Rachel's Favorite Things

Friday, February 5, 2010

First Steps!!

Monday, February 1, 2010

One Small Change: February 2010

In January, as part of Hip Mountain Mama's One Small Change challenge, I made a commitment to bring more cloth into our daily lives and subsequently reduce the amount of paper and plastic products that we use and therefore throw away. I happily continued using my reusable grocery bags, lunch bag, and coffee cup.

I bought some reusable produce bags from Qwerty O on etsy.com. I love these bags! I think the clerks at the grocery store are somewhat annoyed (because I end up putting more than one type of produce in a bag together), but I've been really happy with the change.

Although I always used to save my plastic grocery bags when I still used them, I'll admit that I never saved the produce bags, which meant they went right in the trash. What an easy and important change to make!

We also used cloth napkins all month, and we will definitely keep up this habit! It was fun to go to my local thrift store and choose a fun and funky assortment of cloth napkins. We usually use them for a few days and then put them in the wash.

I actually didn't buy or use a single paper towel all month! (which wasn't really part of the plan...but it just ended up that way) The only time I felt the need to have a paper towel around was when heating food up in the microwave (to minimize splatter, you know), but I ended up either using a plate to cover the bowl being heated, or just let a little splatter happen.

I also purchased some cloth sandwich bags from Qwerty O's Etsy shop. It was great to buy them from this shop because they're actually sewn by her daughter who is saving all the money she makes from their sale for college!

So, I didn't actually use these great bags this month...but that's not because I was using plastic instead. I just don't really use baggies that often, and lately have been taking salads for lunch, which I don't need the bags for. But I'm happy to know that I have them to use instead of plastic baggies.

Overall, I am very pleased with the small changes we made in January.

So, for February, I'm turning towards our energy use. Actually, in January (without planning to), we turned our thermostat down three to four degrees. When Sadie slept over at her Grandma and Grandpa Peterson's house at the beginning of the month, the room she stayed in was much cooler than her room at home. And she slept through the night for the first time in months! So, we immediately turned our home's temperature to a more reasonable 66 degrees (from my preferred 69/70 degrees) and we've kept it there all month (I'll admit it's because Sadie has continued sleeping through the night and I'm convinced that's part of the reason...poor thing was just too hot!).

So...along these lines, I'd like to continue making small changes that will affect our household energy use. I plan to be more conscious about turning off lights that aren't being used. I also want to start evaluating the "vampire" power use in our home. Vampire power is the energy that small appliances use when they are plugged in, even if they are turned off. Studies have shown that this energy can account for around 10% of residential energy consumption! The easy ones to start with will be cell phone chargers, microwave, computers, and hairdryer.

I look forward to making this one small change in February!

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Adventures in Knitting

One of my very favorite things about this time of year, when the holiday craziness is over, our favorite TV shows and movies are making their way into our evenings, and the weather is cold outside....knitting of course! Oooh, I've been getting lots of knitting done lately (relatively speaking), and have to show off some of my recently completed projects.

Baby booties lovingly knit and sent halfway around the world for Baby Westwood (now we know her as Evelyn Moana Westwood, born January 7, 2010 in New Zealand). They are the Saartje Booties, found here. I used some random Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino I had left over in my stash. SO CUTE and so much fun to make. I can't wait to knit these for all the new babies that will be born to friends in the coming year. Congratulations Wendy and Nick and give that baby some kisses from her Aunt Rachel!

I'm still diligently working on these socks, knit with Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I've about had it with this yarn, but the colors are divine when they knit up, so I'm persevering. They are the Jaywalker socks designed by Grumperina and are available as a free Ravelry download.

I've recently become distracted by this project: the Shifting Sands scarf, also designed by Grumperina, which I'm knitting using Berroco's Lustra yarn. LAAAAHV! The yarn splits somewhat and takes a little getting used to, but it is so gorgeous! As its name suggests, it has the slightest hint of shine and shimmer to it. The second picture here shows the color a bit better; it's a beautiful deep berry color that I'm loving.

Just last night I was so happy to gift this hat to my dear friend Marjorie for her birthday. It's the Who? hat, which is available as a free Ravelry download, and was a fast, easy project that was fun to knit and I love the outcome. Notice the owl eyes?

And probably my very favorite project I've completed in recent months are these Bella's mittens, for which I used Berroco Peruvia. They keep my hands so warm and make me very happy.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

One Small Change: January 2010

There are a lot of blogs out there that I stumble across as I wander around the internet. Many of them are written by like-minded mamas who inspire me every day as I work to make lifestyle changes, make responsible decisions as a consumer, and raise my daughter in a conscious, natural way. I came across Suzy's blog over a year ago when we met through the Widespread Panic group on Ravelry, a social networking site for knitters. Susy lives in Colorado and goes to a lot of the same concerts and festivals that we do. Although we've talked about it a lot, we have yet to meet in person...but I'm always on the lookout for her and her knitting when I'm at Red Rocks or at the Planet Bluegrass Ranch.

Suzy owns a business called Hip Mountain Mama which sells wonderful environmentally friendly products for natural families. I was so pleased to be able to purchase some of my christmas presents from her this year.

In December I learned about a new challenge that Suzy is embarking on, and she's welcomed her blog readers to join her. The idea behind One Small Change, in Suzy's words:

"We are passionate about educating others about sustainability and passionate about building community. Our desire to create a community of individuals who want to make a positive change has led to the creation of our One Small Change project. We want to challenge each of you to make 1 change each month leading up to Earth Day (April 22, 2010). It can be small or it can be huge, but all we ask is that you decide on something you will do to make a positive green impact and follow through with it. If everyone makes 4 changes between January and April, this can have a huge effect."

Suzy now has 150 people signed up to take part in this challenge and has created a page where you can see what changes other families are making here.

I was really proud of us when I realized that many of the ideas Suzy offers for this challenge are already a part of our household: recycling, cloth diapering, making your own natural cleaning products, bringing your own bags to the store, using rags instead of paper towels to clean up messes, and using reusable lunch sacks...

However, there were several things on Suzy's list, and ideas that I gained from other bloggers who are taking part in this challenge, that inspired me to start making small changes as part of this challenge.

So, here goes...January 2010: One Small Change in the Peterson household

MORE CLOTH!

As I've blogged about before here, cloth diapering has been wonderful for us...we're so pleased with it. In light of that, I'm hoping to bring more cloth use into our household. Specifically, by using cloth napkins, cloth/reusable ziplocs, and cloth produce bags.

I'll write about our progress and February's change next month. Until then....what changes will you make in 2010?