Category: Day-to-Day

  • Advocacy? Me?

    Welcome to the April Carnival of Natural Parenting: Compassionate Advocacy This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Code Name: Mama and Hobo Mama. This month our participants have shared how they advocate for healthy, gentle parenting choices compassionately. Please read to the end to find a list…

  • Paying Attention for $$$!

    (I’m going to tell you how much I spend on utilities, in real dollars! Eventually.) This is a part of my daily life that has been growing for years, so I think it deserves a mention. It’s partially frugal, partially environmental, and partially an exercise in testing limits – how little can we use? It…

  • What I Watch Instead of TV*

    I was looking for a photo for today’s post, when I realized that the entire set of photos was a pretty good idea of my day. Yesterday, I caught myself staring at the solar panels, watching the reflections of the clouds and the thin film interference. I mentioned to my husband that I can watch…

  • Weekly Photo Challenge: Light

    Solar panel with clouds, shadow, and cat footprints

  • Goings On

    A Photo roundup of the week in these parts:   Crocodiles in the pie plates   Penguins on patrol:   Cat on patrol   Next to our favourite rock:   And everything is A-OK.      

  • The Economics of the Laundry Line

    If you are a dedicated environmentalist, but you still find yourself buying back your own time by using convenience foods and labour-saving devices, this is an article for you. I find myself making these choices almost every day: I currently have a frozen lasagna in the oven so that I can have back the 2…

  • My Exact Words Were…

    So I said, ” As long as the peas are staked by the time I get home, I don’t care if there is a giant pair of pants in my front yard…”  

  • High tech/low tech

    After I wrote my very long post extolling the virtues of cake (1), I went out to obtain ingredients for supper (2) and arrived home to discover that the power was out. After a couple of minutes (3), I realized that there was an easy solution to this problem, picked up the not-cordless phone (4)…

  • Weekly Photo Challenge: Ocean

    Oooh! Ocean! I have one of those! (You know, the same way that one can have a sky, or a constellation, which is that I can look at one with a reasonable expenditure of energy) Our ocean is moody and cold: There is honesty in naming in action, at the Polar Bear Beach. I didn’t…

  • Review: Keeping the Bees

    Why is that young man serenading the blueberries with his guitar? Why are cactus spines as likely as stings for many bee researchers? What can each of us do to improve the situation for pollinators in our world? What I didn’t know about bees could fill a book. Fortunately, Laurence Packer has provided exactly that…

  • On Pickles, Particle Physics, and Work-Life Balance

    When I started writing this post, I felt pretty good. I had a great day. I made the pickles that have been sitting in brine for the last 5 days. I wrote about nuclear physics for 2 hours, refreshed my memory on alpha and beta decay, and came up with a good analogy. I had…

  • The books that haunt me

    Can’t write, reading! Books on the desk… Books on the wee table next to the desk: The books I removed from the end table that have no shelf to go to: The books I added to the end table: And to finish it all off, the blank books that await filling: