Merry Christmas

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt, via flickr

This photo looks as peaceful as I'd like to feel right now. We're pretty busy with last minute holiday crafting, baking and visiting. I thought I'd pop in and wish a quick "Merry Christmas" to everyone who takes the time to read this little blog. We're looking forward to a festive holiday and I hope you are too!

Love Birds

When we were planning our January wedding I enlisted the help of my mom and sisters to make hundreds of bird ornaments to hang from our centerpieces. We decorated the entire hall with nothing more than twigs, birds and candles. It was very simple and pretty.

We've been using them as Christmas decorations ever since.

Congratulations and best wishes to my sister, Katie and her boyfriend, Chris, who got engaged in Boston last night! Katie, when you need hundreds of handmade decorations, you know I'm here to help!

Home Made Holidays

Last year I asked my wood loving husband to make our little guy a play kitchen. I had seen some cute ones and thought maybe he could whip up something rustic and simple. I was floored when he showed me this:

He used live edged oak and walnut, both from fallen trees that he found and had sawn up. The walnut came from our yard - it fell during a wind storm the year we moved in. The sink is made from a curved pipe and a dog dish. The knobs and burners are sliced branches.

It's been almost a year, and he still "cooks" in his kitchen every day. I'm pretty jealous of his countertop - wouldn't that be cool in a real kitchen?

The Windowfarm Project

As a conventional organic gardener, I think canning and freezing are great, but isn't fresh food so much better?

Photo via flickr

Check out the Windowfarm Project at windowfarms.org to learn how you can supplement your meals by growing fresh fruits, veggies and herbs year round. The Kickstarter project, founded by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray, is a grassroots effort to put homemade hydroponic vegetable farms in windows throughout New York City and beyond. The group was recently featured in Ready Made Magazine and is working to develop themselves as a non-profit organization.

Photo via flickr

Plans are are free and available on the group's new website. The materials needed to create a window farm are cheap and as you can see, largely recycled. For those who are not inclined to tinker with plastic bottles and tubing, the group promises that kits are coming soon.

image via windwofarms.org Photo by Sydney Shen

I'll leave you with a snippet from their website:

The Windowfarms project broaches both immediate urban agriculture goals as well as a far-sighted shift in attitudes toward the green revolution. We are both starting a windowfarming craze in cities worldwide and hoping to accelerate the pace of sustainable design by having ordinary citizens think of themselves as innovators...

Few other projects provide opportunities for such direct personal involvement, make this productive use of existing construction, or so directly target urban dwellers estranged from agricultural issues.

I find them to be beautiful, functional, and pretty inspirational. What do you think?

The Christmas Tree Debate

The Real Deal vs "Old Fakie"

Photo via flickr

Growing up, our family flip flopped. We'd cut a huge tree one year, buy one the next and then haul out a sad, short old artificial one the year after. I think that with four kids, my parents just went for convenience.

Since moving out of my parent's house, cutting and decorating a real Christmas tree has become my guilty holiday pleasure. I love the smell of the pine and the glow of the lights, but some years I just haven't been able to justify the death of a tree for my (brief) benefit. I know that this is silly - they grow them for this purpose, but it still feels wasteful to me.

Photo via zimbio.com

I saw a TV special once where they showed the Rockefeller Center tree from start to finish. Apparently they send scouts out to scour the country and find the most perfect looking pines. This one was in a family's yard. The family talked about all of their great memories with the tree and showed old photographs with Gramps posing with the tree as a young boy. It had sentimental value. They were still excited to send it to New York.
I wonder, do they miss it?


photo via escobarshighlandfarm.com

Wondering if we should consider going fake to spare innocent carbon reducing trees, I did some research and found my guilt to be misplaced. I read several articles, but this one was my favorite (when the writer starts out comparing trees to breasts, you know you've got something). The greenest option is, as you would expect, to buy a live tree and then plant it. Buying from a local tree farm is second best, but still guilt-free shopping.



Oh, I feel so much better!

How Safe are Your Products?

Do you ever wonder if your shampoo is going to give you Cancer?

Now that I have a child, I think about that kind of stuff all the time. Though it's become a bit controversial, I trust the findings of the Environmental Working Group's website called the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database.

I discovered this website recently and was surprised to find that many of the products I'd carefully chosen for my family were not as safe as they had seemed. For example, my Herbal Essences shampoo is no safer than my 2 year old's Burts Bees wash (great to know after using it for 2 years almost exclusively). Other finds were not so surprising: Self tanners are terrible as are the most common sunscreens (stay away from Coppertone!). Regular body lotions are also pretty awful, with many containing ingredients that have been known to cause Cancer.

The website makes it clear that they evaluate products based on the ingredients contained in them, and not the products themselves. They are also careful to say that an individual's reaction will be based on their level of exposure to the ingredients and their individual susceptibility. Like every other resource out there, the Cosmetic Safety Database offers useful information. As consumers, it's our job to educate ourselves and then use our own brains to figure out how to apply it to our lives.

Based on the findings from this site, along with my own experience, I would like to recommend the following products as safe and useful:

Badger Balm Lip & Body Balm (yum!)

California Baby Aromatherapy Bubble Bath (it's not just for the kiddos)

Earth Mama Angel Baby Pregnancy Pampering Kit (they also make wonderful and completely safe baby products)



Aquarella water based nail polish (because regular nail polish is about as toxic as you can get)

I haven't yet found a lotion that I feel good about, so we've been using a jar of coconut oil. We have to warm and melt it in our hands first, but it works just as well as anything and smells delicious!


