What a Waste!

The cookbook came today. I mean THE cookbook. I am totally in love with this cookbook. Since the day Jude started eating solid foods, I have been making them, so when someone in my Babyfit group told me about So Easy Baby Food, I had to have it.

I love this book because it tells you exactly how to make the best selection so that you know what you are getting is ripe, and step by step how to prepare and store it. What drove me to this was the process of making black beans for Jude this week. They were so bland and I can tell they are not his favorite (but he IS eating them, which is more than I can say for the zucchini that I tried).
**On a side note, do you know how messy it is when he refluxes and it was black beans? Eew!**

So life is grand, but I am bothered by just one thing. Here's the box it came in(Jude is in the pic for size perspective - and because he's cute):













(Please excuse my basket of clean laundry in the background!)
And here is the cookbook:













Do you think the company could have come up with a more appropriate shipping method? I do. And I let them know that, too. Don't worry. I was nice. I told them how much I liked their product, but in the future could they please select a more size appropriate shipping package. Not that I think that my request will make a difference. Bad habits die hard.

80 - 450 Years

What a lovely weekend the tree of us had at our favorite getaway, The Mountain Laurel Inn. But more on that later (I promise!) because I HAVE to discuss something else right now.

As Sarah, the owner of the B&B came out to take us up to our room, she handed me these two water bottles as a "thank you" for coming to her place year after year.

Sounds pretty UNinteresting, right? There is an interesting part. Wait for it. . . The water bottles are biodegradable. The company, e-green.bz claims that while it takes normal plastic 80 - 450 years to break down in a landfill, this plastic will break down in 1-5 years in a "properly maintained landfill."

This idea sounds really cool to me. I was a little worried that it might break down in use and that some weird chemical or enzyme might leach into my water. However, the company claims that the "shelf life" is indefinite until put into that properly maintained landfill or compost pile.

I did not become passionate about recycling and not using unnecessary chemicals until, of course, I had a child. Now, all of a sudden, the importance of these matters sits on me like a lead balloon. Will I leave in my stead a trash heap for my children to deal with? How is that honoring to God who trusted us to be good stewards of the resources he allots us? I lie awake at times thinking about stuff like this now.

So, I don't know if this plastic water bottle will really make a difference in the scheme of things, but I am tempted to buy one and throw it in the compost bin, just to find out:-) If nothing else, it is a number two plastic, so I CAN take it to the recycling center here.