World’s First Ban on Bottled Water – Global One TVhttp://www.globalone.tv/group/sustainablesolutions/forum/topics/worlds-first-ban-on-bottled

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian town pulled all bottled water from its shelves Saturday and replaced it with refillable bottles in what is believed to be a world-first ban.
Hundreds of people marched through the picturesque rural town of Bundanoon to mark the first day of its bottled water ban by unveiling a series of new public drinking fountains, said campaign spokesman John Dee.
Shopkeepers ceremoniously removed the last bottles of water from their shelves and replaced them with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains inside the town’s shops or at water stations in the street.
"Every bottle today was taken off the shelf and out of the fridges so you can only now buy refillable bottles in shops in Bundanoon," Dee told AFP.
The tiny town, two hours south of Sydney, voted in July to ban bottled water after a drinks company moved to tap into a local aquifer for its bottled water business.
"In the process of the campaign against that the local people became educated about the environmental impact of bottled water," said Dee.
"A local retailer came up with this idea of well why don’t we do something about that and actually stop selling the bottled water and it got a favourable reaction," he said.
Dee said the 2,000-person town had made international headlines with their bid, which he hoped would spur communities across the world to action.
"Whilst our politicians grapple with the enormity of dealing with climate change what Bundanoon shows is that at the very local level we can sometimes do things that can surprise ourselves, in terms of our ability to bring about real and measurable change that has a real benefit for the environment," he said.
The cash savings only made the project more compelling, he added.
"I think that’s why this campaign is doing so well, because we’re saying to people you can save money and save the environment at the same time," said Dee. "The alternative doesn’t have a sexy brand, doesn’t have pictures of mountain streams on the front of it, it comes out of your tap."
Activists say bottling water causes unnecessary use of plastics and fuel for transport. A New South Wales study found that in 2006, the industry was responsible for releasing 60,000 tonnes of gases blamed for global warming.

 

Born To Rock

I believe my son was born to rock………………..

Comics.com

Making use of everyday items

Extraordinary Uses for 16 Ordinary Household Items

Original post By Woman’s Day Staff Posted January 16, 2009

5 Ways to Collect Water for Your Garden – Planet Green

 

I am always looking for creative ways to water my garden with out wasting valuable drinking water, this article has some great tips!

article from http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/5-ways-to-collect-water-for-your-garden.html

fireballsedai/Flickr Creative Commons

Conserving water is an important aspect of growing a "green" garden. The fewer resources we have to use, the better. And since water is an important part of most gardens (and also the most egregiously wasted — it drives me crazy to watch people put their sprinklers on and let the water all run down their driveway!) it’s a good idea to try to find alternative ways of watering than solely depending on tap water. Here are five that I’ve used for my own garden.

1. Rain Barrel
This is kind of a no-brainer, but I know that many people don’t have them because ready-made rain barrels can be pretty pricey. Luckily, there are very good instructions online for making your own, inexpensively:

• MAKE: Magazine has instructions for not only making a single barrel, but also for linking two or more together.
• Instructables shows how to make your own rain barrel with standard hardware store parts.
• Here are instructions from the city of Raleigh, NC for how to make a rain barrel from a plastic trash can.

2. Buckets Under Downspouts and Eaves
This is a good option for those who don’t want to go all out with a rain barrel, or who, for one reason or another, can’t have one where they live. If you’re an apartment dweller with a balcony or patio — you can use this tip, too. Simply set five gallon buckets or whichever watering cans you have under your downspouts, at the edges of roof eaves or overhangs, or just out in the open to collect the rain water. You won’t get as much as you would with a rain barrel, but some is better than none, right?

3. Kid-Size Swimming Pool
If you have kids and find yourself filling up a little pool for them to splash around in during hot weather, don’t just let that water flow out onto the lawn when you empty the pool! Use buckets or watering cans to get the water out, and use the water for your garden instead. Even if you don’t have kids, a small kid’s pool is another excellent way to capture rainwater as described in #2, above.

