I may use this picture instead (though in a sepia tone, not stark black and white, I just have to get it off the disk):

Then here is the next page. I may switch around the order of some of the pictures, but otherwise I’m pretty happy with it.

I haven’t left room for margins. I won’t be printing them as a book, I’ll have individual 12×12 pages printed and then put them in an album that way, I just like how that looks better for some reason. I’ve heard that way a lot less ends up cropped off the edges, so I hope that’s true. I’m trying to find some place that would let me print out one or two as samples to check, but with shipping it often ends up being pretty expensive to just print out one or two pages. I guess it would be cheaper than printing out an entire album and discovering I don’t like something about it though!

The next page will be all the professional pregnancy pictures we had done, and then I’ll work on the labour and delivery page. I still haven’t finished Meredith’s scrapbook either, but hers is all paper scrapbooking and it’s so much harder to just spend 20 minutes at a time working on it because I have to get everything out and then put it away again. I have a big 6 foot craft table upstairs now though that has all my sewing stuff on it. I think I may clear off the sewing stuff and use it to try to finish Meredith’s book (and, uh, my wedding album lol).

Related posts:

1. Blog2Print
2. Hi baby
3. Baby-Led Weaning

We had a busy Thanksgiving weekend here. My twin sisters came to visit from Calgary. One of them has only visited once, and it was four or five years ago. The other has never been out here. So it was really neat to see them. I really haven’t spent much time alone with them in a long time. When I moved away from home, they were only thirteen. They are twenty-one now. Even though intellectually I know that they’re older and more mature, they’re still my baby sisters. It was neat to see just how mature and, well, adult, they are. We had a ton of fun. Meredith called them Bob or Baba (Melissa) and Kaw-wee (Kayley). She can be a bit shy and quiet around people she doesn’t know well, but she adored them from about two minutes after they got here.

My sisters have a friend who was in town just for the weekend who is spending the semester in Bamfield. She brought someone with her from Bamfield, and one of their friends flew up from Calgary to visit her. Since they had no where to go for Thanksgiving dinner, we invited them over, along with a good friend of ours who moved out here with me eight years ago and has no family here. All in all, we had eight people for Thanksgiving. I’ve never really cooked for more than four or five. (I grew up in a family of six, but I made one mistake once while cooking for them and after that my mom decided I was a terrible cook and I never had to cook for the whole family again, besides helping out with stuff they were doing.)

I was a bit nervous, but did a lot of prep work Saturday and made what I could ahead of time. So Saturday I made stock, mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, and cranberry relish. I also cut up what veggies I wasn’t worried about going brown overnight and prepped a few other dishes.

Sunday morning my sisters arrived, and they were a huge help in tidying, prepping, and cooking. Everything ended up working out really well and was timed almost perfectly. The turkey ended up being done early, but we just turned the oven down and continued basting it a lot and it was fine. I forgot about the buns while they were rising, so they rose a little too long but still tasted delicious. My two crockpots came in really handy.

In the end, we had buns, green salad, avocado and asparagus salad, garlic herb turkey, stuffing, ham, apple sauce, mushroom gravy, cranberry sauce, cranberry relish, broccoli and cauliflower in cheese sauce, scalloped potatoes, and yam and apple casserole. There weren’t as many left overs as I’d expected there might be. Most of the side dishes were gone that night or the next day for lunch. I actually had a lot of fun, and can definitely see myself doing something like that again in the future.

Unfortunately, though I got pictures of some of the prep and the centerpiece my sister put together out of stuff from my garden, I forgot to take pictures of us actually enjoying the food! Oh well, I did remember to get pictures of everyone afterwards.

For supper the next day, we mashed up the rest of the scalloped potatoes, made some glazed carrots, and used the rest of the stuffing, some turkey, cranberry sauce, and gravy to make a Thanksgiving shepherd’s pie. That was really delicious too and something we’ll keep in mind for next time too.

I’ll likely post some of these recipes in the next little while, as some were from a magazine borrowed from a friend, and others were found on the internet, and I want to be able to find them again later.

Related posts:

1. Meal Plans
2. Crunchy Orange Curried Chicken with Potatoes
3. Homemade Beef Dip

• 12-14oz canned salmon, not drained or deboned (unsalted is best)
• 1 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 tsp garlic
• 2 eggs
• a pinch to a small handful of parmesan (optional)

Either dump it all in a food processor and blend it up well, or just use a fork and add the ingredients one at a time and mash them up well each time. Flatten it out on a baking tray. The texture shouldn’t be runny at all, so I used a baking sheet bigger than I really needed and just flattened it to the thickness I wanted.

Bake at 350° for about 15 minutes, but keep an eye out on it as if you bake it too long it could get crunchy. You basically just want the egg to cook enough to hold it all together well. Use a pizza cutter to cut pieces to the size you want to use, and voila! They’re really stinky, so don’t do this when you’re expecting guests over.

These got a big thumbs up from Sorcha, Sebastian, and Meredith. Yes, Meredith loves these. I give her ones without bones but I can’t get one out for the dog or cat without handing one (or more!) to Meredith as well. Who knew?

Related posts:

1. Stuffed and Smothered Salmon
2. Baked Seasoned Salmon
3. Grilled Lime Salmon with Avocado Sauce

This time, I came across a site for homemade deodorant. I was pretty skeptical, though to be honest I’m not sure why I would be, since my homemade cleaners and bug sprays seem to work as well if not better than any chemicals from the store. But I was. However, after reading the reviews I decided to give it a try. The aluminum in most deodorants has been linked to Alzheimer’s, and since my grandmother has it, I’d like to do whatever I can to lessen the probability of me getting it too. If that means making my own deodorant, so be it. If it saves me money in the process (and it does, even using organic ingredients), even better. It took me all of five minutes to make, using ingredients I always have in the house anyway, so for me it was quicker than running out to the store too.

Natural Deodorant

• 5 TB coconut oil (I used extra-virgin, cold-pressed, organic)
• 1/4 cup baking soda
• 1/4 cup corn starch
• essential oil

Melt the coconut oil on low heat. Coconut oil has a very low melting point so it won’t take long. Remove from heat and add the baking soda and corn starch. Stir until smooth.

Add a few drops of essential oil depending on your preferences. I put five drops of tea tree oil for it’s antibacterial and antifungal properties, and orange because I love the smell. Next time, I might also add a couple of drops of lavender. Once it has cooled somewhat, give it another stir to prevent the oils from settling.

The only thing I forgot to do was figure out a container to put it in once it was done. All I had in the house were plastic, two-cup rubbermaid containers. It didn’t even fill one of those halfway. I like the idea of reusing an old deodorant container, except that coconut oil has such a low melting point that I would be worried about it leaking. It would have to be somewhere upright and it wouldn’t work for traveling. I think next time I will see if I can find some squat glass containers to use.

So far, it seems to work as well as any store-bought ones I have tried. The true test will be to see how it holds up over time though.

Related posts:

1. Homemade Beef Dip
2. There’s something in the air

Related posts:

1. Organic Pouch Sling Giveaway
2. Love That Blog
3. La Teta: to give the breast is to give life

Guidelines:

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers. (use image if you like)
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.

1. Do you use baking soda toothpaste or baking soda shampoo? If not, would you consider it?

I use baking soda shampoo. My toothpaste is not homemade but does have baking soda in it and I would consider it a “green” toothpaste.

2. Do you make any home cleaning products?

Yep, pretty much all of my cleaners are homemade. Love them! And it’s so cheap.

3. What is your top green issue at the moment?

I really want to start composting but haven’t found a good composter for an affordable price. It’s something we’ll start this Spring though, even if it means having to buy one of the really expensive ones. I hate throwing away vegetable trimmings and food scraps that could be composted. I tend to freeze a lot of our veggie trimmings and either use them when I make stock, or bring them to the SPCA for the animals there.

4. Given unlimited cash, what is on your fantasy green wishlist?

An acreage I can homestead on. I’d love some chickens, a couple of goats, maybe a cow, and a lot of land to grow our own produce.

5. Have you implemented any new green act/behaviour/product this month?

We sold our car and chose not to buy another one. We’re going to try a car co-op instead.

