Dirt Cheap Decor

Confession:  I watch a lot of HGTV.  Probably more than is healthy.  One of the things that always makes me laugh/be jealous is when they show the "5 months after moving into our first home" shots, and everything looks professionally decorated and staged.  Let's be honest, buying your first house pretty much decimates your bank accounts.  (Especially when you have unexpected demolition and mold remediation projects pop up!)

Needless to say, my decorating budget has been pretty skimpy for the new house.  (Personally, as much as part of me wishes that I had a home that could be featured on Design*Sponge, I enjoy the journey of homeownership.)

I've been staring at this blank wall in my living room for more than nine months.

Kindof depressing, right?

Thanks to a recent visit from Emily, my partner-in-crafting-crime, in idea was spouted:

Instead of shelling out a couple hundred bucks for a large-scale art piece, or enough frames for a proper photo-collage, why not make a stretched fabric canvas to bring in a pop of color and pattern?  Brilliant.

The breakdown:

2 pieces of 1x2" moulding and a package of L-brackets = $5

1 yard of upholstery fabric (with 40% coupon, of course!) = $12

An hour and a half's worth of time (spread out over 2 weeks, because I'm lazy) = free

I had a couple of tin ceiling tiles that I had picked up at Hobby Lobby many moons ago (on sale of course!), and moved a few other things around....

Voila!

No more depressing college-y living room wall!

And yes, those books on the bottom of the bookshelf are Time Life Series home repair books.  Copyright 1983.  Courtesy of my dad.

Quick Tuesday Eye Candy/Inspiration

I just saw this via twitter, and had to share:

originally here

It speaks the truth we all tend to forget, no?

Thanks to @MidwestPhoto for sharing and inspiring my afternoon!

Gluten Free Goodness

Despite the fact that I've been eating gluten free for almost a year and a half, I had homemade GF Pizza for the first time last night.
Delicious!

For reasons I don't entirely understand, gluten free baking has always been off-putting to me somehow.  Maybe it's a fear of failure.  Maybe a reluctance to change the way I've been doing things since I was 12.  Whatever the reason, since making my dietary shift, I haven't done much baking.
Until a few weeks ago.

Sarah over at Celiac in the City shared her grandmother's recipe for Monster Cookies.  Because they're a flour-free cookie, they're naturally gluten-free, and, hence, less intimidating for yours truly.  They are "omg"-inducingly good.

via 

I've made them twice in the past month.  They're that good.  My first batch was for a Super Bowl party.  And I may or may not have stood in the bulk candy aisle and picked through the m&ms for the green and gold ones.  This last time, I decided to make them a little healthier, since I seem to be incapable of eating less than six of these buggers in a day.  I added dried cranberries, golden raisins and chopped pecans and omitted the m&ms.  I also shorted the sugar - omitting all the white sugar and increasing the brown sugar by a quarter cup.  This less-sweet cookie was actually more to my liking, as I've become sensitive to sweets.

Flying high on my recent cookie success, I decided that I should try my hand at GF Pizza!  I go to Transfer fairly often for their delicious GF pizzas, but I'm trying to curtail my restauranting budget.  I've had a recipe for Gluten Free Pizza Crust in my recipe box for ages.  Unfortunately, I don't know the original source - my mom clipped it from a newsletter for me.  I was glad I finally tried it.

The texture was slightly dense and chewy, but in a pleasant way.  The edges had a delicious crispness.  I topped my crust with what was on hand - jarred pasta sauce, caramelized onions and baby portabella mushrooms, parmesan cheese, and black olives.

Gluten Free Pizza Crust
1 tablespoon dry yeast
1/2 cup milk, skim  (I used rice milk)
1/2 teasp. sugar
2/3 cup white rice flour
1/2 cup tapioca flour
2 teasp. xanthan gum
1/2 teasp. salt
1 teasp. Italian Seasoning (I used 1/2 tea. each dried oregano and basil)
1 teasp. olive oil
1 teasp. apple cider vinegar
Corn meal and rice flour (to prevent sticking)

- Preheat oven to 425*
- Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm milk for five minutes.  In food processor, blend the rest of the ingredients, including yeast mixture, until ball forms.  Dough will be soft
- Put mixture into greased 12-inch nonstick pizza pan
- Liberally sprinkle corn meal onto pizza sheet and press the dough into the pan with your hands. Sprinkle with rice flour to prevent sticking.  Make edges thicker to contain toppings.
(I used corn meal, but didn't need any rice flour to prevent sticking.  I think next time I'll omit the corn meal as well.  Don't be scared that the dough is a little hard to work with.  It'll come out just fine!)
- Bake pizza crust for 10 minutes.   Remove from oven and add sauce and toppings.  Bake another 20 - 25 minutes or until the top is nicely browned.  (Mine was ready in just under 20 minutes.)

