grocery store shopping

Isn't it awkward when you find yourself on the same path as someone else at the grocery store? It happened to us today with a couple people. One was a huge preggo and I just love looking at pregnant women now that I have been there. I didn't say anything or rub her belly like people did to my friend Carrie in Arkansas- weirdo at Best Buy showed her a C-sec scar. Not something a pregnant lady wants to see, thank you very much. The other people who probably felt like we were stalking them was a couple who seemed like the girl was teaching the boy how to use coupons. I felt like saying "honey, it's a lost cause, men and coupons just don't go together" but I didn't. We spent the majority of our time in there searching the entire gorcery store for one tiny item. Have you ever done this? It is so infuriating! Today it was a packet of pesto seasoning. I swear we went down every aisle twice and couldn't find the damn thing! Finally just said eff it and bought beer instead.  So, I will be enjoying a Shock Top (with an orange slice, Desirae!) with our dinner tonight made without pesto.

I've been telling some people about our "meal plan" so I thought I would include the link to e-mealz.com . For $5.00 per month you get weekly meals with an itemized shopping list. So we save money by buying exactly what we need and save time by having our dinners planned out. It's working for us :)

beauty school drop out

This week's green topic: beauty products. Boy, did I learn a lot this week. It all started with a book I got for my birthday (thank you Alicia!) called Gorgeously Green by Sophie Uliano. The premise of the book is that you can be green and still be stylish. I'm only on the second chapter because I had to stop and do the exercise. Here's what is it: Uliano lists the top eight dangerous ingredients in beauty products and tells you to look at the ingredients in your products and get rid of them if they contain these things. I actually put this off all week because I didn't want to know how many bad products I have. I'm a bit of a product junkie, as you will see in the pictures below. These are just the things I keep in my bathroom- not including the guest bathroom, kitchen, purse, etc. But I finally evaluated them because some of these ingrediants are linked to cancer, hormone imbalance, reproductive issues, immune system, allergies, and birth defects. And I'm slathering them all over my skin everyday?! WTF! Oh yeah, and I read in this Taste For Life buy Organic magazine that toxins I ingest are passed to my son through my breastmilk. So there's another reason for me to be aware.

First of all, these are the keepers.

There is a label to look for on beauty products that assure you it's an organic product. Don't buy them because it says natural or has a picture of a plant like I did.

This pile is use them up but don't buy them again.

And this is my trash pile.

 I felt really wasteful throwing these out but I want to change my

lifestyle to be more green and many of them were just old.  

And I have a humongous headache from tipping those fragrances down the drain! I didn't even look at makeup or perfume yet. The next time I'm buying beauty products I'm taking my list of harmful products and buying things with ingredients that I can pronounce. Maybe a trip to LUSH is in my future? Joanne, are you reading this? Lol.

Which organic/ natural beauty products are your favorite?

P.S. my local egg lady is upping her price to $5.00, she said it's because they're upgrading to a better feed. The eggs are really good, going to have to decide if it's worth the money, decisions...

local eggs

I found a place to buy local cage free eggs and I'm so excited that I'm sharing!! This woman is a sister-in-law of one of the women in my meetup group. She was very nice and actually I can see us being friends. She let Ollie pet her baby goat, just a week old! She sells a dozen eggs for $3.00 if you supply the container. That is a steal of a deal and cheaper than a grocery store! Her name is Bethany and her number is 480-478-9259, she lives in Gilbert close to downtown. If you live in Gilbert, you can support a local family at the same time as have delicious, healthy eggs for your family.

On a side note my mom is visiting and we're spending our first Mother's Day together tomorrow :) Today we went to the farmer's market in Gilbert. We bought some organic produce including lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, and cucumber. Cilantro, which I don't like but my Mom says she will change my mind this week. And these huge turnips pictured below.

I'm not really sure what we're going to do with them. Do you have a turnip recipe? Please leave it in the comments.

This was a real find for just $3. This man makes all kinds of wood toys in his spare time. There were cars, planes, fire trucks, dump trucks, cradles, and toys big enough to ride on.

Here's my little rock star having a particularly crazy hair day.

Have a great Mother's Day weekend :)