Snack bags and garden pickings

N-man and B-man start Kindergarten tomorrow. I'm finding it hard to believe, though I suspect that's normal.

Our district only has half day kindergarten, so I don't need to worry about lunches. But they do need to have a snack every day. I asked what they wanted for their snack the first day, and they chose strawberries and blueberries (N-man) and cottage cheese (B-man). Weirdos! Anyway, since both of those need an ice pack to stay cool, I decided to make the kids a reusable snack tote, something I had in mind for a while anyway.



Here it is. A pocket for an ice pack, a place to hold a fork or spoon, and room for a small reusable container. It was pretty easy to make, and if I actually knew how to use my sewing machine, I'm sure it would have been far quicker.



Here they are all folded up. I let the kids choose their fabrics/thread, so while it might not have been exactly the colors I would have put together, they're happy with it. B-man chose the stars, N-man chose the dots. The only other thing I might do is sew a quick napkin from the remaining fabrics. Probably not by tomorrow, though...we have plenty of cloth napkins that I can just stick inside.

I've written about zero-waste lunches before. I'd really like to try to continue to pack snacks that don't have any packaging. I also have a couple reusable sandwich bags that I bought, and I think I'll try to sew a few more in different sizes. Those are good for holding snacks like crackers or goldfish. I just needed something that could also hold an ice pack so I can pack cold snacks, too.

(If anyone is curious to make one, the big square is 14" and the pocket is 8.5" by 5.5", though your sizes would be dependent upon the size of your ice pack.)

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At the beginning of the summer, I posted about our raised bed garden. It's done okay...I've been plagued with horn worms (did a number on the tomatoes, though I managed to rescue a few of the plants), deer, I think (bye bye beans, bye bye many ripening tomatoes), and drought (um, that's my own fault for not watering...lost a few bean plants that the deer had missed, and my only squash plant).

But we've still been getting stuff. Earlier in the year, the lettuce and swiss chard did great...I was able to make a couple meals with those before the weather started getting too hot. We've been getting a few tomatoes here, a couple fairy tale eggplant there, a handful of lima beans, an onion or two; nothing overwhelming, and never enough to make a side dish alone but stuff I've thrown in with other veggies from our CSA. Yesterday, though, I picked the rest of the onions and carrots, plus we had a few more cherry tomatoes. Not the biggest haul on earth, but a pretty respectable one day harvest.



Yum! While I didn't get great harvests this year, I learned a lot. Once the tomatoes are done, I think I'm going to clean out the bed, plant a few squares of garlic this fall, and then plant some permanent squares of asparagus and rhubarb in the spring, for future years. And hopefully add another box (or two, or three!) to plant more veggies next year! Maybe I can even add some kind of fencing to keep out the deer. At the very least, I'll try some kind of deer-deterrent (besides our awesome neighbor across the street who yells at the deer every time she sees them munching on our garden :).

How did your gardens grow this year?

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Green tip for the day: Of course I'm putting in another plug for zero-waste lunches and snacks.

What are your tips (or favorite products) for zero-waste lunches and snacks? I'm a fan of the little reusable glad or ziploc containers you can get at the grocery store. Perfect size for little guys! And, inexpensive so if they get lost at school, I don't have to worry. I looked at some metal containers, and the small sizes were upwards of $10 a piece! They're nice, but I think I'd worry my 5 year olds might misplace them.

Chocolate Chip Math and Terracycle

N-man and B-man can be so different. B-man is in love with all things math. Today, I gave him 7 chocolate chips. He immediately counts them, then picks one up to eat and says, "7-1=6". He eats the next after saying, "6-1=5". And he keeps going.

N-man looks at B-man, looks at his own chocolate chips, then says, "Seven minus one equals YUM!" and tosses a chip in his mouth.

They were both right...

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Green tip for the day:

Look for a local Terracycle drop off point. There are many different things that can be dropped off, depending on what "brigades" your local group has signed up for. For example, our terracycle group in town collects juice pouches, chip bags, used pens/markers, empty glue bottles, cereal liners, and a variety of other non-recyclable items.