4. Buckets in the Shower
One of the easiest ways to capture water that would otherwise be wasted is to take a shower with a bucket or two. You’ll be surprised by how quickly the buckets fill (even if you do take short showers) and you can use the water for your houseplants or garden.

5. Cooking Water
If you’ve boiled a bunch of vegetables or pasta, don’t just pour that water down the drain when you’re done with it! Let it cool completely, then use it to water plants in your garden. It’s perfectly safe for them, and actually contains a bit of nutrition for your plants, especially if you’ve boiled vegetables.

These are just a few ways to gather otherwise "wasted" water and put it to use in your garden instead.

Ten Rules for Being Human

 

Ten Rules for Being Human

by Cherie Carter-Scott

1.  You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.

2.  You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”

3.  There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”

4.  Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.

5.  Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.

6.  “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”

7.  Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.

8.  What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9.  Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

Ten Rules for Being Human – zindelo’s posterous

45 Homemade Foods You Can Make Yourself (But Never Thought You Could) – Planet Green

Marye Audet

READ MORE ABOUT:
Cooking Basics | Do It Yourself | Penny Pinching

There are many food items that people regularly buy that they could make at home; healthier, cheaper, and tastier.

In days past people did not run to the store every time they needed catsup or baking powder, they made what they needed themselves from basic materials. You can do the same. How many of the following items have you made from scratch?

Items You Didn’t Know You Could Make Homemade

Condiments and Ingredients

1. Baking Powder
2. Vanilla Extract
3. Homemade Vinegar and Flavored Vinegars
4. Mustard
5. Catsup or Ketchup
6. Mayonnaise
7. Grape Jelly
8. Dill Pickles
9. French Dressing
10. Peanut Butter
11. Nutella
12. Sweetened Condensed Milk
Meat and Proteins

13. Bacon
14. Tofu
15. Tempeh
16. Sausage

Dairy

17. Goat Milk Ricotta
18. Mascarpone
19. Mozzarella
20. Yogurt
21. Kefir

Spices and Herb Blends

22. Smoke Your Own Chipotle Peppers
23. Marinated Roasted Red Peppers
24. Harrissa
25. Herbes de Provence

Breads and Cereals

26. Sour Dough Starter
27. Brown and Serve Rolls
28. Hamburger or Hot Dog Buns
29. Homemade Corn Flakes
30. Pita Bread
31. Graham Crackers, Animal Crackers and Saltines
32. Whole Wheat Pasta Dough

Snacks

33. Homemade Thin Mints
34. Sea Salt Caramels
35. Chocolate Covered Cherries
36. Tie Dyed Tortilla Chips
37. Fudgesicles
38. Butterfingers
39. Peanut Butter Cups
40. Homemade Candy Corn
41. Fruit Roll Ups
Beverages

42. Flavored Vodka
43. Hard Cider
44. Roast Coffee Beans
45. Chai Mix

Many More

With the easy access to information on the Internet a couple of words typed in to Google can result in hundreds of recipes for everything from corned beef to homemade wine. Next time you run out of an ingredient check the web for information about making it yourself.

There is something very satisfying about being able to make your own ingredients.

Cupcake pops!!!

Look what I made today!!!

This is from the amazing bakerella website, http://www.bakerella.com, this girl has serious talent! I gave it a go and they turned out pretty good, 4 hours of long hard work, but well worth it for the smile on the beans face!! I copied and pasted the how to for you that I borrowed from the site, give it a try, its fun and they are sooo adorable!

