New beginnings

Paperwhites sprout up on my windowsill

The new year is a great excuse to take a look at your day-to-day habits and really think about the longterm lifestyle changes you wish to achieve -- as tacky as new year's resolutions sometimes seem.

This year I am giving myself a list of goals and I resolve to make a real effort to stick to them.

1. Compost -- I resolve to save my food scrapes and bring them to my local greenmarket each week to be recycled. 
2. mEAT local -- I resolve to only eat meat, fish, and dairy products from producers that pasture-raise their animals without all the icky hormones, chemicals, etc. This means no ordering from restaurants unless I know the source!
3. DIY -- I resolve to take on a DIY project once a week. 
4. Cook with friends -- now that I have gotten pretty good at making most of my own meals at home, I resolve to cook more with friends. It's easy to get lazy when we're all together but the few times we have cooked food instead of ordering, it has always been fun, rewarding, and less expensive.  
5.  Go glass -- slowly but surely I resolve to switch almost entirely from plastic to glass, ceramic, or metal. 

Most recently, I acquired a glass water pitcher (with kishu charcoal filter) and a set of glass straws. 

Let's do this 2014!

What are some of your goals?

Green thumbs up: Buffalo Exchange

With spring (hopefully) right around the corner you have probably started to think about floral shirts, flip flops, and flowy dresses. You may also be thinking about cleaning out your closet to make room for some new said flowy, flippy, florally items. 

Buffalo Exchange is the perfect stop for all your purging an splurging desires!

I have really been trying to think about where the things I buy come from, whether it be a carrot or a new pair of shoes, but being consciously mindful of your clothing origins can prove to be difficult and expensive. 

Shopping for used or vintage clothes at Buffalo Exchange can take a little bit of the guilt out paying low prices for fashion. You can sell your items there for cash or trade and donate the (sometimes many) pieces they don't wish to buy. 

As much as I would like to only buy organic cotton dresses hand sewn in Brooklyn, sometimes a gently used, cute,  $15 Free People top is enough to get me excited. And yes, trying to sell your prized possessions to Buffalo Exchange "buyers" can sometimes feel like this...

Green thumbs up: Common Good

Let's face it, as much as we would like to DIY everything we own, sometimes you just want to run to the store and pick up some damn dish soap.

For the days when you don't have the time to whip together vinegars and essential oils like a mad scientist, try out Common Good for your home-cleaning needs. We hosted them at The Hort last week for a homemade natural cleaning products workshop and I can only say great things about their beautiful, toxin-free products, as well as Common Good's lovely founder, Sacha Dunn.



Here are some pics from the class:

Find Common Good products at a store near you