When I buy clothes, I want them to last. I’m trying hard to move away from fast fashion and invest in quality pieces for my wardrobe that will stand the test of time. But I also don’t have multiple hundreds of dollars to invest in each and every piece, so it’s a balance to find pieces that are high-quality, long lasting, stylish — and within my budget. That’s why I reviewed my Rothy’s shoes after a year of wear. (P.S. Those shoes are still going strong 3+ years later!) I bought the Universal Standard Seine High Rise Skinny Jeans 32-inch in November 2021, so it’s been just over a year of hard w ..read more

There is something about growing, harvesting, cooking, and preserving my own food that makes me feel powerful. Don’t get me wrong: even as we add to our food forest we’ll probably never be able to produce all the food we would need to live in a year. And that’s OK. That’s not my goal. (We’ll likely have more of some types of food than my family of three can eat in a year, and I look forward to being able to donate some of our excess to a food bank in future years.) But there’s something about providing for oneself that makes you feel powerful. It’s about thumbing my nose at capitalism in some ..read more

Over the last few years, I’ve been using the Capsule Wardrobe guides from Classy Yet Trendy to guide my seasonal shopping. I have the year-round capsule wardrobe guide and a couple of the seasonal guides, to add some color and pop to my capsule. I will say that my wardrobe probably isn’t a true capsule, because I tend to add things I like whether or not they really fit with everything else. But, a large portion of what I wear on a regular basis is based on these capsule wardrobe guides. (I do own more cocktail dresses and other special occasion clothes than are really warranted by my lifestyle ..read more

Building a food forest is… a lot. A LOT. We thought we knew this going in, but there’s understanding it and then there’s experiencing it. Because of a long, convoluted story I won’t go into (it’s not that interesting), we weren’t able to hire the landscapers our designer recommended for us, and by the time we figured this out, pretty much every landscaper in the area was booked up well into the summer. So, we decided to get started on our own. Out with the old, in with the new (trees) The very first step for our transformation had to be taking out some old trees that weren’t part of the new pl ..read more

After our initial consult with our landscape designer, Marjolein Schuit, she created a classic permaculture zone and sector map of our property. This isn’t a design, but rather a map to sort of show what’s happening with our property and what will be in each area as she designs. It includes wind patterns (the grey arrows), and “water” features (which right now are just lower areas on our property). She’s also indicated where the lake and mountains are in relation to our property, because they contribute to our microclimate — and the funny cold spot we experience. Explaining the permaculture zo ..read more

When we bought our home more than a decade ago now, one of the big selling factors for us was the huge back yard. We loved the idea of having a dog and a kid who would want to use all that space to run around and play, and we loved the idea of growing our own food on our own little plot of land. And a lot of that has come to fruition. We do, indeed, have a dog and a kid who love to play in the yard, and we do grow some food. A majority of the plants and trees we’ve added over the past 10 years have been food-bearing — including blackberries and raspberries, peach and cherry trees, pecan and wa ..read more

If you like to hang out on Pinterest at all, you’ve likely seen advertisements for both Tieks ballet flats and Rothy’s cool flats made from recycled water bottles. But you might have found yourself asking: Is one better than the other? Which one should I get? These aren’t super-cheap shoes, so it’s worth it to do your research and decide which ones will be better for your lifestyle and your values. I happen to own both, and so I thought I’d do a side-by-side comparison. What’s different about this review is that I’ve been wearing both of these pairs of shoes for more than a year — so it’s not ..read more

Many years ago, I accomplished something good at school (I can’t remember what) and my mother was congratulating me. And — snarky teenager that I was — I replied, “Yeah! Imagine what I could do if I actually worked to my full potential!” I think of that sometimes, because it’s a question I still ask myself from time to time. Imagine what I could do if I actually worked to my full potential. I never wanted to be valedictorian, so I wasn’t. I didn’t care about what my class rank was, so I missed the top 10% by one percentage point. That sort of competition didn’t motivate me; it stressed me out ..read more

I’ve got beets and carrots roasting for salads this week, and thought I’d sit down and write about what’s been happening around here. May is a busy month with school and some activities coming to a close, but I’m ready for summer. I asked D last night what she wanted to do this summer and she said, “Sleep in late!” I’m with you, kiddo. Fourteen and a half school days left! Home We did a lot of yard work the past two weeks. Last weekend we got our vegetable garden really going. (We already had peas, spinach, lettuce, beets, garlic, and other cold crops in). And we built my vision of a strawber ..read more

We had such a great time at Devyn’s 7th birthday party. My mom flew out a few days before and we had a great time creating the decorations and food. She wrote those signs that we tacked to the tree in the front yard. It was a really simple agenda for the party. When the girls arrived, we gave each one a sweet little half apron my mom found at Target in the dollar section. The girls played outside until everyone arrived, and then we seated them at the table for tea. I used pre-printed placemats I already had, and I made a runner out of paper doilies (just glued them together). I hung some tis ..read more