Slow Living Essentials: July 2015

Slow Living , woo hoo! Spacing out on this blog project in June with all that was going on in our home, I’m back with a vengeance and trying to stay cool (not Fonzie cool, just avoiding sweating as much as possible as we here in Oregon deal with both drought and heat waves that are knocking us flat on our collective arses).  We’ve beat the record for most days over 90 (32C) and last week hit a gnarly 103 (39C) here in the city (and worse out in the sticks), so today’s normal summer temps returning are putting me in a much better mood for, well, everything!

Here is what July looked like in our world…

NOURISH…

 

Lots of grilling out in the backyard to keep the kitchen from turning into a complete sauna, but we did get a couple of cool days, including one day with 1/2″ rain for the first time in almost 2 months, where I got a bit of baking done, including this awesome rhubarb buttermilk bread. Yummmmmmm….

PREPARE…

The cukes are growing so the first batch of pickles were made. I do bread and butter as well as lemon pickles, the latter in the picture being my favorite. I’m not a dill pickle gal whatsoever but the hubby is so, well, we’ll see 🙂

REDUCE…

 

I don’t have any photos but my husband’s been busy repurposing more old fenceposts into crates – perfect storage containers and way cuter than plastic!

GREEN…

July began with our bathroom remodel and whole-house repiping project in full swing and finally finished! Click HERE to see the before and after blog post, plus the sustainability elements of all of the materials and products used. Every day we are happy about what we were able to do with our only bathroom and it’s 5’x8′ tiny-ness, while keeping it super eco. Plus we’re SO glad to have our fragile, leaky 90 year old pipes gone (happily repurposed a scrap metal dude who was riding by on his bike that day) with PEX.

GROW…

 

It’s definitely another great sunflower year! My husband planted an entire jar of seeds saved from last year and they’re like dinosaurs taking over the world! But they get away with it because they’re sooooo pretty! The veggies are hanging in there with the heat – often under shade cloths (AKA bedsheets we procured last year at Goodwill!!) – but I thought this picture was happiest 🙂

CREATE…
something made

DISCOVER…

Because my husband and I are adopting from Ethiopia, we put the word out to our community and colleagues looking to learn more from those who have traveled to and/or lived there, and have received a fantastic response! So many international travelers here in Portland, including a neighbor who worked in Addis Ababa and gave us great tips over coffee, and most recently a departing coworker of my husband’s who is moving to Dubai and happened to have taught in Ethiopia before that. We are SO excited at the opportunity for all of this first-hand discovery!

ENHANCE…

Super proud of our community of protesters and supporters in the #ShellNo protests here in Portland last week and it inspired us to make a donation to Greenpeace USA to support their continued efforts as Shell heads up to the Arctic to drill away and rape our environment even more. It was infuriating to see the folks on the news complaining about how their car commute was an hour longer because of the protests – but so glad to see the local AND worldwide support for the brave local souls both in their kayaks blocking the ships and the Greenpeace warriors hanging for 36+ hours to get their message across that our President has made a very, very bad decision in allowing this.

ENJOY…

 

And a wonderful time with Roxy, as she joined us for a week while her family was in Colorado. Ruby and she traded beds, played at the park, and enjoyed some nice R&R as you can see here. Dogs rule!