More Green Product Love

I'm still searching for green/eco-friendly products I love and I've found a few new products so thought I'd share...

1. Kiss My Face Pure Olive Oil Bar Soap - They recommended this at our Healthy Living store and I love it. It's super moisturizing, which is great for the winter. For my friends in L'burg, I saw this at Kroger over Christmas so it should be available everywhere!



2. Eve Organics Mineral Makeup - I've been a long time fan of Bare Minerals makeup but thought I'd try something different the next time I ran out. So far I'm loving this stuff....



3. Aquarella Nail Polish - It's expensive, but works pretty well. I am not in love with this one, but it'll do for now...They sell non-toxic nail polish remover (but you really have to put some effort into getting the polish off using it) as well as a nail conditioner/hardener. Lots of colors to choose from too!



I've been doing lots of research on eco-friendly building materials (cabinets, countertops, floor stain!), cleaning supplies, you name it since we're going to be doing a lot of renovating and cleaning in the next few weeks. I'm going to make an effort to switch over to either green cleaning products such as Seventh Generation/Ecover or homemade ones and not move with the ones currently under my sink!

One Year in VT...

So we've officially lived in Vermont for one year as of today. It feels like it has flown by! We received a lot of questions about why we were moving, and I still can't quite say why exactly - looking for a good fit for our lifestyle? I will say I never dreamt we would love living here as much as we do.

It's 35 degrees and snowing today on the 22nd of March while it was almost 80 degrees at home and I still wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I guess that's saying something. We've enjoyed all of our Vermont seasons so far and I've been sad for each of them to come to an end (although I could live without the cold and rain we had in November).

We have a subscription to a magazine called "Vermont Life" (and have for many years). This month they redesigned the magazine to reflect a more modern Vermont. My mom pointed out the editors note to me and I think it really fits what we love about VT. I'm going to post parts of it - you can read the rest here.

In 2009, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an article about the changing nature of the American Dream. Brooks painted a portrait that included neither manicured lawns nor chic urban living. Instead, he argued, the new American ideal involved living in "places where you can imagine yourself with a stuffed garage — filled with skis, kayaks, soccer equipment, hiking boots and boating equipment."

As Brooks describes it, Americans today strive to live in a place "where spectacular natural scenery is visible from medium-density neighborhoods." These places have "loose social structures and relative social equality ... strong social identities and pedestrian meeting places. They offer at least the promise of friendlier neighborhoods, slower lifestyles ... ."

Sound familiar?

We experience this new American Dream every day in Vermont, and with this redesigned issue of Vermont Life, we hope to reach beyond our new logo, new paper and new features to fully capture its spirit.

It's a new direction for the magazine, to be sure, to focus so fully on today and tomorrow.
......

Times change. Over the last six decades "newcomers" have arrived in pursuit of their own American Dream. Back-to-the-land hippies, starving artists, ski bums and rat-race refugees looking for a real job and a real life have been drawn to Vermont and its enduring values.

People here still work hard, value self-reliance, enjoy the outdoors, cherish the landscape, help their neighbors and think for themselves. Vermont today is a welcoming place where roving butchers ("The Trouble With Butchers") and Emily Post's family ("Post-Modern Manners") feel equally at home.

The genius of Vermont, in short, has been its willingness to evolve.

Today we're the healthiest state in the country, the greenest state and, per capita, the state with the greatest number of local dollars spent buying local food ("First We'd Like to Say"). Vermonters today are forward-thinking.

.....

Vermont Life co-founder Vrest Orton once wrote that the thing that sets Vermont apart from other places is "the prodigious feeling that when you hear about Vermont you get homesick. It's the wonderful feeling that when you get here you're home."


Anyway, we're in the process of making more changes as we attempt to settle fully into our new state so I don't feel like we're quite "there" yet in terms of feeling completely at home. We've made great friends, we know where to order fast food when I'm feeling too lazy to cook, we've learned the shortcuts so we don't get stuck in traffic, we've found new doctors and dentist and a place to get our hair cut. It takes time to make a home, but I'm excited that we've made it this far!

I'll leave you with these gorgeous pics from VT Life that really capture Vermont at this time of year - Happy Tuesday everyone!

John was here

Happy Monday everyone!

We had a great weekend filled with beautiful sunshine and temps in the 40s and 50s for John's visit. It felt great to wear a t-shirt outside when we hiked and to put on sunscreen for skiing! Today we're back to reality as we're supposed to receive between 3-5 inches of snow. Ha!

We spent a lot of time this weekend watching basketball...Go DEVILS! DUKE has advanced to the Sweet 16 - yipee! Congrats to Coach K on 900 wins!

John arrived Thursday while I was at work. I had class Thursday night so I left John and Matt to fend for themselves for dinner. I arrived home after class at 8:30pm to this scene.

John and Matt had dinner at Al's Fries. John ordered this extra large chocolate milkshake and finished the entire thing in one sitting. He could barely move.

On Friday, John and I went back to my favorite place - Mt. Philo :) It was so sunny and warm, I was in short sleeves by the time we reached the top!

Will was there :)

On Saturday, we went skiing here.

It was an amazing day once again. Beautiful and sunny!

We hiked to the top of Mt. Mansfield from the resort to get this beautiful view...

John was excited to get back on his snowboard...

A great day :)

Let's see..what else? We made John tag along to supper club with us so he could see what social life is like once you're married and no longer 24 years old :) I think he had fun! We had dinner with cousin Jess...We walked around down on Church street...and then John had to go home! We squeezed a lot into 3 days as usual.