Check out your products at the Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database and see what you think.

Face Stamped

This is why we should all buy non-toxic toys from companies we trust...

He was working so quietly. I should have known...


Thank you, Melissa & Doug!

Not a Cup, But a Cow

What do you buy for the person who already has everything?

How about buying for someone who has much less instead?

Heifer International helps families around the world achieve self-reliance through the gift of livestock and training. Their mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and to care for the earth.

Here is a brief history of the organization, taken from their website:

A Midwestern farmer named Dan West was ladling out rations of milk to hungry children during the Spanish Civil War when it hit him.

“These children don’t need a cup, they need a cow.”

West, who was serving as a Church of the Brethren relief worker, was forced to decide who would receive the limited rations and who wouldn’t – literally, who would live and who would die. This kind of aid, he knew, would never be enough.

So West returned home to form Heifers for Relief, dedicated to ending hunger permanently by providing families with livestock and training so that they “could be spared the indignity of depending on others to feed their children.”

Dan West's idea has now changed the lives over 8.5 million people

In 1944, the first shipment of 17 heifers left York, Pennsylvania, for Puerto Rico, going to families whose malnourished children had never even tasted milk. Learn about the cowboys who brought cows and kids together. Why heifers? These are young cows that haven’t yet given birth – making them perfect not only for supplying a continued source of milk, but also for supplying a continued source of support. That’s because each family receiving a heifer agrees to “pass on the gift” and donate the female offspring to another family, so that the gift of food is never-ending. This simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief caught on and has continued for over 60 years. Since 1944, Heifer has helped 8.5 million people in more than 125 countries.

Heifer International will even help you create a card to accompany your gift. Please consider giving the gift of livestock this year. It's more than a gift, it's a solution.

Natural Flea Control

I hate to admit it, but it looks like our dog, Lulu might have fleas. We can't see any, but she's been scratching a lot, so it's time to do something.

I know many dog owners who regularly use the reliable, chemical based flea control systems (you know, the ones with marketing budgets large enough to put out TV commercials). We're not fans of pesticides, especially in or around our home, so we're trying a different approach.


After consulting with this book I sliced a couple of lemons, poured some almost boiling water to cover, and then left it to sit for 24 hours.

Now I just have to give Lu a bath and then massage the strained liquid into her fur.

According to this article at eartheasy.com, fleas dislike the taste of garlic and brewer's yeast and will stay away from dogs who consume them. They have other recommendations too, but this sounds like a good place to start. I'll let you know how it goes...


Please consult with the article before trying any of our plans with your pets. Amounts vary based on the size of your dog and the treatments for cats are very different (garlic is toxic to cats, for example).

Real Beauty

Photo via NOW.org

Who doesn't love the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty ads? I've never understood how people were supposed to believe that any product could make them look like Halle Berry in the Revlon ads. Even Halle herself doesn't look that good.

So I was happy to come across this article, titled Point, Shoot, Retouch and Label? from the New York Times. According to the article, a 47 year old French mother and Parliment member named Valérie Boyer has proposed a law that would require all digitally altered photographs used in advertising to be labeled as retouched.

The article includes a picture of Boyer, and I can assure you she's not just some bitter slouch looking to stick it to the pretty women of the world. She's on a mission to put some truth back into mass media advertising. The issue is pretty controversial (read the article to see what other pros think about it) and a law like this wouldn't solve all of the problems associated with the media and body image, but it seems to me that it would be a big step in the right direction.

Note: I'd love to upload the video on this page here. Not sure how, but it's a must see!

Alternative Holiday Shopping

Every year around this time the local churches pass around a box full of beautiful handmade items from around the world. They sell them at the local craft fairs and during coffee hours after church services during the advent season. I always find a few treasures and then get on the website to see what else is out there. This year SERRV is celebrating its 60th year of "eradicating poverty where it resides by providing opportunity and support to artisans and farmers world wide".

I bought this Indonesian pin last week. I haven't decided if I'll give it away or keep it for myself.

Here's how SERRV describes their work:

Our work encompasses more than just buying and selling.
We offer prepayments so our partners can sustain their business.
Create new designs so they can build their markets.
Teach new skills so they can develop their craft.
Provide grants so they can expand their resources.

We support equal rights for women.
Guide sustainable development.
And of course, pay a fair wage.

For 60 years, we have worked on behalf of the world’s Artisans and Farmers. One of the first alternative trade organizations in the world, SERRV is a founding member of the World Fair Trade Organization (formerly IFAT) and a founding member of the Fair Trade Federation (FTF).

This just went into my shopping cart. One of those church ladies snatched it up before I could!

And this - genius!


SERRV items are unique and I always feel good about my purchases. It's a win-win-win!

Bac Away

photo via lesliebeck.com

Recent studies have shown that cinnamon essential oil is antiseptic and that even at low concentrations, it is effective in killing several forms of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Read about cinnamon and other essential oils at the Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog.

Winter's Secret Beauty

Snowflakes are amazing. It's not often that we see them looking so perfectly shaped and independent of each other.

Today we enjoyed our first snowfall of the season. There's something magical about that first dusting of snow. It always fills me with wonder.

Did you know there is actually a Field Guide to Snowflakes? It's written by physicist Ken Libbrecht, who also authored The Snowflake: Winter's Secret Beauty. The science behind snow is fascinating and the pictures are stunning.