1 13X9 baked cake (from a box cake mix or from scratch … any flavor)
1 can cream cheese frosting (or about 2 cups equivalent from scratch)
1 flower shaped cookie cutter (1.25″ wide X .75″ tall)
1 package chocolate bark
1 package pink candy melts or white chocolate bark
bowls for dipping
wax paper
aluminum foil
lollipop sticks
sprinkles, m&ms or something similar for top of cupcake
small plastic treat bags and ribbon to package the Cupcake Pops
candy cups and truffle boxes to individually package the Cupcake Bites
styrofoam block

1. Bake a cake from a mix or from scratch and cool completely. 

   

2. Crumble cake into a fine consistency into a large bowl.TIP: If the texture is too coarse, you can run it through a food processor.
3. Add can of cream cheese frosting or homemade frosting and blend together using the back of a large spoon. Blend thoroughly.
4. Roll mixture into 1.25″ – 1.5″ size balls and lay on wax paper covered cookie sheet. You may want to periodically rinse and dry your hands off in between.
5. Cover with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and chill in refrigerator for several hours.TIP: You can speed this up by placing in the freezer for about 15 minutes.
6. Remove. Begin to shape into cupcakes using a small flower-shaped cookie cutter. (see below) Take the chilled ball and roll it into more of an oval and then slide into cookie cutter. Push it into cutter until about half fills the cutter and the rest sticks out of the top in the shape of a mound. Then push the shaped cupcake carefully out of the cookie cutter from the bottom. Set right side up on a wax paper covered cookie sheet. Continue with remaining balls.
   
   
7. Once shaped, cover and return to freezer. (5-10 minutes)TIP: You can leave them covered in the refrigerator overnight if you want to do the dipping on the following day.
8. While cupcake shapes are chilling, begin to heat up your chocolate bark.
9. Brown chocolate bark for the bottoms. Pink or white chocolate for the tops.
10. Follow the instructions on the package for melting. Most recommend heating for 30 second intervals at a time and stirring in between. You can also do the double boiler method.
    
11. When you are ready to dip, remove from freezer and set up another wax paper covered cookie sheet.
12. Take the cupcake shaped mixture and dip bottoms into the melted chocolate – just to the point where the mounded shape starts. Remove from chocolate, turn upside down and wiggle so that the excess starts to slide down slightly. Then lay on the wax paper upside down. If you want them to be lollipops, then go ahead and insert the lollipop sticks while the chocolate is still wet. Continue with rest of the cupcakes. You can also leave some without the sticks. They’re just as cute as Cupcake Bites.TIP: Dip end of your lollipop stick in the melted chocolate before inserting into chocolate bottoms. Not sure if this helps a lot, but it couldn’t hurt.

    DON’T – get water in the chocolate. Make sure your hands are completely dry. Water will cause the chocolate to separate and mess up all your hard work.

    

13. Dry completely. (15-20 minutes)
14. Once dry, dip the tops of the cupcakes in the pink or white chocolate. You may need to move it around a little to cover all the exposed areas.

    TIP: Let the pink chocolate sit for a few minutes after heating to thicken. This will help it from dripping down the sides of the cupcake.

15. Remove from the pink/white chocolate and turn right side up. You may need to hold and rotate it if there is any excess so that it doesn’t drip down too far.TIP: You can use a toothpick to help cover any areas the melted chocolate didn’t cover.
16. For the Cupcake Bites – just turn right side up and rest on the wax paper. Then go ahead and put a m&m on the top and add sprinkles while wet.
17. For the lollipops, Continue holding and place an m&m on the top and add sprinkles. Let them dry in a styrofoam block that you have already poked holes into.
18. When completely dry, cover the lollipops with small plastic treat bags and tie with a ribbon.
19. For the Cupcake Bites, place in a candy cup and package in small candy truffle boxes to present individually.

last sun

evenwicht -balance, originally uploaded by look to see.

check out this brillant shot that I found on flickr, its absolutley amazing!! Had to share!!

Frugal Outdoor Fun with the Kids | PerkStreet Financial Blog

Check out this great article I discovered today, they borrowed a photo of the bean for the article, and my flickr page alerted me to it!!! Glad they did, the article is fun and full of great inexpensive ways to get the kids out and moving this summer!!!

