Compared to normal, I must say, this weekend was a culinary fiesta around here! Yesterday evening, I made green chile stew, which I’ve never made before. It was rather intensive since I bought fresh green chiles, pre-roasted at my local grocery store (so I even skipped a step), and then, glove-clad, peeled, seeded, and chopped them, along with the pork shoulder, potatoes, onion, carrots, and garlic. We are having that for dinner tonight with tortillas and refried beans. I hope it was worth the effort.

Then this morning, I peeled and diced and pureed two mangoes for mango ice cream. It had four egg whites in it and was very light and fluffy. My older son took one bite and classified it as ‘fuzzy’. My husband’s assessment: subtle and sweet. I haven’t had any myself.

As if that wasn’t enough, I then made Hyacinth’s Everything Cookies from The Pioneer Woman’s recipe vault. They really do have everything: oats, granola, Craisins, dried apriot, pecans…. And they are very wholesome–definitely the kind of cookie you need to down with a glass of cold milk. Both my sons took bites and decided they didn’t like them. My husband will only eat the ones I made sans-pecans. So I’ll be delivering some to my grandma and my mom tomorrow. (Along with some green chile stew for my dad).

I had to lie on my bed for several hours today in recovery, trying to finish up The Ivy Tree. I have not yet reached The End.

I think I’m a pretty good recycler (glass, plastic, cardboard, magazines, etc.), and I’ve recently purchased a mini-selection of Target reusable bags to avoid the superfluous grocery sacking (meat in a bag, cleaner in a bag, milk in a bag, cantalope in a bag, etc.), but otherwise I wouldn’t have said I was very ‘green’.

How-ever…on a recent trip to Target, I was drawn in by a cute little book called Green Chic, Saving the Earth in Style. Well, imagining of course that this was precisely the sort of book I needed to tranform myself into a hip eco-friendly person, I snapped it up. (It’s a very cute, trim little grass green book, and the ‘i’ in chic is dotted with the recycling symbol. I’ve said it before: I’m a sucker for a good cover.) Any-way, I’ve been reading it (wading through the descriptions of all the chemicals and toxins we should be avoiding), and I’ve discovered that I am rather respectably ‘green’. We keep our air-conditioner set high-ish (at 78-79 in the summer), I’m a stickler for turning off lights and water and shorter showers, I only run full loads of laundry and dishes, we’re gradually switching to the compact fluorescent lightbulbs, etc. So I’m a little proud of myself.

But the book has me thinking (as it should, and as I expected and hoped) of new ways to get ‘greener’ and live healthier and more chemical-free, starting with shampoo, make-up, cleaners and other household necessities. It almost makes me feel like I need (and deserve) a spa-treatment…and a trip to a farmers’ market.

I’m taking it all with a grain of salt though–with a husband who’s an environmental consultant countering most everything the author says with a reality check of his own, I’m not likely to get carried away. Still, I’d recommend it to anyone interested in learning about the impact of their own eco-footprint.

Today I went to the teachers meeting for Mothers Day Out–the first day is next Thursday. I’m in the ‘Dove’ class this year, and the kids are anywhere from 18 months to 2 yrs. when they start. In a class of twelve, we have three Cole’s, a Karleigh, a Katie, a Kellen, and a Keller. Yikes!

After the meeting I had a CPR refresher course, which I needed (it had been eight years since I’d taken it the first time). It’s much easier to remember 2 breaths and 30 compressions across the board. I always pictured myself in an emergency situation going, Is it ten compressions or fifteen? Now I think I’ve got it.