Deconstructing the Emergency Bag: Packing a Kit Is Tougher Than It Looks. I grew up in California, so my family is familiar with earthquakes.
However, I grew up in a coastal area that, while we felt the rattle when quakes hit north and south of us, we rarely experienced disastrous results. Even with that familiarity -- or perhaps because of it -- after I moved to San Francisco my family gave me a very large, very full backpack of emergency supplies. And after Haiti, I've also started questioning my disaster preparedness and wondered about the contents of this bag. I pulled it out of the closet today to take a closer look. There are some additions that completely surprised me, and some items that are sorely missing, including anything having to do with an eco-conscious way of dealing with disaster.
What Was Included In My Emergency Backpack: First of all, I put this thing on my bathroom scale. However, as I pulled out the contents, I was amazed at how much fit in there. Many of the items are packed in Ziplok bags that can be reused. A crow bar? It's HEAVY!
Creating a multi-tasking wedding registry for your kitchen. Reader Kirsten recently e-mailed saying that she is getting married and is wondering what she should put on her registry: My fiance and I just moved into a two bed, two bath condo and basically have nothing in terms of home items.
We have a wedding registry at a couple of the typical stores (Crate and Barrel, Macy’s, etc.) and I would like your advice on how to build an Uncluttered Wedding Registry. There are a lot of items “they” at the stores suggest for a registry that are true unitaskers (e.g. salad spinners). What items would you definitely put on your wedding registry and what items would you definitely leave off? Kirsten, this is a HUGE topic, so I want to just look at the subtopic of the kitchen right now. I would keep two things in mind when heading to the stores: 1. Simply put, if you don’t eat salads or a lot of vegetables, the salad spinner the sales rep at the store is promoting probably isn’t for you.
Simplicity, Eco-Friendly Living. We celebrated my son’s birthday recently, and one of the boys attending his party is allergic to eggs.
I’d been planning to make a chocolate cake, and I remembered a recipe we used to make years ago from Peg Bracken’s hilarious I Hate to Cook Book. She called it “Cockeyed Cake,” and the recipe relies on a combination of vinegar and baking soda for leavening instead of eggs. Sounds weird, I know, but the resulting cake is moist and chocolatey, with absolutely no hint of the odd ingredients. It’s also super easy to make. When we brought the cake out and I whispered to my son’s friend that the cake didn’t include eggs, his face brightened and he said, “This is a first!” Fudgy, Moist, Eggless Chocolate Cake with Milk Chocolate Ganache Glaze 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups sugar 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 3/4 cup vegetable oil 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 cups cold water Enjoy!
Unclutterer: Daily tips on how to organize your home and office. In France, "Resource Stores" Recycle, Repair, Upcycle and Resell "Waste" Chris Yunker/CC BY 2.0 If you ever took high school French, you probably learned (and forgot) words like la patisserie and la boulangerie.
But you likely never heard la ressourcerie - and it wasn't your teacher's fault. Joining France's countless pastry shops and bakeries is a new kind of shop, which collects unwanted goods, repairing them if necessary, selling or upcycling them if possible, and, if all else fails, properly recycling them. And their numbers are growing. Ressourceries, which could be translated as "resource shops," operate something like Goodwill or the Salvation Army, accepting donations of used goods and reselling them at discounted prices. The results are impressive; photos of a Paris ressourcerie look like an upcyling wonderland. According to the national network's web site, ressourceries have four functions: So far, there are only two ressourceries in Paris and around 80 in France. Sustainable Personal Finance.
Holidays. The Home. Cleaning. Crafts. Beauty. Gardening. Pets. Source4Style Rolls Out 2.0 Site, Paves Way for Online Eco-Fashion Sourcing. © Source4style From the launch of Source4Style's online eco-textile sourcing marketplace in October 2010 to their recent recognition by Cartier as recipients of the Women's Initiative Award, we've been at the front lines covering Source4Style's growth as they pave the way for sourcing sustainably in the digital age.
This week, Source4Style revealed the brand new 2.0 version of their site that boasts new features, including engaging multimedia content, informative videos, and more. © Source4Style Source4Style is bringing sourcing into the digital age. “Despite the rise of online solutions to fashion commerce, the $400 billion market for materials sourcing remains offline and fragmented,” says co-founder Summer Rayne Oakes.
The Kitchen.