This week I'm busy working on assignments for class and packing packing packing! We're supposed to close next Wednesday the 30th if things go according to plan. That means we'll move in less than 2 weeks. Yikes!

Love you John!
xoxo

Winner #2

I received a few disgruntled phone calls today from disappointed commenters hoping to win the give away :) I had no idea everyone loved VT cheese as much as me!

I had quite a few other good guesses.

7th Generation makes great products! I do love them! I wasn't sure if I could find a cleaning product that would be legal to mail.

Ben and Jerry's plus maple syrup were also great guesses as I love them too. I didn't want to pony up the dough for a B&J's tee-shirt :) AND they always ask at the post office if you're mailing something liquid, so figured I shouldn't lie about the syrup. (They also ask about perishable stuff huh? I might have to educate them on how waxed cheese can be shipped.)

Flower seeds! Never even thought of it - great idea! I do have some wedding favors left over...

Simon Pearce - in your dreams! I wish! However, my friend Katie recently told me that if you open a registry there (wedding only for this one) then they give you 2 free nights at a local bed and breakfast plus all kinds of great stuff!

Cabot and Magic Hat are also great choices :) I'll have to keep them in mind for the next one...

I had picked some totally random Vermont product as my next give away. This company looks great and they sell their stuff at Wealthy Living. However, I haven't tried the products yet and there were so many cheese entries I figured the next winner would probably rather have cheese so I'm sending another block of cheddar your way :)

SO - without stalling any more - Winner #2 was determined via the number of comments in the random number generator again:

True Random Number Generator

Min: 1
Max: 9
Result: 1

Congratulations Meg!

Sorry to the rest of you...I am still trying to live up to my resolution to be more thoughtful so maybe you'll get something special in the mail anyway :)

Winner #1

So. Tuesday has come and gone and it's time to pick a winner! 9 people commented out of the 100 or so visitors - my ploy to lure everyone to make a comment wasn't as strong as I'd hoped :)

The first product I picked was a block of Cheddar from Shelburne Farms. Nobody guessed correctly - you had to be specific! Sooo I decided to put anyone who guessed either Shelburne Farms or cheese in the running.

Those people were:

1. Sarah - Shelburne Farms
2. Maegan - Cheese
3. Mom - Cheddar (but from Dakin Farms)
4. Kate - Vermont Cheddar

Dad came close but didn't guess cheese...

I put 1-4 in a random number generator and the lucky winner was.....


True Random Number Generator

Min: 1
Max: 4
Result: 4
Powered by RANDOM.ORG


Congratulations KATE!

I guess being a regular commenter did pay off for you as you'd hoped :) Your block of waxed cheddar will be in the mail to you soon.

I will pick another random winner later on today...

PS - I did some research on mailing cheese another time and found that cheese put in a waxed block does not have to be refrigerated! The results are mixed but I've sent one to Meg before and it still tasted wonderful. Just FYI.

It was a good day

I'm coming down with a cold. Boo :( I guess I have a pretty good record considering this is my first cold of the season and I work in an elementary school. Advice I received on my first day...don't drink out of the water fountain.

I fell while skiing yesterday. Twice. I'm sporting matching bruises on the insides of my knees and strained a muscle in my right arm that hurts when I try to lift it over my head. I've self-diagnosed it as an injury to the infraspinatus and my research told me I could treat it with ice or heat - good thing I made that rice heating bag :) The thing that was hurt most was my pride. I hoped I was better able to handle all types of conditions...

I'm just trying to keep it real and not paint a picture that's too rosy. Obviously, those aren't the things that made today good.

These are.

1. It wasn't cloudy or raining. Hello Sun! How I've missed your bright and shining face! It was also 36 degrees today so my face was the only exposed part of my body, but I'll take the Vitamin D any way I can get it!

2. My love for Daylight Savings knows no end. Who cares if you lose an hour of sleep on a Saturday night when the sun stays around until after 6pm! Yipee! It is dark when I leave for work at 6:30am but I don't have anything to do at that hour except drive anyway.

3. John is coming! John is coming! He's supposed to be here Thursday...Keep your fingers crossed that the rain we're supposed to get this week turns to snow in the mountains or we'll be doing lots of this :)

4. It's official! We are approved! We received final word today that our financing went through so we're one step closer to closing on our new house...

Our Weekend

Happy Monday everybody! Hope you had a great weekend. It was grey and drizzly here most of the weekend...yuck! That's early spring in VT in all her glory.

We went here Friday night with a bunch of friends. I managed a few strikes and only 2 double zeros. Yipee! Sorry, didn't bring my camera.

We went skiing at Mad River Glen on Saturday. It was my first time skiing the mountain, but we'd been to the top before in the fall with Sarah and Ned!

The conditions weren't the best but we had fun anyway :)

We did get a peek at the pretty view...

This looks like me (in the red coat) but I was taking the picture :)

Let's see...what else? Willow was a little bored on Sunday morning because we'd made her stay home alone all day on Saturday.

So we took her to the dog park.

Now for the most exciting part of the weekend!!!

2011 ACC Champs! WooHoo!

On Sunday, DUKE dominated Carolina with a 75-58 victory to win the ACC Championship Game. They played amazingly well. Tenacious defense and the shots just seemed to fall all night long. This team was out for redemption after the embarassing loss to Carolina not too long ago. I know better than to jinx it, but.....

You know I'm hoping this continues into the tournament. I don't think I have unrealistic expectations. Please see this article for an explanation.

I apologize for my obnoxious past, present, and future DUKE fandom, but don't blame me. Blame my parents for taking me to watch DUKE play when I was an infant, stuffing my ears with cotton to block out the screaming in Cameron.