Nietzsche’s Take on Mankind
By Kitty | June 19, 2009
As I was cleaning out my junk in my parents’ attic the other day, I found a few old paperbacks from my college days (probably required or suggested readings from various Lit classes), which I figured would be better posted on paperback swap than recycled. One of those classics was Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ by Friedrich Nietzsche. I don’t remember actually ever reading it, but in flipping through it I found one passage that drew my attention. Since I’m posting the book and hopefully will be sending it to a willing reader one day soon, I figured I’d post the quote on my blog so as to “keep it handy”. Here it is:
Man is absolutely not the crown of creation: every creature stands beside him at the very same stage of perfection… And even in asserting that we assert too much: man is, relatively speaking, the most unsuccessful animal, the sickliest, the one most dangerously strayed from its instincts - with all that, to be sure, the most interesting! (p. 136)
The part that really grabbed me, and that has been concerning me lately is the line about “…the one most dangerously strayed from its instincts…” How true. How scary. I personally hope to go back to following instincts and living on the land as much as possible. I just hope others see the potentially detrimental effect straying too far from instincts and from our connection to the Earth may have on mankind…
To see my paperback swap listings, check out my bookshelf by clicking the box below.
Topics: Daily Update, What are you Reading? | 1 Comment »
Daily Ray of Hope Frugal Suprise
By Kitty | June 10, 2009
Today’s Daily Ray of Hope quote and picture just spoke to me…. so I figured it would be a perfect post to get back into blogging. Here are the picture and quote paired exactly as they were in the Daily Ray of Hope email. The picture was taken by Kay Schultz and is posted on flickr.
Photo Credit: Kay Schultz Location: Westport, Washington
– Alice Walker
I love the idea of living “frugally on surprise”. It makes me think of the line often spoken by my husband: “Be on the lookout for amazing things all around you.” Have a great day!!
Topics: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
Festival of the Trees #34
By Kitty | April 2, 2009
Everyone who knows me well or who has accompanied me on a hike or outdoor expedition knows that I’m a tree hugger… literally. There’s just something about hugging a tree and looking up the trunk that is so amazing to me. It gives you a view you don’t usually have the opportunity to enjoy.
Recently, I discovered (through a pingback link to my blog, no less!) a most fantastic bloggish festival post called Festival of the Trees #34 on a blog called The Marvelous in Nature! Honestly, what in nature isn’t marvelous?! I definitely recommend you check it out, especially if you like trees (or want to learn more about trees so that you can love them as much as I do). You can read about anything from the trees out back to the most alien-looking place on earth. Check it out, and enjoy!
ps. Don’t forget to take a moment to hug the next tree you pass…. take a long look upward, taking some time to really look. You will be amazed at what you see! *Disclaimer: Do NOT hug trees that are covered in hairy vines!!! They may look soft and fuzzy, but the hairy vines are actally poison ivy! “Leaves of three, let it be. Hairy vine? Say the rhyme!” Don’t do it.
Topics: Loving the Earth | 1 Comment »
Brownie Experiment… Moment of Truth
By Kitty | March 31, 2009
And now…. for the moment of truth….
My Vegan-ish Sweet Potato Fudge Brownie recipe is not a complete failure! Yay! After an extra 20 minutes in the oven (that’s 40 minutes total for those of you who want to attempt it on your own), the brownies are mostly set up and cake-like, but still very ooey gooey and fudgy in the middle. It actually makes for a pretty tasty treat! Right now I’m enjoying my gooey brownie in a bowl with some Purely Decadent Chocolate Obsession “Dairy Free Frozen Treat”, aka veg ice cream (can you tell I’m in a chocolate mood?). The brownies are tasty and chocolately, and I don’t taste the sweet potato at all. I think next time I would skip the brown rice syrup, though, and perhaps use all agave nectar or use 1/2 cup agave nectar and 1/2 cup raw sugar. The brown rice syrup gives the brownies a distinct molassas flavor and smell, and although it’s not bad, I prefer my brownies straight up chocolatey and not so much molassasy. Live and learn, right? With so much substitution and experimentation, I can’t expect every recipe to be perfect. I will keep trying different things and will be sure to let you know when I’ve hit the jackpot. In the meantime, if you’ve got any great sugar substitutes (and I do NOT mean Aspartame or any of those poisons) then please let me know! Tried with success in baking? Even better! Know a bit about vegan baking, or baking rules in general? Perfect! Share your wealth of knowledge!
