Getting back in one of my grooves

I decided that it's about time to get off my butt and get back in the groove of my One More Tiny Choice Things (see tags and past posts for full info). On that note, I'm going to institute Meatless Mondays, inspired by my friend Barbara at Tigers & Strawberries. I'm actually going to really aim for not just meatless but also vegan meals, though I reserve the right to make it happen not on Mondays but on whatever day seems like the best for the week.

We didn't make it all vegan yesterday, as lunch was left over bacon and bean soup, but I did make a delicious dinner with leftovers for today. I made the lentil salad out of Veganomicon; I was skeptical at first but it is crazy good. With it I made a macaroni casserole from the Whole Foods Recipe App. It's like mac & cheese except it uses coconut milk, butternut squash and sage. Next time I'll maybe spice the bread crumbs on top (paprika?) and double the sage. I like intense flavors. It's amazingly creamy and very much a comfort food.

The meatless meals are coming hand in hand with my attempt to start exercising again (more about that later) and an all around decision to try to be more conscious of how I am living my life (more later on that too). It isn't hard, I just have to DO it.

One More Tiny Choice Thing Archives

A post to hold my weekly One More Tiny Choice Things. See my first post and who inspired them: One More Thing and Tiny Choices.

8/3/09: Clean the house, because for me a clean house means a productive house, and a productive house is one that uses less stuff, eats less take out, makes new things out of old, and cuts down on generating waste out of frustration. Cleaning also means adding to the "out with the old" pile, getting rid of the things that are just sitting around, taking up space.

7/27/09: Pack and take a lunch every day to my new job! Avoid take out unless necessary.

7/20/09: Several small things this week. Get in tune with our new recycling schedule. Take a box of old magazine donations to The Book Thing. Plan out our meals and shopping this week for less waste and efficiency.

7/6/09: Stop wasting drinking water, that is, finish the water I put in a glass or else collect it to put on the potted plants. There is no need for a half a dozen half filled glasses of water to sit around the house. If I pour a glass of water I should finish it.

6/29/09: Getting in line with Eat Down the Fridge and start using up what I already have instead of hitting the grocery store for new food that will become the old food that gets thrown away.

6/23/09: Making sure all the recycling from the bathroom makes it into the recycling bin instead of being lazy and throwing it away.

6/15/09: For my One More Thing I am going to recommit to using cloth napkins and I'm going to find the time this week to sew some out of my scrap fabric so I have extras to put in my car and with our camping gear.

One More Thing

Yesterday I had the pleasure of taking some workshops with Paulette of Gypsy Caravan Dance Company. I'll talk about them in a later post but I will say that damn! I wish I'd done that sooner!

At the end of the workshop she talked about a project that came out of discussions with the Collective Soul dancers. Maybe project is not the correct work. Mission? Challenge? Action, maybe that's it. It's called One More Thing, and here is the idea from Paulette:

**But one of the things that came up in our many discussions about dance and about life, is the state of the world, a common topic of conversation in my life these days. With frustration at how many people still do not pay attention to recycling, reusing, and taking care of the earth, I try to do my part on a daily basis. WE can all do a little to help, and every little bit does help, but it is not enough.

I thought, One more thing.

We can all do one more thing. Whether it be helping our neighbor recycle, or not using weed killer on our lawn, or…..

So the Collective Soul dancers and I decided to start here, on this blog, every Monday to write in with what one more thing the can do or have done that week to help educate the public or what they have done in their own world. And I want you to participate!

Beautiful Rima suggests never buying a plastic bottle of water again. Get your refillable bottle and use it, or go thirsty that moment. I think that is a brilliant way to start!

Let’s hear it, starting this Monday…What one more thing can you do?

Bring it on, and remember, it all counts.

This reminds me of my friends who run the Tiny Choices blog, which is all about the tiny choices we can make to creating a cleaner, greener world. I particularly love Jenn's series of posts about finding a new water bottle. Sometimes I think water bottle choice is the gateway drug to figuring out the one more thing or tiny choices we can make to create a healthier world.

Here are some water bottles I have known and loved:
* A 32oz. wide mouth Nalgene in hot screaming pink. This was my first water bottle and it served me well. Unfortunately it ended up with this permanent weird smell inside and I had to get rid of it, though I'm not too sad because I always splashed water on myself even when I used the no-splash insert for the top.
* The SIGG Maharadsha in ruby. I call this the belly dance bottle. At Sunday's workshop there was my red one, Flissy's (purple) and another dancer's (blue). It's pretty awesome though it is a little tougher to screw on the top since it's so narrow.
* My everyday bottle is the 20 oz. Earthlust peacock. Or it was, the design rubbed off on mine. I may try another one day, maybe the 20 oz. dragonfly. These bottles are stainless steel, so no worries about what the liner may be leaching into your water. Also, I might get the sport top to add to mine because again, the narrow top can make it hard to close.
* I don't own one, but there is always the classic Kleen Kanteen if you want a simple stainless steel bottle.

Want to get in on the action? Paulette wants to hear from other people about their "One More Thing", so give her some feedback at her blog. I mentioned over there, and now here, that Tiny Choices runs a weekly survey where they profile one person and talk about that person's tiny choices; you should take the survey!

For my One More Thing I am going to recommit to using cloth napkins and I'm going to find the time this week to sew some out of my scrap fabric so I have extras to put in my car and with our camping gear. Here are some tutorials:
* Make napkins with pretty corners. Here are two other options.
* Fancier sets with bias tape binding. I'm sure you could buy bias tape for this project if you don't want to make it.
* The easiest option out there!. I'm not sure how much they will fray, though, I've cut fabric with pinking shears and still get some loose threads when it's washed.
* My quick and dirty version: Cut cotton fabric (I use quilting cotton) into squares as large or small as you like. Sew a zig zag or overlock stitch along the edge to prevent fraying. Use. Change the size to a rectangle and you have a thin kitchen towel.

The bonus is you can use your clean napkins as a convenient and stylish way to mop your brow when you're in the middle of an intense, sweaty dance workshop.