Human Footprint

I watched an interesting program on the National Geographic channel called the Human Footprint. I just thought I would share some interesting information that I learned.
Since we use a lot of diapers around this house I found this scary. In an average child's life time they will go through 3,796 disposable diapers. In order to make these diapers here are just some of the ingredients it will take: 1,898 pints of crude oil, 715 lbs of plastic and 4.5 trees. After these diapers are used it is estimated that they will take over 500 years to biodegrade. The estimate is that there are 80 billion diapers used a year in the world. The funny think is that we use them because they are supposed to be so convenient, but they sure are not convenient to make and definitely not convenient to get rid of. I was feeling pretty good about myself for using cloth diapers until they said it takes 22,455 gallon of water to wash them, but I am sure that water is used in the manufacturing process of disposable diapers. I guess you are going to leave a human footprint whether you like it or not, but at least I feel like I am not going to leave thousands of diapers that will still be here 500 years from now. Boy is that leaving something for posterity. It is funny because when people find out that I use cloth diapers they look at me like I have two heads and then most people just admit that they are to lazy to us them. I don't know why they think it is so much work to use cloth diapers. All you do is throw them in the washing machine every 4 or 5 days and then hang them up do dry.
If all of this information has inspired you to try cloth diapers then here is the website where I ordered ours. www.motherease.com. I have to say that I love using these diapers. They are not the things our poor mothers had to use with pins and plastic pants. They are so easy to use and wash and we hardly ever have leaks. I use liners that just get flushed down the toilet, that way the poo doesn't end up in the land fills where the bacteria can cause problems ( I bet you never thought of that). Plus nothing feels better on a bare bottom than nice soft cotton.

If you are interested in more information on the Human Footprint, you can check out the site at http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/

An Amazing Book

I am currently reading this book right now and it is amazing!!! I love it. Heather inspired me to read it and I was finally able to get it from the library. I will probably do a few posts on this book because there are so many things in this book that have inspired me. What I love most about the book is that she is very honest about food and it isn't full of a bunch of propaganda. She just gives you the facts about where your food comes from. I also don't feel like she is preaching to you. Once again she just tells the truth about the story behind food and gives you ideas about what you can do in your own lives to eat healthier and more responsibly. I can't wait to head down to the farmer's marked and local fruit stands to start eating some yummy summer veggies and fruit!

Birthday Presents

Poor Amelia! Here is her birthday present. I finally got it finished and now I just need to get my lazy self to the post office to send it to her. I am going to send Hadley's along with it and maybe the fact that hers is one month early will offset the fact that Amelia's is one month late!

Cute Onesies

In trying to keep up with the booming baby population of my friends I have had to come up with some easy and quick gifts, but still cute and hand made. Okay I didn't make the onsie,but I did make the little flower. I am going to give this and a few of my hand made burp clothes to my physical therapist, who is have his third baby girl this summer. I figured that when you are the youngest girl of three your future if full of hand me downs so I thought it would make something nice and new just for her!

Barbecued Pork and Apple Kebabs

We made these kebabs this weekend and they were great. I love being able to BBQ and sit outside and eat dinner on the screened in porch. LIFE IS GOOD!

New Link

You might have noticed the new places to visit. I figured I should put the Martha Stewart site up since I have been making tons of her recipes recently. I also added Beaded Energy. A friend of ours has started this business with her sister and they are making some beautiful jewelery, so head on over to their site and check it out!

Finally A Finished Project

This is the little purse that I posted about earlier. I bought the material years ago and wasn't able to figure out the pattern. I don't know why I couldn't do it before because it is really easy. Working with the fuzzy yarn wasn't easy, but I figured it didn't matter if it was perfect because you can't tell if there is a mistake in all of that fuzz! It feels good to finally have something finished. This has motivated me to get going on some of my other projects. There is a one year old back home in Boise patiently waiting for her birthday present so I better get busy. I think I am going to send this purse along for her big sister's birthday in June!

Asian Salmon Patties

It has been awhile since I have posted anything here. I have been working on lots of projects, but I don't have any finished ones to show off yet. I have also been reading a lot lately. I am currently reading Jane Eyre and loving it.

Unfortunately Jai found out that he has high cholesterol and high blood pressure, so we have been working on eating healthier these last few weeks and trying to eat more fish. I found this recipe for Asian Salmon Patties and thought I would give it a try. These were great. I don't know if it was the ginger that cut the fishy taste or if the salmon was just not fishy tasting, but we really enjoyed them and they were very easy to make. I love cooking with ginger. We keep a jar of ginger paste in the fridge which makes it very easy to use. I always buy it at the Indian store, but you may be able to find it at a regular grocery store in the International aisle. Of course you can buy it and grate it yourself, but it is a lot of work. I also made the sesame mayonnaise to go with the salmon patties. I did add a little bit of soy sauce to the sauce. We ate this with a salad and some rice. I don't like to eat plain rice, so I always mix a few tablespoons of soy sauce (or fish sauce if you are brave), a few tablespoons of lime juice and crushed red pepper to put on my rice Yummy!

Today I had one of the left over patties chopped up on a salad with veggies and Asian dressing and it was still good!