Sorry I’ve been MIA the past couple days. Some time sensitive inquiries came in, including a FORCE fundraising order, so I was pretty much tied up the past few days and too pooped to blog. And, even too busy to paint this week, hence no Whimsical Wednesday post.
But I still have some updates and/or random thoughts to share, so here we go.
First, in the spirit of “freecycling” I went through my stash of items that I rescued from the recycling bin (and thought I would use but never did) and offered ‘em up for free to fellow crafters/artisans.
Things like coffee bags:
Coffee bags you might be wondering? Why was I saving those? Well, I used to make some pretty unique gift bows with them…
But they were quite time intensive and there’s not really a rush on metallic eco-friendly bows made from coffee bags, if ya know what I mean. And being that we’re hard core caffeine addicts and go through a bag a week, I had amassed many more than I could ever create with.
And so I went on the hunt and found an Etsy seller who makes cool tote bags and purses with coffee bags and she gladly accepted them! She got some supplies to make her goods and I got a good conscience sending these off to someone who will make use of them in lieu of sending them off to the trash.
Click on the image to go to the shop of "Green Designs by Lisa"
And while I was at it, I also had some manilla folder/holders that once held atlas maps…and a keyboard…and random odds and ends…all able to find homes from fellow eco-crafters that could use them in their work. I love it when that happens.
I also went through some tools and supplies that I wasn’t willing to part with for free, so I threw them up in my supplies shop on clearance (like paper punches and rubber stamps) and was able to unload quite a bit in the first 24 hours. It feels good to continue the recycle/reuse phase with other folks. They get a deal, I make a little cash back instead of having it sit motionless in my house for months or years and nothing new has to be made. (If you’re interested in seeing what else I have on clearance or “destash” as we call it, click here or the image below)
It’s always good to regularly cull through your home and get rid of the things that you don’t use and that don’t bring you happiness. The more you release and declutter, the more space you create for good things (not necessarily material) to come in to your space…
*****
So now here’s an interesting observation. A grocery egg from a local, farm-raised egg – can you tell which is which?
The lady that I buy my eggs from doesn’t have enough to sell me the amount needed to satiate our needs (as well as the rest of the community clamoring for them), so we have to buy regular, free-range eggs at the store to complement those that we get from her on occasion. What a difference. Not only by the size and color, but the taste. It behooves you to find a local egg supplier…you can find backyard chickens and egg suppliers even in urban dwellings so I urge you to look into it!
*****
Even though the fires in Arizona are a far distance from us, we were not without its effects.
Don’t laugh at my dusty, unused garden bed…me and high-altitude gardening (blistering sun during the day and freezing cold at night) aren’t the best of friends. We’re not even on speaking terms, but that’s another matter.
This shot was taken earlier in the week. Usually you can see about 6 levels of mountains from our deck. Here you can see only 2 and it smelled so strong of smoke, you’d swear it was only a couple miles away. So for about 3 days, the house had to stay sealed up and the dogs smelled like firefighters by the time they came back in after a 2 minute potty break, it was that strong. That fire is really out of control and makes my wildfire-country-mountain-living sensitive soul a little sad.
But, as they say…
Luckily, the haze is heading out, the smell of smoke gone and the weather is a lovely sunny, breezy 75 degrees and this was my office yesterday:
I know, doesn’t suck. Being able to sit out on the deck without freezing (or burning with this high-altitude sun) reminds me of why I love this time of year. And why I love where we live (though I’m often scheming up the next place we’ll live and wondering if we’ll ever be able to sell this house in the current market). I have no room to complain and I think that now that I’m over the cabin fever, I’m reminded of why we do love it up here. It’s not always convenient, but it sure is pretty and relaxing.
And look! Our too-close-to-the-house-aspens are in full bloom.
If you’re a gardening/landscaping snob, you better stop reading now, because I’m about to present to you our not-so-maintained-nor-pretty front yard.
But first a disclaimer.
We live in drought stricken mountains people…we’re not even supposed to have a garden hose/spigot attached to the house. There is no watering of lawns or car washing really allowed (though we don’t have an HOA, there is just not enough water to do so up here!) so please shelve your suburban, manicured-lawn expectations before reading on, m’kay?
This is looking out our front door in the morning where we get some beautiful sunlight. As you can see, our house is lower than our driveway and those steps…oh those damn steps. In past years, we’ve weeded, we’ve wacked, we’ve ignored altogether. But this week, we plan on trying out an eco-friendly DIY weed repellant we read about that uses tons of salt and vinegar. Friendly to the earth, not so much on weeds (or anything green for that matter). We’ll be sure to let you know how it goes and if it is a worthy eco-friendly solution.
This is the side of our house…covered in tumbleweeds. The wind is so bad up here that tumbleweeds greet us at the door daily from winter to early spring and they eventually settle down right up against the house. Time to pull ‘em out. I hate them things!
This is our front yard. When we first bought this place, it was a house on dirt. The builder didn’t leave the requisite trees intact that we requested for privacy and he certainly didn’t include any landscaping in the deal. Heck, he didn’t even clean up, so the first summer here we spent the entire time cleaning up pieces of 2×4′s, rusty nails and assorted home-building odds and ends. Because erosion is such an issue here, we knew we’d need to throw some sort of seed down, so we spread a native mountain grass that would adapt to this unique climate as well as not require watering. But it also grows wild…so trying to keep it from growing where we don’t want it to grow is a futile effort.
Even Zoe gets lost on what is supposed to be a passable trail around the front and side of the house.
Oh, we have work to do. That’s one downside of home ownership…all the endless work that needs to be done. Oy vay. But we have a home and for that I’m grateful. And I like to think that the au natural look lends to our eco-homestead, no?
So that’s what’s shaking up in our neck of the woods…trying not to sweat it too much. There are far too many more important (and fun!) things to be expending our energy on, right? 
Read Full Post »
On Saturday I had planned to work on photographing and listing new items, but someone got my panties in a bunch (and not in a good way). It wasn’t anyone close to me, but rather someone who I had gone out of my way to accommodate/do a favor for and they flaked out, not once but twice. It really gets under my skin when people either take advantage of your good nature or don’t respect it.