Many schools organize terracycle brigades as they receive a couple cents for each piece of garbage collected so it's a good fundraiser as well as an opportunity to keep trash out of landfills. You don't need to have a kid in school, though. Call your local school and find out where the drop-off points are...there may be some in locations besides the school, such as the library or a local coffee shop. Or you may be able to bring your donations to the school office even if you don't have a child in the school.

The only thing I'm not too sure if I like is that I wonder if the terracycle brigades encourage people to buy more single-use products, since the packaging is collected and raises money for their school or other charitable organization. For example, do you think people are more likely to give their kids juice pouches rather than water or juice in a reusable container if they know they can upcycle their used pouches? What do you think?

Do you drop things off for a terracycle collection? If so, what are your favorite things to terracycle? I love the used marker and cereal bag collections, as those are things we definitely buy and used to have to toss in the trash.

The Most Regal Planet

For their birthday, we got N-man and B-man a book about planets. B-man is doing a great job reading--he can recognize the names of all the planets in our solar system.

Except "Uranus", which he keeps reading as "Your Highness". I just can't stop giggling. Now he's calling it "Your Highness" on purpose. I love this kid!

He's always a surprise!

TK and I have been married 13 years, and together almost 18 years. But sometimes, he's still a mystery to me.

TK is an engineer, and well, for good reason engineers are not known for their fashion sense. To be honest, TK isn't bad--he irons his clothes, he tries to make sure they match, he dresses generally appropriately. He work attire is casual to business casual, so most days he's in khakis and a collared shirt. But this week he has a big presentation. He asked for my help to pick clothes.

He'd pulled out a tie and said that was what he wanted to wear. I reminded him last time he had a presentation that we'd determined he didn't have any shirts that would look good with the tie. His answer: "well that was in the winter. One of my short-sleeved shirts might work with it."

I was literally speechless for a good minute. Then I said, "You can't wear a tie with a short-sleeved shirt."

"Why not?" he asked. "It's hot out. What do you think people wear?"

"Long sleeved shirts."

"No," he insisted. I was forced to inform him that short-sleeved buttondown shirts are pretty geeky, but I let it go because 1) it's cute-geeky, and he pulls it off, and 2) it's pretty appropriate in engineering circles, or at least the engineering circles he runs in. But a short-sleeved buttondown with a tie was just too geeky. I couldn't let it go.

He wouldn't believe me. Convinced he was right, he said, "I'm checking online."

I wasn't worried one bit. Five minutes later he came back and said, "Okay, I'm convinced."

And he let me pick out a nice long sleeved shirt and tie.

I'm not super fashionable, but I could run a service for engineers to keep them at the engineering-geek level of attire rather than letting them flounder into the total-geek realm.

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Green tip for the day: Speaking of fashion, keep "green" in mind when shopping for clothes. Some ideas:

1. Buy clothes to last. Don't buy new clothes every season, even if you can afford it.
2. Look for eco-friendly and/or organic materials.
3. Pass your used clothes along: to friends or family, to a consignment store, to a charity, via freecycle or craigslist.
4. How crafty are you? Turn damaged or stained clothes into something new. Or just use them as rags.
5. Consider buying used clothes from a consignment store or place like Goodwill.

Any clothing-related green tips to share?

Change the World Wednesday: Food Budget

Every week I intent to write a Change The World Wednesday post, but you see how infrequently I post so it's just not getting written. I have a few hours left in Tuesday...we'll see if we get it done this week!

Though it's a bit ironic that this week I'm *not* participating...

The challenge this week was:

This week, spend no more than $25 per person on food. This includes anything which is consumed ... spices, oil, fast food items, soda, etc. Make smart choices and stretch that food dollar as far as it can go. In addition to budgeting your food dollar, please write about how it went. We'd like to know what worked, what didn't and your strategy for staying within the budget.

