Last week for class we had to do a Lifestyle Analysis project. I know.. what the hell is that? Well, we were asked to choose three areas of our life that could be monitored and where we could potentially consume less. Of the list of choices we were given, I chose electricity, garbage, and eating more efficiently. Being the closet conservationist I am (or wish to be) I was thrilled to do this project. I wish I could say the same for my family but it was a learning lesson. Fact of the matter is, a household of 7 people consume a LOT of crap.. we eat a lot of food, we throw a lot of stuff away and we use a lot of resources. I have researched sustainable living for a while now and am intrigued by it. It's not a new concept.. people were self-sustainable long before I ever set foot on this earth.
I am still working on the write-up report, but I can already see where some of the things we did really made a difference and others would need some more work. Technically water consumption was supposed to be tied into Electricity section but in our case our meter wasn't very accessible so I left that part out. Unfortunately I think it skewed our results. For example, we take a lot of showers, and it takes a good amount of electricity to heat water up. I should have turned the water thermostat down, but I didn't. We could have taken shorter showers but didn't do that either. I did however, limit my dryer use. I only ran the dryer 2 times in the 5 days of reduction (for towels because I do not want scratchy towels) as opposed to 7 times in the first 5 days of observation. I literally had clothes strung all over the house, but it really wasn't that hard of a thing to deal with. It just required a little management. We also were very diligent about turning lights off and not having them on when they weren't needed.
Eating more efficiently. What is that? Well, its reducing waste, reducing how far the food we eat has to travel, reducing packaging material, limiting meat consumption. Locavore is a trendy new word for this, and it is something I have been leaning to for a while now. I am far from doing this like I should but the awareness this little project brought me was good. I found for me that it wasn't the fact that this stuff isn't available, because I have several sources for locally raised meat and vegetables. We had our CSA this past year, Brent hunts and fishes for our own meat. And really price isn't a huge issue either. When you eat less meat you are paying less, and local meat is everywhere. A lot of times price comes into play because you have to buy a lot upfront and in our case we don't always have that to play around with. I would love to buy a pig and a cow to last us a year. If I had the space, I would raise my own meat chickens, but that is just not something that we can do. I didn't feel this portion of the project helped me a whole lot as I am pretty knowledgeable as to where to get the things that would lessen the impact, we just don't do it like we should.
Where I did see a huge change in impact was with our garbage. We monitored everything! I made a makeshift compost bin out of a trash can, My chickens have been eating better than ever! And we double check everything to see if we can recycle it. Just by doing these things we were able to decrease the volume of the trash that went to the landfill by 2/3rds. I keep a bowl by the sink for chicken scraps and one for compost and every day I empty it. I have a recycle bin upstairs now as well so paper trash from up there gets to the right place. Really this was such an easy change, it took very little effort and it made a HUGE difference.
My goal now is to be creative and see if I can reduce the other things that were monitored. I want to use a clothesline, build a real compost pile, monitor the electricity more (if not for conservation, but for the cost!). Can you see if there is anything you can limit? Maybe participate in a Meatless Monday, buy from the farmers market, hang the clothes to dry that dry fast, dry 2 loads at once, turn lights off when not using, reduce your shower by a few minutes. The fact is these things add up and it isn't too difficult to cut these things back some. Our dinner tonight was about 90% local. We had elk meat from a friend, quail that Brent shot, potatoes that came from a few towns over, and apples from an orchard that we picked yesterday. It was all so good and it was the first meal in ages where there were no leftovers and everyone loved it all.
Monday, October 24, 2011
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Decisions
This has been a pretty trying week for me. I am struggling with a lot of different things and felt I needed to make some decisions. This semester I took one more class than I had been taking the past 2 years. Previously I have been taking only two per semester but if I wanted to graduate in the spring, I had to take three. I knew this was going to be hard, but I don't think I knew how hard it would be, especially with all the other things I have going on.