Snowed In

Well, like most of the midwest, Cream City Green got clobbered with a blizzard over the past few days.  I must admit, as a former Yooper, the prospect of 12 - 20" of snow in and of itself doesn't phase me much.  But even by my hearty standards, this was a heckofa storm.

Before I bought my current house, I was living in a duplex with a three-car garage and a side drive.  With all that driveway to contend with, my dad got me a snowblower.  I don't use it much here in the new house, with all 35' of street frontage, but it sure was nice to have yesterday!

Here's what I saw when I opened the drapes on Wednesday morning:

Even Cream City Pooch was having a hard time locating the steps:

We had some pretty serious drifts along the side of the house, too:

Those are full-size windows, by the way.

And, yes, for those of you paying attention, a rain barrel is on the wish-list for this summer!

The storm helped to point out some areas of the house that need some better weatherproofing.

I'll be replacing this door (moving it, actually):

And it looks as though the (detached) garage could use a bit of weatherproofing, too!

I actually love when Mother Nature makes us all stop in our tracks for a day or two.  It reminds us all of how fickle our lifestyle really can be.  I also love the way neighbors band together during snowstorms.  Yesterday, I spent nearly four hours clearing the alley and chatting with neighbors that we had never met.  We're already discussing barbecues and block parties for the warmer months!

As a parting note, I feel I should mention ...  Global Climate Change (or Global Warming, as most folks call it) is indicated by overall increased earth temperatures.  In temperate to cold climates, like ours, however, it is indicated by stronger and more frequent storm events and not necessarily by a decrease in annual snowfall or cold days.  

That's right.  Counter-intuitive as it may seem, yesterday's blizzard may well have been a symptom of global warming.

I hope you all got dug out, and enjoyed your day off.

Now I'm off to find another blanket and cup of coffee.....

Excited for New Neighbors

Here at Cream City Green, we're very excited about the new pub going in around the corner from us.  The Riverwest Public House will be Milwaukee's only cooperatively owned bar.  Slated to open in March, the Public House will occupy the former Sayleece's space at 815 E. Locust.  While we never had any problems with the patrons from Sayleece's, they did tend to make the neighborhood noisy and raucous when entering and leaving the bar.  We're hoping that the neighborhood clientele of the Public House will be a bit more conscientious of the neighborhood.

More importantly, though, we're excited about this concept, and about a new great neighborhood hangout and music venue.

The concept of the Public House is modeled after traditional English public houses - a place for the community to gather, share stories and gossip, laugh, and arrange mutual help within the community.  According to their website, the mission of the Riverwest Public House is "Building Community, one drink at a time!"  They'll be providing a "welcoming social meeting place", providing "a variety of affordable local, organic and/or delicious beers, ciders and spirits", and will "raise funds to propagate other cooperatives through the Riverwest Cooperative Alliance".

You can find out more about the Riverwest Public House on their website, including info about become a coop member and benefits thereof.

It's businesses like these that make me love living in the city... in THIS city!

Cheers!

Organization dichotomies

Over the last year or so, I've been trying to become a more involved member of the citizenry.  I was raised to know that giving your time and talents to others is important and good.  But as I've become more involved in the environmental community, I've realized something.  Organizations seem to come in one of two flavors:  button-down and businessy, or patchouli-loving hippie-dippie.

It's a frustrating divide, as I've always seen myself as being a bit of both.  It's also frustrating, because it leads to duplication of effort and missed opportunities for collaboration.  One group seems to have the lion's share of the money, and the other group seems to have the people-power.

I'm not taking sides, or advocating for one type of activism over another.  Both have their merits.  My point is simply this:  if these two types of environmental organizations could find more common ground, we'd all win.  More would get done.  ...and isn't that what everyone was after in the first place?

Admittedly, I don't have a solution here.  I wish I did.  The best I can say for now is that those of us who know how to walk with a foot on either side of the divide need to step it up.  It may be an uphill battle to get our voices and new ideas heard within an organization, but we are duty-bound to try.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.  Ready?  GO!

Welcome back to the New Year!

Sorry I've been so derelict in this blogging enterprise.  It's a new year now, and I'm resolving to write more. (Lucky you!)

The latter half of 2010 was a doozy for me, personally.  There were joyous moments, to be sure, but on the whole, I'm very happy for this fresh start.

As many of you are heading back to "real life" today, as the holidays come to a close.  I hope that they were a restful and joyous time for you and your loved ones.

To start our year on a courageous footing, I want to share a song that my friend Lori shared with me a few weeks ago, as certain things in my life were coming to a head.  It gave me courage and solace when I needed some.  So, if you need a little of those things in your life today, I hope this little song can provide.

Climate Change Conspiracy??

I feel a little like we should all be singing "'tis the season to be leaking incriminating documents..."

