McAlister's (Making It Recyclable)

I absolutely love McAlister's Deli. Mostly I just love their Sweet Tea. My whole family is from Kentucky, so Sweet Tea runs in our blood. Unfortunately, my hubby on the other hand likes it unsweet. So, making tea at home I either have to make two separate pitchers or make it unsweet and add my own sugar each time. For those of you out there that drink sweet tea, you know it doesn't taste the same when you add sugar to cold tea. It just doesn't dissolve right.

On to my real story. Our family goes to our local McAlister's almost every Monday night. They have "Kids eat for Free night". The kids get their faces painted and there's a magician there also. I love it because it's cheaper and I get my Sweet Tea. I always get a refill before I go and when I got home I got a wonderful surprise. I finished my tea and dumped the ice in the sink. I then went to throw it away and stopped to glance underneath it. And low and behold it had a #1 on the bottom. So, I popped that baby in the recycle bin and didn't feel a bit of guilt for eating out! Now if only the kids cups were recyclable. Sounds like a new project!

Getting the Kids Involved

In our new home we don't have much of a backyard, so we don't ever really play out there. Luckily there is a neighborhood playground that is very close to our house. We play there a few times a week atleast. The last few days we noticed it was starting to look horrible. A lot of the kids play there unsupervised and leave their trash everywhere. And the only trashcan there was overflowing. So, the kids and I decided we would go over there this morning and clean it up a bit. So, we loaded up in the little red wagon and walked over.

Rachel was incharge of gathering anything recyclable in her bag. She gathered about a dozen empty bottles of water. Will thought he needed to stay well hydrated. So, he mostly drank my water while we worked.

After we finished picking up we played for a little while. Will was pushing Rachel on the merry-go-round.

Will decided he'd pull the wagon back to the house. He refused to let anyone help him.

Here they are relaxing after a hard days' work.

New Garden Pictures

So far this summer I've canned 15 pints of dill pickles and 4 jars of sweet relish. It's been relatively chilly for this time of year, so I haven't had a single ripe large tomato. But, most things are doing well. Here's my last picking from a few days ago.
I made my sweet relish with what you see here. I only had to buy one red pepper. Everything else in it was from my garden. I'm looking forward to getting some tomatoes soon so I can make some salsa.

One of My Many Goodwill Finds

I shop at Goodwill almost every week. I LOVE Goodwill with a passion. It amazes me what all you can actually find there. Just today I went there with my mom. Sunday is by far the best day to go if you want to find the best deals. Sunday is the day their 1/2 off tag color changes. But, mom and I were out today, so we stopped. I found three tops, a dress, two movies, a cd, and three books and I only spent $16.00. Did I mention how much I love that place????

Here's a gorgeous plaque I found awhile back. It was solid white plaster and only cost $1.99 at Goodwill. I took it home and painted it and put it outside in my landscaping. I painted it with acrylic paints and coated it with two coats of polyurethane to protect it from the weather.

Here you can kind of see it in the mulch by the sidewalk. It looks very "Welcoming" there.

Click on here: http://locator.goodwill.org/ to find a Goodwill near you!

First Harvest of the Season

My garden(s) are looking beautiful if only I had more time to pull the weeds! I picked my first few things this week. Sunday, I picked the first cucumber. I didn't have a chance to take a picture of it since we ate it immediately with our lunch. And it was delicious! Later that day I went out picked the first small batch of green beans. There weren't many but enough for me and the kids to eat one night while my hubby is in class.

Last, but not least, I picked the very first banana pepper. I usually can these. My hubby loves them on bratwurst and hotdogs. But, I'll have to think of something to put it in since there's only one right now.

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Family Trip to the Farmers Market

Every Saturday our family takes a trip to our local Farmers Market. We usually ride bikes there. It's about 7 miles round trip, but today it was raining, so we drove instead. We stopped at the credit union to get some cash and headed over. We've now realized $20 isn't enough to buy everything we want.

We bought some squash, radishes, blueberries, raspberries, and honey sticks. We also got some yogurt from Traders Point Creamery. At this point we realized we didn't have enough money to get everything else we wanted. On our way to the car to run back to the credit union we walked by our favorite booth. The lady there is so sweet. They were starting to pack things up, so I told her we'd be back next week since we only had a dollar left. She then starts grabbing stuff out of her boxes and hands me some onions and zucchini. We of course feel guilty so my hubby throws our only dollar on her table, which of course she refused to take. So we left it laying there.

This is just one of the reasons we LOVE going to the Farmers Market. I love feeding my family food that is healthy and free of chemicals. And I love helping out those that can make that happen. Having someone as sweet as this lady just makes me want to give her all my money for this cause.

Mini Pop Bottle Garden

I have to thank my daughters pre-school teacher for this wonderful idea. And she has many of them. Here's her blog if anyone's interested: http://marquitastewart.blogspot.com/





My daughter came home from school one day with a pop bottle that had been cut in half and had some dirt in it. It now looks like this:

You take a pop bottle (20 oz. or larger) and cut it in half. Take the cap off and puncture a hole in the middle . Tie a knot in a piece of yarn and feed it through the hole. Tie another knot on the outside, so that there is a knot on both sides of the cap and extra yarn on both ends. Screw the cap back on and fill the top half of bottle with potting soil. Plant your seeds according to their packet. These are marigolds, but you could do anything. Fill the bottom of the bottle with water, but keep the water level below the knot. Take a spray bottle and wet the dirt pretty thoroughly on top just on the first day. After that you should only have to water it from the bottom. When the plants get bigger you can transplant them outside or to a bigger pot depending on what flower you've grown. If you leave it in the bottle the roots will eventually become too much for it and it'll become pot-bound or bottle-bound in this case.

