.:: Fire The Housewife ::.

Let’s talk about Earth Day. I like the Earth, you should like the Earth too! ALSO! I’m so excited to go see the movie Oceans tonight!

Things that make me not so happy include this:

That’s a big, dead, grey whale that washed ashore in West Seattle not too long ago. I have this not-so-secret fascination with whales and this was probably one of the most sad things to happen in a while. He didn’t die of like “oops the orcas attacked another grey whale” (which has happened several times this year already) but he starved to death…and when they autopsied him they found garbage. A LOT of garbage. This whale’s stomach included a golf ball, TWENTY plastic bags, small towels, duct tape and surgical gloves. OH AND LET’S NOT FORGET THE PAIR OF SWEAT PANTS!

Mostly I just find this ridiculous, like, REALLY PEOPLE YOU COULDN’T KEEP YOUR SWEAT PANTS OUT OF THE WATER? It’s really sad!

So today…in addition to this…

We’re going to talk about the easy things I do at my house to be a little more Earth-friendly, and WHALE-friendly!

I’m not even going to bother sharing with you the recipes for these cookies, it’s the same recipe I’ve used a million times.. if you need help with your cookie baking and frosting you can go

HERE

or

HERE

As for the land pieces…SO EASY.

Just find a picture of the earth you like, use your handy dandy photo editor to flip it so it’s backwards (this isn’t 100% necessary, but I wanted the flat side to be showing on my cookies, so I did the backwards version. Just do a bunch of these up…

Let them dry! Frost and Flood your cookies, and start placing them. This seems super labor intensive, but it’s not, I probably hammered these out in like 15 minutes.

The first speech about Earth Day was made in Seattle in 1969, so I feel like it’s my duty to keep up with all the people in Seattle who are doing a much better job than myself to save the planet, but, I AM TRYING TO HELP. Here’s the little,we don’t even notice it anymore, things we do to help save the planet…

Reducing our paper towel use. This was a hard one for us, but has been a lot easier since I also switched us first to commercial Earth Friendly cleaners (and now in the process to switching to natural homemade versions, recipes will comes as I have a chance to test out recipes and see what works). We use the dish towels on the stove for drying hands and dishes, wet countertops, etc. Pretty much anything that is non-messy. The rag hanging on the knobs under our sink is exclusively for cleaning. I’d say the worst part of this is that I had to give up my cute, always neatly hanging dishtowels on the stove. Now whatever dishtowel I pull out that week (sometimes they last only a week, sometimes less, sometimes more, depends on the usage.) is what is seen for the rest of the week. OH AND ALSO, THEY GET STAINED. That’s right, I stained my cute ikea dishtowels. This was a hard transition for me. On the same token we also use all cloth napkins now!

Air Dry! I absolutely hate it when I bump into that thing and it switches to heat dry. Not only is that a HUGE energy hog but if I’ve put anything plastic in there haphazardly, it’s going to get melted. Yeah, I’ve done that to my fancy kitchen aid measuring cups.

Speaking of dishwashers! One recipe I have used, tested, and love is a homemade dishwasher detergent. It’s super super easy, you can mix it in an old dishwasher detergent bottle, and every time you refill it you can pat yourself on the back for not having the extra waste! I’m always excited to re-use instead of recycle! Plastic recycling is a bummer, while I am glad people are recycling, plastic gets worse every time it’s recycled, so, it’s a faulty system. WHEN YOU DO IT THIS WAY! You can not even bother with the recycle part and reuse instead! I’m also currently saving a couple laundry detergent bottles for my next experiment in making my own laundry soap.

I am totally supportive of making your own cleaners, cleaners are expensive and if being frugal is good for the planet, DO IT.

This is the recipe I use for dishwasher detergent, I’ve never had any problems with not-clean dishes, but I have heard you can throw a 1/2 cup of vinegar in the bottom of your dishwasher if you’re having problems…

1 cup borax

1 cup baking soda

1 cup water

1 tsp. lemon juice

mix wet ingredients together in a bowl, mix dry ingredients in a bowl, using a funnel pour wet ingredients in detergent jug, then add dry ingredients, shake well!! Oh then you have to shake it well each time you use it, BUT YOU CAN DO THIS. Trust me.

This is a multi part thing to do! 1. REUSE REUSE REUSE. I used these egg cartons as planters. 2. You’ll also notice they are the cardboard ones, which are totally recyclable. 3. I’M ALSO USING THESE TO DO STARTER VEGGIE PLANTS. Eating locally is Earth friendly!

The only trucking that will need to be done with these vegetables is me walking my butt out to the greenhouse to pick them when they’re ready. And maybe go out there to water a few times.

I think the best way to explain this picture to you is with a quote from The Boyfriend over a year ago…

Yes, it is true, that short little thing is our trashcan, the gigantic can is our recycling can. It’s nice that while recycling is not mandatory where we live, everyone does it! Our recycling dumpster is always full! Our next thing to conquer is to reduce our waste all together. I’d like to have wayyy less garbage and recycling.

Reusable shopping bags!! I definitely don’t want to contribute to the plastic bags in that whale’s stomach. This bag is always in my purse, and I’ve even really messed with the Republi-Dad by pulling it out at the small town grocery store he shops at.

Buy in bulk! The Boyfriend probably has no clue we do this. He never goes shopping. But! We buy in bulk! There is less packaging wasted this way and almost every time it’s MUCH cheaper.

The Automatic light. I’m not going to lie, the original reason for this light was because I was having to turn on a million lights to go downstairs because I’m scared of the dark. OH NO! EVERYONE KNOWS NOW. But yeah, I kind of freak out when I can’t see what’s in a room and our place stays pretty dark. But on the other hand! This is really eco-friendly! We never accidentally leave the light on and we can use this one light to go from the living room to the bedroom without turning on any others.

Not every lightbulb in our house is a CFL, but we’re working on it. Awesomely, the electric company around here routinely offers free ones or trades your old lightbulbs for new CFLs, I think The Boyfriend is pretty interested in the new LED bulbs, but we’ll see…they’re pretty pricey. But yay! CFLs, we like that they’ve started making the Reveal Bulbs as CFLs because The Boyfriend and I like the kind of light they put off, so we’ll probably work towards switching to those.

And the tiniest, easiest, little thing you can do…stop drinking bottled water! We use these cups all the time, and it’s probably disgusting how infrequently we wash them. But yes! Even The Sister can handle using a plastic reusable cup.

It’s not about doing everything, it’s about doing something.

Happy Earth Day!

BUT REALLY I’M INSANE AND NEED LISTS LIKE THIS TO SURVIVE.

So, our garden. It’s on. AND EVEN THOUGH WE BOUGHT STARTER PLANTS AT A GREAT PLANT SALE THE OTHER DAY THAT THE BOYFRIEND HAS STILL NOT PUT IN THE GROUND I’M NOT FREAKING OUT AT ALL. NO. No, I’m doing a lot of other things, THINGS BESIDE FREAKING OUT. Things like adhering to this list:

I have this notebook you see, and in this notebook I have made lists for each month. Lists that tell me what plants should be started inside and what plants should be transferred outside, and which plants are just plain okay to pop in the ground outside. At the beginning of March I started by planting starters of broccoli, leeks, onion bulbs, and green onions inside. Outside I started carrots, lettuce, peas, potatoes, chives, and cilantro. I also started my other herbs, but we’ll have to wait and see what happens with those, we’ve had a few unexpectedly cold nights around here and I might have to have a do-over. We’re doing this in hopes we will have fresh herbs and veggies throughout the summer without having to purchase them from the grocery store. Whereas The Boyfriend does not eat a lot of veggies, I’d be happy living out my summers eating nothing but raw, fresh veggies.

This is a wonderful little outline that I compiled by searching the internet for sites on gardening and by using the Puget Sound Farm Guide. The farm guide is helpful in a lot of ways, it gives a “What’s Fresh” guide so I know what foods are more likely to be locally grown based on when they’re in season here. You’d be amazed at the free resources you can find when you really look.

So, back to my garden. The Boyfriend has mostly taken a liking to working on this greenhouse project in our backyard. Initially we started out with a giant PVC and plastic structure that took over the tiny plot of dirt in our backyard as well as the view from our back windows (not that it’s much of a view, we have a stone retaining wall back there…). But recently he decided to start over and built this…

I have to admit, It’s pretty nice. It actually works too. I’m pretty excited to start seeing some veggie results in there. We’ve already had some luck with sprouts…

And on the brightside, all that plastic and netting keeps those darn drunk slugs from trashing the place. SLUGS.

So, in closing, since it’s almost April, if you’re living in a climate similar to mine you might get prepped to plant:

Inside:

leeks

Outside:

carrots

lettuce

peas

potatoes

radishes

green onions

chives

cilantro

dill

parsley

and you can transplant these indoor starters outside:

brocolli

leeks

lettuce

onion bulbs

green onions

chives

cilantro

parsley

thyme

For the past few years I’ve kept a garden. It all started with a little box of dirt my friend Mark hung from my first apartment’s balcony in which I grew carrots and only carrots, then I grew just the supplies for salsa making at The Republi-Dad’s and then last year I hit the big time. The Boyfriend and I had a fair sized balcony where we grew an assortment of herbs, tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, green peppers, and onions. It was wonderful! I learned I do not love lemon cucumbers and green peppers are bitter if they’re not properly grown, but The Boyfriend had green onions fresh from our balcony garden for a good part of the summer and I was always in green beans and cucumbers. The tomatoes were another story, neither of us eat just plain tomatoes and my dreams of pasta sauce and salsa were dashed as I realized our balcony garden only provides us with about 3 romas at a time. NOT ENOUGH.

This year…oh this year. I have lived and I have learned. We have a little back yard this year which we are loving and we have spent countless weekends already cleaning it up and making it something we can be in. The first several weekends were all about the boyfriend standing outside screaming because of the giant spiders while I was curled in a ball upstairs far away from them. I HATE SPIDERS. What I hate more than spiders are slugs. Washington, in general, is full of these slimy little guys and our backyard seems to be their favorite place on earth. Yesterday I walked outside while The Boyfriend was working on our new greenhouse and noticed this…

My beautiful flowers I planted a couple weeks ago were being eaten alive but them! I immediately flipped out and made The Boyfriend pick them off of my precious flowers and then went on the warpath.

We are trying to grow an organic garden this year and I wasn’t about to ruin everything by dumping slug killer all over everything so I thought back on the book I mentioned in THIS post and remembered it suggested a tin of beer, the slugs will crawl in it, drink the beer, and drown. YOU CAN BET I WAS ABOUT TO TRY THIS. My first problem was that I didn’t want to use one of my pie tins. I settled on one of these plates The Boyfriend had from a pre-Girlfriend life

and to my surprise within just a few minutes…

As I watched this guy I noticed he wasn’t crawling in, he was just sitting on the edge, sipping my beer and enjoying himself. PARTY IN FTHW’S BACKYARD, YA’LL! No Thank YOU, SLUGGO. So, I switched to a bowl. Don’t worry, it was a plastic bowl that also belonged to The Boyfriend’s former no-girlfriend life. I noticed this morning I had caught only 1 slug, but boy was he bloated and disgusting in that bowl. I am sparing you the horror of that picture. Today I must make a trip to the dreaded Albertson’s for some grocery sales, but I think I’m going to stop by Value Village and get a pie tin that will exclusively be a slug trap.

