Monthly Archives: December 2011

Green Grinch musings

One of our basement storage spaces holds a small stockpile of Christmas-themed gift bags and tissue paper that I painstakingly smooth out and fold whenever we receive gifts.  While reusing these materials certainly qualifies as green, it also perpetuates the standard that gifts be wrapped (or bagged) in a disposable way.

If I don’t want to receive gifts in disposable wrapping, why would I continue to give gifts concealed in that manner, regardless of the used vs. new status of the gift bags and tissue paper?

Lying in bed last night, I solved my present-wrapping dilemma.  We have numerous receiving blankets (hand-me-downs, not new material) that are far too small to be useful for The Dude.  Sure, they have pastel colors and baby-themed prints on them instead of the traditional red and green, but the Green Grinch doesn’t really get hung up on little details like that.  The blankets will be the perfect size for most of my gifts, and with a few safety pins or bits of ribbon to secure them, I’ll be good to go!

In the spirit of a holiday with “more joy and less stuff,” check out these suggestions from The Center for a New American Dream.

Finally, a bit of food for thought, first a health-related article, then, an environment-related article (these are non-Christmas related, because I am, after all, the Green Grinch 😉 ).

From “Treating a Nation of Anxious Wimps” (follow link to read full article):

Yet the great secret of medicine is that almost everything we see will get better (or worse) no matter how we treat it. Usually better. The human body is exquisitely talented at healing.

The bottom line is that most [acute] conditions are self-limited . . . . Taking drugs for things that go away on their own is rarely helpful and often harmful.

From “Will nature always be the last book on the shelf?” (follow link to read full article):

Here were brand-new books on some of the most important challenges facing society today — now priced to move at about $2.50 — and they’d been left behind by the swarming scavengers, lingering on the shelves in the company of the odd, obscure, and obsolete.

It made real for me the now ubiquitous adage that conservation must strive to be more relevant to people.

All I want for Christmas

Would that be the two bottom teeth?  Or the two top teeth?  Either way, The Dude has it covered now (photo evidence of the bottom teeth in yesterday’s photo).  I’m glad that’s all he wants for Christmas, because that’s all he’s getting, at least from Mommy and Daddy.

I’m definitely a Christmas slacker this year.  We don’t have a Christmas tree (no room in the inn!) or any decorations.  We do have a few strings of colored LED lights in our front room, but we pretty much leave those up all winter, to combat the dark dreariness, so they don’t count as holiday decorations.

I planned to take a cute picture of The Dude in a Santa hat, and send it out as a Christmas greeting, but we don’t own a Santa hat, and I haven’t gotten around to buying, or, ideally, borrowing, one.

It all feels like just one more thing this year — something for which I have neither the time nor energy.  I feel a little guilty, a bit like Scrooge or The Grinch — after all, this is “Baby’s First Christmas,” which only happens once.

The thing is, he will remember absolutely nothing about the holidays this year. And, to be fair, we’ll be spending Christmas at my parents’ house, where we can enjoy their tree and decorations. Plus, the various sets of grandparents will make sure that there are presents under the tree with The Dude’s name on them.

Also, while I can do without the commercialism and consumerism of the holidays, I am excited to experience them through the eyes of a child in the years ahead, so I am NOT a total Grinch.  I anticipate celebrations filled with the love, warmth, and family traditions that really make this season special.  Until then, I hope The Dude enjoys his two four front teeth 😉

Update: I may not be the first to claim the title, but I dubbed myself the Green Grinch — it has a nice ring to it!

Percolating

Number of draft posts started in the last week (and by “started,” I mean they have titles): 6

Number of published posts in the last week: 1

Sigh.  Maybe one of these days . . . .

Until then, here’s a gratuitous baby picture to make up for my lack of posting 🙂

Wonder(ful) bread

We may, on occasion, take things to extremes here in the Green Life household.  On Sunday, I biked to church, and a fellow parishioner commented on my “extreme cycling.”  Perfectly dry pavement, no precipitation on the radar, and almost 32° F?  NOT extreme, especially not with the help of my trusty balaclava and super-warm mittens.  Sometimes one person’s extreme is another person’s normal.

So, bread.  We’ve been making our own bread for quite awhile now, but our neighbors inspired us to branch out a bit.  First, we borrowed their Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day cookbook.  Good concept, but lacking our beloved whole grains.  This led us to the follow-up Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day, which had a couple of recipes that seemed close, but not quite right, due to the presence of some white flour.  Surely we could make a great, basic whole wheat bread with 100% whole wheat!Continue reading “Wonder(ful) bread”

Sicko

I pride myself on having a good immune system — I rarely succumb to sickness, and, when I do, my symptoms are generally mild and of short duration.  While there may be factors beyond my control (do genetics play a role in avoiding/contracting acute illnesses like the common cold???), my healthy lifestyle, including a nutritious diet with lots of antioxidants from the vegetables, fruit, and legumes, minimal consumption of added sugars and processed foods, exercise, and getting enough sleep, certainly contributes to my general state of health.  Well, pride sleep deprivation goeth before a fall, as they say.

I blame sleep deprivation, stress, and all those snotty-nosed little ones at The Dude’s daycare for my current state.  Unfortunately, this also marks The Dude’s first cold, and most of my tried-and-true cold-symptom-alleviating/duration-shortening methods don’t work for babies:

  • Pounding liquids — You can’t really force a baby to drink more, and doing so is not advisable anyway.
  • Hot tea with honey — NO HONEY for babies, or tea for that matter, really.
  • Neti pot — not sure how old he’ll have to be before he can use this blue pot.
  • Gargling with salt water (not just an old wives’ tale)
  • Blowing nose, clearing throat and spitting, or other methods of expelling the gunk

That said, we are trying a few things:

  • Administering saline nasal drops, as described here
  • Using a nasal aspirator
  • Running a humidifier
  • Making use of the steamy bathroom

Strangely enough, The Dude seems much more amenable to the last two options.  He believes that the first two surely spring from ancient torture techniques, thus necessitating the involvement of both parental units.

It’s only been a couple of days now, but I’m not sure that anything helps him much.  I also realized that while I can observe some symptoms, like coughing, sneezing, and a runny nose, I would never know if he had a sore throat (which has plagued me) — talk about feeling helpless!