Frugal Outdoor Fun with the Kids

Posted by Lynnae McCoy on June 21, 2010 in Personal Finance

This guest post is brought to you by Lynnae McCoy of Beingfrugal.net. She loves to blog, especially about helping other get out of debt.

photo credit: goat_girl_photos

School is out for the summer and kids everywhere are rejoicing. But across the nation parents are scrambling to come up with activities to keep the kids busy, before free play turns into sibling bickering. If you’re looking for frugal summer activities to keep the kids active and out of trouble, these ideas should help you out.

Letterboxing

Letterboxing has been around for years and was a precursor to geocaching. But unlike geocaching, you don’t need expensive GPS equipment to participate in letterboxing. All you need is a rubber stamp to represent your family, an inkpad, a sketchbook, a pen, and an inexpensive compass.

Once you have your supplies, go to www.letterboxing.org to find letterboxes in your area. Follow the clues, find the box, and stamp your journal. If you like, take a picture of your family at the clue site and write an entry about your hike to find the clue. Your letterboxing journal will become a lasting reminder of your summer treasure hunts!

Disc Golf

Grab your frisbee, find a course, and take the kids out for a round of disc golf! The rules are much the same as regular golf, but instead of using a golf club and golf balls, you throw a frisbee at targets.

Most courses are free, so the only expense to play is the cost of your frisbees and the gas to get to the course. An added bonus to this activity is that many courses are in parks and wooded areas, so pack a picnic lunch and enjoy the scenery while you’re out.

An Old Fashioned Water Balloon Fight

Water balloon fights are great, because for less than five dollars you can occupy your kids for an entire afternoon. Buy a bag (or two or three) of water balloons, and let the kids fill the balloons themselves. If they like, they can fashion forts out of blankets, outdoor furniture, and play structures, so they have a place to hide their ammunition.

The kids will enjoy the water balloon war on a hot afternoon. It’s even more fun when parents play along, as most kids think there’s nothing funnier than hitting mom or dad with a water balloon. After all the water balloons have been launched and broken, put the kids to work cleaning up the yard. From start to finish, this activity can take hours.

Camping

Whether you need to plan a frugal vacation, or you just want the kids to have a fun night under the stars, camping is a summer activity most kids enjoy. If you have a free weekend, pack up your camping equipment and head to your favorite campground.

But even if camping isn’t your thing, the kids can enjoy the thrill of sleeping under the stars in your own backyard. No tent? No problem! Have the kids make a tent out of blankets and a tree. Get creative and roast marshmallows over the barbecue and tell stories by the light of a flashlight. Just make sure to leave the back door unlocked, in case your little campers get scared in the middle of the night.

Obstacle Course

If you’re worried that the kids aren’t getting enough exercise this summer, make it fun! Grab some ordinary objects from the yard and make an obstacle course. Have the kids run around chairs, crawl under tables and run through the sprinkler. Make the course as simple or as complicated as your kids’ ages allow.

When your course is put together and the kids understand the rules, time them with a stopwatch. Have them run the course a few times, trying to beat their best time. This will keep them occupied for a long while, while wearing them out, too. You’ll appreciate it at bedtime!

With a little creativity, it’s not difficult to find frugal ways to keep kids busy over the summer

4 months already

My where has the time gone, seems like only yesterday I was sitting with you, watching you sleep and holding your hand. When I close my eyes I can still smell the hyacinths in the room, your soft hands, worn with age, telling a story. I find myself wanting to call you, when I am stumped in the kitchen or with the garden, but sadly I can not. I can’t bring myself to make roast beef, for the smell of a roast beef cooking makes me cry. A few weeks ago I thought I saw you, as impossible as that is, even if you were still here with us, why would you be in the Safeway?!

Tomorrow marks the day you left, and in honor of you I will spend the day in the garden, pulling weeds and grass out of the lumps mouth, more than out of the veggie patch. Life seems empty with you gone, you touched many in your time.

In a way I know you are watching over us, when I catch a whiff of your perfume, or a butterfly floats past, and with every hummingbird that visits.  I am thankful for that, and the time we did have xxoo