Thanks! Back to my brownies and decadence… mmmmmmm!
Topics: Healthy Eating | 1 Comment »
Experimental Vegan-ish Sweet Potato Fudge Brownies
By Kitty | March 31, 2009
Recently, I remember stumbling across a delicious-sounding recipe for fudge brownies using sweet potatoes to reduce the fat and sugar content. Today I was totally in the mood for chocolate, so I decided it was time to rustle through my magazine rack in an attempt to find the magazine containing the recipe. Finally, I found it in the April 2009 edition of Whole Living Body & Soul magazine. Since my husband and I have been learning more and more about nutrition and therefore have embraced a pretty much entirely vegan diet, I decided to experiment a bit to make the recipe as vegan and sugar-less as possible. The result is a hopefully delicious recipe that’s almost entirely vegan (with the exception of 1 egg). I used Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread instead of butter, and substituted 1/2 cup agave nectar and 1/2 cup brown rice syrup instead of the 1 cup of sugar.
Here’s my adapted, assembled, but not yet tasted (it’s in the oven!) recipe:
Ingredients:
4 tablespoons Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Stick/Spread
2/3 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Dutch process since it’s all I had)
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 cup agave nectar*
1/2 cup brown rice syrup* (*Although you can use 1 cup sugar if you prefer)
2/3 cup sweet potato puree
1 large egg (you can try egg replacers to make it entirely vegan, but we haven’t had luck with them yet)
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
I also added the following, just for fun:
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1/2 cup organic chocolate chips
Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter an 8-inch square pan; set aside. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter (or butter substitute). Remove pan from heat, and stir in cocoa. Let cool slightly.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Stir in sugar and sweet potato puree, then egg.
4. Add vanilla to cocoa mixture, reheat slightly to liquefy.
5. Add cocoa mixture to flour mixture (although my flour mixture was not very floury, due to all of the non-dry sweeteners I substituted). Stir until no traces of flour remain. If desired, stir in ground flax seeds and chocolate chips. Spoon into prepared pan; smooth the top. Bake until surface of brownies looks barely dry and an inserted knife comes out with a few moist crumbs, about 20 minutes.
**NOTE - I just checked my experimental brownies after 20 minutes in the oven and they are not AT ALL cooked (or cake-like… still ooey gooey). I’m thinking it may be due to the lack of dry goods in my original mix. I have put the brownies back into the oven for another 10 minutes, but be warned—this may be a failed experimental recipe!! You may want to play it safe and use sugar instead! It should work that way.)
Good luck, and I’ll be sure to post the results!
Topics: Healthy Eating | 1 Comment »
Green Share and Great Idea: Brown Paper Seed Packet Tutorial
By Kitty | March 29, 2009
The EcoEtsy team is getting ready to start a Green Share to celebrate Earth Day. As quoted from the Green Share EcoEtsy website, Green Share is an effort, an idea, conceived by the members of the EcoEtsy Team at www.ecoetsy.com. It is hope - it is our promise to spread the green within our own communities all over the world.
At its most basic, Green Share is this:
As a third grade teacher, I can’t wait to share seeds with my students and fellow teachers!! I also hope to send them to my closest friends and family. In order to keep the Earth in mind during this project, I plan to use recycled shopping bags as seed packets and/or biodegradable pot-labels, as suggested and explained in a fantastic tutorial by Autumn Wiggins on Crafting A Green World.
I love the intro to the tutorial:
We all forget our reusable shopping totes from time to time. Instead of putting yourself on a green guilt trip, pick paper over plastic (ask your friends and relatives to also!), and upcycle those bags into some not-so-shiny seed packet business cards.
Autumn makes her seed packets into business cards (also a fantastic idea!), but I probably will use the EcoEtsy template to make Green Share seed packets. I can’t wait to see how they turn out, and next week I have off from school for Spring Break, so it provides the perfect opportunity to spend a long-awaited day of crafting. Enjoy the tutorial, and I’ll be sure to post some pictures of my finished Green Share packets once they are finished!!
Autumn's business seed packets... She says that with these, you can smile about all of the random acts of guerrilla gardening you are setting into motion : ) Love it!
