...where I check in on my eco-friendliness :)

Last March I blogged about ways in which this so called eco-friendly mama is, well...eco-friendly. In that same post, I also wrote about ways in which I was hoping to improve upon my eco-friendliness.
Here is my update on whether I achieved these "goals" and my plans for them this coming year!

1. Composting - I will start this in the spring. I already have the countertop compost pail. I will be ordering my outside compost bin from the city in which I live. I successfully started a compost bin. I have a large outdoor compost placed next to our garage and I have a small countertop pail for the kitchen. Things have slowed down a bit now that it is colder outside but I still throw food scraps in the bin. Unfortunately our newspaper (we only get the Sunday paper) uses way too much colored ink, so I am unable to compost the paper :(. I do have a bale of hay that I throw in every once in a while to add dry ingredients! This past fall when I stirred the compost I did notice that I have a thin layer of composted dirt on the very bottom! I plan on continuing to compost in 2011!

2. Installing a rain barrel. Again, I will be ordering it from the city in which I live. Not going to lie...I never got around to buying a rain barrel and installing it. BUT, my husband now works for the city and has very easy access to obtaining the rain barrel from the city's program...so in 2011, it will get done. I am adding that to his honey-do list!

3. Replacing all my plastic food storage with glass food storage containers. Done. I do have a complaint though about the lids...they are still plastic and they are horrible! They warp in the dishwasher or in the microwave (even though they claim to be microwave and dishwasher safe), so now I have issues with the lids fitting correctly. When I have extra cash lying around, I may invest in something else...not sure what though.

4. Joining a CSA (produce) for the summer/fall. Done. We enjoyed 26 weeks of fresh, local farm produce. It was fun to try out vegetables that I had always been afraid to try (rhubarb) and some that I had never even heard of (garlic scapes). While the CSA was well worth it, this coming year I have decided to not participate in the CSA again. For several reasons - 1. Even though we split our CSA with another family, we still managed to have way more produce than we could eat in one week. Often times, when we were picking up our new box, we still had produce sitting at home from the previous week that hadn't been eaten yet. Unfortunately this caused some of our produce to go bad before we could use it or give it away. I did try freezing as much as I could, but not everything was freezeable. 2. While it was nice to try out new produce, there was still stuff we received in the box that even after trying, we just didn't enjoy...and we would get it repeatedly for the next several weeks (greens, anyone?)
So what will I do in 2011? I am going to buy our produce at local farmer's markets. I have easy access to 3 farmer's markets that all occur on a different day of the week, which will allow me to purchase produce in small batches and as needed (so nothing should go bad sitting on the counter at home while waiting to be eaten). I plan on spending the same per week that our CSA cost us ($12.50 per week). Two of the Farmer's Markets are within walking distance (one is actually in the parking lot at work!). Additionally, now that I know what produce we do and don't like, I will be able to buy exactly what we need and in the quantities we need it. I can skip the produce we didn't like. After this next year, I will then make a decision about whether I want to stick with shopping the local markets, or go back to a CSA plan.

5. Purchasing more of our meat products from local farmers. We purchased a lamb last year from one of my husbands co-workers, but that was it. We do also receive a fair amount of beef and pork from my parents, who purchase a cow and pig from a local and have it butchered. We won't be buying another lamb this year, as my husband no longer has his "lamb connection", but I am looking into buying chicken locally (since we will still be getting pork and beef from my parents from time to time). I still have some research to do in this area though. Oh, and we are looking into finding a place where we can get fresh eggs!

Well, that's about it! Not too shabby! Anything I am missing and should incorporate into this coming year?
What are you doing in 2011 to become more earth-friendly?

...with Baby #2 update!

Just a quick update about our ultrasound...everything looked great and the baby is a...





BOY!

Say hi!




