Menu Planning Monday

Sunday - Hamburgers, potatoes/ onions/ red peppers, salad

Monday - Tuna Noodle Casserole

Tuesday - Crockpot Barbequed Chicken and Cornbread.

Wednesday - Cheese & Chicken Quesadillas, fruit

Thursday - Leftover Buffet, fruit

Friday - Pesto Broccoli Linguine, fruit

Saturday - Homemade pizza

I’m an Organizing Junkie is home to Menu Plan Monday.

Sustainable Saturday - Recycling Children's Clothing & Gear

Children grow entirely too fast and for those of us living in parts of the country where we see temperature swings from -10 degrees to 90 degrees Fahrenheit, children's clothing can amass in ridiculous quantities. I have saved all of the clothing from both of our children since their birth, but the amount of storage space required in our house to do so is becoming quite daunting. I have done so because we weren't sure how many children we might have and thought that it would be worthwhile to hang onto things for at least a few years. Several months ago my neighbor and I did a clothing swap. She took all my old girl clothes since my daughter is now 3 (she has a 1 month old little girl) and I took all her boy clothes (Her son is 3 and mine is 1). It was a great way to recycle or reuse clothing, saved us both hundreds of dollars on clothing that our children will wear for a very short period of time.

Excerpt from Guide to Recycling Infant Clothing & Gear:

There's nothing more beautiful than a baby, but if you're on a budget, there's nothing pretty about how fast they grow. Indeed, all too many parents have a drawer full of clothes that were worn only a few times before their little one grew too big. Add shoes, toys, and all the other early childhood equipment that becomes obsolete before its time, and chances are you've got a pile of like-new items that you can't use anymore.

For those with even the barest eco-conscience, it's a Brobdingnagian waste of Lilliputian proportions. Here's how you can turn your collection of outgrown items into a force for good:

- Buy only what you need!
- If you underestimate, you can always supplement later.
- Seek used items wherever possible. There is a wide variety of nearly-new goods available, and buying used lets you conserve everything from raw materials to energy. And you'll save money, too.
- Garage sales, consignment shops, and other local used clothing stores are great sources for pre-owned stuff.
- There are also several online resources. Check Baby Place for a long list of shops selling gently used necessities.

You can read more here.

Menu Planning Monday

This week's Menu Planning Monday is all about the Crockpot for us! Unfortunately our 20 year old range has decided that it's not going to work any longer . . . I kind of boiled over a pot and helped it along with it needing to be replaced. As you can imagine I am not totally upset about it as my new range will be delivered on Saturday. Yea!

My recipes for this week came directly from A Year of Crockpotting. I highly recommend this blog as I have found several great recipes here in the past.

Sunday - Crockpot Barbequed Chicken and Cornbread. I used Barbequed Pork instead since I already had it on hand from my monthly meat delivery from Oink Moo Cluck.

Monday - Crockpot Bean Stew Recipe. I did use split peas as instead of lintels.

Tuesday - Leftovers from Monday

Wednesday -Crockpot Chicken and Dumplings Soup.

Thursday - Leftover Buffet

Friday - The kids are off to Grandma's and we are spending an adult evening out. :)

Saturday - Depending on whether my new range is actually hooked up or not . . . TBD.

I’m an Organizing Junkie is home to Menu Plan Monday.

Electronics Recycling

Two weeks ago we joined many others in Central Ohio participating in the Columbus Zoo's recycling event.

If you live in Columbus (or Ohio) and missed out on the Zoo's recycling event, there are other resources available to you. If you live in another state, try googling "electronics recycling, your state here".

SWACO's website

Ohio Computer Recycling

Ohio eWaste Recycling

On that Saturday we successful recycled three computers, three monitors, two scanners, one printer, one non-functioning television, several cell phones and lots of misc. computer accessories no longer being used.

We have this ever growing problem at our house, we hang onto things until we can properly recycle them to the best of our ability. Let me tell you about the large pieces of carpet and pad that are in my basement...

"Phase It In"

This idea of "Phase It In" is one I heard in a presentation at work. The phrase was coined in reference to a school district that wanted to "Phase Out" pick up trucks for their district fleet and "Phase In" more fuel efficient vehicles that better fit their needs.

This story reminded me of a question a friend asked awhile ago in regards to cleaning products. Her question was whether she should use up the products she had already purchased and Phase In the new, more earth friendly products as needed. I don't know that I ever formally responded to her question, so here is what I think:

It is perfectly fine to Phase It In! My personal belief is that if you are going to throw out cleaning products, laundry detergent, trash bags, paper towels, etc. without using them up first, that is simply counter productive. It's just like the vehicles in the above example, the school district could not financially change out all their vehicles at one time, but it was something that could easily be accomplished as the leases were up on the current trucks.

Some real world examples:

At our house we have started purchasing 100% cotton sheets. Our daughter has organic cotton sheets on her bed, but my husband and I still have the regular cotton sheets. We will replace ours in time as they wear out.

We have also taken this approach with replacing light bulbs. Since our house had previous owners, we have allowed the existing bulbs to burn out before replacing them with more energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs.

So I encourage you to, in any way you see applicable for your own life, to Phase It (Green) In!

Tuesday's Green Tip - Grandma's Going Green and you can too!

Grandma's starting to go green in her own way. We spent several days with my husband's parents and I happened to notice a few ways in which Grandma is in fact going green.

In the laundry room I noticed Windex with vinegar (although Grandma can make her own at a fraction of the cost, it's a starting place), Method wood cleaner and Hefty Recycled content kitchen bags! What a great example she will be to her grandchildren!

New Year's Resolution - Dealing with paper

This may sound a bit silly or even crazy, but my New Year's Resolution for 2009 involves paper. In the new year I am going to attempt to greatly reduce the amount of paper in my life. I feel as if most paper in our house is manageable and easy to recycle . . . the newspaper, phone books, cereal boxes . . . it's all the mail that we get that seems to become an overwhelming paper problem at times. Bank statements, bills, credit card offers and just plain old annoying junk mail.

I am going to attempt to reduce (and recycle any that I do collect) the mail in our house. These are the ways in which I am going to do so:

1. To subscribe to paperless bills from those that offer this service. At the moment we have quite a few bills that are done this way, bank statements, auto and home owner's insurance and phone bill, but there are others that we can eliminate the constant stream of paper.

2. There are services which you can subscribe to help eliminate junk mail by simply taking you off their mailing list. For example the Red Plum advertising inserts that we receive at our house mid-week can easily be stopped.

3. This is the big one. I am going to attempt to only touch each piece of paper once. So, once the mail is read, it will be immediately sorted into recycling, filing or shredding and that's it. The only paper I will touch again will be a payment stub for a bill, but referring to number one, I shouldn't have any payment stubs if they are all paperless (except for our water bill, because I don't think the City of Columbus is quite up to date on this one, but I will check).

Happy New Year!