Snack Alert

I'm a snacker. I am. I graze. Particularly when I come home from work and it's that evil time in between meals: you're hungry, but it's not dinner time for hours yet. So I'm trying to reach for healthful things rather than the alternative (I'm looking at you, jalapeno queso dip!). Now, for a long time this meant an apple with peanut butter. But I am an apple elitist (only Honeycrisp, thank you!) and my apple of choice are presently unavailable.

Lately I've been reaching for my granola, which is normally reserved for topping my oatmeal. This is of course disastrous, because it makes my granola disappear twice as fast, but it is also delicious. 

I use two types of granola on my oatmeal, both from Bear Naked (Peak!). The first layer (even in my snack bowl) is oats & honey, which is peppered with blueberries and ground and whole flax seeds. I never thought that I was a flax personal, but this is quite delicious, I have to say. Anyway, the second layer is cluster-y and wonderful, with cranberries and a hint of vanilla (the original [edit: original granola, not original vanilla], apparently).

I love bear naked for many reasons. They're vegetarian-friendly, soft-baked rather than break-your-tooth-off, kosher certified, all-natural, and as they say, "bearly processed."And finally, they have a "terracycling" program for their packaging. Each bag and wrapper has been assigned a number of points. You hold on to your empty packaging and when you have assembled the correct number of points, you mail them in and receive a reusable bag (made from the packaging) or a t-shirt! Now, there are some short-comings to the plan (pay for shipping, and really, how many t-shirts do you need from one company?) but I like the fact that they're doing more than JUST using recyclable materials, when it can be so hard to know where our recycling actually goes every week.

Either way, it's so darn tasty and I can't seem to stop my little grazing paw from reaching into the fridge to grab a little morsel of tasty clusters. 

(this being said, I'm pretty sure you don't have to keep granola in the fridge. I just do.)

Green Out!

I know, I know! We're terrible, it's the truth.

But in all honesty, my life hasn't been too super green right now and the last thing I want is to feel hypocritical. My stress levels have sky-rocketed over the last few days weeks, and frankly all I want to do is watch television, read blogs, and eat every available highly-processed food product. And then I get stressed about being stressed. It's a vicious cycle, my friends, and it must be stopped.

So, in an attempt to disconnect, I decided to enjoy the weather and go for a very long walk around my neighborhood (and the surrounding neighborhoods . . . ah, suburbia).  But besides enjoying the spring air, the sunshine, and spotting the new flowers peeking out of the dark earth, I couldn't help but notice something. Though there were several other people, couples, families enjoying the day as well, very few had really left their business at home.

A mother and daughter listened to the radio as they walked, a wife talked on her cell phone while her husband pushed the stroller and walked the dog. And there I walked, all by my lonesome, no phone, no iPod, just my keys and a good pair of sneakers. You don't realize how much your thoughts are taken up by random, pretty inconsequential things until you actually give yourself the time to think about whatever you want. I mean, I'm not going to get into it because it's sort of personal, but I did more than thinking. I had thoughts. Big ones. In a ponder my life/the universe kinda way. I feel like we don't let ourselves do that very often.

Anyway, as I looked through the archives of the blog Green is Sexy today, I noticed that posted what they called an "eco Sabbath" but that I call a "green out." It's marginally simple: unplug. Take an afternoon/evening a week/month/year to turn off the lights, the computer, the cell phone, the television. Don't buy anything, don't use any electricity, just take a break from everything.

both images: we heart it

Read. Journal. Draw. Play cards, or backgammon. Run outside. Play tag, or badminton (*note to self: get badminton set). Walk the dog, or yourself, or your sister. There are so many things that we don't let ourselves enjoy because we feel we aren't being productive. But in reality, we go watch tv or browse the internet. So give yourself an allotted amount of time to do nothing, and give your natural resources a break at the same time.

Who knows? Maybe you'll have thoughts. Big ones. (I'm sure you will)