Which means I have some shopping to do! I will most definitely be found shopping the post-holiday sales in the near future! Because the baby is a boy...it has me rethinking the whole "reusing the nursery" scenario I posted about previously.
You see, the spare bedroom that we were going to move Elena into is blue. Yes, I was going to make my girl have a blue room. I love the color blue. Girls don't have to be all girly and pink. Blue can be girly too ;) But now I am throwing around the idea of keeping her in her room (turquiose in color and gender neutral for the most part) and putting Baby Boy in the blue room. The only problem we are running into is that Elena's crib, dresser and rocker are a dark espresso wood color and I don't like that color combo with the darker blue walls. The existing furniture in the blue room is black and white and I intended to keep it that way when Elena was moved in there. So now I may put Baby Boy in the blue room, let Elena keep her turquoise room...but do what with the furniture arrangement??? I realize this is confusing to anyone reading...I am really just thinking out loud here!
My options are to:
1.) borrow a white crib and dresser from my sister to put in the blue room for Baby Boy. Keep Elena with her dark espresso furniture in her current room and buy the toddler rail for her crib and then later down the road buy the full size bed conversion rails to convert her bed to a full size.

2.) Move Elena into the blue room and she will temporarily use the borrowed white crib until she is ready to transition to a twin bed (which we already have). Baby Boy will then get the same entire nursery that Elena has, furniture and all. A few decorations would have to be changed out because they are girly (I made them especially for Elena), but I could make something for Baby Boy so he doesn't feel left out on the homemade art!

3.)Get over my color combo weirdness and put the dark espresso crib, dresser and rocker in the darker blue room for Baby Boy. Set the twin bed up for Elena in the turquoise room and keep her in there, with no need to change out decorations.

Decisions, decisions! Who wants to make it for me???

...with our first snowfall.

Our first snow of the season was a little over a week ago. Since Elena was too small to play in the snow last year, we took her outside to play while my husband shoveled the driveway.
She loved the snow that was falling and tried to run a couple of times. She didn't even try to pick up any snow!
Here are a few photos from her first jaunt through the snow!

...where I grew a baby.

I realized the other day as I was reading thru my posts that I have neglected to mention to my blog readers that my family will be growing by one more human being, on or around May 6th, 2011. Yep, that's right, baby #2 is on the way!

So, technically I am still growing a baby...not finished yet. Still have another 21 weeks to go. Today, I am 19 weeks pregnant.

So far, I would compare this pregnancy as being pretty dang similiar to my pregnancy with Elena. I have had headaches this time around, which I didn't have with Elena.

In one week from today we will have our ultrasound to see how the baby is doing and we have chosen to find out the baby's gender as well. We found out with Elena, so we decided to find out again. Because really, if it's a boy, I have some shopping to do ;)

Once again I am looking forward to labor and delivery. I know, that sounds strange. I felt the same way with Elena too...I actually couldn't wait to experience labor! Hopefully things will go as smoothly as they did with Elena and we will be blessed with a labor and delivery that goes according to our hopes and wishes. What are the chances I will deliver on my due date again?!?! I was told by our midwife that only 4% of babies are born on their due date...I wonder how low that percentage is for mom's to deliver twice on their due date?!?!

Now that baby #2 is on the way, I have been trying to make a mental list of the baby supplies we will need. It's much different this time around, because we pretty much saved everything from Elena, so there will be no need to buy as much stuff. Baby #2 is going to be a bargain!

We will be using Elena's nursery for the new baby and Elena will be moved into a new bedroom, so there will be no need for additional nursery furniture, etc.

So far, my list consists of:
an infant carseat (we borrowed one last time but have since returned it - unless we decide to skip an infant seat and just use a convertible seat from the get-go)

new nipples for the bottles we used last time (for the sake of cleanliness!)

a few new crib sheets (Elena has 3 and they are getting a little worn)

...wow, that's all I can think of. I must be missing something...blame it on the pregnancy brain! Good thing I have another 21 weeks to think this over!

The one thing I have already purchased for baby #2 is newborn cloth diapers. I have about half of what I used for Elena (the other half I sold because they weren't my favorites) and I recently purchased more newborn sizes during a few sales I came across online. I can't wait to try out some of the new diapers that I didn't have with Elena. Here's what the newborn stash looks like so far: