The Reason...

Happy Birthday, little one.

Big News

I just found out about ten minutes ago that I'm pregnant with baby #3!!! I think I'm just shy of a month along but YEAH!!!!

This is not a knitting blog...

Nifty Knitting Needles

I made the top scarf using five different yarns and a new stitch I learned: the drop stitch.
The bottom scarf was made with two yarns and it is soooo soft! It is an adapted version of the top scarf to make a longer, more narrow scarf. These were both made for a friend of mine.

I love gloves!!! This was the bulk of my Christmas knitting (which is now done!!!). The following gloves were made using yarn I got at Goodwill. I gave them as "thank you" gifts this year. I made more but these were the only ones where the pictures turned out well.

The Real Mastercard Commercial

Cost per year to achieve basic health and nutrition for the entire world: $13 billion

Amount spent on perfumes each year: $12 billion

Clean water for all the world: $9 billion

Amount spent on cosmetics in the US: $8 billion

Basic education for the world’s children: $6 billion

Total amount the US spends on Christmas each year: $450 billion (or 16 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Initial cost of the US Government bailout of failing financial institutions: $700 billion (or 25 years worth of food, water, and education for the world)

Coming to grips with the alarming disconnects of our consumerist society: Priceless

By Jim Moss

Rolo Pretzels

A friend was gracious enough to let me post on her recipe blog even though I am probably the farthest thing away from a cook (unless its for my pumpkin party). If you like salt, chocolate, and caramel then you should check out Connecting Kitchens. In fact, you should check out the other recipes on the site...I believe it is cookie week. Tasty!

Composting Toilet

I am always trying to find the next thing I want to "green" in our house. So far we've done everything from insulating the house to adding a toilet tank sink (I'll save the last one for a future post). I think I have found my next "green" item: a composting toilet.

Okay, okay...I know what you're thinking: GROSS!

Let me lay out my plan for you...

Eventually we want to take our master bathroom and cut it in half. We want to keep a very small bathroom connected to our room but make the other half a laundry/mud room that you access through the living room. Sounds great, right? Wrong...we would have to re-plumb the entire space just to move the toilet. That's where the composter is genius: no pipes, you just plug it in.

As I understand it, 90% of what goes in the toilet, leaves as water vapors and gasses. You're probably thinking about how stinky that sounds...but it gets better. Composting toilets rely on micro organisms and a heater to quickly deal with the...um...raw material. And as a bonus, it has a fan to propel all of those vapors and gases out the vent. Apparently, if your composting toilet stinks, something is wrong.