This Earth Day themed basket is great for a silent auction or as a gift for someone special.

It contains:

• Nature’s Best Hope book about conservation that begins in your yard
• Solar cell phone charger
• Wool dryer balls
• Two seed packets
• Garden gloves

A few more things I considered putting in the basket were a reusable water bottle, a glass food storage container, and a gift card to a local store. Happy Earth Day on April 22nd!

Are there other items you’d include in an Earth Day themed basket?

~ Carrie

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Have you tried Better Than Bouillon products? I love using them as a way to simplify my life.

If you like to make soups and other recipes that contain beef, chicken, or vegetable broth, etc., this product could be a great money and time saver, especially if you buy cartons of broth.

You mix one teaspoon of the base per cup of water. It’s so easy.

Environmentally, it saves a lot on packaging. It’s also a great time and money saver because you don’t have to buy cartons of broth, as I’ve done in the past. If you have the ingredients for a quick soup, you can throw it together so quickly using any of the Better Than Bouillon bases.

This concentrated base is available in these flavors:

• Beef
• Chicken
• Vegetable
• Mushroom
• Roasted garlic
• Onion
• Turkey
• Lobster
• Fish
• Ham
• Chili

The flavors I’ve tried (chicken and beef) have been delicious. Let me know if you’ve tried any of the other flavors. Better Than Bouillon can be found at many stores and on amazon.
~ Carrie

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This book is about the Swedish concept of lagom (pronounced log-om with a short o sound).

The basic premise of lagom is “not too little, not too much” for many areas of life. So, it’s about having a balance when it comes to technology, food, how you spend your time, etc. For happiness, you typically don’t want too little or too much of anything.

The pictures are beautiful and the concepts are timeless. It goes through how you can strive for lagom at home, work, and for the environment. It talks a lot about the benefits of nature and keeping things simple.

I highly recommend this as a quick, fun read. I’ll definitely reread parts of this book and seek out more books on “lagom” as well. Have you read this book or heard of lagom?

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I hate to waste, so it makes me happy to compost even the tiniest toothpick. The fact that it turns into a dirt-like substance is so cool. Here are a few thoughts of what else you can compost beyond the typical coffee grounds and apple core.

• A carrot that fell on the floor
• A grape with a brown spot
• Dirt from a plant that has died
• Little pieces of paper that are too small to recycle
• The piece of broccoli that someone didn’t eat
• The moldy strawberries in the back of the refrigerator
• Wooden toothpicks
• Fortune cookie papers
• Crumbs from the slice of pizza

Do you compost these things? What other things do you compost?

Many of these ideas are included in the What Else Can Be Composted? easy reader that’s for sale in my TPT store:

Let’s heal the earth, one small action at a time.

~ Carrie

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Here’s a fun way to motivate yourself to declutter. You can keep a tally of items you acquire and items you get rid of in some way. It can make you feel successful. You can use any piece of paper to keep track.

I recently did this and was able to have a ratio of 15:100 for items brought into the house vs. items removed from the house. I wait to give myself a point until the item is actually physically gone.

Some of the items I acquired were a book, shirt, and a pot for a plant. Some of the items I decluttered were small toys, shipping boxes, a stained lunch bag, etc.

I want to credit Dana from A Slob Comes Clean for this decluttering concept. I listen to her podcast and she mentioned something about decluttering being simple math in terms of items in versus items out and that really stuck with me. I have to be making progress if I’m getting rid of more than I’m bringing in.

If you have a Little Free Library in your area, those are great places to give away books, educational materials, magazines, etc.

In any case, I hope you’re able to find some things that you can donate, give away, sell, recycle, or put in the trash.  Keep me updated in the comments. What ratio were you able to achieve for items in versus items out?

~ Carrie

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