Related posts:

1. Green Meme Blogger #1
2. 6 Random Things
3. There’s something in the air

Here is some information about Deet from the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry.  From that site: “The most frequently reported symptoms of DEET toxicity in children were lethargy, headaches, tremors, involuntary movements, seizures, and convulsions.”  From Wikipedia: “As a precaution, manufacturers advise that DEET products should not be used under clothing or on damaged skin, and that preparations be washed off after they are no longer needed or between applications.”  There are many other sites that cite studies and research regarding the health effects of Deet, but likely I’m preaching to the choir on this blog so I won’t elaborate further.

So why do people use Deet? It’s often been touted as the most effective bug repellent.  The effectiveness of citronella (which is one of the most popular ingredients in natural bug sprays) is debated, with the best result I’ve been able to find being 19 minutes.

A 2002 study by the University of North Carolina and the University of Florida (published in the New England Journal of Medicine), found that products containing about 24 per cent DEET protected people for almost four hours. By contrast, products with citronella provided just 19 minutes of protection. The study said the most effective natural repellents contained eucalyptus oil, which provided almost two hours of protection from bugs.

I have seen sprays available with eucalyptus oils, which doesn’t have the known toxicity of Deet and lasts about half the time.  Another very interesting natural bug spray I have been using for the past couple of years with great luck is catnip.  The insect-repellent qualities were actually first reported in the 1960′s by Thomas Eisner.  More recently, two researchers reported their results of studies done on the effectiveness of catnip at the American Chemical Society in 2001.  They actually found that catnip worked better than Deet.  One thing to note is that while their results showed that catnip repelled more mosquitoes than Deet, it doesn’t say anything about how long that effectiveness will last.

Catnip is best known for making cats crazy.  But is it safe for use on our skin?  I haven’t found a lot of safety data for it.  There are cautions for pregnant and lactating women to avoid it due to a lack of safety information, which basically means it could be safe, but we don’t know.  However, it has been eaten and steeped in teas for generations for a variety of ailments, so it doesn’t seem to have to toxicity when ingested that Deet does.  Also, cats are known to be much more sensitive than dogs and humans (much like canaries), and it has been established that catnip is safe for them.

Given all of the above, I’m fairly comfortable using catnip bug sprays, especially considering the alternatives.  I try and keep it to a minimum, using them only when I’m walking in areas or at a time when I know there will be a lot of mosquitoes out.  Mosquitoes love me normally, and I react strongly to their bites, getting enormous red welts wherever one of them has snacked.  I try and wear long sleeves/pants, and spray my clothes rather than my skin.  Meredith hasn’t seemed to get any bites yet, so we don’t spray her unless the mosquitoes are extremely bad (and again, only her clothes).  I think we’ve only used it once on her.

I’ve found it very difficult to find bug sprays that aren’t citronella based.  I don’t know how citronella got its reputation as a great bug spray considering the evidence that it really doesn’t work.  So I did some searching and found some recipes for making your own, and thought I would share a couple of them.  I’ve also added these to my Earth-Friendly Products page.

Catnip is easy to grow, and you can add the herbs to apple cider vinegar in a jar, shake frequently for two to three weeks, and then strain and rub the liquid on or put it in a spray bottle.

You can also use the essential oil.  I’ve seen various combinations of oils suggested, including pennyroyal (with cautions not to use on pregnant women or small children), tea tree oil, eucalyptus, and cedarwood.  Use a carrier oil as a base.  Neem oil and soybean oil are also known to repel mosquitoes, so might be a good choice for the base.  Even a 1% concentration of catnip oil has been shown to be effective.  A 5-10% concentration would be about 2.5-5tsps of pure catnip oil to 1 cup of carrier oil.

Related posts:

1. Homemade Deodorant
2. There’s something in the air
3. Hidden crib dangers

It was so good, and all dairy-free. We gave Bebe tiny amounts of everything except the onion. She ate a little mashed potato (and seemed to really enjoy it), but just played with the asparagus and chicken. She tasted the chicken but didn’t actually put it in her mouth. She had a lot of fun but had to have a bath afterwards with Daddy. (No hardship, she loves baths.)

I saved the carcass, to try and make chicken broth with. We’re really trying to eat homemade and from scratch as much as possible, especially now that Bebe is eating/tasting it too.

Related posts:

1. Crunchy Orange Curried Chicken with Potatoes