taking it easy

so here I am already slipping and not writing as often as I wanted to, but it's OK...taking it easy and spending time with my little ones is even more important than keeping a journal! So there it is! My answer to paper wasting.............chalk and sidewalk and also Melissa and Doug chalk board! So simple, why I didn't think of it earlier!? And that would sum up my February small change, now I have to decide what I will do for March...but for now, some more outside playing is in order!!!

lunch with my girls

yesterday we went to have a lunch with friends in our new favorite coffee shop with beautiful view, the sound of the ocean was so calming I had a hard time getting up and leaving, everybody does, at least I think! If you have never had a coffee by the sea you should try it the first chance you get! After lunch we had to go take our recycling (cans, plastic bottles and carboard only....still don't know where to take glass jars and paper....) to Harmon, task I really don't like but do every month, so our apartment's recycling area is little empty for about two days and that is nice esp. since it's right underneath the A/C which decided to start leaking yesterday (again!) so now we are sitting here and waiting for Mr. Lee to come and look at it. Also over the weekend I read that GTA is recycling their phone books, so I should go and look for them, another thing out of here will make me happy! My goal is to reduce and organize our junk, slowly but surely......

weekend

this has nothing to do with anything crafty or Eco friendly, but I just love the picture almost as much as I loved our Saturday afternoon beach time!

sunset run

on Wednesday we went for sunset run, my daughter in a stroller taking pictures....this is one of them, good times!

Guam and recycling

I grew up in the Czech republic, recycling was never on our mind and yet we did it all the time! There is a deposit on bottles, so when you return them, you get your money back, we sort our paper into piles....newspaper, magazines and other and every apartment building or a block has containers for plastic, color glass and white glass. So super easy, even for lazy people and very convenient! But here on Guam? Recycling takes lot of effort and it is real pain in a butt and yet, they have a major problem with the dump , I mean real problem (it's way to full and they cannot decide about the new one...some sort of legal issue and whatnot..) that could be at least partly solved by recycling. I am one of few people I know who recycle at all and I have to go to different recycling centers to do it and some things I don't even know where to take, so they are just piling up in our small (and I really mean small) apartment! So that is my problem with all the paper my daughter uses for drawing and writing you see! She learnt to use both sides but still how many of her pretty drawings can I keep!? So my small change challenge for this months is to figure out how to deal with this! Any suggestions?

small change

both kids asleep! I could be cleaning or make myself a peanut butter sandwich and make another blog post....this one is about small change from Hip mountain mama. My Eco-friendly idea might not be so Eco-friendly, but I will post it anyway and see what will happen. So, in our school in bed (AKA home school) we have been working on numbers and letters lately and I have been printing and cutting letter card for my daughter to create words and practice letters, but we always misplace them somehow and I have to print more and I think that is very wasteful! yesterday I got an idea! For our letter recognition and word creation we use a paint program from our computer! yay! My daughter loves typing the letters and no more paper and ink wasted! I know I know we are using computer so the power is ON ...so is that Eco-friendly or not! What do you think?

oh beans!

It is truly amazing what a bowl, melon scoop and bag of beans can do for four-year old girl! I tell you what it can do....hours of fun!
completely unrelated...we have discovered universal dough for pretzels/bread sticks that is super easy and fast and yummy!
here is recipe:
4 cups of flour
1 and half cups of lukewarm water
1package of yeast
1tbsp of sugar
1tsp of salt
powder sugar+cinnamon if you are making sweet pretzels
more salt, oregano or whatever spice you like on your bread sticks
and some melted butter
in a bowl, combine water, sugar and yeast ...let sit for little bit (about 5 min) in larger bowl combine flour and salt, pour in the yeast-y water and mix, let sit for about half and hour (if you are pressed for time, you don't have to let it sit we tried it both ways and when you let it sit for little bit it makes it easier to work with the dough) cut your dough into 8 pieces and roll them out into "snakes" as my daughter calls it, if you are making a bread sticks put your snakes on cookie sheet (we tried both greased and ungreased and the results were the same, so it's up to you) or create the pretzel shape if you want! we bake ours 400 degrees for about 15 minutes. then when they are still warm, brush them with the melted butter and roll in sugar+ cinnamon mixture if you are making sweet ones or add oregano more salt and spices into butter if you prefer non-sweet ones. Either way they are delicious, and I am sorry to tell you I didn't get to take a picture and I also don't know how they do the next day, because we always eat them all! Enjoy!

I wouldn't dare to say pattern, let's call it instruction...

so I was happily knitting one of many wash clothes out of my favorite yarn (Lily's sugar n' cream, oh how I love that yarn!) when my daughter came to me with request for Sally's dress (Sally is this wonderful 12 inch Waldorf doll from Apple tree house), I was half way done with my washcloth so instead of finishing it, I turned it into a dress...and here is how:
with DPN CO 48 st
k2 p2 till end for about 4 rows
knit 5 inches or until you almost reach your doll's "bellybutton" (pretend one)
k2p2 till end for about 4 rows
knit 20 st. cast off the rest
using 2 dpn knit one row, purl one row...until you reach your doll's neck (in my case 2.5 inches)
put first 3 stitches on scrap yarn or safety pin cast off all stitches except the last 3 those you are going to need to knit in I-cord for about 7 inches
then pick up the other 3 stitches and do the same...then do whatever you do when you are finish knitting, I use needle to weave the ends....and that's it! easy right!?