In a perpetual quest to “fatten”up my youngest son who is gluten and dairy intolerant I discovered Justin’s Dark Chocolate Almond Butter.

http://www.justins.com/products.php

I have to say it is more than a bit sinful and that perhaps my youngest isn’t the only one getting fatter in this household.  But the topic of this post is not really about trying to/or not trying to get fat its about money.  While I love this product and would recommend it to a friend, at $9.99 a jar is it out of our “daily” treat price range and into once in a while “treat” price range.  But we’ve  grown accustomed to having it around.  So I set out on a quest to make my own for less.  This recipe is the result of experimentation and I expect it will continue to be modified.  Although my family is pretty happy with the results.

Be sure to lick the spoon clean, you really don’t want to waste a drop of this.

Ingredients

Cut your images out of old magazines.

Sure you can use a boring old tab binder set to use in your notebook but honestly why would you after seeing these!

The finished project, ready to use in minutes and completely re-usable.

You will need:

-Either the plastic business card holder sheets or ideally the slide holders used for film negatives. You can buy both of these things new, but I have seen them at Goodwill and at S.C.R.A.P.

-Clear stick on tab dividers from Avery work the best and are the easiest (but I found some metal tabs at a local craft store).  I have tried all sorts of homemade tab dividers and always go back to the Avery for low cost and ease.

-Magazines or pieces of ephemera to fill the pockets. These images are usually based on the theme of the divider tab: garden pictures for garden, pictures of to do projects for home ideas, etc.

Use a template to capture the perfect image.

The easiest way to cut out the inserts is to make a template for your size of plastic sheet pocket. You can use either heavy card stock or cut one from a Post-It-Note (keep the sticky part as it will stay in position while you cut).  Trace around the template onto the images your interested in, cut them out, put them in. Be sure to stagger the placement of the tabs, so they don’t cover each other in the notebook.  Thats it!

Gather images for the “theme” of the section (i.e. gardening, decorating etc.)

So easy and so satisfying!

Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis, Thrift Shop Feat

Today I’m wearing a knee length orange plaid wool coat that I got at Goodwill, and thanks to this video I want to shout . . . . I look fucking awesome (sorry after watching that video the language is contagious)!

I couldn’t get the video to embed so use the link above or below.

Mackelmore & Ryan Lewis – Thrift Shop Feat

Check out his work in Boras Sweden and in the West Bank of Palestine.

I’ve been trying to finish up the loose ends on a tutorial/pattern for a three ring binder cover that I have been working on in unorganized spurts for several months (no its not that hard of a project).  But as my creative talents run more to the “idea machine” side of things and less to the “follow it through ’till its finished” camp  I’ve had to become more determinably self-disciplined.   So I have developed a rewards system for myself. Inspiration is my reward.

Today I took my inspiration award in the form of looking at a few of my favorite blogs.  One of which, Hanna Anderson’s blog  iHanna‘s led me to this TEDx video about Shai Dahan.

I couldn’t get the imbed function to work so the link to the video is above

This is truly inspiring on many levels.  The power of art to change lives. Its more that just art. Art can become a common language that unites us and its an idea most of us understand instinctively.

I’m always thinking in terms of creating everyday art, but now I’m adding street art as a form of everyday art, and I will keep my eyes open. Enjoy!

Go to his website to see more of his artwork. These horses in Boras Sweden are what captured my attention

This is a picture from early spring, before anything is really growing.

My Husband and I built this to be my herb garden over 15 years ago. This year I have decided it is time for it to go away and be replaced by a more productive food garden. It’s pretty well rotted through, the fence limits access, the soil drains too well (even with years of added compost) so it dries out too quickly in the summer and its layout has never really worked.

Dry river bed in spring. Now you can hardly walk down it everything has grown so much.

I’ve gone through many phases in my gardening career. Here are is a brief list of what got built during which phase. Through this you will see my evolving tastes.

Hellebores are some of my favorite ornamentals. They flower in winter, the blossoms stay on for months and months, they are subject to pests, they're durable and have beautiful foliage, what's not to love. They do have some medicinal properties but I have researched that.

You can see I have come almost a full circle, right back where I started but with a deeper knowledge and an expanded viewpoint.

As a result of our many changes in directions over the years my husband and I have both come to consensus about our garden style:

We should never EVER construct anything permanent that is designed to do only one thing one way. Everything we build should have more that one use AND be flexible in its design.

So away with a rigid bed structure and in with a simple system of 40″ wide vegetable beds with 12″ of walking space between. After a couple of years we will decide if we like this and then we may give it a more structural feel by adding wooden beds that fit the footprint of the chicken coop, or we may not.

My youngest helped me move this sand to a storage area with his electric car. Funny and not all that helpful!

One stock tank will move up front to become the new home of the hops vine. Which has been systematically taking over the front yard for the last few years. The other will be emptied of dirt and become the starter to an aquaponics system my oldest son and I are dreaming up.

In the meantime, we’ve had a few beautiful days here.  The boys have been remarkably helpful in the several phases of this project, from helping remove some of the sand, removing the pavers and emptying the stock tanks.

In some spots under where the herb garden was there is a good six inches of sand on top of the hard pack clay.  Roots of our large silver maple have invaded this area and taking them out was hard work.  Normally I’m a “no dig/till” sheet mulch method type of girl (saves my back).  But between the hard pan clay, serious roots and too much sand I chose to use the double digging method I learned from Jon Jeavon’s book, How to Grow More Vegetables in Less Square Feet.

