Greener and greener, -diary-

[Hillbilly Housewife]

I'd like to track everything I use on a day to day basis - at least, anything that I have a choice to use. I don't have a choice but to use the paper I use at work, for example, but I do have the choice to use recycled paper at home.

February 1st:

Meals:

Breakfast:

We had pancakes. My inlaws travel now from the fall to the spring, since they retired 2 years ago.. and they always dump their leftover perishable stuff on us. One thing they dumped which I'm happy to say I'm done with, is pancake mix. I make my pancakes from scratch.. but since I had some premade stuff, I would usually add a tablespoon or two of the stuff to the batter - ad now I have an empty container. I added a handful of oats, a handfull of dark rye flour, and a handful of cornmeal along with the mix of half white and half whole wheat flour I used, with the egg and water. The syrup was the leftover bottled stuff that they dumped on us with the pancake mix, mixed in with some homemade syrup.

Lunch:

I made tuna casserole. Since I'm moving in 10 days, I'm trying to use up as much canned stuff as I can.. and one of the things I had was a can of cream of celery. Don't ask me why, I don't like the stuff. Must have picked it up by mistake when I meant to pick up cream of mushroom. Anyway.. I mixed that up with some water and some powdered milk, added a can of tuna to it, added about a cup of frozen peas - and mixed that in a 9x13 baking dish with the spiral pasta. I added a few dots of margarine to the top, and sprinkled some italian seasoned bread crumbs over top before baking it.

Dinner:

Took some leftover ham, cut it up into bite sized chunks, along with some leftover carrots, turnip, potatoes and pierogies, shoved it all in a frying pan.. served that alongside a salad made with kale, chinese lettuce, celery, cherry tomatoes, green pepper, garlic and cheese, with Cucumber dressing. We had orange-pineapple jello for a treat... cuz it's J-E-L-L-O! lol

Things I will change:

-boxed pancake mix - only scratch
-1 can of cream of celery soup - yuck anyway...
-cucumber dressing - when bottle is done, fill with scratch dressing
-jello - I'm not stoppin buying jello!!!

Packing to move:

All the boxes I've used so far, are boxes from my work which had paper or other office supplies in it. I've not bought a single one - and when I am done with them, they will be going to a friend of mine whose house is currently for sale. The fragile stuff is wrapped with newspaper that I took from my work once everyone who wanted to read it had done so. I packed all the extra bed linens, I only left out what was on the beds. I packed all the towels etc... leaving one out for each of us. I also went through all of my and the kids' clothes, leaving out 2 weeks worth of clothing for myself, and one weeks' clothing worth for the kdis.. the rest was packed in one big box for me, and one big box for all 3 kids' clothes. I also packed a box of miscelaneous bedroom stuff, like my jewellery, which I went through. Anyway all that to say that I went through our clothes, my jewelerry, our hair accessories.. and I have 3 plastic bins of stuff to give away. I didn't use anything that I didn't already have, and/or that wasn't re-used from something else. I didn't even use tape.

This post has been edited by Hillbilly Housewife on Feb 2 2009, 07:24 AM

[Hillbilly Housewife]

Today's not so great - I've already flubbed, I stopped for coffee at a Tim's.

I've re-used my cup, though.. I made myself a second coffee when I got to work... and when I am done, I will rinse it out and take it home - the kids can paint it and use it to store some markers.

Otherwise, the kids took a bologna sandwich in their lunch, with an apple, half a banana, a yogurt, a nutri-grain knockoff bar, and some raisins. Happy to say that the bread is some homemade onion rye bread.

Their dad and I took leftovers, as well as a banana, yogurt, and a bar as well.

I took leftover tuna casserole for dinner, since I am teaching tonight.. and they will have that as well.

I don't use materials at my teaching job - and when I do, it's just a pen - which I bring myself, and the pen is a Pilot Greenball refillable pen, #07, which is made from 68.1% recycled materials already.

Things I will change:

-definitely the coffee cup...it should have been put in a travel mug.
-the yogurt - I'll have to make more than 4 cups of yogurt each week to make up for the amount in the individual containers... I CAN send the homemade stuff, I just haven't been. We have enough to last our lunches until Friday, so I will after.
-the nutrigrain type bars - it's easy to make them at home.. I just have to actually do it. We have enough bars left for all of our lunches for the rest of the week - so this weekend I will make some.

[My3LilMonkeys]

Good for you!!!

If you have a good recipe for the nutrigrain type bars I'd love to have it if you don't mind - I've tried a few different granola/cereal/oat bar recipes but I haven't been happy with any of them yet.

[Hillbilly Housewife]

There's this, if I'm in a hurry - or if I'm making them for a school or work party:

1 package yellow cake mix
3/4 c margarine (melted)
2 1/2 c quick cooking oats
12 ounces any flavor jam or preserves
1 tbsp. water

preheat oven to 375
combine cake mix and oats in large mixing bowl
add melted margarine until crumbly
press half about 3 c mixture into bottom of 13 by 9 inch greased baking pan (I use Pam)
press in firmly until bottom is covered and smooth
next combine jam and or preserves in bowl with water, and spread over top of mixture, making sure to completely cover evenly
cover with remaining crumb mixture, patting to make top firm
bake at 375 for 20 minutes
(top of crust should be golden brown - let completely cool before cutting into bars.store in air tight container.)

Or this one, if I have more time - I prefer to do this one, it's a little more time comsuming to get all the ingredients than a boxed cake mix, but healthier, imo.

Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup whole wheat flour
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup apple juice
10 ounces jam (apricot, blackberry, blueberry, raspberry, strawberry, or apple butter)
1 tablespoon water

Directions


Combine oats, flour, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl and mix thoroughly.
Add the oil, egg, vanilla, and apple juice, and mix with a spoon or a mixer.
Press 2/3 of the mix evenly into a greased 8x12 pan.
Mix the jam with the water, and spread evenly over the mix.
Crumble the remaining oat mixture over the top, and bake at 325 degrees for 30-40 minutes or until golden brown.
Before cutting, cool completely.


This post has been edited by Hillbilly Housewife on Feb 3 2009, 05:06 AM

[Hillbilly Housewife]

Oooooh, the kids dad didn't feed the kids the tuna casserole last night, he made them grilled cheese sandwiches.

Oh well... so I took more tuna casserole for lunch today. Hurray. I also took a bar, a banana, a yogurt, and a container of dried raisins mized with pretzels.

Yeah, pretzels.

The guys who come and empty my reclycing bin at work haven't come around in a few days.. and I had a bit of time on my hands, so I decided to go through some old files and clean them out of junk that was just shoved in there... so my little bin is REALLY full. I'm not supposed to, for confidentiality reasons, but i think I'm just going to take the paper home for the kids to play with - papier maché, for the paper that's printed on both sides, and drawing on the ones with a blank side. There's at least a package of paper's worth every week of recycling. Sad.

I do keep a box of paper printed on one side, scrap paper, to use, though.. it's what I use to take notes during meetings, keep a To Do list of things I need to get done at work, and print known draft versions of correspondence to revise. I've converted a couple of coworkers into using scrap paper for notes rather than those pads of lined paper.. now they only use those for exec meetings. lol

Today I have a Comittee meeting to attend - and it really irks me, because the members of the committee are people my VP insists we suck up to... so we print off copies of the minutes of the last meeting... and we print off one for each member.. and usually only 3 or 4 members show up, the rest take it in conference call, and have their copy of the mintues that we've already sent to them by email... BUGS ME. That's about 8 pages, printed 25 times. For nothing. Hopefully I can convince my boss to let me only ask for 10 copies from my assistant.. I mean, if they need more, I can send her down to make more copies if more members show up for some reason... no? :S Ugh.

I'm realizing, from having gone through those files, that a lot of people jsut print off emails and file them. When I file emails, I don't print them off.. I have archive folders on my drive - and I save them in there. When I can "close" a file, I send it to a re-writeable cd.. and file the cd. I can't be one of the only ones that do this?

The ex better feed the kids the darn casserole. I don't get home until past 10 again tonight.. so..

Tomorrow I think I will make some burritos again. The kids really enjoyed them last time.. and I've taken to adding red lentils in with the ground beef, chopped onions and taco seasonings..they don't notice it, it tastes like nothing, it's filling, and healthy. We'll have some sald with that, as we have some that needs to be used this week. I'll probably end up cutting a few potatoes into wedges, too.

[coasterqueen]

It's amazing how wasteful one can be at work. Speaking of your meeting, I know exactly how you feel! We have several board meetings a year where I make this HUGE binder of a board book for them. I have to make 15. I spend an entire day printing everything off and stuffing them in the book. I take them to the meeting and when it's over they all hand them back to me and say "I'm recyling". Well then why can't you share books and save some trees or let me put the book on your laptop and you can look at it from there without killing any trees????? I get more ticked off that I spend so much time putting the books together for them to trash them 10 seconds after the meeting is over with, kwim?

As far as emails....I barely print them off unless I need it for registrations for upcoming meetings. A lot of times I save it in a file in Outlook and keep that file on there for a year until the next event (just like the past one) comes up, then I just delete the file. If I saved them on disks I'd be going through disks like crazy because I get way too much email to even try to save them.

I admire you for all you do to be green. I aspire to be truly green, but looking at you and Tara...I'm no where near it.

[PrairieMom]

you want wasteful at work? OMG, you got nothing on doing patient care in a hospital. Nothing can be recycled, for infection control. so, you have plastic wrap around plastic items, Plus, all those latex gloves, I PERSONALLY go through AT LEAST 35 pairs a shift.
Plus, all items that are stocked in rooms where the patient is in isolation need to be thrown away when the patient leaves, if it was used or not.
I don't know what the answer is, I see the need for it, it just strikes me every time. I don't even want to talk about all the electricity that gets used, lights that never turn off, TV's that are on constantly in every room, Medical gases that run continuously, Its just amazing.

[Hillbilly Housewife]

I'm tired of Tuna Casserole, is all I have to say.

Thankfully, today is the last day. No MORE! lol


I didn't end up making burritos, I ended up making Fajitas. I had a "friend" over, for dinner too... that was a little wierd, because the kids and their dad were there too... But fun, nevertheless. After dinner, I gave him a bit of a piano lesson.

I cleaned out a coffee can we finished at work today. I'm goig to use it to put stuff in it. I don't know what stuff, but there will be stuff in it.

I'll probably use it as a plant container. lol

The only thing I threw out yesterday was the styrofoam tray / plastic wrap the chicken breasts I bought came in.

Karen, I know what you mean - I was asked to carry some binders the opther day for the tour of the collections by one of the pompous jerks at the meeting.. He's like "here, hold onto this for me, I'll pick it up after the tour" I just smirked, said "you can just leave it on the table, we didn't arrange for someone to carry binders" and walked away.

[Hillbilly Housewife]

Friday was a good day. I left work at noon, because I already had nearly 44 hours done this week. UGH! I work too much.

anyway when I got home I made some bagels.. I packed a few things.. and i had a party to do. I sold for over 325$.. which is great, I haven't really done anything with that since way before Christmas. It was nice to get back into it... I will be doing another one in a few weeks.

Saturday I spent the day relaxing.. made some brownies.. the only waste I did was the bubble bath. All that hot soapy water, made me feel pretty bad.. but at the same time, I'm a 3-minutes-in-the-shower type of girl, so I guess I balance it out. :s

Today I wasted plenty, however... I went out shopping from 10:30 to noon for a stupid dress... didn't end up finding anything appropriate.. on the way home the kdis were whining SO MUCH about being hungry, that we stopped at a Harvey's. Burger wrappers and fry containers.. blech.

Then around 2:30 I went back out to shop.. I loaded my truck up with 4 garbage bags of clothes and other miscellaneous things to give away to the thrift store..which was closed..so I just left them in the receiving bin.

I did end up finding 3 dresses at the next shopping centre I went to, though.. I oculdn't decide which one to get, so I got all 3. And shoes. And jewellery. Then i bought some Truffles (35$ worth.. eep!) to make myself feel better, and shared them with the kids and their dad.

Tonight I went out to see a friend's band play.. and I had a beer. A pint, really.. but i left nearly half of it in the glass, I just wasn't feeling up to drinking it. On the way home, I stopped at McDonalds...and pigged out on a Junior chicken, 2 snack wraps, large fries and iced tea. I'm gonna be sorry in the morning... lol