Topics: Eco Etsy, Loving the Earth | 2 Comments »
Spring: Rejuvenation!
By Kitty | March 22, 2009
After a week of fighting a cold, the last few days of which the cold won, I really needed a relaxing weekend. I skipped yoga Thursday night and went to sleep early, but woke up feeling even worse Friday morning. I stayed home from work on Friday and slept 15 hours, and Saturday I again skipped yoga to get more sleep. When we finally awoke Saturday morning, I relaxed with some tea and we made some homemade whole wheat blueberry pancakes from scratch with organic strawberry syrup. They were almost entirely vegan pancakes (with the exception of 1 egg), and the syrup was purely an accident. I had decided that with the blueberry pancakes, it would be nice to have some strawberries on top (more fruit never hurts when you’re sick!), but the only strawberries we had were organic frozen ones from Trader Joe’s. I took them out of the freezer to thaw when I started the pancakes, but as the last few pancakes went on the griddle, it was clear that they were not going to thaw in time. I remembered back to when my parents used to heat syrup on the stove top to go with our pancakes Saturday morning, and figured I could put the still-frozen sliced strawberries in with some syrup in a pan on the stove and heat them up that way. It worked amazingly, AND the syrup definitely took on the strawberry flavor. They were AMAZING! If you want the recipe I used (it was adjusted from Joy of Cooking, since Garrett and I are pretty much entirely vegan these days), let me know and I can post it.
After an amazingly relaxing and delicious breakfast, I was feeling a bit rejuvenated, but still stuffy and coughy and icky and scuzzy. It was a gorgeous day out, and having been inside for a few days, I realllllly wanted to get some fresh air. Thankfully, I have a wonderful and nature-loving husband and he agreed that a hike may be exactly what I need. Garrett and I headed up to the Great Swamp for a short hike. Amazingly, I was the least congested and the most healthy-sounding when we were deepest in the woods. Seriously, I’m not kidding. Total congestion, coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose into boxes-worth of tissues… and then suddenly when we’re in the middle of gorgeous woods and swampland, I realized that I could completely breath through my nose. It was amazing. Goes to show how true John Muir’s quote is:
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.
Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees.
The winds will blow their own freshness into you…
while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
It really should say, “…while cares and sickness will drop off like autumn leaves…” We had a great time and slushed through lots of mud. I refreshed my veg ID need, although I didn’t see any Symplocarpus foetidus yet (skunkies! my fav). Here are some pictures from our hike.
Lovin' the American Beech. I see hearts everywhere, and this fallen leaf was no exception. Do you see the hearts?
I LOVE swamps, and the Great Swamp Wildlife Refuge is a fantastic place to find them (in the winter... summertime means more mosquitoes than anyone can bear).
Lay down on your belly and REALLY look. Check out what an amazing view you'll see!!
To see more of our pictures from the hike, visit our flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/gareandkitty/
Now off to bed for a full night’s sleep. Hopefully tomorrow, after such a relaxing and rejuvenating weekend, I will awake to full health!
Topics: Healthy Eating, Inspirations, Loving the Earth | 2 Comments »
Closely Knit and Talented Family
By Kitty | March 20, 2009
I’m home sick from work today, which means I’ve been spending much of the day sleeping, or curled up in a ball with a good book and a mug of hot tea. Since I am a third grade teacher, I did spend some time grading papers and reading through my students’ work. While sitting at the table in my living room grading papers, I had a fantastic view of the hand knit wedding present from my cousins (in-law) Hannah and Abe. Hannah is an extremely talented and creative knitter, and for our wedding, she designed and knit a Tree of Love Wall Hanging, complete with our names and wedding date.
As much as I love to craft, knitting is not a craft I’ve picked up (yet). Since just about every woman in my family in Maine is a knitter, I have a feeling I will learn one of these days!! But for now, I stick to other crafts and sit back and enjoy the talents of my family. Enjoy them, I do! I just love this Wall Hanging–and the fact that it was designed specifically with us in mind, and handknit by our wonderful and loving cousin makes it a perfect, PERFECT wedding gift. I’m a huge fan of giving from the heart, with a special focus on handmade. Perhaps that’s why I love sites like Etsy and 1000 Markets so much.
This wall hanging was definitely crafted with love. Every detail is perfectly planned and created, and the tree is just perfect to symbolize our growing love and hopefully one day, our growing family. You can take a look at the pictures below to get a better look at the details in the wall hanging. I marvel at Hannah’s ability to take an idea and turn it into a textile reality. Her knitting skills are amazing. She also is great at creating trendy fitted sweaters, shirts, skirts, socks, gloves, scarves, booties and other clothing. I always have to smile when we visit them (not only because both Hannah and Abe are awesome cousins!) but also because Hannah is usually wearing quite a few hand knit items. Sometimes she’s completely decked out in hand knit personal style! I love it! I feel very blessed to be surrounded by such a creative, talented, and closely knit family. My brother Steven is also an extremely talented artist (I’ll go into his talents more in a different post). My family is bursting with love and talent and it makes me smile!
For all of you knitters out there, there’s good news! During our visit with Hannah and Abe in Portland, ME, during the trip when they gave us this wonderful Tree of Love Wall Hanging wedding present, Hannah also gave us a signed copy of her new book, Closely Knit: Handmade Gifts For The Ones You Love
Topics: Artsy Fartsy, Daily Update, What are you Reading? | 4 Comments »
iNaturalist iExcited!
By Kitty | March 12, 2009
I just joined the website iNaturalist, and I cannot wait to post some species IDs!! According to the site:
iNaturalist is a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world.
This now gives me a new reason to take good identification photographs of plants and animals I see while exploring and hiking. Now that I’m no longer officially a “wetland scientist” (although in my opinion, once a wetland scientist, always a wetland scientist at heart), I don’t take as many species photos. Now that I’m a member on this site, you can stay tuned for more Liquidambar styraciflua, Carya ovata, Acer rubrum, and all our other NJ favs!
Topics: Daily Update, Loving the Earth | 2 Comments »
Grammar Sticklers UNITE!
By Kitty | March 2, 2009
I was first introduced to the nuances of English grammar in sixth grade, about 17 years ago. Mrs. Green was my teacher, and we painstakingly diagrammed sentences and drilled through prepositions. At the time, I never imagined myself becoming a grammar stickler. But lo, now it pains me when people reply to the question “How are you?” with “I’m good”. I make a conscious effort to say, “I’m doing well” or, on particularly cheerful days, “I’m doing quite well, thank you!” in response to the ubiquitous “How are you?” question. I cringe when I see the wrong they’re/there/their or its/it’s or two/too/to. In addition, I LOVE words. No, my vocabulary does not leave naught to be desired (intentional double negative), but I love finding the “perfect” word to fit a sentiment.
From page 43 of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss (italics are hers):
To those who care about punctuation, a sentence such as “Thank God its Friday” (without the apostrophe) rouses feelings not only of despair but of violence. The confusion of the possessive “its” (no apostrophe) with the contractive “it’s” (with apostrophe) is an unequivocal signal of illiteracy and sets off a simple Pavlovian “kill” response in the average stickler. The rule is: the word “it’s” (with apostrophe) stands for “it is” or “it has”. If the word does not stand for “it is” or “it has” then what you require is “its”. This is extremely easy to grasp.
From pages 106-107 of Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss, and no better show of the importance of punctuation exists to my knowledge:
But colons and semicolons - well, they are in a different league, my dear! They give such lift! Assuming a sentence rises into the air with the initial capital letter and lands with a soft-ish bump at the full stop, the humble comma can keep the sentence aloft all right, like this, UP, for hours if necessary, UP, like this, UP, sort-of bouncing, and then falling down, and then UP it goes again, assuming you have enough additional things to say, although in the end you may run out of ideas and then you have to roll along the ground with no commas at all until some sort of surface resistance takes over and you run out of steam anyway and then eventually with the help of three dots … you stop. But the thermals that benignly waft our sentences to new altitudes - that allow us to coast on air, and loop-the-loop, suspending the laws of gravity - well, they are the colons and semicolons.
If you don’t believe me (and Lynne), you’ll have to buy the book to see further proof for yourself. It really is a fantastic read, and will teach you a lot, guaranteed! Enjoy, and grammar sticklers UNITE!
*DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to have impeccable grammar, and this blog post most likely does not reflect impeccable grammar. I am not a grammarian; I just enjoy the finer points of the English language.*
Topics: What are you Reading? | No Comments »
« Previous Entries