going green: what we eat

Eating clean food (ie. food without a bunch of articial junk) can be pretty tricky living in a small city in the middle of the prairies. Grocery stores are starting to carry more and more of organic products  but things are still very deceiving. It's shocking to read the ingredient lists on things that are marketed as healthy and natural and find out that that that granola bar your eating as a healthy choice has more grams of sugar in it than the chocolate bar you passed up in its favor.

I wanted to give you a better picture of what my average weekly shopping looks like. Sometimes it's more, sometimes it's less, but this was just for an average week at home for us looked like. Eating clean can be a little bit more expensive so I like to check out the marked down produce section. They basically put everything there that may have a tiny little bruise on it or be nearing its expiry date. I scored a cauliflower that had a tiny brown spot on it, a giant bag of mixed peppers that I have no idea why it was in there, they seem perfect to me, a perfectly good cucumber, and a mostly good container of strawberries.

Note* This food lasted us much longer than just one week*

Since starting to eat clean our taste buds have changed dramatically. I don't enjoy restaurant food nearly as much anymore and much prefer the things I can cook at home. I love the convenience of restaurant food, but now that I am used to home cooked meals my taste buds (and stomach) can't handle all the extra salt and sugar. I can actually taste the preservatives and artifical flavorings that they put into food which I didn't notice before.

Ok, homework time! Next time you in the grocery store actually read the ingredient list on those 'healthy' granola bars and 'natural' tortilla chips before you put them in your cart. It's time to see what you are actually putting into your body! One good example of this was the supposedly healthy almond milk that I picked up and only after reading the ingredient list did I realize that there was more added sugar than there were almonds in it!! Yuck, no thanks!

Happy eating!

going green: resources

This year my word is "health". Some days that is the farthest thing possible from where I am, but then there are some days where I'm right on track.  Today I wanted to share some ideas about where to start.
I've been intrigued by the idea of "going green" for a long time but never really did anything about it. Eventually I started watching several documentaries and reading some books on the subject which really got me hooked.

Some resources that I would recommend are:
Films:
Supersize Me - While this documentary doesn't necessarily talk about going green, it shows the extremely detrimental effects of fast food on our bodies.
Vegucated - Follows a handful of people that agree to go vegan for a set amount of time and then exposes them to the sources of our food, etc. etc. It's a real eye opener for sure.
Books:
Healthy Weight Canada - Explains the unhealthy additives that are in almost all of our store bought food.
The Art of Eating In - I found this book so inspirational to read and really spurred me on to get more active in the kitchen.
Blogs:
www.100daysofrealfood.com
www.onehundreddollarsamonth.com
www.foodbabe.com
www.katheats.com

There are a million resources out there on clean eating but I just wanted to highlight a few that I found to be helpful! Next up, the food we eat!

IKEA hack

Wanna see how I transformed two ugly and scratched LACK coffee tables from IKEA into a functional and fun coffee station? Side note, this is not my original idea, I originally saw it on pinterest from apartment therapy. See the original post here.
This is how it started:

You can buy these tables form IKEA for about $10 a piece and they come in a variety of colors. Why we choose to get the fake dark wood I have no idea! But I was completely over them and was about to donate them to Salvation Army when I saw the idea to transform them into something else.
I started by giving them a light sand and priming them white:

After they dried I gave them two coats of a super light grey paint that we also have in our living room and bedroom. Once they had dried over night I used wood glue to stack them on top of each other. I still find the paint to chip really easy and am planning on sealing them somehow (dad, any ideas?). I am still on the lookout for a butcher block or any piece wood really to attach to the top, but it's good for now, and I am so happy to have a designated coffee station in our kitchen. Here's a closer look at the bottom and top:

Total cost of this project:
2 coffee tables: 0 - rescued from heading out the door
Primer and paint: 0 - leftovers from painting earlier
Wood glue: 0 - already had
Green mats: 4 - these are simply to protect the paint

Total: 4 - not bad at all!

the study of light

I'm all out of words lately, and I don't want to be fake. Life is hard, life is painful. All I can do is share what moves me, and today that happens to be light. 

a wrap-up of sorts

I feel as though a wrap-up of sorts is necessary before I can jump into blogging 2013. This might be a bit scattered but bear with me because this has been nagging at the back of my mind to do for days now.
For those of you wondering, I did in fact finish my Christmas wall hanging that I shared some pictures in progress of here. I decided to leave it up hanging in my kitchen for at least a little while longer even though all the rest of the Christmas decorations came down at the beginning of the month.

I am really happy how it turned out, and for it being my first big applique piece I'm pretty impressed.

Second christmas-y project I finished was a tree skirt that I started here.

Quilting this turned into quite the challenge and I think I ended up ripping more out that I actually ended up sewing. I started with a red and green veregated thread that looked terrible, so out that came and white thread won out in the end.

I even ended up being able to finish a quilt for my mother in law. It was my first time making a full flannel quilt and after seeing how cozy the final product was I am tempted to make one for myself now.

Whew, so that's it for me, just a big post about Christmas craftiness! Bring it on 2013, we've got stuff to make happen!

december photo challenge part 3

Here is the third and final instalment of my December photo challenge, enjoy!

Day 14 - Christmas tree

Day 21 - Peace

Day 22 - Tradition

Day 24 - The best part of Christmas Eve

Day 25 - Morning

christmas blessings

This Christmas was unlike any we have had before, tradition wise anyways. But you know what, it was great. I am so so so blessed to call these people my family and I couldn't be happier!

It's not about the gifts, or whose house you're at, it's who you're with that matters. It's about remembering that we are here to celebrate the birth of Jesus our Saviour and the joy we have because of that very fact.

I hope that you and your loved ones had the very merriest of all Christmases!