeks for coupons that have expired to keep it maintained.

There are many different ways to organize coupons you just need to find your perfect solution. You can have a separate wallet to hold them, if you have ever seen my purse you would know why that would never work for me!

Do you coupon? How do you stay organized?

Meal Planning When Life Gets Busy

You may have noticed that in the last month, Mike and I have had two weeks with no meal plan. I am willing to admit, when life gets busy, it is easy to jump right towards those prepared meals or take out. However, when I say I don’t have a meal plan, it isn’t because we are eating take-out or prepared meals every day, it is because we are eating what is quickest within our busy lifestyle. Some weeks, creating a meal plan just isn’t in the cards. You can’t plan chaos, so we work with those busy weeks and make the best of it.

This is our after work schedule for this coming week:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Mike	Working until 11:30pm	Working until 11:30pm	Free	Home improvement project - Building a bar	Dog training at 5:30pm
Dawn	After work event,  until 8:00pm	Going to visit a friend’s new house after dinner	Free	After work event, until after 8:00pm	Dog training at 5:30pm and girl’s night afterwards

I am sure this is no different than most busy families. So how am I able to maintain order and healthy eating? It is all about being prepared. You need to take the time to do what you can today, to prepare for the busy week ahead.

I do groceries for meals that will make life easier, which includes as much fresh foods as possible. Then, I create snack bags that are easy to grab and go. This way the other grab and go options like a donut at Tim Horton’s or French fries from Wendy’s are not my first choice. I don’t do them all every week, but these are some of the ones I have used in the past to get us through a busy week:

·        Almonds and dried cranberries (watch not to put too many almonds, they are a very healthy snack but high in fat)

·        Vegetables cut into sticks (carrots, peppers, cucumber, celery, etc)

·        Yogurt and frozen fruit

·        Cottage cheese with cherry tomatoes

What other ways can you save time during a busy week:

·        If I am making oatmeal in the morning, I will make a larger batch so I can put it into single serving containers and it is a fast breakfast for the rest of the week.

·        When you make chicken for dinner, make a couple extra pieces at the same time. You can use the leftovers for lunch the next day or in salads during the week.

·        Make larger batches of easy freezable meals. When we make chili, there is always enough to put two large containers in the freezer, that we can use for dinner on one of those busy weeknights.

·        Remember, breakfast for dinner is always delicious! Sometimes, if I don’t get home until after 8:00pm at night, I can’t have a full dinner and then go to bed less than two hours later. So, sometimes it’s quick eggs for dinner or a hearty bowl of cereal.  

·        Also, something I haven’t tried yet but heard it is a great solution is to make a batch of muffin batter and freeze the batter (before baking) into individual muffin liners. If you have these muffins frozen in the freezer, you can make homemade muffins any day of the week. Just take it out of the freezer and pop it into the oven, just add 7-8 minutes to the normal cooking time to allow for it to defrost while baking.

There are thousands of excuses you can make when you have a busy week whether it be work related or social commitments, but you can choose to spend your time being productive rather than using it to make endless excuses and you might just find, it can all work out.

What do you do to make a busy week a little easier?

Good to the Last Drop

Thanksgiving is a fantastic time to spend time with family and be thankful for all of life’s blessings. But as I look back to my Thanksgiving dinner with my family I recall a lot of leftovers. So what do you do with all those leftovers? I envision hundreds of turkey sandwiches, but I am not referring to those leftovers..

What about that Turkey carcass? Yes, you heard right. Immediately everyone would throw that right into the garbage. Instead, I see a fantastic turkey soup.  Why not take advantage of Thanksgiving for every last little bit!

Today, I spent my day making some delicious turkey broth and turkey soup. Here's how:

Start with a large pot, add the turkey carcass and the organs (if you haven’t already used them). Fill the pot to nearly cover the turkey carcass.

Next, chop up 3 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and an onion. No need to get fancy, just do a loose chop. These veggies are what you will be using to flavour your stock.

Time to add some spices. I don’t do too much measuring, but add about 1 and a half tablespoons of Italian spices, 1 tablespoon each of black pepper and onion powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 cloves of garlic.

(Mike sits sneaking a peak at what is happening in the kitchen)

Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for as little or as long as you would like. The longer you cook the stock the better because it will help bring out all of the flavour.

Strain out the bones and vegetables.

And that's it. Your stock is done. This will serve as the base for your soup.

At this point, you can take that stock and freeze it so you can use it later. Even freeze it in ice cube trays for use in stir frys and other recipes.

Now it's time to start the soup.

You will need:

8 to 10 cups of turkey broth

2 carrots chopped

2 stalks of celery chopped

1 1/2 cups of frozen corn

2 cups of chopped cooked turkey (white or dark meat or both)

1 teaspoon of italian spices

1 teaspoon of thyme

1 teaspoon of curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups of egg noodles

In a large pot on medium heat, combine turkey broth, carrots, celery, corn, turkey and spices. Bring to a boil and cook until vegetables are tender. Add the egg noodles and keep on heat until noodles are cooked.

Now you have soup! I would have added white kidney beans if I had some at home and you can substitute rice or potatoes for the noodles.

I hope this makes you see leftovers in a different light! You can do this with anything, chicken, pork, ham, fish, and everything in between. Be grateful for the access to all of the resources and amenities we have because not everyone is so lucky.

In the end, it is important to not only recycle your waste but also to reduce your waste wherever possible. So this week, make it a point to be ‘good to the last drop.’ Enjoy!

Life's Moments

Oh and don’t forget to enjoy every one of life’s moments…

 Have a great week!