I'm not opposed to living on a budget. I already do! But I don't like trying to drastically slash my food budget. Good food: food that's good for you and good for the environment, tends to be more expensive than traditional food. It's a very sad commentary that it can be far cheaper to get processed food-stuff than fresh meats and vegetables, but there you go. What are some of the reasons I can't spend only $25 per week on food? Organic milk is twice as expensive as regular. Unbleached flour is more than bleached. Fair trade organic bananas and coffee are more expensive than traditional. Grass-fed, organic meats are at least twice as expensive as factory-farmed meat. Those are just a few of the items that I'm not willing to bend on, that would bust our $25/person food budget.

I hate that farmers can't make a living wage...there's so much pressure on the price of food! I think we should recognize the value of fresh, healthy food that is grown/prepared in an environmentally-friendly way--and I think it's worth paying a fair price for it.

That said, I do have a few tips for saving money on food:

• Eat vegetarian/vegan. Meat is pricey, and I believe for health reasons should only be eaten in moderation anyway.
• Shop your local farmers' markets rather than large grocery stores. Sometimes, though certainly not always, you can get better prices since there's no middle-man. Also, it's almost always tastier!
• Shop sales/specials to stock up. For example, the other day our local grocery store was running a special on bags of peaches for $3 (probably 15 or so peaches)--only problem was, they were RIPE, and had to be used asap. We had some for lunch, then I pureed the rest for baby food and to make peach ice cream.
• Eat what's in season. It's always cheaper than when it's out of season!
• Find a you-pick place. We picked strawberries today and got 4 quarts for $10.30. At the store, I've seen local strawberries priced between $5.99 and $7.99 for a single quart! Special bonus: it's fun, especially for kids.
• Prepare your own foods. Don't rely on prepared foods or eating out. Probably healthier that way, too, besides saving you money!
• Don't waste food. Eat leftovers; don't let food go bad before you eat it.
  

Even with all those tips, though, I'm not even close to $25 per person per week. For a family of 2 adults, 2 preschoolers, and 1 baby, I'm spending closer to $200 per week for food, and that doesn't count my husband's lunches at work. I could certainly do better than that, but I'd never be able to get it down to $25 per person on a consistent basis. Sure, I could do it for a week by eating from our freezer and cabinet stores, but I couldn't keep it up.

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I also wanted to comment on a Change the World Wednesday challenge from a few weeks ago:

This week, give up single-serving foods. No single-serving containers of yogurt, pudding or jello. No single-serving snacks or drinks. Eliminate individually wrapped slices of cheese and fruit cups. Basically, if a container holds only one serving ... don't buy it.

I definitely try to do this on a regular basis, but what I wanted to talk about is baby food. Baby food: always in single serving containers! You end up with a zillion little glass jars or plastic containers. Ugh! I wanted to put out a suggestion to make your own baby food. It's pretty easy. I just steam the fruit or veggie, then blend it up with a stick blender. Pretty fast, easy, and nice that I can control what goes in. I freeze it in ice cube trays, then store it in a freezer bag: far less packaging than the jars of baby food! Plus, it's so much less expensive. The other day I bought 2 organic turkey thighs. It made 14 servings and cost $3.72. If I'd bought it jarred, it would have been more like $10! And don't even get me going about when I get a REALLY great deal, like that bag of peaches for $3!

Anyone looking to make their own baby food, Wholesome Baby Food is a great resource!

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Every Wednesday, there's a new challenge. Head on over to Reduce Footprints where you can help change the world, one small step at a time!

Fear Factor

N-man and B-man have this thing where if we have m&m's, they both always want to make sure they get red ones. They don't care about any other color...they just want red. I figured it was their favorite because they both love the color pink. (As an aside, B-man now calls pink "light red"...I don't know if that's his attempt to make it more boy-friendly??)

Today I asked them: why red m&m's?

The answer surprised me, and reminded me that they're like little sponges, absorbing every little thing I tell them: "because red dye is made from mushed up bugs!"

Yes, I told them about carmine. I thought it was a fun gross-out fear factor thing. Now they avidly pursue red foods so they can be eating insects.

Yum.

Our garden

I posted about our garden over on our local eating blog. Head over there if you want the whole story, but here, I'll leave you with a few pictures: