What Makes Green?

We visited the local recycling center recently. I’ve known about it for a while, but honestly I was pretty apprehensive about taking our things there. I think I have a fear of the unknown that makes me a little panicky sometimes (I need to work on that). I don’t know what I expected, but it was super easy. Here’s a pic of Emi and Nelson sorting through the plastic.

The sweet old man working the center left us to ourselves. He said, “It looks like you know what you’re doing… I’ve got a cup of ice and a Dr. Pepper waiting for me, so I’ll leave y’all be.” Don’t you just love Texas!! I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of recycling going on. Many of the bins were quite full. That makes me happy!

In trying to steer clear of that nasty consumerism… I wanted to share what I did with our kitchen table. When we bought this house in April, it had an eating area in the kitchen and a separate dining room. I only had one dining room table, a limited budget, and the need for a small table. The one I really wanted was the Liatorp from Ikea. I liked that it had an extension but at $249.00, our home buying selves really couldn’t spare that kind of change.

Enter Craigslist! I found a very similar table with 2 chairs for the awesome price of $30! It wasn’t white or new or had the extension, but it had good structure. It was actually stained a funky shade… I don’t even know what it was. But it stayed like that for a little while. I finally found some time to prime and paint the cutie, and this is the end result!

The 2 dark chairs on the sides were included in the $30 price tag. I don’t have a ‘before’ picture of the table, but you can see the previous stain on the chairs. The little yellow chair came from Salvation Army, a $4.00 find! All 3 chairs are in line to be painted, I just have to figure out what color. Here’s a close-up of the old stain.

I’m really glad that we were able to re-use something that someone else didn’t need anymore (the stellar price makes it even more awesome!). With a little paint and a lot of elbow grease, I’d say I’m really happy with the result.

What’s new to me is hardly ever new to anyone else (you’d think I live in a cave). Maybe I do. But, I’m going to share anyway, just incase there might be someone out there who hasn’t seen it. The 20 minute video should be everywhere… it really makes you think. It made me think. It reminded me of the desire for a new dining room set that I just can’t justify. Mine is old, kind of ugly, and with icky upholstry. It’s also a little big for the room. But, it seats all six of us well. It even sits eight well enough when we have one of our parents over. I can paint it; I can reupholster it.

So there is my reminder to myself. Do not give in to consumerism. Make what you have last and remember what’s important in your life… family…. Please watch the video if you have not. Just click the image below!

I stumbled upon ‘The Story of Stuff’ by visiting Simple, Green, Frugal Co-op. Thanks for sharing!

Recently we visited a ‘new to me’ store in Austin. It’s actually a co-op called Wheatsville that Nelson found out about and joined. I’ve been to the big Central Market and Whole Foods, but this was a very different place. I really, really enjoyed it there! The produce was beautiful and it gave me some hope when it comes to dinner options for this family. The problem that I do have with it is, the price.

This problem is not new to anyone trying to change the way they eat. The produce, bulk foods, juices, personal items, everything… substantially higher in price. It make s me sad. I try to rationalize it by telling myself that the junk that we used to buy helps offset the price for the quality foods, but it’s not quite working that way. We seem to be buying food more often to keep the house stocked and we’re spending more on the total bill.

My other problem is availability. I do wish there was a grocery store like this in my own town. Wheatsville and Whole Foods are an hour away. I’m not completely out of the loop with them, though. Nelson works in Austin and has more than once offered to pick up anything that I need. But… I do the cooking for us and it’s kind of nice to be able to browse and pick up the foods that my family eats. I don’t know if everyone is like that, but that’s how I feel.

Enough with the negative talk… here is sweet Chloe posing!

My sweet husband was recently laughed at by the local butcher. “Grass-fed? Why would you want to eat that!?” What we thought would be a good resource for grass-fed beef turned out to be a dead end (one that we will never travel down again). Well, that’s okay, we’ll find what we’re looking for somewhere else. And we did.

Saturday we had lunch at a super neat restaurant/diner called Terra Burgers. We ate at the location on the UT drag. It was a little pricey for a burger joint, but worth it for what we were getting. Let me introduce you to my grass-fed beef burger, organic fries (unseen), and locally grown tea.

Here’s the table spread!

I love that Terra Burgers uses nothing but organic and all-natural foods and materials. The cups were reusable, the napkins recycled, even the cup holder was made to decompose quickly. The whole place was oosing with eco-friendliness. Even the bathroom!

Needless to say, we really enjoyed our time there. Chloe, who’s been an extremely picky eater lately and not wanting to eat better, even enjoyed her organic apple juice and real sugar lollipop.

I’m not a big fan of driving into Austin (I have ‘trafficaphobia’), but if my wonderful husband is willing to drive back down there on the weekend, I’d love to visit the diner again!

Here’s to a wonderful day!

This past weekend was filled with quite a few new surprises. It started Saturday with the intention of placing the painted black headboard on our king sized bed (one of my first diy projects for ‘the yellow house’).

We realized that our bed frame wasn’t going to line up with the hardware on the headboard, so we brainstormed. Do we alter the headboard? Buy a new frame? What about a new bed altogether? Should we downsize to a queen? All of these options were floating around in our heads. We decided to take a trip to Ikea and see what they had to offer. If you know me, you know I have Ikea love!! So I was super excited to make this unexpected trip. Even more excited to be looking at beds!!

Thiry-five minutes later, we’re there! We only had 2 kids with us and had already checked out the measurements of the boxes online, so we were good. We go through the store at a pretty quick pace… slowing down here and there so I can show Nelson all of the wonders that I dream about.  Okay, we’re at the beds. We decide on the Lillesand king bed (for some reason, it’s not shown on the US website, only Canadian). We head to the warehouse. Side rails-check! Midbeam-check! Head and footboard-woah!!! This sucker is huge! There is no way we were going to get it into our mini-van. We just stare at each other. After deliberating, we decide to buy the rails and midbeam and leave the rest of the bed there. Nelson is stoked about getting this thing done TODAY, so we work around the rest of our day (a whole other post entirely) and decide to ask my dad if we can borrow his truck to pick up the rest of my sweet bed. Luckily, the answer is a yes! We arrive back in Austin at 8:30 in the evening, 30 minutes before they close. We high-tail it down the back way into Ikea (Nelson needed a new pillow too, so we took the shortcuts to the linen department). We grab the pillow and the rest of my bed, and hussle out the door. The bed still didn’t fit right (I’m tellin’ you, this thing was huge!), but we managed to get it down the highway safely. The huge box stuck waaaay out the right side of the truck so we kept the driving to the right lane. With visions of this thing falling out of the truck and myself having a massive heartattack, we slowly made our way home, but we did make it!!

Nelson is my handy-dandy Ikea builder. He’s awesome with those instructions!  It actually wasn’t too difficult to put together, from my bystander position.

I am so pleased with our new bed. It’s a beautiful and fits the style of our little 1940’s sweet home perfectly!

It’s time to start writing!! Nelson and I have been learning so much about our health and this crazy world that we live in. Writing about, sharing what we’ve learned, and venting our concerns has brought us here. We’ve needed a home online for a while… so here we are!