Resolution #7: Reduce our water usage by 8%

This one will take a little more patience and practice. Right now, I am just guessing at what will and will not work. So far, we have made some slight changes:

1. We have adjusted the floating arm on our Master Bath Toilet to require less water on refills. For 10 days... no trouble... we'll probably do it to the other two as well.

2. Thanks to Rocking Green and my homemade bathroom sanitizer, I am able to wash diapers every 3 days instead of every 2. I spritz tired covers that are not dirty, but not rosy. They smell good, are somewhat disinfected and we have stretched their use to all day or almost all day instead of one or two changes. Also, I sewed more diapers so that my stash could stretch.

3. Shorter showers... not sure if we really are taking shorter showers, but oh well.

We'll see how we did at the end of the month!

Resolution #6: Use up brand products and replace with homemade

Well, we have a slight disagreement on this point. We (Greg and I) are in complete agreement that greener is better, safer and cheaper. However, I, the excitable one went off and made a whole bunch of things that I cannot wait to use. My hubby, on the other hand, believes that since our income was already spent on the items sitting in our pantry, they should be used - first in, first out. So... a compromise has been reached. The brand laundry detergent is being used exclusively on his professional clothing while the homemade on everything else (except for dipes... only Rocking Green gets near them). As for the other products... well... they are sitting next to each other on the shelf and he can grab what he likes and I grab what I like. Tee hee. At the end of the day, we have very little of the brand product left anyway in most arenas.

Products I have successfully made (and love):

Tea tree and peppermint bathroom sanitzer
Lemongrass Baking Soda dishwasher soap
Lemongrass Baking Soda carpet cleaner
"Gentle Baby" Baby wipes
Lemon Rosemary Cloth Tissues
Tea Tree and Peppermint Surface Cleaner
Lemon Glass Cleaner
Lemon Furniture Polish

Still to make:
Goo Gone
Febreeze
Hand Soap
Dish Soap
Shampoo
Conditioner
Bath Soap
Body Wash
Toothpaste
Deodorant

This is very exciting and very addictive.

Resolution #5: Cook our way through Prescott

So, our very dear friend Janet introduced us to Jill Prescott's Ecole de Cuisine cookbook. While it was our first real foray into French cooking, it has turned out to be one of the most authentic. Her recipes are exquisite and much easier than the initially appear to be. We have made quite a few of her recipes and while we do not love all of them, we find them to be very pleasing and often very impressive. I cannot wait to host gourmet group because we are choosing "French" as our theme and plan to use many of her recipes.

Resolution #4: Serve family dinner consistently before 6:30

This one is tough. It may get a whole lot easier now that I am no longer co-leader of my mom's group, however, dinner time always seems to float in our house. Our ability to sit down with a warm, home made meal, at a regular time every day just seems to escape us. We know that this will only get harder as the kids get older - especially if we do not work to safeguard it now. So, this year, especially with Mothers and More obligations behind us, nap time will become dinner prep time and we will find our way to consistency. Our weekly menu plan certainly helps:

Sunday: Gourmet for Fun
Monday: Canned (from our garden) tomatoes night - spaghetti, sloppy joes, etc.
Tuesday: Leftovers from the weekend
Wednesday: Soup and sandwhiches - all freshly home made
Thursday: Leftovers
Friday: Family pizza night
Saturday: Gourmet for Fun

Resolution #3: Maintain Sunday Sabbath

Last year we were struggling with balance, a need for family quiet, an appropriate Lenten commitment and a time for focused spiritual development. What followed was a commitment on Sunday's during Lent to turn off unnecessary appliances, hault housework and work projects, ignore any phone call or email that would inspire work and dedicate our Sundays to faithful church attendance, devotion time, rest, play and family centeredness. It was awesome. So awesome in fact that we decided to make it a weekly ritual. Throughout the months that followed, we achieved about 80% success. We were able to at least pause on Sunday's, remember which day it was and why the Lord created it and question any work that would detract from our overall health. We are renewing that commitment this year with even more vigor. We make an allowance for cooking on Sundays because, for us, cooking is a treat and most certainly a fun family activity.

Resolution #2: Adopt a Dog

After three years of talking, researching, thinking and planning... we have applied for dog adoption! Before we were married we knew that we were going to adopt a dog... it was non-negoitable. We both love dogs and we cannot wait to have one join our family. Our lifestyle, however, was not always been optium for it to occur. As DINKS (dual-income-no-kids) we were work-aholics renting... a dog would have been an accessory and not the family pet it should be. With a new baby in a rental, still, not ideal. The first year in a new house and being pregnant... not perfect. So... the baby is 7 months old, the toddler is desperate for a four legged playmate and we are finally ready - physically, financially and emotionally.