I think what made this so hard to figure out what to do was the fact that I am doing extraordinarily well in my classes. But what is happening is other parts of my life are suffering. My kids are feeling the stress,my job performance is suffering, and my house is feeling pretty neglected as well. So I finally came to the decision to drop my most demanding class. This was a really tough decision and it didn't come lightly. Brent and I had been discussing for a few days what all out options could be. Could I quit my job? Would I be able to spend some time trying to supplement our income by making things to sell? Should I cut back on work even more, only work 16 hours a week? Maybe I would quit school altogether, work full time again. I even considered putting the little ones in daycare for an additional day and I would use that time just for studying. I have learned it is nearly impossible to study with kids around.
So that was it. I figured this would allow me more time at home to get some things done, still work and bring some income in, and still finish my other two classes which I am certain I will do well in. What it means is another whole year of school. Granted I will only need one class each semester so I will be able to focus on it so that will make things easier.
Even though I dropped the class, I am still going to be pretty busy. But I have some things I have been working on in my head that I want to implement. I have a little fairy vision in my head of what I want my life to look like. My life presently does not resemble that at all yet but I am really going to work on it. Hopefully it will all be blogworthy and I still have some entries to make that I haven't gotten around to.
Some of the things on my list are:
I think what made this so hard to figure out what to do was the fact that I am doing extraordinarily well in my classes. But what is happening is other parts of my life are suffering. My kids are feeling the stress,my job performance is suffering, and my house is feeling pretty neglected as well. So I finally came to the decision to drop my most demanding class. This was a really tough decision and it didn't come lightly. Brent and I had been discussing for a few days what all out options could be. Could I quit my job? Would I be able to spend some time trying to supplement our income by making things to sell? Should I cut back on work even more, only work 16 hours a week? Maybe I would quit school altogether, work full time again. I even considered putting the little ones in daycare for an additional day and I would use that time just for studying. I have learned it is nearly impossible to study with kids around.
So that was it. I figured this would allow me more time at home to get some things done, still work and bring some income in, and still finish my other two classes which I am certain I will do well in. What it means is another whole year of school. Granted I will only need one class each semester so I will be able to focus on it so that will make things easier.
Even though I dropped the class, I am still going to be pretty busy. But I have some things I have been working on in my head that I want to implement. I have a little fairy vision in my head of what I want my life to look like. My life presently does not resemble that at all yet but I am really going to work on it. Hopefully it will all be blogworthy and I still have some entries to make that I haven't gotten around to.
Some of the things on my list are:
- Make Halloween costumes. I have all the supplies needed for Taylor's and I can tell it is going to be awesome!
- Make and stick with a weekly meal list. We are wasting so much money each month because of impulse grocery shopping that it is uncalled for. This definitely needs some intervention.
- Clean my freakin house. I will be honest when I say I let it go this last month. Time for a deep clean
- Organize.. I want to be organized everywhere! Kids toys, pantry, crafts, garage.. why is it so difficult. I see so many bloggers that make it look so easy.
- Paint. We are working on Taylor's room now, I am going to make curtains this week and then we need to paint it.
- Schedule time to exercise. Now that I don't have to run out and get to class by a certain time.. Spencer and I are going to make some use of that time to go walking. I am not going to hit my birthday goal but by golly I need to get close.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Just a little note.....
.....Because things are so crazy
-chickens are laying eggs. I'm getting about 5-6 "good" eggs a week, from 2 hens
-kids are in school, Taylor and Bridget seem to like their new school and Gavin loves Kindergarten, Natalie loves being there all day
-I started school. 3 classes, more than I have taken at once since returning to school.. I feel very overwhelmed.
-Brent turned 40! I got him an awesome cake!
-Hunting season resumed. It works out well, I spend my weekends studying, he spends them doing what he enjoys.
-I'm going camping with my class for school next week. I am excited! I love my Ecology class, I am sad, its over Taylor's 11th birthday. BUT we are going to have a great time the next weekend Roller skating! I'm excited to do that too.
-Taylor=11=me getting old. My baby girl is growing up in way too many ways.
-I am maintaining my weight loss. I think by not exercising as much and by still eating well, I'm not losing or gaining and I am 100% OK with that. I am still doing my 5K in 2 weeks, even if I walk the whole damn way I'm doing it.
Now if I can keep the house in order and keep meals cooked, homework on time and maintain my sanity, I would declare it a victory. I've done this before, I can do it again. Thankfully I have a family who helps me through it.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Jess's Pizzaria
I still can't make homemade bread. I have tried and successfully failed many times. But what I have mastered.. is Pizza crust. Our family eats a LOT of pizza. More than we should. Since we quit dining out almost 2 years ago, Pizza was about the only thing we would order out or go to eat somewhere. I tried a few different ones and eventually asked my buddy Scott, if he knew of ANY good easy no-fail pizza crusts. He led me here...Mitch's basic pizza dough . I gave it a whirl and he was right.. it was fool proof. I have made this one over and over many times and its always worked out so I figured I needed to share.
According to the recipe you add the yeast to the water. I never have regular yeast because really, I don't have time for bread to rise twice, I do have a life and sometimes, I just plain don't start on dinner early enough. So, using Rapid Rise, which is what I always have on hand, you add the yeast to 1C of the flour and set the other 2.5 C aside. Then after mixing the water with the honey in my handy dandy KitchenAid mixer until the honey dissolves, I add the 1C of yeast flour to the mixer and let it stir until combined. Then I just follow the rest of the recipe like usual.
The honey is a huge part of this recipe I think. It allows the dough to be stiff enough for it not to get soggy under all the ingredients. It always comes out crispy. The other thing I like is that I can make 2 batches and it is enough to make 2 pizzas and a cheesy bread, or 7 individual pizzas and a cheesy bread. That way I can just let each person put their own toppings on or if time is tight, just make two large ones and a cheesy bread.
The other night My husband asked me to make homemade pizza and I sort of sighed, then he asked me why I wasn't flattered that they all wanted MY pizza instead of ordering out. Needless to say, I got to work.
This is what we ended up with:
According to the recipe you add the yeast to the water. I never have regular yeast because really, I don't have time for bread to rise twice, I do have a life and sometimes, I just plain don't start on dinner early enough. So, using Rapid Rise, which is what I always have on hand, you add the yeast to 1C of the flour and set the other 2.5 C aside. Then after mixing the water with the honey in my handy dandy KitchenAid mixer until the honey dissolves, I add the 1C of yeast flour to the mixer and let it stir until combined. Then I just follow the rest of the recipe like usual.
The honey is a huge part of this recipe I think. It allows the dough to be stiff enough for it not to get soggy under all the ingredients. It always comes out crispy. The other thing I like is that I can make 2 batches and it is enough to make 2 pizzas and a cheesy bread, or 7 individual pizzas and a cheesy bread. That way I can just let each person put their own toppings on or if time is tight, just make two large ones and a cheesy bread.
The other night My husband asked me to make homemade pizza and I sort of sighed, then he asked me why I wasn't flattered that they all wanted MY pizza instead of ordering out. Needless to say, I got to work.
This is what we ended up with:
Olive and cheese before cooking (For Brent and the girls)
After- You just get more pieces in a square pizza.
To make the cheesy bread, I poke holes in the crust just as I do with the pizza to keep it from bubbling up and then put a small layer of butter over it. I mix some garlic bread sprinkle into the cheese mixture which is just mozzarella and cheddar.
Who cares if it isn't round!
Turkey pepperoni for me, cheese for the boys.
A while back, when Brent was out of town with the two older girls, I made homemade pizza for me and the kidlets. Of course I made individual ones and they had a blast creating their own. I love that I was able to calculate what was on my own pizza and it actually came to just a little over 500 calories and I can NEVER finish the whole thing. To me that is way better than any pizzeria.
It was a lot of fun and the kids like being able to make their very own pizza, so if you need a recipe that is easy and pretty fool proof, then this is a great one to try.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
No pain no gain?
