Obviously I wanted to go snowshoeing, but there was a little music festival in town and rob wanted to catch a bluegrass band. So we compromised and snowshoed to the pub for the shows. It ended up being a lucky night for us! Because of the snow, many bands couldn't make their shows, so it turns out that they picked our venue to pack in the people who could make it. So we saw some bands we weren't expecting to, but also our bluegrass band we were excited about (2 banjos and a mandolin and one of the guys was from Smiths Falls woooo!).
I won a CD by being bold and solving a riddle that's been around the elementary schools for years, and so we are the proud owners of You and Me's first full length album. Here is their myspace with more songs, if you in a mellow mood. My favourite song isn't online, but you get a pretty good idea about them from their sites. They were really sweet and kept taking pictures of me and rob in our snowshoes on our way home and sitting with them in the pub.
So that was nice. Um, other than that I am working towards a strict deadline for my thesis coming up soon. There have been a few sleepless nights and one episode of "active sleep", telling me I'm not sleeping enough and also I'm stressed out. Rob told me yesterday that the night before he had woken up to me on my kneed kind of pawing at a sliver of light on the wall above our headboard. Ha ha whoops! Apparently he told me everything was alright, I asked him if he was sure, he said yes and so I settled back down for the night. Ha ha! sigh.
At least it wasn't like the time I woke up and could not for the life of me figure out who Rob was. I remember staring at him in the moonlight and thinking "now why in the hell am I here and who IS this person?". Classic! Actually, I'm not the only woman in my family to do this, so it's genetic :-) Anyway, you will be relieved to know that I finally figured it out (that night, don't worry) and felt much relief myself.
In pointless "news" my other goal has been to empty out the deep freezer and unplug/sell it. We've been making headway an have about 5 bags of cider and another 5 or so L of grape juice along with some bags of tomatoes and herbs and greens. Not too much. I'm hoping that soon we can transfer what we have into our fridge freezer and make this place a zillion times more energy efficient.
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I have thinking about priorities and what I can do to be more green. Likely form the outside it seems like I'm out of control green already, but really we bag plastic within plastic, use saran wrap, have a half empty deep freeze and a half empty fridge freezer etc. Also I want to figure out what our priorities in terms of buying green/organic are in this stage of our lives. I think I will aim for the following:
1. buy regular toothpaste, save the extra $4 from the natural stuff for food
2. always buy eco soaps and detergents. Water quality is a big deal and it's not particularly expensive
3. Turn off the deep freeze, sell it and when needed, but an energy star one, kept FULL
4. Only heat up the water 'll use in the kettle
5. Buy bigger quantities of stuff i.e. larger rolls of wax paper to reduce the waste of packaging, the internal rolls, those metal toothy bits etc. I already get the double roll TP for this reason.
6. Use the laptop and share the laptop to minimize time desktop is plugged in for energy savings. Turn off the PC when not in use all the time.
7. When I buy produce, make a big effort to buy canadian, and leave the american stuff behind.
8. Invest in some lids for my glass bowls (or get some sets) and permanently retire the saran wrap/use my canning jars for storage all the time
9. I'm kind of at a loss for more right now!
Definitely leave any suggestions in the comments, I'd love to hear them. Little habits lead to better habits and it's a good thing. I don't want to get complacent or think that I don't have to stretch or push myself more than I do.
Aaaaaand that about wraps this up! Today is a library and bulk barn day, so yay on that. Wish me luck writing non-crap ;-)
later gaters
4 comments:
*tip!*
Loblaws sells some really good quality glass bowls with lids - lots of sizes and decent prices (compared to Home Hardware). Plus they are oven safe!
~Carolyn
I've just recently switched from ziploc bags to glad/tupperware sandwich containers for freezing meats and things. I figure that as long as I'm not defrosting them in the containers it should be safe enough and I was getting sick of tossing so many ziploc bags. Obviously you won't be buying the value pack of chicken thighs but I'm sure it would work for other things too.
New (used) laptop is helping me save the earth as well, one watt at a time... plus it's fun :-)
yay, it worked this time! For the past couple of weeks I haven't been able to comment for some reason. Persistence pays off!
thanks for the tip carolyn! that's perfect.
Alan, I had no idea you were having troubles commenting, it's great to have you back.
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