Spice Cupboard

So in my humble little abode, I don't have a pantry just two doors of the cupboards that serves as my pantry/spice cupboard. The 50 things book inspired me to clean it out and sort - OH MY STARS!! Many out of date things in the back. happy to say it is now clean, organized, and all within save to use dates! When was the last time you cleaned out your pantry? Perhaps today is your day!

VHS Purge

So I read the book Throw out 50 Things by Gail Blanke. Quite a good read - discusses more than just your physical clutter. I like the mental and spiritual clutter aspect. Of course, my example is a physical thing but I have finally purged the majority of my VHS tapes. Yikes. As I still have one functional VCR I kept a handful of old favorites. However, I easily am donating 50 tapes (though according to her system they would only count towards one item, oy vie!) Don't judge me by my movie collection - okay, go ahead you know you will anyways!

It's a small world!

Okay, so while you are humming that lovely little diddy in your head - here is proof that it truly is a small world. I sent a Christmas card out too one of my favorite former teachers along with all the other cards I mailed out. All cards were delivered to my local post office. Keep in mind this post office is located only two miles from the card's destination. Okay, so that is the set up info. Yesterday, I stopped to pick up my mail and I get a real card from Mrs. A. I'm thinking - Cool! I open the envelope to pull out another envelope addressed to Mrs. A - I'm now a bit confused. I pull out of the second envelope my envelope and Christmas card and a sheet of paper - now I'm really confused - why is she sending me back my card?!? Then I find the note she wrote on the back of my card and I read the sheet of paper. Here is the gist. My card which was addressed completely correct was delivered to some random town in Georgia. (Several states away!) The lady who received it sent it back to its rightful destination. Now here is the crazy small word part. While this lady resides in Georgia now, she grew up one town over from us and has a family that lives no more than three miles from me, the post office, and Mrs. A. WHAT!!!!!!! Crazy right! I am still chuckling! How does this craziness happen! FYI - this is not meant to be a slam on the USPS - I love them! I love sending real mail, I love receiving real mail. No entity is perfect and this minor harmless error has generated a crazy but wonderful story!

A long time coming....

so do I continue or send this lovely blog to the graveyard of abandoned blogs, hmm, I may try over this summer to find a passion for blogging again, but if not, I will just send it on its merry way.

Cat Lady Confessions

I often try to fight this moniker, I mean, I only have two cats. Okay, so I trap, neuter, and return barn cats....and I feed the barn cats, but still - I am far too cool to be a cat lady - plus, I like dogs too! Then I have a moment where all I can do is shake my head and confess, yes, I am a cat lady. It is like those awful "you know your a redneck when" jokes. Yep, you know you are a cat lady when you have one cat at the head of one side of the bed and another at the foot of the other side of the bed, so you squirm in at a diagonal so you don't disturb the kitties. I hang my head in shame.

Preparations for Tortur, ah, I mean Relaxation.

The Oatmeal Face Mask and the Banana Hair Mask (looks all smooth and innocent doesn't it.)

Misadventures in Natural Beauty

Tuesday looked to be a relaxing evening - the house is clean, basic to do list is done. So I thought, you know, it IS winter - perhaps I should do a hair mask and a face mask to control the frizz and dry skin. Inspired idea, don't you think. I had honey, I had oatmeal, I had a banana, and I had a free evening. Turns out these are not only the ingredients to recipes for natural beauty treatments, they are a recipe for disaster. (Ha ha, do you like how I set that up.) I was feeling pretty mellow just at the thought of a long, hot pampering bath - so rather than blend or food process the hair mask, I thought it's just a banana, a fork will do. Oh, how wrong I was.

I run the bath water, add a little salt to it to add to the natural beauty treatments, I settle in with my little concoctions and a book nearby. I slather my hair with the mixture of one banana and approx. a tablespoon of honey, cover with the shower cap to lock in the juices. I then apply my face mask of oatmeal and honey (1/4 a cup to a dollop - I know but it would have required more washing to measure) I set the timer for twenty minutes and lean back with my book and relax. Ahhhh.