So approximately 3 months ago I decided to get off my butt and whip it into shape. I thought this would make me feel better and in many ways it has. I have done videos at home, some strength training and was going to the gym at least 4 times a week. I enjoyed my time at the gym a lot for a few reasons. It felt good to go work out, and I got time away just to myself. I even joined a Summer stay fit challenge and was doing really well logging my time and staying accountable. Then something happened.
I became injured. Technically I think I was already injured to a degree and the exercise aggravated it. I have worked on tile covered concrete floors for over 17 years and it has taken a toll on my feet. I had dealt with things like Plantar fasciitis before, but now It has impaired my day to day life. When I first started exercising it didn't hurt too bad and I figured it was because I had been sedentary for so many years, I expected a few aches and pains and I worked through them. Once I started running it took the pain to a whole different level.
Saturday my feet were feeling ok, so I decided to go for a run. I have even signed up for a 5K which I am so excited about. But immediately after I got home, my feet were hurting very badly. I have been icing them, stretching them.. and nothing helps. Its been 3 days and still I can barely walk without limping. I think now it is time for a visit to the Dr. I didn't want it to come to this but I don't think I have a choice.
I have so many emotions I didn't think I would have since my feet have been hurting. I MISS exercising. I hate not being able to go for a run in the mornings. I can't even enjoy a walk with the family. I am angry that I have made HUGE steps to bettering my health, including losing over 20 lbs, and now this has put a halt on what I feel has been instrumental to the process. I'm worried if I am not moving, I will stop losing. Can I lose on diet alone? I guess time will tell. I am also angry that my personal goal of running the 5K will be nearly impossible now. I went from barely being able to run 2 minutes straight 3 months ago, to running nearly a mile. I have almost 2 months before the 5K and I was sure I would be able to run the whole thing by then and now I don't think it will be possible. I am worried that going to the Dr. will lead to bad news. Do I have to stay off my feet? What about work, they hurt every night after work. Will it ultimately lead to surgery to remove the heel spurs causing so much pain? Is it really heel spurs or is it something worse?
There are so many unanswered questions and what-ifs. School starts in a couple of weeks and my "extra" time is going to be extremely limited. I can't go backwards now, not when I have accomplished so much. All I can do is hope that this isn't too serious and I will be able to stay the path I have started for myself.
I became injured. Technically I think I was already injured to a degree and the exercise aggravated it. I have worked on tile covered concrete floors for over 17 years and it has taken a toll on my feet. I had dealt with things like Plantar fasciitis before, but now It has impaired my day to day life. When I first started exercising it didn't hurt too bad and I figured it was because I had been sedentary for so many years, I expected a few aches and pains and I worked through them. Once I started running it took the pain to a whole different level.
Saturday my feet were feeling ok, so I decided to go for a run. I have even signed up for a 5K which I am so excited about. But immediately after I got home, my feet were hurting very badly. I have been icing them, stretching them.. and nothing helps. Its been 3 days and still I can barely walk without limping. I think now it is time for a visit to the Dr. I didn't want it to come to this but I don't think I have a choice.
I have so many emotions I didn't think I would have since my feet have been hurting. I MISS exercising. I hate not being able to go for a run in the mornings. I can't even enjoy a walk with the family. I am angry that I have made HUGE steps to bettering my health, including losing over 20 lbs, and now this has put a halt on what I feel has been instrumental to the process. I'm worried if I am not moving, I will stop losing. Can I lose on diet alone? I guess time will tell. I am also angry that my personal goal of running the 5K will be nearly impossible now. I went from barely being able to run 2 minutes straight 3 months ago, to running nearly a mile. I have almost 2 months before the 5K and I was sure I would be able to run the whole thing by then and now I don't think it will be possible. I am worried that going to the Dr. will lead to bad news. Do I have to stay off my feet? What about work, they hurt every night after work. Will it ultimately lead to surgery to remove the heel spurs causing so much pain? Is it really heel spurs or is it something worse?
There are so many unanswered questions and what-ifs. School starts in a couple of weeks and my "extra" time is going to be extremely limited. I can't go backwards now, not when I have accomplished so much. All I can do is hope that this isn't too serious and I will be able to stay the path I have started for myself.
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