The picture does not capture it but the space feels so much bigger!

Here it is.  Pretty much planted and ready to go.  The greenhouse, once the chicken run, isn’t all that attractive but it functions well and I’m thinking of ways to pretty it up!  This project turned out to be much harder than I thought and is largely responsable for my lack of posting consistently.

A whole new row that was once pavers and a stock tank.

It feels really good to move on to a new project!

What you can't tell is how hard it was raining!

One of our favorite holiday traditions with friends and family is to get together and create May Day baskets with flowers and greenery from our yards.  The kids LOVE to deliver these to neighbors door steps, ring the bell and run!

An easy and fun way to deliver a little hope of spring.

I saw and loved this purse called "Split Shade" at Anthropologie. But at $388 its more than a bit over my budget!

Originally when I was planning my wardrobe for Japan I was going to use my trusty old Columbia backpack (the Columbia Outlet Store is my friend).  But after seeing this bag and imagining the versatility it was hard to go back to the practical choice. The more I thought about it the more I wanted a bag that is a bit more stylish on some occasions.  In the spirit of creating from what I already have on hand I attempted to make one!

A word for the wise, don’t attempt to make a purse from scratch without any idea of what you truly want, three days before leaving for a big trip.  If you do this, all the things you should have been doing like cleaning the house and planting the garden don’t get done.  I know this because I have a fun “protoype” purse that is not well made and I left a dirty house to come home to in Portland.  Despite this, I really like my bag and can see all sorts of improvements, changes and additions I will make for the next one.

This will be a bag design that has truly been road tested before it is finalized! It hasn’t worn well, mostly because of my choice of material.  I’m going to continue work on this.  Hopefully, I will end up with something easy to make, versatile, and useful.

My kids love going to the Doctor, mostly because Dr. Mary is really sweet and fun. We usually get there about once a year, but I realized it had been two years since our last checkup.  On this visit I had a list for my youngest son which included:

She also suggested we try dairy free for a month.  We opted to wait until we got back from our trip to Japan to add one more change.  But we discovered it is fairly easy to be dairy free in Japan.    We also discovered that after being in Japan for three weeks and eating almost no dairy that when we ordered pizza and he only ate the cheese topping he had a horrible night (which means we all had a bad night).  We retested this a few weeks later with a snack of apple and cheese, and regretted it rather quickly (burpy, sour tummy, severe stomach cramps).

So now a couple of weeks into this new way of eating I’m beginning to figure things out.  I also have noticed improvements in myself since I eliminated wheat along with Charlie so he did not feel so alone.

Although, becoming a gluten free household is a journey, it hasn’t been that hard. The biggest lesson I have learned is not to buy most gluten free products as they are expensive, full of junk and highly processed.  We try to eat more veggies and fruits, and for the boys who crave the easy carb we still make rice (half white/brown), eat rice noodles (Tinkyada brand is really delicious), and I have been experimenting with creating a bread from gluten free grains that isn’t so “white”!

Some books I have found helpful:

Wheat Belly  by William Davis MD

The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson

The Gluten Free Almond Flour Cookbook by Elana Amsterdam

Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair

Some blogs:

Marks Daily Apple

Gluten Free Mom

Gluten Free Goddess

Living Without

Cookus Interruptus

Some good products:

Bob’s Red Mill Almond Flour

New Cascadia Traditional

Pamela’s  (high in sugar but good for a rare treat)

While in Japan my sister in laws daily cooking was almost entirely gluten free, delicious, simple, fairly fast and really healthy.  I gathered several of her family style recipes and will post them here.  The good thing is that they can be easily changed with seasonal ingredients and you can make them from your well stocked pantry.

I will share those recipes as well as what a well stocked but gluten free pantry looks like soon. Stay tuned.

Elizabeth

I’m not sure if Japanese women actually use these or if they’re intended for gullible tourists.  Whatever they’re real use, the concept that a large square scarf can become a purse, bag, o-bento wrapper, picnic tablecloth or spur of the moment gift wrap, it was just too appealing for me to pass up.

I bought one with the intention of experimenting with the variations once I got home.  I haven’t had any time to experiment by creating some of my own but I’m enjoying playing with it as it is.

Seems like you could make this from a wide variety of recycled material and if you made it a bit bigger it could make a large sack for grocery shopping.

I love the entry to this Ryokan. We did not stay here. Lets just say ours was a bit less, hmmm, new looking!

Over nine years ago my husband and I went to Japan in business class on our Mileage  program. These are the things I remember the most about that trip:
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Now we are on our way to Japan again using our air mileage.  This time with our children in tow. Again we have the privilege of riding business class (this used almost twice the amount of mileage, part of the reasons it took 9 years) on the international legs of the trips.  But as with most Mileage Programs, the connections are terrible and you never go the most direct route. The savings are huge and worth it. Especially when you add in that we will be mostly staying and eating with family, and that we purchased a Japan Rail Pass so our rail travel is significantly cheaper.

Here is the equation as I see it.

For spending money we sold our spare car. Yen in hand we are en-route on our 22 hour adventure.  Seven hours into our cross Pacific flight and everyone is still happy.  Even with some numb parts of my anatomy, I’m thinking back over my list from above and I can almost say “ditto” about what I think I will remember from this trip.  Except, I will add that seeing the interest, awe, excitement on my children’s faces as they experience some of these things for themselves is in itself a wonderment.

Note: This post was actually done over a week ago, but my brain and I are on vacation!