So, now that we are ready, we want the right dog. After several years of haggling back and forth, we are in agreement that a golden retriever is the right kind of dog. We considered getting on a list to adopt a "career changed" leader dog. The wait, however, can be very long. Instead, we looked into GRROW - Golden Retriever Rescue of Wisconsin (http://www.grrow.org/grrowi/dogs+currently++in+foster+care/default.asp). We applied, had a home visit with a GRROW volunteer and her dog and love the program. Since being a approved (right before Thanksgiving), we have been called by foster homes twice - one dog was 11 and the other was 8. Neither were the right fit for us. Because we have very little kids, we want to adopt a dog who has a longer life expectancy so that the kids would likely be older when the dog passes on. GRROW is awesome. They really do work hard to make sure that they dogs they love are going into homes that are a great fit. They will not give us a dog that has undocumented or poor history with kids. They will not give us a dog that has a personality that doesn't fit our lifestyle and our needs. At the end of the day, they want the dogs to go to their "furever" home. We are being patient because we believe the process will work to get us the right dog for our family.

Resolution #1: Homemade laundry detergent

After reading http://www.thesimpledollar.com/ and a few other convicing blogs, we decided to take the plunge - make our own detergent. For a newbie, easier said than done...Arm and Hammer Washing soda... not easy to find.. kind of. We called 7 different hardware stores and walked through many stores... never to find the stuff. Finally, Acehardware ordered for us. Great! $4 and it arrived within days, no shipping. After Greg picked it up and we put it to work, we discovered that our neighborhood Piggly Wiggly had the stuff! At a lower price! Don't we feel silly. Oh well. So... what was the result of the experiment?

We made 2 kinds of detergent: Simple Dollar liquid and Duggar's (19 Kids and Counting) dry. Both work very, very well... better in fact than our store brand detergent. Is it better than Tide Coldwater... about the same. Better than Rockin Green? Well... let's not be silly. Nothing is better than Rockin' Green... we just cannot afford it for all of our washing.

The recipes we used:

Simple Dollar Liquid:
http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2008/04/09/making-your-own-laundry-detergent-a-detailed-visual-guide/

Duggar's Dry:
http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html

Cost... CHEAP! We bought a box grater ($1), used an old spoon (free), Washing Soda ($4), Borax ($3), 3 bars of Dove soap and a special bucket from Fleet Farm ($8). We have most of the box of Borax, most of the washing soda and a bar of soap left for future batches. Cheap, cheap, cheap. Truth be told, we prefer the liquid soap but both work very well. Our budget and sense of pride could not be happier!

Fabric softener solutions are next!

New Year, New Resolutions...

Isn't this everyone's topic of choice right now? Well, I am happy to admit that hubby and I are right on track... new year, new resolutions. This year, we decided to make a long list of very attainable small resolutions instead of some biggies like "exercise X # of hours per week" which would otherwise guarantee failure. Our long list of littles is source of great excitement for us... everything on it is something we are truly excited about tackling. Interestingly... quite a few of them are food-centered... guess that's just what we love. So... here we go:

1. Homemade laundry detergent for everything except diapers and Greg's work clothes

2. Adopt a dog

3. Maintain our Sunday Sabbath Commitment

4. Daily family dinner served consistently before 6:30pm

5. Cook our way through Jill Prescott's Ecole de Cuisine... we are about 25% there

6. Use up brand cleaning products; replace with home made

7. Reduce our water usage by 8%

8. Reduce our engergy usage by 5%

9. Increase our retirement by 1%

10. Increase our charitable giving by 5%

11. Spend at least 2 hours per week playing against each other on the Wii

12. Cloth, cloth, cloth

13. Always have homemade cookies and bread in the freezer

14. Go camping in our backyard

15. No car payment in 2010

16. Family devotions at dinner - including the Christmas Card prayers

17. Buy a tiller

18. Put in a cutting garden next to the garage

19. Move the lilac tree to the cutting garden

20. Install grow light

21. Grow peppers and herbs from seed

22. Fix the riding lawn mower

23. Rake and Roll the lawns

24. Read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

25. Take Michael and Greta to the Field Museum

26. Take Michael and Greta to the Shed Aquarium

27. Volunteer at Marion House

28. Finish the Morrison Childhood Photo Books

29. Finish the WII Letters from Grandpa

30. Can soups for the winter

31. Get all of the home videos edited and transferred

32. Greg and Sara do morning devotions together over coffee

33. Convert to only Fair Trade coffee by starting with weekends and then expanding to the rest of the week.

34. From May 1 - Oct 1 walk every night with the kids (weather permitting)

35. Use all of Greg's vacation and do more fun family activities

So... that's it. A long list of things we care about and are committed to. Fingers crossed, prayer list started, we are off and running.