Fa La La La La

Yesterday, an internal email from Fox News was released.  In the email, the corporations Washington Bureau Chief instructed staff that any mention of climate change should be IMMEDIATELY followed by statements of skepticism about its scientific existence. (Read the original news article here.)

Those of you who know me personally, know that I tend to be "left-of-center" on most issues.  Oh, and also?  I'm an environmental scientist.  You can imagine my reaction.  (Suffice it to say, it wasn't all that different from the reaction of virtually every environmental group in the country.)

As the serendipity of the Internets would have it, another blogger published a great comic on climate change earlier this week.  It gets a little finger-pointy in the middle, but is, overall, very well done.

Go read it.

Fa La La La La.

Sustainable Seafood

Now, I've said before, I'm not out to make this a "food" blog.  But we all eat.  And how and what we eat can make a pretty big impact on our world.  So it's important.
Now, I've never been a huge fan of eating things that swim -or generally live in water at all- though I've often wished that I were.  For those of you who do eat seafood, are you aware of all the Ethical Eating issues associated with it?

Via: Roots Restaurant

Many of our favorite species of fish are being harvested at unsustainable rates, and some fish communities are in serious danger of collapse.  Today, a full 75% of major fisheries are overfished.  The top predators in the food-chain are often the most popular eats, so they're the first to go.  When fishing these species becomes too difficult, fishers move down the food chain, eliminating essential prey for those large predators.  It's a vicious cycle.  Farmed fish generally tend to be a better choice than wild-caught, in terms of overfishing.

How some of these fish are being harvested often ends up also harvesting "innocent by-swimmers".  This bycatch is typical of large net and longline styles of fishing.  Hook and line fishing is the least likely to produce bycatch, as unwanted species can be quickly released, unharmed.  Shrimp, one of our favorite eats, is one of the largest producers of bycatch. (The best types of shrimp to buy/eat, can be found here.)

Then there's the matter of what else is lurking in that tasty fish your eating.  Mercury.  Many of our waterways and fisheries are contaminated with this heavy metal.  Mercury is released into the air through industrial pollution.  It eventually "falls" into the water, where it becomes methyl mercury.  This substance is easily absorbed by the fish, as they feed, and by humans, as we feed on fish.  Nearly ALL fish have some level of mercury.  Children and pregnant women are cited by the EPA and FDA as the most vulnerable populations, but there is a faction of the medical (western and alternative) community that believes that mercury and other heavy metals in our bodies can lead to everything from fibromyalgia to autism.  Generally speaking, the higher you go up the fishy foodchain, the higher the mercury levels of that fish.

Via: TN State Dept of Health

Species generally considered to be low in mercury (by the FDA and EPA) are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.


So what's a seafood lover to do?


The Monterey Bay Aquarium has a host of resources to educate yourself, including a pocket guide to sustainable seafood species, as well as an iphone app!


Consider joining The Daily Green in their boycott of Bluefin Tuna.  This popular sushi species is consistently listed as one of the eco-worst!


Most importantly, don't dispair.  As with most of our choices, a healthy dollop of informed consumerism can lead to a greener, more sustainable lifestyle.

Saner Gift Giving (Part 3) - Useful and Green Gifts

For those of us who like to give tangible, un-wrapable gifts, "Saner" gifting is a particular challenge.  But you can present your petty pretty package (stay tuned for more on that!), and still feel good about what's inside.  To me, the most wasteful and least "sane" gifts are the baubles and tchotchkes that have no particular use or purpose.
So this year, I challenge you - whether for a family member, friend, "secret santa", or host/ess - give a useful and/or green gift.  Here are a few ideas and resources to get you started:

If you don't know your giftee very well - in a secret santa or host/ess - situation, I like giving food gifts - a plate of homemade cookies, a jar of yummy trailmix, a bottle of wine, a box of organic, free trade chocolate, even a fruit basket!  (Outpost, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's are my favorite places to find good, and out-of-the-ordinary food gifts.  There's also Alterra and Anodyne for locally roasted coffee, and Rishi for amazing teas.) Even if you end up giving them something that they don't personally enjoy, chances are that they'll have some sort of event during the holidays where they can put it out to share.  And wine is one of the most re-giftable items out there!  (Just make sure you dust off the bottle before you slap on that bow and take it to your next cocktail party.)

For Milwaukeeans who love to dine out, City Tins could be a great option! For a mere $25, you get a set of 20+ $10 gift cards to great local restaurants.  (Maybe your giftee will even take you out to dinner!)

Ideas and resources for green gifts are all over the web.  Check out:
- etsy.com - for anything and everything vintage and handmade
- Viva Terra - for design-y, gorgeous, and ethically sourced finds
- Branch Home - for more beautiful, unusual and green items for the home
- Reuseit.com - for thermoses, water bottles, and reusable lunch kits