I'm going through one of those spells where I'm unhappy with almost everything for no good reason. Many times I get a pile of fun books with little substance and just immerse myself in those for a few weeks and the feeling passes. Unfortunately I can't seem to find enough books to keep me immersed this time as the interlibrary loans are really slow in being processed, budget cutbacks are the reason.
We finally started school last week and I'm ready to just give it up. It was a long and difficult week which added to my feelings of unhappiness. I just hope this week goes more smoothly.
The one really great thing right now is that our garden is producing lots of tomatoes. Last year the tomato plants died before we got anything off of them. This year we can barely keep up with eating them before they go bad. Since they are ripening at the pace of 1-2 a day there aren't enough read at one time to can them.
Since I don't want this to solely be a whiny post...
I've been reading a number of "green" blogs lately. I really want to do more in our home that is environmentally friendly. We conserve water and electricity, I recycle as much of our garbage as possible even though it's not convenient, and Paul does most of our errands after work to cut back on trips to town. But I'm running into a problem, how can we be more environmentally friendly without going over our food budget? We buy most of our food from Sam's Club but the over packaging is just horrible. Many times the items in a case are individually wrapped. I'd love to buy more of our staples from bulk bins at the store we purchase other things from but it would be much more expensive. We try to buy local produce that is in season but sometimes it's a lot cheaper to buy what's on sale. It's tough to balance my desire to cut our waste and still put good food on the table. As we change more and more of our habits I find that the changes are becoming smaller and more difficult but I never fail to find more things to work on.
4 comments:
Uhm, you do not know me, like, at all. But I have been reading (quietly) your blog for a while now. A month? I do not know, what is time? Anyway.. I agree with the book thing, I have been on chapter 20something in "Moby Dick" for forever, I swear. Tough.
Anyway.. my real reason for commenting. You say you have a fear of your tomatoes going bad? you could try to save them, by freezing or canning them in some way, and you would (if you like tomato sauce) cut back on some of your budget, potentially. We do that, and we end up eating a lot of chili, spaghetti, and the like, but we like it. It works for us, just an idea. And if you can it, you get to reuse your jars. Recycling? Sorta. Anyway, cheers, have a great day, sorry about the school thing. wow, that was a long enough comment, I know. (I play kol)
Kim, I know just what you mean about the budget. I have increased the amount of shopping I do at Walmart and Aldi, and their produce packaging (and meat and dairy too, but I don't buy as much of those at the two stores) drives me NUTS with how wasteful it is, and how much space it takes up in my garbage bin. But I'm having a hard enough time feeding us as is; I can't afford to choose my grocery items based primarily on environmental packaging.
Hey Morgan.
I feel like I know you a bit, both my dh and dd have told me a bit about you. KOL is certainly something I've heard lots about :)
Thanks for the comment. I didn't even think about freezing them, definitely something for me to try.
well, we do not freeze them whole, we cook them down, then strain the juice out, and cook it some more. It is not too difficult, just time consuming and messy.
And you have heard about me?? I hope it was good, and I did not disappoint. One has to be careful about these things.
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