Bistro, Sugar, Soap

I bought a new set of patio furniture today. It was labeled "ice cream parlor set," but it looked to me like the perfect bistro set for my new garden. The "cushions" on the chairs were easily removed by BB (2yo), and that gave me the idea to replace them -which I'm working on (one was made for trial, looks good, 3 to go plus a matching table cloth!).

I thought I'd also note on here that last year Ben asked me to avoid high fructose corn syrup. That was difficult at first! Today, as we were drinking our HFCS laden sodas at lunch at Aqui's, we discussed buying some Sigg bottles so that we could bring our own water or what have you. This will save us money (it's $3.30 for 2 refillable drinks) and quench our thirst (is it just me, or does soda leave you thirsty, too?).

This last week, I also made the decision to not knowingly have white sugar any longer. That is going to be the toughest! I will not be able to eat dessert most places. I *love* dessert. Yesterday, I ran out (on purpose) of white sugar at home. I've purchased Sucanat, and we like Rapadura, so we can still bake things, but we will slowly change what sort of things we bake. Muffins will be made more frequently than cookies soon, though we'll still have our share of cookies.

I'm going to begin menu planning to budget healthy meals, and I'd like to start going regularly to the Farmer's Markets (My friend, Mrs. A-, suggested one not too far from here on Wednesdays). The children love going to market, I usually let them pick at least one new or favorite item to bring home. When we get something unusual, we go online to find out how to prepare it in a way that sounds appealing. Then, we work together to make up the new recipe. This often makes it easier to treat them to new foods that otherwise wouldn't be as appealing!

Today, I made up some laundry soap. The local Safeway carries Fels Naptha, so my soap is yellowy (next time, I'll either make soap or buy a white one for looks, I think), and they didn't have the Arm & Hammer Washing Soda, so I looked in the pool supplies for sodium carbonate (used to up the pH) and found it there (not labeled as washing soda there, though on the front it's labeled as sodium carbonate and the back it does say soda ash). When I run out of my store bought detergent, I'll begin to use the soap (should be just a few days). I've cleaned out the previous detergent bottle to put it in and when I run out I'll have one more bottle, I think I'll have enough space for most of the new soap that way!

It's interesting to 'watch' my progression towards the 'natural' cleansers and things. My hair looks good, but is a bit oily to the touch currently. It's been 2 weeks or so since I used product on it, though I try to shower and massage my scalp each day. I'm trying to use up the products I have and replace their use with more environmentally friendly cleansers. I saw suggested on another site (may have been sewgreen.com) to use the bath/shower water in the garden. That works great in the main bath, there's a tub and I can just scoop out most of the water in a bucket and carry it out when the children are done. I may need to get a shower basin for collecting it in ours because there's no tub in the master bath. My tomatoes and citrus will be quite happy this summer if I water them regularly!