Beep Beep Beep. Okay, stand up switch to shower mode, first wash off crusty oatmeal, check - no problem here - just mentally preparing to clean the goo off the shower floor before in cements. Next, remove shower cap - thoroughly rinse so no stray banana bits cause a future moldy surprise, check, again no problems. Lastly, prepare to rinse out hair mask in order to have the lovely conditioned hair the recipe promised - Danger! Danger! Here is when the lack of food processing makes itself known. First, the water started a little to hot - great, bake a few pieces of banana, wonderful. Wait - where did all these tangles come from? Crap! Fast forward to nearly forty minutes in the shower picking mini chunks of banana from my head, enough hair pulled out from tangles to form a sculpture of a pet hamster (I shall name it Hairold - ha ha, nerd). What is a girl to do. Well I will tell you. At the forty minute mark, this girl decides to get out, let hair dry the brush out dry flakes of leftover banana (which HAS to be easier than the wet version) and shower again in the morning. So Lesson here - it is worth it to dig out the food processor.

CONFESSIONAL TIME: This is a review lesson - I had the exact same experience minus the hamster sculpture with an avocado mask earlier this year. Great treatment when run through the food processor, new torture method when not.

More suggestions

I added to the list

7. _Are You There, Vodka, it's Me Chelsea_ by Chelsea Handler get the audio - it is a bit raunchy here and there but laugh out loud funny


8. _Kite Runner_ & _A Thousand Splended Suns_ by Khaled Hosseini

9. _Cutting for Stone_ by Abraham Verghese ** <3 This one I loved - checked it out from the library - but may have to buy it for my collection.


10. _The Art of Racing in the Rain_

All good reads.

Books Read in 2010!

At the beginning of 2010 I set the resolution of reading a book a week for the entire year to renew my passion of reading. While I did not completely attain this goal - I did read more books than weeks in the year so I feel overall it was a success. I have had many people ask if I had kept a list of what I read and if it was going to be posted. I had not but decided it was a worthwhile endeavor so instead of a book this last week, I complied the list. The order is loosely based from last to first but not completely. I am posting originally in facebook than copy/paste in a couple different formats, so if it looks weird in other formats than I apologize. (FYI a _ at the beginning and end of a title counts as underline in FB.) I don't recommend every book I read and some I LOVED! The following symbols will denote a very loose recommendation system: * good read **very good read <3 I loved it -READ IT! #audioversion. At the end a few books I love that I read prior to the beginning of the year. So here goes......



Non-Fiction

1. _Food Politics: What Everyone Needs to Know_ by Robert Paarlberg

2. _A Big Little Life: A Memior of a Joyful Dog_ by Dean Koontz *

3. _Beyond the Rat Race_ by Arthur Gish *

4. _The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything_ By Ken Robinson, Ph.D w/ Lau Aronica **

5. _The Geography of Bliss_ by Eric Weiner

6. _Beyond the Board_ by Doug Brown #

7. _Harvest for Hope: A Guide to Mindful Eating_ by Jane Goodall w/ Gary McAvoy & Gail Hudson **

8. _Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking_ by Malcolm Gladwell **

9. _The 50 Best Ways to Simplify Your Life_ by Pattric Fannanig(can't read my writing here - not certain about this spelling) & Heather arras Mitchner

10. _The Story of Stuff_ by Annie Leonard **

11. _Life on the Mississippi_ by Mark Twain * #

12. _Leavings: Poems_ by Wendell Berry <3 (Not sure where poetry fits category wise but WB's poems seem non-fiction like.)

