Mindful Momma

Switching Out Buttons

If you read yesterday's post, you know how much I like buttons.

Another favorite thing to do with buttons is to switch out factory buttons for something a little more interesting.  It's a great way to 'upcycle' old clothing!  How do you like these vintage buttons I put on my black cardigan sweater?  Much better than the cheap plastic ones that it came with! 

The middle button is a glass one handed down from someone in my family.  It's the only one I have left.  I sewed a couple on a winter coat I had in college and eventually they broke.  Hand-washing only for this sweater!! 

Do you ever switch out buttons?  Send me a photo and I'll post it on my Mindful Momma Facebook Page!

Getting Creative

Yesterday, I did something I haven't done for, well at least 10 years (going way back to pre-kiddo time):  I made earrings!  After rummaging around in the basement for all my old beading stuff, I hauled it up to the dining room table and started getting creative.

Back in the day, I had dreams of being a jewelry designer, mainly because I worked for one when I lived in Washington, DC.  If she could, do it, why couldn't I?  At one point, I took the train up to NYC and shopped the bead district.  It was a weekend I will never forget! Pretending I was an established jewelry designer, I placed wholesale orders for beads and cashed out a bunch of my savings account doing it.  No matter that the big jewelry career never panned out, my memories of that weekend in New York were worth every penny.

My favorite place of all wasn't a bead shop but an adorable little storefront specializing in only buttons called Tender Buttons.  The place was bursting to the seams with both new and vintage buttons and I couldn't resist some of each.  Seriously, I was like a kid in a candy store in there!  While digging through my old stuff I came across a bunch of earrings I made from those buttons:

 

Part of my motivation to get out my beads was to make some new earrings for BlogHer - the blogging conference I'm headed to in New York next week.  Yes - I'm going to NYC!!  So of course I need some stylie new things to wear, right?  I've been hitting up the thrift stores and scored a couple of cute necklaces but I still wanted some earrings to match a couple outfits. 

After rounding up all my supplies, I whipped up 5 pairs of earrings in no time flat!!  The beads from the long purple pair were repurposed from a broken necklace.  The others beads have been sitting in my basement all these years....and even though they are not officially 'vintage' (what is the time frame for vintage anyway?), I still feel good about using up stuff that I already had.  Now I'm thinking - why haven't I been doing this all along????

Do you give yourself time to get creative?  What's your favorite creative outlet? 

 

"Maybe I Just Bought the Wrong Thing"

In The Story of Cosmetics, Annie Leonard comes out and says what a lot of us might be thinking when it comes to buying cosmetics and personal care products:  "maybe it's my fault...maybe I just bought the wrong thing"...meaning it's our own damn fault for buying personal care products loaded with toxins and petroleum products...because we didn't take the time to research the hell out of them before we went to the store.  

I'm telling you - that is often how I feel.  And it's very frustrating.

If you watch the full video (in wacky-good Story of Stuff style), you'll see that ultimately she's telling us that no, it's NOT our fault that we bought products containing potential carcinogens and reproductive toxins.  It's the fault of our government and of the companies that choose to use potentially harmful chemicals in their products. 

She encourages us to work together to change this broken system by demanding that lawmakers create new common sense laws that will ban the worst of the chemicals and replace them with greener, safer chemistry that will be better for us all.

Watch the video (it's only 8 minutes long) and let me know what you think.  And if you're feeling motivated, go to safecosmetics.org and get involved!  Then head over to OrganicMania and read what the rest of the gals from the Green Moms Carnival think about The Story of Cosmetics - as always, we each have a unique perspective - and this is an especially compelling subject.

The Best Camping Food Ever!!

Goodness...sorry for being so out of touch lately!  I've been busy enjoying a reunion with my family in Madison, lounging at the beach (it's HOT out there!) and trying to use up all the vegetables in my CSA.  

Meanwhile, I've been itching to share some photos of the food from our beach camping trip earlier this month.  This is no ordinary camping trip.  It's a highly organized party for 100+ people where we just happen to be camping.  I've written about it once or twice before.  We don't go every year but this is the 3rd year in a row that we have made the trip because it's just such a blast and the perfect place to go with kids.

The party lasts for 4-5 days and every day there is a breakfast bar (imagine waking up and the coffee is already made!!), a huge lunch spread, a themed happy hour and a fabulous dinner.  There are 4 'teams' and each team takes turn being in charge of a meal.  The food is amazing!  I only wish I had taken more photos of the food! 

Here's just a sample of a few of the things we enjoyed:

Appetizer kabobs for happy hour:

 

A make-your-own Mexican burrito buffet:

A Greek dinner complete with lemon chicken, marinated garbanzos and Greek salad:

A little shrimp cocktail:

Homemade fruit crepes for breakfast (the batter is made in a hand-cranked blender!):

Fresh fruit shortcake for dessert:

We also had some amazing BBQ, lox & bagels for breakfast and lots of amazing salads at lunch.  My favorite meal of all was a Thai salad bar complete with a beautiful array of lettuces & veggies, grilled shrimp & beef, peanuts and a delicious Thai-inspired salad dressing.  I didn't get a shot of the complete meal but here's a pic of the fixins'.  Fresh food at the beach just can't be beat!!

Speaking of camping food, I see that Katie at Kitchen Stewardship has a new ebook out about camping called Kitchen Stewardship in the Big Woods: A Family Camping Handbook.  It's about how to survive camping with little ones and includes real food adaptations of standard camping fare.  I haven't seen it IRL, but knowing Katie, it's sure to be top notch!  (plus it's only $4.95 - how can you go wrong with that?)  

What kind of food do you take camping?  Standard fare or do you jazz it up a bit?  Do you stick to healthy fare or do you break out the S'mores for the little ones?  What's the most amazing thing you've eaten on a camping trip?