I'm thinking of planting all my starters for my garden this way next year.

Gardening in a Small Yard

I have always loved to garden, but my small yard now is making that very difficult. Here's a picture of my garden at our old house. I would've still liked it to be bigger, but this was good enough for living in a duplex. We had corn, peppers, tomatoes, green beans, squash, zucchini, and onions.




Now, I'm trying hard to do what I can in our new yard. Our yard is extremely small and has a large pond in the backyard. The entire backyard slopes down to this pond making it difficult to find a level spot for a garden. Right now I have two small gardens.

Garden #1 has tomatoes, green peppers, and banana peppers in it.

Garden #2 has cucumbers, onions, strawberries, and green beans in it.

I have many other plants placed around in my landscaping and in pots. I have zucchini, squash, cayenne peppers, yellow peppers, cucumbers, okra, bush beans, and cherry tomatoes.

I'm having trouble right now with rabbits and sunlight. Our house sits at an angle so there isn't full sun anywhere in our yard. I've tried surrounding things with dead thorn branches from my rose bushes to keep the rabbits away. So far it seems to be working. I'll write more as the plants progress.

Saving the Environment One Reel at a Time

Last summer we needed a new lawnmover and decided to go with a Reel Mower. As long as we keep up with it and never let the grass get very long then it does very well. We're still searching for a more environmentally friendly weedeater, but have yet to find a good substitute.

Here's a picture of my hubby mowing the lawn. And yes, he can listen to his Ipod while using this mower without worrying about going deaf. Also here's a great review on the Reel Mower: http://landscaping.about.com/cs/lawns/gr/reel_review.htm

Other Forms of Transportation

About a year ago we lived in Broad Ripple, which is wonderful community. It's just a little pricey and we couldn't afford to buy a house there. There is a great trail there called the Monon Trail. We loved to ride bikes and I ran and walked on it. We were also conveniently located to pretty much everything around. We walked or road bikes to the library, mall (if you could call Glendale Mall a mall), Goodwill, Post Office, McDonald's, etc. We would also pull the kids in a wagon and walk down to the grocery. Not only did it save on gas, which was terribly expensive at the time, it was great for the environment and for our bodies.

When my husband could, he would ride his bike to work. It took him about an hour to get there on bike and 15 -20 minutes when driving. So, he had to really plan ahead. Now that we live in Fishers his work is only 3 miles away. January of this year our car decided to die. We really discussed it and chose to only have one car and not replace it. My husband took the initiative and has biking ever since. There's been very few times he's used the car or I've taken him. Mostly when it's pouring down the rain or one day when we had a foot of snow. He's extremely dedicated. He keeps a log online to see how much carbon he's keeping out of the air by doing this. And now he's working on improving his time to see how fast he can get there and back.

We bike everywhere we can. There is one major road separating us from everything else and I wish more than anything that there were a crosswalk to get across. It still worries me when we have the kids with us and we have to cross 37. But, we just have to be super careful. But, the kids love riding in the trailer. They like visiting all the parks around, the local Farmer's Market, the library, and many, many, other places. And they're getting out in the fresh air and not sitting at home in front of the television.

Here's a few helpful links:

Find a Goodwill near you:

http://locator.goodwill.org/?gclid=COmRiq6i4poCFRIeDQodXA5sBw

You can keep track of your mileage here:

http://worldcommute.com/

If you live in Indy you can find alot of useful info here including your local Farmer's Markets:

http://green.indy.com/

My hubby's blog:

http://www.fisherscommuter.blogspot.com/

The Way Trash Should Be

Before we had children we lived in Dubuque, IA for a little while. While living there I realized how trash pickup should be.

We were given a recycle bin for free and could sit it at the curb on the same day as trash pickup day. We could recycle plastic, glass, paper, and cardboard all at the end of our driveway. We could put an unlimited amount of recylables out. We could even request extra bins if need be.

We were only allowed to sit out one bag of garbage a week. We had to pay $1 for each additional bag. It was a great concept. I can't believe other communities haven't figured out this simple plan. It promoted recycling and discouraged putting everything into the landfill.

We now aren't allowed to recycle at our curb where we live here in Fishers. There aren't enough people in our neighborhood that use the same company for them to pick it up. So, I collect all these recyclables in our garage and when they start overflowing my husband or I will drive them to the recycling place which is about 5 miles away. Although we may have to burn fuel to get there I don't feel so bad when I fill my trunk to the brim with all this stuff that isn't going to the landfill.

Introduction

Let me introduce myself. I'm Susanne. I've been married for almost 10 years now. We live in Fishers, IN and we have two kids. Our daughter is 4 and our son is almost 1 1/2. We've always recycled our paper, plastic, glass, and cardboard, but we decided a few years ago to take it a step further. Here's our journey to becoming "green".