Garbage In, Garbage Out: Living Life in the Landfill?

I was originally going to write about food today, but in thinking about it, this also applies to much of life: when we put garbage in, we can expect to get garbage out.

When we make a habit of putting processed junk food into our bodies, we shouldn't be surprised to find that our health deteriorates. We become lethargic, depressed, and are at a greater risk for disease. Our immune systems, along with all of our other systems, become overtaxed. The environment suffers too, from "convenience-sized" over-packaging, mono-culture produce grown in dead soil laced with synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, and transportation of goods over thousands of kilometres.

We know this, and yet by the evidence of what our grocery stores keep in stock, it seems the message is lost in the name of, well, in the name of what exactly?

Convenience? Marketing? Habit? Lack of skills in planning and cooking meals?

Although I must admit that we do "shop from the centre of the store" from time to time, the majority of our family's meals are cooked from fresh produce and "whole foods" (foods with only one ingredient listed on the package, if in fact, there even is a package). I am not an overly domestic person. I even opted out of home economics (yeah, I'm old enough to have had that option) in school. And yet I find I am able to cook a decent meal with little effort. My family all take turns cooking as well, including the kids from the time they could measure flour into a cup. Cooking a decent, balanced meal can take as little as 10-20 minutes, especially if everyone helps a little. Frozen lasagna takes longer to heat, even in the microwave. Veggies are healthiest when eaten raw. If you don't like cutting up veggies, you can buy frozen ones every now and then and toss them into a soup or casserole. Barley, rice, and other grains can take a little longer to cook (up to 45 minutes), but if you cook two meals worth at a time and refrigerate the rest, the next meal will take little time at all.

Surely if our family can do this, so can others!

Garbage in, garbage out doesn't only apply to food, but to everything we do. The more effort and enthusiasm put into a project, the better the outcome is likely to be. Sometimes you need to look beyond the immediate for motivation. This is a skill we seem to be losing as a society. So many of us are concerned with only "now" and the short term that we sell ourselves short of accomplishing what we are truly capable of.

Living in the moment is a great idea and something that we need to remember; it does not mean sacrificing quality for immediate convenience, but rather in enjoying all of the steps along the way. Savouring the actual work involved in a project we believe in and taking pride in doing our best, allowing ourselves to take risks to push our own limits and see what we are truly capable of--these are what is meant by the phrase "living in the moment". If we allow ourselves to take the easy way out, and make this our habit, we cheat ourselves of personal growth and accomplishment. We become stagnant and unfulfilled. Procrastinating steps that are difficult only serves to make them more difficult when we do get to them, or if we manage to completely avoid them, robs us of the chance to accomplish, grow and learn.

We have one life here, one chance to live. Let's live it beyond the landfill.

The Chocolate Frog Boxes are Here!

Harry Potter fans, rejoice! Along with Lemonade's famous popping chocolate frog recipe (sorry, as a Muggle I couldn't quite manage the actual "hop" part), I have now managed to finally post the plans for the pentagonal frog box.

Check it out here.

On the same page, you can also find some other favourites, including firewhiskey (safe for minors), butterbeer, cockroach clusters, acid pops, wizard cheeseball, potion soup, wizard cakes and lots more.

Be sure to check out the related games, activities and novel study pages as well.

The Chocolate Frog Box and Cards

I have debated about sharing this, and about posting this on the website. It took a lot of work to design and make, and even then, I ended up printing each box twice--once for the background colour, and once for the cutting and folding lines. I also had trouble lining up the fronts and backs of the wizard cards, and used a cardboard cutout traced rom the bottom of the box as a stencil to manually draw in the lines.

To share them would mean realigning things, and I am *not* very skilled at this.

So to those who have emailed me for directions, please know that I have not forgotten you and that I'm trying to develop a reliable way to fix those problems. I also have some copyright issues with sharing some of the cards, so when I post these, I will only include the few I designed completely myself, then dig up the link to the others that I used.

I hope this will help! I will do my best to have what I can up on the site over the next few weeks.

I ask that you respect all of the work that went into these, and use them for personal use only. Aside from any legal copyright implications, it is just morally wrong to financially benefit from someone else's design. My views about this are much like those mentioned on The Leaky Cauldron website. Sure, you might not get caught, but that doesn't make it right.

If you really want to use them for any other purpose, please contact me with the details, and we'll see if we can come to an arrangement.

Advertising on Lemonade

I recently read a post from a fellow blogger about how she was tired of people asking her to advertise on her blog, in ways that were not completely transparent. Without getting into the details of her post, it seems it may be time to clarify Lemonade's advertising policy.

Advertising is not something I am proud of, but it is necessary in order to allow Lemonade to continue. Maintaining a large website is time consuming and costly. Most of the time, the advertising does not cover all of the costs, but it does help offset them somewhat. I am determined to offer the resources for free so that those who need them most can benefit. I have also not included a donation button (which may happen in the future). Each of the experiments and resources has been tested by our family at least once. In addition, I have created/developed many recipes, crafts, games and experiments completely from scratch.

Although it is not entirely ideal, I only use Google Adsense, mainly because I find it easy to deal with. I spend a lot of time filtering out advertisers who I find unsuitable, such as formula companies, diet/weight loss schemes, diet supplements, religious recruiting, etc. While I can shut out ads by category, there are limits to the controls I have with Adsense, and occasionally I miss some.

One thing I promise to do, however, is to keep all advertising as transparent as possible. I will never embed ads for items in the text on the blog or website; anytime I mention a brand or product (which is very rare!), you can rest assured that I do so because it works for the project I am describing where others may not. I have never been reimbursed in any way for recommending a product, and I refuse to do so in the future.

All ads on Lemonade occur on the sidebar or in the header or footer area. On the blog, they also occur between posts. Each advertising box is labelled as google ads. I also have a google search bar which can bring in revenue if someone chooses to do a search, follow an external link from my site, then make a purchase. On my blog I also have an Amazon sidebar, but no one has ever clicked on anything there. The books featured are ones I have chosen, and the only compensation I will receive will be if someone chooses to buy from that link.

If you have any comments or suggestions regarding advertising on Lemonade (or anything else about this blog or website) please share them below, or email me.

The French River

We recently paddled on the French River. It took many years for us to get there--other places called loudly to us, and the motorboats and cottagers tend to cramp our style. But there is a certain history there, and after our travels in eastern Canada, and especially Montreal and Ottawa, it only made sense to take the kids on the French River where the voyageurs once travelled.

Although we went during the week, it was still mid August, so I expected crowds. Luckily I was wrong. We did see several other groups each day, but the rugged nature of the area dominated. The landscape was as if Temagami, Georgian Bay and Algonquin Park all got together and had a party. The wind was favourable, and we even let the kids paddle us around our island campsite out on Georgian Bay. We saw a water snake, a giant muskie, many frogs, several turkey vultures, golden eagles, terns, and cormorants, just missed a bear and saw lots of evidence of elk.

The kids had fun exploring the geology of each site and along the shore as we travelled. Some of the stunted trees by the bay looked similar to the tuckamore we saw in Newfoundland.

Although there is much history, between the Voyageurs, the Couriers de Bois, logging camps, the Group of Seven, fishing lodges, cottages and kids' camps, as well as various man made dams that came and went over the years, the area was still very rugged and natural, and I had the impression that nature was dominant. Within the history that echoed throughout the glacier-scraped landscape, human activity was a mere punctuation mark.

As we crossed Wanapitei Bay at the end of our trip on Saturday, more and more motorboats began to clog the waterways, and I could tell that we had timed our trip well.