Happy Valentine's Day!

Cards, Flowers, Boxes of Chocolates, etc.. All are very common gifts you get on Valentine's Day. What did my husband do? A card and flowers, but more than that he put some thought into it. 

Check out the personalized e-card I received today:

A little thought goes a long way! 

Happy Valentine's Day from Captain Planet herself,

Dawn 

XOX

Challenge: Water Bottles

How many times when you are at someone's house do you ask for a glass of water and they hand you a water bottle? Why? Convenience.

What is so hard about pulling a jug of water out of the fridge and pouring a glass of water?

I know New Year's resolutions are behind us, but why not take the time to succeed a different mini challenges throughout the year (this way we aren't disappointed when we don't achieve our Resolution!).

I challenge you to not use a single water bottle in the next week.  

In our household, we do not buy water bottles; we use a Brita and tap water. If a guest needs to take a bottle with them we use one of those plastic promo bottles I get at every race I run. Most of the time I get it back but I don't expect to get it back nor do I need 30+ plastic water bottles with different company logos on them.

Good luck with the challenge. Let me know what you thought of it. Was it easy or difficult to achieve?

Green Memories

With all this cold winter weather we have been having, Mike and I have been taking full advantage of our Netflix membership. Which made me start thinking about movies I haven't seen in a long time.

One of my favourites as a kid... FernGully.

If you haven't seen this movie, you should definitely look it up. The movie is about a group of magical forest creatures working together to protect their home from the destructive Hexxus. The main plot also includes stories of friendship and love. Not to mention, it has to be a movie with the most direct message around the toxins and direct effects of clear cutting forests. It is a child-friendly cartoon with adult humor undertones especially from 'Batty' a witty bat that has seen the effects of human product testing voiced by Robin Williams.

This weekend if you need to cozy up on the couch and stay warm, consider FernGully as your movie of choice, it is already on my list. Have you seen it? What did you think?

Today's Green Tip

Fridge temperatures. Have you ever looked at the temperature dial in your refrigerator? Ours looks similar to this one:

(Picture taken from Google images)

Of course, your first instinct is to switch it to normal without a second look. Instead, I decided to put a thermometer in the fridge to measure what the 'normal' temperature is. Is it the ideal temperature or just half way from warmer to colder?

In the end, the 'normal' temperature is too cold. So we kept moving the dial warmer until the thermometer continuously read between zero and four degrees Celsius.

In doing so, we will be able to save money on our electricity bill by not pumping unnecessary cold air into our refrigerator. All you need to do is go out and buy a thermometer and ensure the temperature is between zero and four degrees. Warmer than this, you run the risk of spoiling food and if it's colder you could spoil food by freezing it. We have repeated these steps for our freezer as well.

Sunday Food Prep

On a snowy winter weekend, I tried to find everything possible to stay indoors. We settled for catching up on the DVR, starting some DIY projects with the materials we have on hand, and jumping into the kitchen.

I follow a tonne of blogs and most of them include some Sunday food preparation techniques. Over the last few weekends, Mike and I have been working on a routine for our food preparation.

Today I think we finally got the right routine down pat. We started with our meal plan for the week:

The meal plan led to our grocery list and off we went with Starbucks in hand.

Once we got home, we started on bread for our sandwiches for the week. A bread maker makes the job really easy. It starts with water and yeast to do a little work, add the rest of the ingredients and 3 hours later you have bread.

 After we got the bread maker running, I put some eggs in a pot to be hard boiled, started another pot for oatmeal, cut up vegetables and cheese.

 The end result is a fridge full of prepared foods, all ready to eat.

It makes for a great week of healthy food to eat without having to spend a lot of preparation time during the week. It doesn't even eat up your whole day. We started creating out menu and grocery list at 2 pm and by 5:30 pm all the of the preparation including dinner for the evening was ready.

Do you have any food preparation tips?

Today's Green Tip

Using the oven? Use the light to look through the window rather than opening the door to check on something. Every time you open the door you lose 10-15 degrees of heat. It likely won't disrupt the cooking cycle of your meal, however your oven will continually have to work to increase the oven back to temperature. 

Making the Most of It

For those of you that live in Ontario, Alberta, Quebec, or a northern state, you can probably still feel your bones defrosting from these frigid temperatures. With the -40 degree temperatures we have had the last couple of days, all of the precipitation we have been getting just keeps turning to ice.

That all being said, sidewalks are like ice rinks right now, but the dog still needs to be walked! So instead of getting frustrated and maybe not taking the dog out.. we decided to have some fun! Mike and I got all bundled up and instead of our planned walk we took a bit of a 'skate' through the neighbourhood. Rocco was leading us every step of the way.

I felt like that little boy in the Christmas story all bundled up in my snow suit and just had some fun like I was a kid again. It really does help alleviate the stresses of life to just let loose and have some fun. A study in the Psychological Science suggests that holding a smile on one's face during periods of stress may help the heart and just genuinely makes you feel better!

Have you had a kid moment recently?