13. _Shift Your Habits: Save Money, Save the Planet_ by Elizabeth Rogers

14. _Possom Living: How to Live Well w/o a job & with (almost) no Money_ by Dolley Freed

15. _Everthing I Need to Know I Learned from Children's Books: Life Lessons from Notable People in All Walks of Life_ by Anita Silvey <3

16. _Loot: The Battle over Stolen Treasures of the Ancient World_ by Sharon Waxman **

17. _The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closet, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, & Generally Have More Fun_ by Gretchen Rubin <3

18. _I Am America (and So Can You!)_ by Stephan Colbert **

19. _Animals Make Us Human_ by Temple Grandin & Catherine Johnson ** #

20. _How Starbucks Saved my Life: A Son of Privelage Learns to Live Like Everyone Else_ by Michael Gates Gill **

21. _Mennonite in a Little Black Dress_ by Rhoda Janzen

22. _Give a Little: How Your Small Donations can Transform our World_ by Wendy Smith <3

23. _Have a Little Faith_ by Mitch Albom **

24. _Eating Animals_ by Jonathan Safron Foer **

25. _Making Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art_ by Thomas Hoving

26. _A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders & Their Quest to See it All_ by Luke Dempsey <3

27. _See Me After Class: Advice for Teachers by Teachers_ by Roxanna Elden *



Now to my perfered reading style, FICTION



1. _Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close_ by Jonathan Safron Foer * #

2. _Gourmet Rhapsody_ by Muriel Barberry

3. _ The Knitting Circle_ by Ann Hood *

4. _Faithful Place_ by Tana French ** #

5. _Bad Blood_ by John Sandford

6. _Her Fearful Symmetry_ by Audrey Niffenegger #

7. _Ape House_ by Sara Gruen

8. _ Wicked Appetite_ by Janet Evanovich <3

9. _Jane Slayre_ by Charlotte Bronte & Sherri Browning Erwin

10. _Prayers for Sale_ by Sandra Dallas **

11. _The Bonesetter's Daughter_ by Amy Tan * #

12. _The Help_ by Kathryn Stockett *

13. _The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner_ Stephanie Meyer <3

14. _The Elegance of the Hedgehog_ by Muriel Barberry <3

15. _An Unaccustomed Earth_ by Jhumpa Lahiri ** #

16. _The Lost Recipe of Happiness_ by Barbara O'Neal *

17. _Marker_ by Robin Cook *

18-38. The entire Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich <3 (Great guilty pleasure reads!)

39. _Dead Watch_ by John Sandford **

40. _Every Last One_ by Anne Quindlen <3

41. _Oh My Stars_ by Lorna Landrik <3

42. _The Puzzle Lady vs. Sudoku Lady_ by Parnell Hall

43. _The Shadow of you Smile_ by Mary Higgins Clark *

44. _ish_ by Peter Reynolds <3, _Oh, the Places You Go_ by Dr. Suess <3, _Where ther Once There Was a Woods_ by Denise Flemming <3

45. _Beatrice & Virgil_ by Yann Martel *

46. _Run_ by Ann Patchett <3

47. _Oolong Dead_ by Laura Childs

48. _The Woods_ by Harlan Coben <3

49. _ Jane Eyre_ by Charlotte Bronte <3

50 _Rough Country_ by John Sandford *

51. _The House of Sand & Fog_ by Andre Dubas III

52. _Heat Lightning_ by John Sandford <3

53. _Loving Frank_ by Nancy Horan

54. _Take My Heart_ by Mary Higgins Clark *

I also read a lot of Amanda Quick/Jayne Krentz - guilty pleasures that I didn't count in the list because so simple of reads.



Whew - obviously I love a lot more fiction!



Other Selections to Consider



1. Some of my guilty pleasures are of course Mary Higgins Clark - can't go wrong there

2. I have enjoyed the Virgil Flowers series by John Sandford - all are listed above except for the first _Dark of the Mood_ which I listened to the audio version - very good

3. _Water for Elephants_ by Sara Gruen - I love this book

4. _Angry Housewives Eating BonBons_ by Lorna Lardvik enjoyable lighter read

5. Classics to revisit (on the female side) _My Antonia_ by Willa Cather, _Pride & Prejudice_ by Jane Austen, _Gone with the Wind_ by Margaret Mitchell (and of course _Jane Eyre_)

6. _The Life of Pi_ by Yann Martel



Over 81 books in one year! Yeah! I hope you enjoyed this list and go get reading

Best Friend to the Rescue!