In addition to the drunk slug trap the members of the FTHW household will be saving eggshells to crush and place around the perimeter of my flower garden (don’t worry, our veggies are safely tucked away in the greenhouse). I’ve also read that anything that is a little sharp will hurt the slug’s bellies too much for them to be able to slither over it

In closing I want you all to know that while writing this post I have freaked out multiple times because slugs gross me out big time. Thank you for your time.

So, in a recent excursion to the Elliott Bay Book Store (which is moving far, far from Elliott Bay due to the poor economy and I just needed to go back there again before they left that amazing location) I discovered this book:

Let’s talk about this book.  Basically, this is a wonderful little guide to making sustainable living more manageable and easy.  Lots of recipes and tips and ideas (we’ll be using a few of the slug deterrents in our garden this year.).  Here’s the problem.  I have always loved harsh cleaners, bleach, anything that says “KEEP AWAY FROM CHILDREN”.  But I also know that those things are bad for the environment and that if I’m going to do my part in every other way (The Boyfriend frequently uses the phrase “YOU’RE RECYCLING TOO MUCH!”), I should be doing my part with my cleaning products.  We started out small, we purchased the Clorox Green Works products, I switched a few things to Seventh Generation, then I found this book.

THIS BOOK.  This book is probably the bane of The Boyfriend’s existence.  But this book.  I love it.  Not only does it have some excellent recipes for cleaning products, but there is a myriad of  tinctures, salves, and tonics for health problems and first aid.  I love homeopathic type medicines, I frequent our local PCC so I can wander through the aisles of health products.  I am really excited to try a few of these things out.  I’ve made lists of plants and herbs I can grow in our garden that can be used for all sorts of other good things.

The book covers Health and First Aid, Non-Toxic Cleaning and Body care, and Gardening.  The author, Raleigh Briggs, made this interesting and not so harsh and scary.  I imagine if we sat down for a conversation and I told her of my secret love of makeup products and bleach she wouldn’t be mad at me, but would just give me some other options and send me merrily on my way.  She also lives in Seattle so a little part of me feels like I’m supporting someone local.  Oh! and the book is published through a smaller company in Bloomington, IN, so a part of me feels like I’m supporting the Midwest too. GO MIDWEST!  Plus at the grand cost of $7, even if you’re just mildly interested or looking for something to read it’s a pretty affordable way to go.  What I’m saying is. Go buy this book.  Read it, it’s really interesting.  Go out and buy some borax and some spray bottles and start being better for the environment.

You can buy Make Your Place via Amazon HERE

So, as most of you know I made the move to the great white north.  So far it’s been full of unpacking, settling, job finding, etc.  I did find a job by the way, because I know you were all dying to know. Doing Data Entry for a company I worked for a few years ago. The company my dad works for. The One. The Only. Goodyear.  I can’t wait!In my spare time (ha) I have been amusing myself with some cooking and planting.  Dad had planted a few tomatoes and a green pepper plant and today I planted some jalapeños and other peppers.  I can’t wait to make some salsa!  Heres my new loves:

Notice that my jalapeños already has a little tiny baby jalapeño on it.

Today I also made a delicious recipe from that Pioneer Woman website again (link to the right)  She used apricot jam with hers, but I was thinking some red raspberry jam sounded pretty lovely, so I used that instead… Notice that the kitchen is starting to look more like my own already.

Mmmm, they were tasty. I can’t wait to have one in the morning with a big cup of coffee before I start my first day of work. Perfection!

So speaking of jobs, heres a picture I took of the boyfriend with the mavica a long time ago.  It made me laugh, so heres a view for you…

This post is getting VERY VERY long, but I know you’re just loving this, just a few more pictures, including all my things on the highway, my new, box-filled room, the pretty flowers i cut from the yard, and the bad-ass TV stand my dad built.  Before long I’ll have a laptop table made in the same fashion.  So with that short explanation, here are the pictures:

(please excuse the giant crack in my windshield.)

whew, that was hefty.  I swear I won’t always be so…lengthy.  I miss you all!!