Links to Make You Think: About Body Care Products

Buying better-for-you-and-the-planet body care can be confusing at best.  And keeping on top of the latest news about the subject can be even harder.  Here are a few recent news links to help you make more sense out of what you're picking up on the shelves.  Or if you just can't hack it, make your own beauty products instead! 

Meaningful Labels - Whole Foods has announced it is raising the bar for organic personal care and cosmetic labeling by requiring that all products labeled 'organic' be certified to the United States Department of Agriculture National Organic Program (NOP) standards.  Isn't that already the case, you ask?  No!!  Currently, any company can plunk the word organic on the label, even if only a couple of ingredients in the product are actually organic.  The NOP standards were developed for food and because the USDA does not have authority over personal care products, the certification is not legally required for non-food products.

According to the Organic Consumers Association, who launched a boycott of mislabeled organic products; a few other major companies, including Kiss My Face, Jason's and Aveda have also agreed to stop marketing non-certified body care products as organic.  Score!  It's high time we are able to trust the word organic on body care!!  (BTW - this change won't happen immediately - Whole Foods new policy will be required by June 1, 2011.  Not sure about when the other companies will change.)

The World's Worst Beauty Products  - This top 10 (no make that 11) list from Mother Nature Network calls out the worst beauty products for the planet.  Did you know that some facial and body scrubs contain plastic beads and that nail polish contains formaldehyde? It's not all doom & gloom though.  Be sure to click on the links for deets on greener alternatives and positive ideas!

50 Beauty Products You Can Make Yourself - A big thank you to Colleen Vanderlinden at Planet Green for rounding up this stellar list of DIY beauty products!!  The only thing that would have made it better is if she had included my recipes for a scrumptious Chocolate Facial Mask or super fun Fizzy Bath Balls!!  Recipes on my list to try:  homemade shaving cream, natural stick deodorant and avocado mayonnaise hair conditioner.

{image from Mother Nature Network, CREDIT: CathyK/sxc.hu}

A Somewhat Green & Healthy Road Trip

Hi - I'm back!!  Did you miss me?  A couple weeks seems like a long time to be away from my blog but everyone's equally busy at this time of year so I doubt there was much blog-reading going on anyway, right?

As I think back on our big road trip out East, the one thing that sticks out is how darned HARD it is for a family of 4 to drive 2500+ miles without giving in to a bit of junk food and disposable packaging waste.  OK, more than just a bit of junk food.  Here's what happened....  

We set off on our trip with a cooler full of healthy snacks, reusable water bottles and the best of intentions.....but before long we were buying potato chips, candy and bottled drinks at the truck stop just like the rest of America. Guess what?  When you're driving across the country with 2 kids, you can't make the perfect, healthy, eco-decision every time.  Still, we did our best to minimize the damage...both to our bodies and the planet.

Here are a few tricks that worked for us:

Choose sit-down restaurants over fast food

When you're on a long road trip, you need a break.  A real break, not just cramming hamburgers & fries in your mouth while you drive.  There is more than one benefit here:  first, you are more likely to find healthier choices in a restaurant; second, you get served on real plates and avoid the disposables and last but probably the most important:  your antsy kids get to run around a bit before being strapped back into the car for 4 more hours!!

Don't order too much food!

Restaurants are notorious for serving WAY to much food.  Especially the chain type that you typically find on highway interchanges.  When you're sitting on your butt for most of the day, you certainly don't need all those extra calories and it's hard to reuse leftovers so they usually end up going to waste.  My husband and I often share a sandwich and a salad.  We never order appetizers.  Oh, and don't automatically assume that a 'kids' meal is the best option - they usually include a sugary drink and are often served with enough fries for the entire family. 

Skip the Styrofoam!

When you do feel the need to stop at a fast-food establishment, look for meals with the least packaging waste.  Sandwiches wrapped in paper are a big improvement over a styrofoam clamshell.  Subway or other sub-shops are usually a good choice.

That said, we ended up using more than our fair share of styrofoam on this trip in an unexpected place...hotel breakfasts.  We stayed at 3 hotels on our trip and each one offered a 'free' breakfast in the morning...served on styrofoam...OUCH!!!  That one hurt...and I'm planning to write in a complaint to each of the 3 hotels.  There's got to be a better way... 

Pack reuseables

Water bottles are essential for a road trip and it helps to have a cooler with reusable cooling packs to store some healthy snacks like carrots and yogurt.  Unfortunately we left the cooling packs in Delaware so we had to deal with melting ice on the way home.  We also bring along a supply of dishtowels for cleaning up spills and to put on our laps when we do eat in the car.  Our camping plates & utensils came in handy for a couple meals along the way and we used them exclusively when we were camping at the beach.  Next time, I will bring some reusable containers - they would have come in handy more than once!

Some of you might go all out and pack everything you need for a roadside picnic everyday.  That's what my Mom did when we were kids.  She was superwoman!  Alas, I am not.  Plus the way-stations of today are quite different than they were when I was growing up.  It seems picnic tables and playground equipment have given way to McDonald's and other fast-food joints.  If you bring a picnic, you're probably going to be eating it in your car. 

Give in to reality

If you're a regular reader, you know that my mantra is mindful moderation.  In my eyes, there's nothing wrong with a little junk food now and then.  My kids are happy as clams to get stuff like soda and chips but they know it's not for everyday.  We usually allow either a special drink (i.e. something other than milk or water) OR a dessert at a restaurant.

As for the packaging & food waste....sure we could have done better but I'm not going to sweat it.  We recycled as much as possible and avoided trash when we could.  Just gotta get those hotels to stop using styrofoam...

How do you try to stay green & healthy on a road trip?  Any tips for eating out on the road?  What works best for you?