One of my BFFs came over for dinner tonight. She brought some locally made veggie burgers she purchased from her farmer's market. I provided a salad featuring - wait for it - purslane(!) and a taboule salad. Lot's of fresh from the garden. Then my dear sweet friend offered to buy me an ice cream cone - yummmm! Itch successfully scratched. We walked up to the local ice cream shop/pizzeria. I had a wonderful Peanut Butter Crunch and she had Cake Batter. Good times. However, is it cheating when someone else buys me something because they read a sad, pathetic, self-pitying blog post? Hmmm...well - I refuse to feel guilt it was tasty.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!

So 11 days into the no groceries experiment, I have been hit with a serious craving for ice cream. Ugh. It is the first thing I have wanted to spend to money on since the experiment began. Oh, did I mention I am trying not to spend any extra money during the month too. I have put gas in the car and I had to buy cat food (can't starve the poor kitties) otherwise not a cent spent. (Hee hee.) However, this ice cream thing may derail me....or I go visit my mom and see if the freezer is stocked?

Purslane

Today I found out that a weed in my garden is the best plant source of Omega-3 and antioxidants! Super. I was blackberry picking with my book club (feel free to read last years post of this tradition - I learned my lesson though, I avoided stickers and poison ivy!) Anyway, one of the wise women of the group shared the knowledge of purslane. So we all braved a taste. I commented that this was one of the pervasive weeds in my garden. So after a long evening of commitments, I arrived home and immediately (okay, so that is a lie, after a 30 minute crash on the couch) I decided to use my favorite tool - Google- to learn more. I was a bit worried that this would be a plant that had a poisonous copycat plant. Turns out, I am a smart cookie - purslane has an evil twin, spurge. Isn't that a great evil twin name - Spurge. I mean come on say it out loud - SPURGE - it just sounds like a super villain, albeit an amazing lame and trite super villain, but a super villain nonetheless. So back to the actual story. I learn the easiest marker between the two is the evil spurge has a milky white sap if you break the stem. Well, of course I must know immediately - am I blessed with wonder plant, Purslane or the scourge of Spurge (come on, that is some funny stuff). Keep in mind at this point it is 10:20pm and very dark outside. So do I wait for morning? Bah - of course not, I grab my flashlight and head out to the garden (of course, may neighbor happens to walk out with her dog, but she already thinks I am nuts, so...) to search for the "weed" to identify. After much scientific deliberation....(yeah, yeah, I know, get on with it) I am pleased to announce I am the proud cultivator of purslane! Whoop it up, lots of healthy stuff finding its way to a dinner plate near me.

No Grocery Month

So I am going to try a little experiment courtesy of my friend, Erin. She had read about a challenge where you don't buy groceries for a month, as a way to both save some cash and clean out your pantry a bit. (Come on, we all have those boxes that get further and further into the dark recesses of the cupboard than are found years later.) So I am going to give it a whirl. Now, the good thing about trying this now, is my garden is overflowing with lettuce and a few tomatoes are starting to ripen, I should have squash, corn and beans before all is said and done as well. This is good, because I don't know that I could go a month without fresh produce, the temptation might be to much for me.

I am concerned that I am setting the bar to high with the month timeline, but hey we should always aim high, right!I don't have milk right now or eggs so it may be a semi-vegan month unintentionally. Does grocery shopping at Mom's count? Hmmm, that is something to ponder......

Chinese Spammers

I keep getting Chinese Spammer comments. Anyone else? How do you prevent that? HELP!

New Post at Last

Two months since a new post and my general lack of posting is attrocious. So perhaps sassyandgreen needs a new direction or an ending....we shall see.....

Eating Animals by Jonathon Safran Foer

Crazy good book -gives info on factory farming, family farms, vegetarianism, veganism, etc. All written in a wonderful manner. Jonathon Safran Foer has a way with words, even if you aren't vegetarian or vegan, this is a good read to better understand the perspective of those in your life who are.

