Smash up: Monday

Random catch up week…Monday

I have lots of blog post ideas by way of musings that have been keeping me awake at night for the past couple weeks (that is if I am not dreaming about the Excel MMULT matrix function in relation to weather data), as well as garden updates for you. I shall post them in a series over the next week, and would love to have comments on them and hear what other people think.
And I still have to write my final review of The Omnivore’s Dilemma…soon I promise.

I made some Kiwi Preserves in less than an hour last night (Ball Canning Recipe). I’ll post in a couple weeks how the recipe turned out…

And my tomato seedlings are now living outdoors, thanks in part to wall o'waters I finally broke down and purchased...

On to thoughts.

Consumerism
I’m still reeling about my momentary lapse of sanity last week regarding wanting the $bazillion weather station. It started when I was thinking about possible birthday presents, and a weather station popped into my head. I thought, eh, maybe $100. And then I started researching. $100 became $200. $200 became $300…and so on. Before I knew it, I was looking at the Davis Vantage Pro 2, and then I lost my grasp on reality and consumption took over (classic conditioning I suppose). I’m glad I came back to reality and was able to locate another person very close to my house with a great weather setup that exports directly to Weather Underground. That weather station may not match my exact microclimate , but it’s a decent approximation, and as I get to know my garden even better, I will know how their weather varies in relation to mine.

But is that the only lapse in consumer sanity as of late?

I mentioned that we purchased some spices from Penzey’s, which have to be shipped to us from Connecticut (from where they were received from all over the world, I’d assume). How is this sustainable? I can’t answer that question exactly.

For some reason, I’m ok with the spices. Now I’m not saying that there’s not a little twinge of guilt in buying exotic spices from places unknown to flavor our food. But I do know that the spices are loved and appreciated by us and make us happy.

We cook mostly at home. I can’t recall the last fast food we ate. We eat out occasionally, mostly because my In-laws like to go out to eat (and nothing is ever as good as we make). But when Chris cooks dinner, I sit at the counter and read him your blog posts and we discuss them, or we talk about our days, and laugh with one another. It’s very intimate, and then we get to share the wonderful fruits of his labor. And I get to do dishes while he then uses the computer. The spices are ok in my book because they do more than flavor our food.

Coffee & Tea
I’m not super crazy coffee addict needing like 6 espressos a day, but I do appreciate one cup in the morning, and some kind of caffeinated beverage at lunch. I really enjoy the slow morning of drinking small sips of coffee – it helps slow me down and enjoy the moment, yet wake me up at the same time. I luxuriate over my coffee. Recently, Chris has begun drinking chai tea, made daily by brewing tea bags in hot water, and then adding a little milk over the stove to warm it up. He now seems to understand my love affair with my brown morning brew.

But these products don’t come from anywhere close to us either. They don’t fit the 100 mile diet, and how can a family like ours that’s given up bananas because of their crazy trans-world shipment process and rainforest degradation not give up something like coffee or tea that follows a similar growing and shipping strategy? Again, I feel like a huge hypocrite because I can’t answer these questions. But these are the choices we’ve made as a family.

The one shining point of all of this is that at least we compost all of our compostable food waste. And that makes me feel a little better.

Where do you draw the line in the sand as a family? Are there things you’ve given up, or want to? Fire away.