Not to lose the feeling of what my blog is about, and what our real world consists of, I’m going to mix some homespun goodness into the Disney posts. This is not a Disney blog after all. Hehehehe….

Today it’s hot out and I’m running a fever with no symptoms other than my body aching all over. What’s that about? You can’t have a fever when it’s 99 degrees outside.

The only way to stay cool in Central Texas during the summer is to stay in the water.

Any ideas how to keep a Golden Retriever puppy out of the kiddie pool?

In my refrigerator. Snuggled right in between my Bonne Maman preserves and my Hell on the Red salsa sits not one, but two boxes of worms. They have been there for over a week now. And the worms are all still alive.

Yes, there are live worms in my fridge. Not that it would be any better if they were dead. There are squiggling dirt eating worms, cohabiting in my fridge alongside the yogurt, eggs and milk. This can’t be healthy.

Is this seriously my fridge?

We moved out here just around eight months ago. We abandoned the suburbs for the great outdoors. And the great outdoors it is. Worms and all.

What do we do with the worms you might ask? Why, we catch big fish of course. What’s the trade off for worms in the fridge? Miles taking both of the kids on a Sunday afternoon to the supermarket, just to give me a few moments of quiet. Then returning with orange flowers. Because Makena says that orange is my favorite color.

Then tucking the kids into bed. Reassuring them that there are no Monsters under the bed. Because Mama decided to show them the movie Monsters, Inc. Grilling fish out back, while enjoying a cold beer on the deck. Dinner with my orange flowers. And the quiet that follows, once again.

For my fourth installment participating in Emily’s Green Week I’ve got a little story to share with you. Oh, and a few green photos too.

Do you ever go into a store and come out with so much more than you planned? I do that at Ikea. I go in for tea lights and come out with a shopping cart full of God knows what. I get home and I’ve got a ladle, candle holder, picture frame, dog bowl, glasses, cutting board, napkins, wrapping paper, bamboo, etc., etc. It never fails, it happens every time.

This week I had a similar experience at Lowes, a home improvement store. I went in for a bag of potting soil and came out with $600 worth of plants. Now mind you, I did not buy any of the plants and I did not steal them either. As I was loading the kids into the car, without the potting soil because they didn’t have the organic variety I was looking for, several people began loading plants into my car. They were taking plants off of these seven foot high rolling carts. There were signs on the cart that had the actual retail value ($594). That price was marked out and $10 was circled. There were begonias, geraniums, this and that. All kinds of plants were being pulled off of the shelves. You could buy an entire cart valued at $600 for $10. I quickly made a mad dash back inside to purchase my own gigantic cart of red geraniums.

Supposedly a freeze had come through the night before and some of the plants were damaged. I guess one yellow leaf makes a plant unworthy of selling because my cart might have had five yellow leaves in the entire group. Makes you think about all of the plants that must be discarded on a regular basis.

It only took us two trips back and forth from the store to get all of the plants home. Makena and I spent the past two days attempting to dig holes in our rocky dirt to no avail. So we moved on to ‘landscape design’ and placed all of the plants around the yard to wait for Miles to come home and dig some holes for us.

It was dark by the time Miles got home. So there we were, two lovers in the moonlight planting the 10,000 geraniums and whatchamacallits in the garden. Miles was the digger, I was the planter. It really is a good thing we live in the country because if we had close neighbors, they would think we are crazy. Oh what the heck, we are crazy. And you know what? That has to be one of my favorite memories living in this house… and it was only yesterday. As taurus, the big dipper and the little dipper watched over us we talked about life, jobs, family, and everything in between. We talked about why the dirt is hard in this one spot, but one foot over it’s perfect soil. We talked about our dreams, our kids and how absolutely beautiful it was outside.

We’ve managed to plant about $250 worth of plants and have run out of room. The rest of the plants will be handed out to helpless victims. I only hope that when they plant them, they plant them under the stars at night. You should try it, it’s a life changing experience.

For Valentines Day, I insisted that we all exchange handmade valentines or a gift that is sustainable. There is a lot of talk these days about sustainable living and its effects on our environment and quality of living. As I was perusing through my February issue of National Geographic Adventure Magazine I came across a very clear cut example of eco-responsibility. The clothing and outdoor gear brand Patagonia exudes eco-responsibility in its manufacturing and production of products. In their attempt to lessen their carbon footprint, they have begun to track the production of products and its effects.

They provided their Wool 2 Crew base layer shirt as an example. The route: wool from New Zealand - then onto the Japanese textile factory (via Malaysia) - across the Pacific to a sewing facility in Southern California - packaged in Reno, Nevada; sent on to retail stores and homes. The result: miles traveled 16,280 - pounds of carbon dioxide emitted: 47 - waste generated: 9 oz - energy consumption: 89 megajoules (equivilant to powering an average U.S. household for 20 hours). Patagonia’s verdict: Unsustainable. I bet you had no idea it took that much to make a shirt. I sure didn’t.

I’ve also been reading Living the Good Life by Linda Cockburn which is about a family who lived a complete sustainable lifestyle for six months. I sure don’t plan on going to those extremes. I can just picture it now, it would be like living on an island on Survivor. We would stink, starve and lose 50 pounds (which might not be so bad). It does make me think about what I buy, where it’s coming from and what all it had to go through to get to me. I’m actually pretty dumbfounded by the concept.

So for Valentines day, I told Miles that we had to try to make our gifts sustainable or handmade. We both had plants on the brain but neither of us knew it. I took the kids to the Natural Gardner and I let them pick out succulents to create a small succulent garden for daddy. We got home, played in the dirt and created our garden.

My gift from Miles was this holly bush - I just love the red berries! He also made a donation to the Miracle Foundation. The Miracle Foundation empowers children to reach their full potential. First, by working collaboratively to empower families living in poverty to keep, feed, and educate their children. Second, by partnering and supporting existing orphanages to upgrade them to a global model. Third, by building family-style orphanages to provide children with personalized attention. For every donation you make, two trees are donated to orphans in India. I’ll take that kind of gift any day!

All in all, I have been more thoughtful to the gifts I give, gifts I receive and things I buy on a daily basis. Things haven’t changed dramatically around here but my awareness has and that has an impact on my babes. And that is the one thing we are responsible for right?!?