A Supremely Bad Idea: Three Mad Birders and Their Quest to See it All by Luke Dempsey

Oh, I loved this book. To me it is a love story. Not your traditional boy meets girl love story (and no boy meets boy or girl meets girl). This is a story of a man and his love of several things, birding, friendship, America, and his daughters. All of this is told through anecdotes of birding. Dempsey has a witty and comical way of tying all these threads together. He stumbled into the habit of birding through the encouragement of his friends Don and Donna Graffati. The three of them make several bird specific trips through the country. Throughout the story, Dempsey gives examples of how human pursuits are jeopardizing bird species. However, this is not one of those bang you in the head ecobooks, it is more subtly told. I thoroughly enjoyed this. I know it is not the type of book everyone would enjoy (I have some friends who won't touch non-fiction at all!) but if you can handle fiction, don't let the topic of birding scare you from reading this touching (and downright funny) tale. I laughed out loud on numerous occasions...oh what a read. I am inspired to give birding a go....though not right now...frigid temps keep me inside..brr. I have included a link to Better World Books, a great place to buy book with a conscious!

www.betterworldbooks.com

photos

Here is a couple photos, I realized it had been awhile. I was inspired to make some fresh squeezed orange juice, so worth the effort. The other is my baked oatmeal in their freezer containers, the recipe is a few post below and so worth your time, it is yummy!!

I Resolve to .....

You got it, I am a big fan of the New Year's resolution! Do I always follow through? Well, I spent years resolving to lose weight and not procrastinate, let's just say, ummmm - still a struggle. Still, I am a firm believer in goals. Okay, so in general, I am an extremely goal oriented person. The only times I truly struggle with depression like issues is when I have no goals. So I am always trying to set up goals for my life. I look at the NY's Res as short term goals and sometimes jump start goals. I actually started my vegetarianism as a New Year's resolution. (Just hit the three year anniversary of that decision, yip yip!) So I have three resolutions this year. One health and consumer related and two are purposeful pursuits of favorite hobbies, that I often let slide by the wayside.

1st one, I have given up soda of any kind for the year. This means no more vanilla Coke habit. Granted, I have never been one of those, I have pop everyday at every meal and for daytime pick-me-ups, but I have been drinking more and more of it. For the longest time I wouldn't drink any soda at all, but it had crept back into habit. Soda has no real value and is wasted funds at this time, so out it goes (for at least a year, then I will re-assess.)

Goal number two: Read one book a week. Reading has been a passion of mine since before I could read myself. I have always loved the written word and the various places it can take you. I have often said, if I could find a job that all I had to do is read, I would do it in a heartbeat. (Now no comments on becoming a book editor, or critic - I said all I had to do was read, not anything else!) The problem is I am often unintentional about my reading time and then I have no time or energy. I recently realized for someone who proclaims a love of reading, I was not reading enough, I couldn't even be trusted to read the monthly book club selection (luckily that is not a requirement for the book club, I love my book club!) So a book a week, granted if I don't complete the book of the week, I may substitute with a reading of Green Eggs and Ham, hey, it's a book!

Goal number three: Letter writing - I love getting them, I love sending them, and I want to have that personal connection with my friends, so I plan on sending out a card or a letter to a friend or family member once a week. In the past, I have selected a person to send a letter a week - a friend doing a year of voluntary service in Africa, a friend doing a year vs in Seattle, a friend going through a year of chemotherapy. I even connected with an older woman at my church after a chance encounter where she talked with me about her continual struggle with grief of the lose of her husband. I made a continual effort over many months to send her thinking of you cards. Now, I am not giving this examples as a way of patting my own back, but as examples of a simple action that can have an impact. Everyone of these people appreciated the letters and I was able to forge bonds by this purposeful act. Emails and Facebook (while I LOVE LOVE LOVE them) don't have the same power as receiving a card or letter handwritten. There is a certain magic in that.

So there you go, a much longer post then I intended on my goals for the year. I plan on posted about the books, so perhaps my posting will increase. FYI, for the first week (being all of two days) I read a guilty pleasure book - Mary Higgins Clark Take my Heart. Watch for my next post about Luke Dempsey's book on birding - a subtle Eco lover book.

I relented.

Two days of poor Emmy bouncing off the plastic was enough for me to take the plastic off the bedroom window. I couldn't take it anymore. (Though it was funny!)