High Cotton Home

Insomnia, You are a cruel mistress...

2010-09-19T03:32:00.000-05:00

If you are the type to read titles/subject lines/the fine print on contracts, you may have gathered that I can't sleep. Not only can I not sleep, I am gripped with that insane, eyes-wide open horror of insomnia. I took a little nap today in which I felt that I didn't sleep at all, but ninety minutes passed so finally I gave up and went downstairs (the fact that Scout was napping on top of me most of the time and finally collapsed his legs underneath him and put his neck across mine to say, in no uncertain terms, "I'd like to merge my soul with yours... please..." may have contributed to my lack of sleep) where upon I called a friend who said, "Oh, you will never be able to sleep tonight now." Jinxed? Freudian? Anyway, it's three a.m. and I've:

#1. Eaten an obscene amount of cheese & crackers and Greek yogurt

#2. Watched three (3) episodes of "White Collar" and then saved them on the TiVo for the husband

#3. Followed Jeremy Davidson's (the actor not the footballer) career online and even watched a short independent film he starred in

#4. Had horrendous heartburn

#5. Culled all of the blogs I've missed for the past two weeks and sent the "best of" to my best friend who, even on Pacific time, is already asleep (P.S. You're welcome...)

#6. Saved the life of a (bridge &) tunnel spider who was streaking across my living room at the witching hour

#7. Woken up the spaniels (and vizsla) no less than ten times... without guilt, because they ruined my nap

#8. Ate four dark-chocolate organic peanut butter cups from Trader Joe's that I've been hoarding for my husband when he gets home

#9. Calculated how much wallpaper it will take to paper my closet, with the options of all paper, paper and paint, my own tears because I haven't slept in so long, etc.

#10. Prayed, begged, and cajoled for sleep. Twice. Then I read the first two parts of Gulliver's Travels.

I am about to try once more, but let me tell you... I feel about as happy as Atticus in the picture that opened this post. It's hard out here for a finch... Hasta la vista...

A "Whole" new magazine...

2010-09-08T21:18:00.001-05:00

I may have a new favorite magazine! Whole Living, a Martha Stewart publication (I have always secretly, or not so secretly, loved Martha...) may be my new mecca!

Apparently Body+Soul magazine changed to Whole Living in June 2010 but the former publication has been in print since 1974. I think I picked up a copy of Body+Soul on a plane trip once or twice but was never convinced that its content was anything more than fluff until I saw its rebirth as Whole Living... and now I have a subscription! I just received September's issue today so I thought I would share a little about the last issue before I dive into a new one...

After perusing the Whole Living website, I found their ten tenets of Whole Living and you can see why I like the magazine's content (at least the content that adheres to these tenets!)

Ten Tenets of Whole Living

1. Happiness is a choice. Make that choice today and every day.
2. Good health isn't a gift; it's a habit you cultivate.
3. A healthy, fit body is not enough--true fitness engages the spirit.
4. Think more about what you should eat than what you shouldn't.
5. Laugh at yourself. You're funny.
6. Nurture your spirit. It's your source of strength.
7. Stay connected to the natural world. It will feed your soul.
8. Believe in yourself. Your intuition is rarely wrong.
9. It's never too late to take the first step toward your aspirations.
10. What you pay attention to will thrive.

Here's a quick rundown of what I loved and disliked from the August 2010 issue of Whole Living:

LOVED: Cute little blurbs on low-VOC paint, gardening, healthy snack foods, etc.; barefoot running; article on cutting out sugar (though, the author eats packets of raw sugar... that's a little more excessive than most); blueberry recipes; summer canning article; healthy sustainable eating tips and recipes (even if some of the tips were a little obvious...)

NOT SO MUCH: Ads (not more than usual in a women's magazine, but still... ads...); first person editorials posing as articles (not terrible, but not amazing...); working out outdoors article (it was just your average Cosmo workout article... we know how to work out triceps on a bench/chair/couch/curb now... thanks... they look awesome...); several articles/blurbs on lack of self-esteem (maybe we could focus on self-actualization instead of hating ourselves? Or skip it all together?); a financial horoscope (Ugh...) and again... ADS! For things that have nothing to do with health or whole living! Annoying...

Overall, 3 stars out of 5 thus far... I will post an update after I read September's issue. Happy Reading!

Solace

2010-08-30T09:16:00.000-05:00

sol·ace/ˈsälis/Verb: Give solace to.

Noun: Comfort or consolation in a time of distress or sadness: "she sought solace in her religion".

As seems to be the case all too often here lately at High Cotton Home, things have happened in the past few weeks that have left me a bit sad, a tad reclusive, and once again seeking solace in time spent quietly at home with family. I apologize for leaving you all behind without a real explanation or anything else for weeks... Here is my resolution, to try to begin posting regularly again, whether it's something little or something long... just begin posting again. From our home to yours... thank you and here we go again... together this time!

Dog Bed, Schmaug-med...

2010-08-25T00:18:00.000-05:00

Who needs a dog bed when you have luggage you haven't unpacked yet? Dogs and kids, always keeping you on your toes and helping you see the world in a whole new way that you never imagined... Thank you.

Sometimes Nature is just a little too... Natural...

2010-08-22T18:20:00.001-05:00

Wellington looking a bit nervous...

It's been a long and busy week here at High Cotton Home and I was happy to see the weekend come... but it was as busy as every other day this week! Saturday was spent helping out with a transport for English Springer Spaniel Rescue Society of two adult dogs, Wellington and Jessie, and two ADORABLE puppies! The puppies have retinal dysplasia and they will be blind by the time they are a year old so they need to hurry up and get to their new homes so they can find their way around before they loose their sight completely.

Jessie, my over-the-shoulder "backseat driver!

The two tri-colored spaniels were just so stinkin' cute that I had to take one out and cuddle with him for the last twenty miles... and then cuddle with his brother... I almost hid the little brown one in the trunk and claimed, "Second pup? What second pup? I don't know what you are talking about!!" when I got to the next stop on the transport. But I was a good kid... and didn't steal a puppy! ;P

Wouldn't you be tempted to steal one too?

For some reason I had a crazy case of insomnia of Saturday night so I read a book until 4am, napped a little, and then got up when it was light out and started working on homework for school this coming week. I can't believe it's the fall semester already... CRAZY! It's still so hot out and yet it's "fall!" But it is my favorite time of year, so I can't wait for the cool autumn chill to kick into high gear, even if we are in Florida! But Sunday I woke up and Cali was really feeling sick; hiding, shaking, just looking terrible. I couldn't figure out what was going on with her, but I went outside to investigate if she had eaten something she shouldn't have.

It was stormy and ominous outside so I was trying to do a little detective work, turn the compost pile and get back in the house as soon as possible. I found some mushrooms so I was certain I had solved the mystery but then I saw this hole next to the garden and I noticed a cord dangling down into the hole. Now here's where I admit that, though I documented all of this in photos, I had the camera on the wrong setting and once I figured out what was going on I was too shaken to check the photos and they were all lost. So I see this weird, banded cord hanging down and I think, "Cali... if you ate the in-ground plumbing, I may just feed you to the gators..." but I pulled on the cord and something was just not right. "Wait, a minute... this kinda looks like..." I peaked over the edge of the garden and I had been PULLING ON THE TAIL OF A DEAD SNAKE!!

I literally almost threw up (and I'm someone who likes non-venomous snakes... really... I used to take the snakes in the Biology lab home over Christmas breaks in high school) but no one else was home and I had to do it. The snake was all intertwined with bird-proof netting and I didn't want to touch him really (when I tried to pull him loose, a scale flew off and hit me in the arm and I just couldn't take it...) so I decided to cut him out, along with a nearby stake and the watermelon tendrils that were there. After I got him out, I pulled a little C.S.I. Panhandle and determined that I thought he had probably died because he was being chased by Cali, got all caught up in the netting and then as she dug and chomped on his tail (which is why it had a blunt end and looked like a cut cord), it was all over for our intrepid little garden visitor. I felt kinda bad for him, but the whole situation still made me want to vomit. Honestly, sometimes nature is just a little too... natural.

"Guilt is absent when the act is justified.”

2010-08-17T14:44:00.002-05:00

Scout feels the need to be in literally EVERY photo....

I have had two rescue dogs and I have raised two purebreds from puppies... the rescue dogs are infinitely easier and better dogs from the get go, hands-down. But in one aspect, my purebreds take the cake. My rescues have no conscience. None. Not even a glimmer.

Not even the least bit chagrined...

This morning I woke up looking for my flip-flops (cheap ones that my mom knits padded straps for out of organic, bamboo yarn.... HEAVENLY)... rather, looking for the one that wasn't sitting by the back door where I'd left them. And I finally found the missing mate, who ended up being on top of the dog bed, missing part of its top and bottom due to someones teeth.

The victim...

Now, because I've never lost a shoe to a dog before (and I've had my other dogs for two and four years respectively) and since I have a new rescue in the house who likes to destroy little cloth animals, my powers of deduction tell me it was Cali. Beyond that, my two spaniels have what my best friend likes to call "An over-developed sense of guilt" which means they will confess to just about anything... both of them will confess to pooping in a hotel room when it was clearly only one dog... the pantry door fell off its hinges and both spaniels confessed even though they were both clear across the room and had nothing to do with it. I worry that I am a bad mom that comes down on them too hard, but I think that it's probably just a symptom of the breed... Springer Spaniels are worriers, through and through. Anyway, Cali gave me a blank look when I asked about the shoe as did the spaniels, so either my new rescue has no conscience as well... or I have a phantom chewer...the mystery deepens...

Pay No attention to That Dog Behind the Curtain

2010-08-16T21:06:00.000-05:00

Always the economical home remodeler I try to do everything on a budget... and by that I mean I try to do everything I want/need to for our home while still keeping us afloat, eating food, paying bills, saving money... etc, etc. My husband and I jokingly watched "The Money Pit" when we bought this house, laughing at Tom Hank's antics and the wild adventures of his fictional home ownership.

The living room while the home belonged to the previous owner...

a little crowded, no?

Now, two years into being home owners, we've: replaced the same ceiling twice; found out that half of our second floor was leaning on a non-load bearing wall and causing our home to slowly implode; ruptured a well pump; nearly had a jacuzzi tub fall through the ceiling from our master bath into our living room because all of the floor joists had been cut by a previous owner (why, Geoffrey? WHY!?!); walked on bare concrete and tack board for three months due to a carpet mix-up; overflowed two backed up air conditioners flooding an entire closet below (which I tried to fix with ingenuity and pots & pans but botched horribly in my husband's absence) and generally suffered a host of other home related maladies and disasters. It's not a joke people. The money pit is real.

Knocking out the archway. You can start to see where we are going with the project.

Anyway, in the few rooms that I feel are getting close to finally being "done" after two years, my living room has been limping towards completion for about nine months now. It started out as two rooms, a formal sitting room and a family room, and we knocked a huge archway out; stenciled the walls; and put down new carpeting. The windows were a problem because, now that we had a great room, you could see from the street directly through the house especially once we had some awesome recessed lighting put up to light up the place. I had thought I would be remodeling the dining room first, but due to a massive water leak, the living room moved up the priority list.

Walls painted (soon to be stenciled) & carpet waiting to go down...

I'd bought goldenrod curtains on clearance from JCPenney's for a shockingly good deal, but due to only having two windows in the dining room I'd only bought four panels and the new living room had three windows. Undeterred, I created one "giant window" flanked by one panel on either side for one set of windows and devoted the other two panels to the remaining window.

The curtains in between stages, after we added the extra silk at the top.

Oh, and did I mention the curtain were way too short for the living room and the curtain rod hole was much to narrow for my "$60 marked down to $9.99 plus a 20% Off coupon" wooden rods from Bed, Bath & Beyond, so I had to get Mama to add a 4-inch tube of chocolate silk to the top of each one? Yeah... miserable...

The finished product...

Now, to the problem of sheers. I bought sheers from JCPenney; they were awful, so I returned them. I bought clearance sheers from West Elm, they ran out mid-shipment and I only received four instead of the six I needed; returned as well. And then I lusted after these sheers from West Elm for months... months... and finally last month I thought, "Every budget, and every wife, has their breaking point" so I logged on (thankfully they were running a special for $10 off each panel... it's the little things) and finally more than $200 later I am pleased. I know it's not true economy but sometimes, you can only be so thrifty and still keep your sanity.

"Ugghh... these curtains are really cramping my style..."-Atticus

The only downside to the new curtains is that Atticus, our oldest spaniel, likes to use the front window as a vantage point to lay down and observe passersby with the sill as a chin-rest. These new curtains really put a crimp in his style and he was none too pleased.... "Can a dog catch a break around here?" he says... nope, sorry... Mama needs her sanity... and her privacy... but I still love you, Atticus. A lot.

"You're killing me, Smalls..."

Across the Plains...

2010-08-16T06:34:00.031-05:00

I have been wanting to visit my parents for awhile now and I decided to see how hard it was to drive to their house with all three dogs to discover if it would be a doable adventure in the future for holiday trips, with our kids one day, etc.

Roadside U-pick peaches somewhere in Missouri... best peaches ever...

With a car packed to the gills, the pups and I headed north towards Canada (our destination, Grand Forks, is only 75 miles from the Canadian border!) for over 25 hours of driving... that's not 24 hours of travel. That's 25+ hours of straight foot-to-the-pedal driving. Yea, you can be impressed now. I know I am!

So sleepy, Mama... Cali napping on the drive...

I have to admit, I didn't really plan out the trip before I left, I just punched my parents address into the GPS and drove. As a result, I didn't really know what cities or places we would hit before we arrived, and each road sign held a new surprise! We crossed through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and then finally North Dakota. I swear I thought Missouri would never end... EVER... South Dakota was full of pipeline workers for the oil spill and all of the bikers heading to Sturgis which left me literally bidding for the last hotel room in town (then I had to sneak the pups in and out the backdoor of the hotel, because of course they didn't take dogs... that was an experience in and of itself!)

Gorgeous sunset on the road...

Anyway, for the next few days I will share some of my roadtrip adventures with you all so that you can appreciate all of the beauty (and boredom!) to be found traveling 1700 miles across middle America!

Grounds for Your Garden

2010-08-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

Yes, we all know that Starbucks (like Wal-Mart) is an evil cooperate giant and we should shun them whole heartedly. But you know what? Everything in moderation of course, but when I am stranded in some airport, my flight six hours delayed, no sweater to protect me from the incessant AC chill and all of my family and friends a million miles away and completely unreachable on the phone... honestly, the only thing that can instantly calm my soul is not a glass of wine, it's a toasty grande chai with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top. Oh... or that amazing caramel apple cider that they make that transports me instantly to fall in Seattle with my best friend, Rachael. So, yes, I know Starbucks is the devil. And, yes, a couple times a year I do give them my hard earned dollars to fund their cooperate empire. I am an enigma.

Anyway, one thing I do love to see when I go to Starbucks to steal free Wi-Fi or to Target (with the Starbucks conveniently located inside) is their "Grounds for Your Garden" program. According to the Starbucks website,

We introduced Grounds for Your Garden in 1995, which offers customers complimentary five-pound (2.27-kilogram) bags of used coffee grounds to enrich garden soil.

Now every time I am in Starbucks or Target, I pick up a few bags of their used grounds and throw them into my compost bin with the other "green" material and let them go. You can also add the grounds directly to the soil around nitrogen and acid loving plants. When I went to get a bag to take photos for this post, our local Starbucks only had the little bags sitting out (of course!), but I went yesterday to another store and scored 15lbs of free grounds! Whoo-hoo! The "instructions" for use can be found on the label of the Grounds for Your Garden, shown above. Happy hunting!

Slices from Heaven: Sweet Potato Chips

2010-08-10T17:45:00.000-05:00

“Smell brings to mind... a family dinner of pot roast and sweet potatoes during a myrtle-mad August in a Midwestern town. Smells detonate softly in our memory like poignant land mines hidden under the weedy mass of years.” -Diane Ackerman

Nathan left for a trip a few weeks ago and for his last meal I wanted him to take some great memories of home with him so I made him two of his favorite foods... a whole roast chicken and sweet potato chips. Both are super tasty and (in the case of the chicken) pretty impressive for being so easy to make! I wanted to share my favorite sweet potato chip recipe with you as we are starting to get into prime season for these tasty tubers and I feel everyone else should benefit from the lessons I've learned about these tasty treats! This recipe is courtesy of our local CSA, Off the Vine Produce, from one of the recipe sheets they included with our box one week last year. Enjoy!

Fried Sweet Potato Chips
Servings: 4

Ingredients:
-Vegetable oil, for frying
-2 large sweet potatoes, washed
-Salt, Pepper and Garlic Powder (Ed note: I skip a step and just use garlic salt... DELISH!)

Directions:
In a large sauce pan, heat oil to 350 degrees F. Thinly slice potatoes into round disks, about 1/4 inch thick. Fry for 1 and 1/2 to 3 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove from oil and drain on a paper towel. Sprinkle with Salt, Pepper and Garlic Powder or sugar, to taste.

Fry, baby, fry...

Making Deli-Style Dill Pickles: Part One

2010-08-10T16:55:00.000-05:00

Hunger is the best pickle.
-Benjamin Franklin

The cucumbers from last week's post have finally started the process of becoming deli dill pickles (well, six pounds of them have... the other half are off to become cucumber chips). This is my first foray into pickling anything, though I have canned in the past, so this should be quite the adventure!

You need to prepare the pickles and then let them stand in a cool, dark place for three weeks (skimming scum off the surface daily... hopefully this process isn't too gross!) so below is the preparation before the three week wait.

My recipe for dills comes from the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving, which has been an invaluable resource for teaching myself how to can and preserve a variety of foods. The first step is choosing the cucumbers which, apparently, was my first mistake! I waited to pick the cucumbers in my garden until they were ripe, and huge and there were some yellow areas (overripe spots) here and there on the skins. Once I started cooking I read that I should have picked the cucumbers when they were still very dark green with large bumps on the outside of the fruit, and zero areas of light green or yellow. Whoops! Apparently my pickle "crispness" will suffer as a result... (See update at the end of this post for Perfect Pickle pics!)

I decided to make the pickles anyway and I gathered my supplies (see spices, sugar and salt above. I also used organic dill from a local grocer) for both the dills and the cucumber chips. For the dills, I used store bought pickling spice (the lime green bottle above) and for the cucumber chips I used the other spices shown to make my own pickling spice. After chopping up the pickles into 4-inch spears, I added half of the pickling spice (a heaping 1/3 cup) and a large bunch of dill to the bottom of an enamel pot and dumped the sliced spears on top. Ensure that the spears have at least 4-inches of clearance from the top rim of the pot. It's important to use only stainless-steel or unchipped enamelware for all pickling tasks because other types of cooking wear (utensils as well) can cause discoloring of the final pickle products that is unappetizing and can be dangerous.

I created a brine by boiling 1.5 cups of pickling salt, 2 cups white vinegar and 16 cups water and then letting it cool to room temperature after stirring to dissolve all of the salt. Once it cooled, I ladled it over the pickles. Once the pot was full (the pickling brine ran out exactly at the top of the pickles... that's why I love these recipes, they always work out perfectly!) I dumped the other bunch of dill and the remainder of the pickling spice on top. Place an inverted plate on top of the pickles (to keep them all submersed in the brine) and used a filled and sealed mason jar of water on top of the plate to weigh it down. Store it in a cool dark place for approximately 3 weeks (to let them ferment) and skim the surface daily for scum.

Now, five days into dill making, the dills are pretty fragrant when I take the plate off for my daily check (in a good way, just a lot of spice and vinegar!) but no scum that I can see has formed yet. I am waiting for the pickles to become "translucent" and ready to can. I am hoping they will be finished by early August!

I also made cucumber chips through a different method (I only have to wait 24 hours for them to be ready to can instead of three weeks!) to compare the quality of the two products with the amount of labor and time involved in each. Look out for a post in the future with my reviews of both methods!

Update: Here are what the pickles should look like before picking to make "the perfect pickle"... Look for dark, firm skin and obvious bumps on the outside of the fruit. Avoid any fruits with light green or yellow areas of the skin.

Making Deli-Style Dill Pickles: Part Two

2010-08-05T12:02:00.003-05:00

Finally, after weeks of fermentation our dill pickles are ready to can! At this point the pickles should be thoroughly flavored with dill and translucent throughout.

When the pickles are ready, strain the contents through a colander, removing the pickles and collecting the brine from the pot in another stainless steel/unchipped enamel pot. All of the spices and dill should be caught by the strainer, leaving you a pile of sorted pickles (if there are any that didn't "make it" pick them out and discard them now) and a pot of brine.

Bring your brine to a rolling boil on the stove and boil for approximately 5 minutes; allow to cool to room temperature before filling jars. Simultaneously, process your jars and lids in near boiling water to prepare them to use for canning.

Fill jars with pickles, ensuring the jars are full but not packing the pickles in too tightly. Fill jars with the cooled brine, leaving a half-inch of head space at the top. Use a tongue depressor (or other skinny flat object) to move pickles around slightly and free any trapped air bubbles in the jar. Place lids on jars, screw down bands to fingertip tight and place jars in water to process for 15 minutes (with the lid on the canning pot).

Remove lid and let cool for 5 minutes before carefully removing jars from water, placing in an out of the way spot on the counter and covering with a towel. Allow jars to sit overnight; check them the morning to ensure all jars are properly sealed (make sure the lid is "sucked down" and doesn't pop or move when you press on the top of it).

Congratulations! You've finished your dill pickles!! Grab a burger (or a pregnant friend!) and enjoy one now!

Dirty Paws McGee- Part 1: Coexisting Cleanly with Pets

2010-08-04T16:01:00.148-05:00

I hate a dirty house. A messy house (clean laundry to be folded, mail on the kitchen table) I can deal with, but an actual dirty house... with dishes in the sink, hairballs in the corners and spots on the floor... drives me nuts! Having three medium-to-large size dogs, and one medium-to-large sized husband, presents its own set of challenges to keeping the house clean on a daily basis. Here are a few high-tech and low-tech tips to keep your home clean and keep your furry friends there too!

#1. Wipe Paws Here!: As my dogs come in from outdoors, especially in the mornings when they have been out in the dewy grass, I have them sit at the backdoor where I always leave a towel to wipe all four paws before they come inside. They resisted at first, but soon it became routine and now they pause and lift each paw for me when they get to the door, almost like a horse having its hooves cleaned! Even when their feet don't seem dirty, they are bringing in just a little bit of sand or mud each which multiples over three dogs, ten potty trips a day, seven days a week... Wipe their paws and you'll be surprised at how much they leave behind!

#2. Furminator Brush: The Furminator brush used to be very expensive (and it still is $50+ in stores like Petco) but now you can find it new for less than $12 on Amazon.com! They even have a version for cats! Make sure to buy the size that corresponds to the size of your pet (or larger... my medium one that we bought has a pretty small comb) and then just brush your pet as you would normally. This product manages to pull out TONS of loose undercoat (without hurting your pet) which cuts down the amount of hair that ends up on your couch, floor, dog beds, etc. I don't know what makes this brush work so well, but my mom bought a knock-off brand brush and it was awful, so this one is worth the money, especially now that they are on sale! 5 stars out of 5 stars!

#3. Dyson Animal Vacuums: The Dyson Animal vacuum that we have had for two years is the DC-17 Animal. Before we bought our D-17 refurbished off of Amazon.com for $299 (here is a similar deal on Overstock.com), we were burning up cheap $50 vacuums about every 3-4 mths. I had put off buying the Animal for months, despite my best friend's rave reviews about how well it was picking up the hair from her three cats, because of the price. A new Dyson can run about $600, so buying the refurbished model essentially made the vacuum half-price! It was remanufactured at the factory and it came with all of the attachments and manuals, and even some carpet freshening beads, that would come with a new vacuum. I have not been able to tell a difference at all from a new vacuum!
Pros: The amount of hair this vacuum is able to pick up is phenomenal and we have never had any problems with broken parts or anything else, despite the extreme use it gets.
Cons: My only complaints are about the bagless system (which I support because it produces less waste) and the hose. In the bagless collection tank, hair tends to get stuck up at the top of the cylinder, causing you to have to bang the tank against the side of the trash can to dislodge the hair clump. This is problematic indoors because of how much dirt the vacuum picks up, so I have to take the detachable cylinder outside to the big trashcans to dump the dirt so I don't create a dust shower all around my kitchen trash can. Also, the DC-17 is really hard to use on carpeted stairs because the hose isn't very long and so it is necessary to haul the vacuum up stairs as you go, using one hand to hold it on the stairs because the vacuum base is wider than your average tread.
There is a Dyson Animal handheld vacuum that I think would be perfect for stairs, but at only $80 less than my full upright, I think that will need to wait awhile. I would like to upgrade to the Dyson Animal Ball, at $379 for a refurbished model... anyone want to buy a slightly used D-17? Despite the high price, I really see this vacuum as a good investment, and therefore give it 4.5 stars out of 5 (taking off .5pt for the price).

#4. iRobot Scooba: If you've heard of the Roomba, than the Scooba is its floor washing cousin. You fill the clean water tank with fresh water and about a 1/2 cup of either Clorox cleaning solution or white vinegar (they even have a line on the cup that you fill the tank with for vinegar, yea for corporations supporting green cleaning solutions!) You turn "her" on and let her go (my apologies, it is literally impossible for me not to anthropomorphize a robot, especially one that can actually communicate its needs, if only in a series of beeps)! Now, the initial purchase provides one battery-powered laser "wall" to keep your Scooba in a smaller area so that she can clean better (she tends to go off on long tangents and if you don't keep her confined to an area the size of a small room she can't cover the entire area well enough to really get it clean).
Pros: It vacuums and then "mops" the floor everywhere it goes and does a good job (it will make additional passes if it senses the floor is still dirty in an area); It saves me from having to mop, which is one of my least favorite chores!
Cons: It can't get into corners so you tend to end up with piles of hair in the corners of an otherwise clean room because it didn't get sucked up; Even with a coupon, free shipping and a sale on QVC where I purchased my Scooba, it was almost $200... that's awful expensive for something that doesn't clean perfectly!; You have to monitor Scooba to make sure it doesn't get stuck, move it when it finishes with an area if you have a large or oddly shaped room to clean, and to empty and refill the tanks - you can't just set it up and leave the house; we have already sent two back from Ebay for being duds and sent one back to QVC for electronic problems in addition to our current Scooba being finickyabout working sometimes (troubleshooting doesn't seem to help) and you just have to leave her alone and come back to try again in a few days - no rhyme or reason for it!
Overall, I enjoy using my Scooba and find it useful, but if I hadn't already paid for it, I definitely wouldn't invest the money again. 2 stars out of 5.

More Eco-Friendly Cleaning with Pets Tips Next Week!
Furminator & Dyson Photos Courtesy of Amazon.com

Beach of Brotherly Love...

2010-08-01T11:00:00.000-05:00

I don't believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at. ~Maya Angelou

Two of our dogs, Atticus and Scout, are brothers though they are several years and many litters apart. Just like human siblings, they are very similar and yet they are each so unique. But when they play together, they are pure magic and they never cease to make me laugh with their matching "smiles" and sweet loving eyes. Our recent photo shoot at the beach left me nostalgic for their puppy days after watching them play together, so I thought I might share some of their brotherly love with you all...

Look at those faces! And their matching stances!

Who wouldn't love a Springer Spaniel?

Frolick!

Catch me if you can!

There are those loving eyes...

Our little snorkler... I think he's going after tiny fish? Or crabs?

Either way, it makes me laugh...

What a Pill!: Pets and Medication

2010-07-30T09:45:00.002-05:00

With our tragic hospital stay with Sadie and Cali's recent snake bite, we have had a recent rash of experience with all sorts of pet medical care from morphine drips (the medicine makes their tongues stick out of their mouths a little bit which is super cute in addition to being the sure "tell" that the drugs have kicked in) to catherers and IV's... we are well versed! But once you get home, or in less serious medical situations when your pets just need to take a little something to put them on the mend, there are always tons of pills to swallow and if your pet is anything like mine, they won't take them! We've tried pills wrapped in bacon, in cheese, handed off with a treat, shoved down a throat and stroked to make them swallow... we've done it all. And now, after years of gagging spaniels and later finding expensive pills spit out in the corner of the living room (they are magicians at hiding them in their jowels!) we have a fool-proof solution! It seems simple, but it took me this long to find a method that worked so I am sharing it here!

This trick will work with peanut butter or cheese whiz, but the fake cheese is just too processed for me to give it to anyone in good conscience, even the pups! It was hard enough for me to buy Skippy and not organic, natural peanut butter! We marked the jar "DOG" and just keep it with their other goodies in the closet, but having a brand that doesn't have to be refrigerated is key since spreadability is so important for this task.

I used EVO (a grain-free brand) treats but as they were bought out by Proctor & Gamble last month, I can't recommend their brand any longer until we can be sure that they haven't changed their formula since the buyout. This would probably work with any treat, but the little hole in the center makes it easier to shove large pills down into the gap. I slather the top of the treat in peanut butter, bury the pills, and put a new coat of PB on top. We generally only give treats for going in their crates, so this is perfect for twice a day dosing before bed and then before you head out the door in the morning. My only suggestion is that if you have more than one dog, you'll have to slather everyone's treat in peanut butter too to avoid jealousy issues! Other than that, it works like a charm! I am sure this would work for cats too... maybe some pate on a treat? Any cat moms out there have good suggestions on what might work for your little angels?

SNAKES IN A YARD!!: Natural Snake Prevention & Deterrence

2010-07-29T22:36:00.006-05:00

Our recoving patient...

“A funny thing to do is, if you're out hiking and your friend gets bitten by a poisonous snake, tell him you're going to go for help, then go about ten feet and pretend that *you* got bit by a snake. Then start an argument with him about who's going to go get help. A lot of guys will start crying. That's why it makes you feel good when you tell them it was just a joke.”

-Jack Handy

We had a bit of a scare this week here at High Cotton Home; our new dog Cali, still fresh from the shelter, was bitten by a poisonous snake in our own backyard on Tuesday night! I saw her at the back door, hobbling on three legs, her paw already hugely swollen and dripping a weird mixture of brown juice (venom?) mixed with blood. She was also extremely lethargic and going into shock. Only two veterinary hospitals within 100 miles carry anti-venom, so I packed Cali into the car and broke land-speed records driving over an hour to the nearest hospital. They did an awesome job getting her on a morphine drip, fluids and the anti-venom right away and (after two days in the hospital and quite a chunk of moola) she is recovering well. The venom caused blood problems including hemorrhaging all over her body so she still has a large pool of blood in her chest and her injured paw is swollen and has quite a bit of damage. Parts of her leg will likely undergo necrosis and come off in the coming weeks leaving her paw looking a bit odd for the rest of her life, but she is going to pull through!

One of the little frogs on a brick outside the door...

also known as a tasty, pygmy rattler meal!

Luckily, we were able to come up with the money for the anti-venom($846 a vial!) in time for treatment but many families aren't as lucky and they can only cross their fingers and hope for the best with IV fluids and prayers to save their animals when they are bitten. The bite characteristics for Cali belong to a family of venomous snakes here in the south that include rattlesnakes, pygmy rattlesnakes, copperheads and cottonmouth snakes. Speculation from the local professional (i.e. my vet and the new yard man) is that it was a pygmy rattlesnake that got Cali because they are very aggressive when surprised (my little soft-footed hunter at work!) and like to eat frogs (like the little tree frogs in abundance on our windows every night).

Though our home backs up to a wetlands so wildlife is inevitable, we had taken no steps to guard against poisonous snakes, mostly because the only snakes I'd ever seen on our property had been non-venomous. This close-call has made me vow to change my ways and, because of our organic lifestyle, I wanted to see about deterring snakes in the most natural ways possible. Here are a few tips:

#1. Clear out all Bushes, Weeds, Shrubs and Tall Grass: I have to admit that the picture above is my overgrown backyard at the beginning of the summer and it has only gotten worse since as the warm days and afternoon rain showers. Plus, with my husband out of town for a bit, the grass isn't getting cut as often either (I love my electric mower, but mine is not cordless so trying to mow has proved to be a little be tougher than the "just like vacuuming the yard!" that I had thought it would be). Since the bite, I have hired someone to clear out all the brush, cut back the bushes, and generally clear out the entire front and back yard for under $200. I had put it off because of the heat and because I thought that it would take me weekend after weekend to clear it out just to start over the whole process again! I don't know if that is true or not, but for less than 1/4 of the cost of one vial of anti-venom, I could have prevented this problem months ago! Please, let my dumb mistake prevent heartache in yours!

#2. Clear out piles in your yard: Piles of rocks, hay, wood, old branches, fallen trees... all of these scream "COME REST IN MY COOL SHADE" to a snake. This will be a difficult task if you xeriscape your yard, but that would cut down on rodents/critters (see tip #3) so hopefully the two factors will balance one another out. Be sure when you clear the piles and move them to a safe location (if necessary as in the case of winter wood) away from the house or get rid of them (if they are just rock or junk piles) that you wear protective clothing. I didn't have any good, snake proof gaiters to wear for my snake-finding expedition but I did have some pretty cute, knee-high rain boots that I wore and I carried a huge shovel to poke and push the piles around significantly before reaching my hand to grab any of the items for relocation. Assume there are snakes in the pile and act cautiously about reaching your hand into any dark spaces and not only will you avoid snake bites, but spiders, scorpions or any other delightfully nasty creature that your region may harbor.

#3. Make Your Yard Critter Free: Mice, rats, frogs, toads, lizards... all of these little creatures can inhabit out backyards if we make the conditions right for them. Fruit trees, veggie gardens, under porches, garages and overgrown bushes all attract rodents, who are closely followed by their natural predators including snakes. We found a 3-ft rat snake in the tree out back last month and when we first moved in (before we'd built our fence) I saw an 8-ft indigo snake in our yard that I thought was going to eat Atticus before I caught my breath and realized how cool what I was seeing was! But I should have realized, that where non-venomous snakes find a meal, venomous snakes will too. Now, I have to admit our yard is frog paradise because we don't use pesticides (because frogs are natural, environmental indicators pesticides kill them easily as in most of our neighbors yards) and we have a hot tub that houses so many of the little critters that I can't in good conscience turn it on because I'm afraid of boiling the little suckers! I won't start using pesticides, but I will clean out and treat my hot tub (natural items only, no chemicals) to try to make the yard a little less friendly for them. They also enjoy my compost pile when I neglect to turn it (and it draws flies) so I will need to up my work out there, even though you know I hate to put work into the compost pile!

These are the simplest solutions that I am employing immediately, but I am going to continue looking into the efficacy of spreadable deterrents and installing small gauge chicken-wire along the bottom of the fence to prevent snakes of any sort from making it into our yard in the first place. I will keep you posted and review my successes!

Home Composting: Common Problems & Troubleshooting Tips

2010-07-28T09:00:00.007-05:00

Now you have a compost pile and it is up and running... but is it successful? Here are a few common problems and some troubleshooting tips...

#7. My pile has a strong odor, what am I doing wrong?
There should always be an earthy smell to your compost (due to the decomposing matter) but the smell should be livable and shouldn't "hit you" until you open the lid. If you can smell it outside of the container, you have a problem... Turning your pile can do a world of good, but determine what type of "bad smell" is coming from your pile before turning it.

Rotting Meat: If the smell is a disgusting rotting smell, animal proteins or fats have probably accidentally gotten into your pile through meat scraps, cooking fats & oils, butter, dairy products, peanut butter, etc. If the item isn't on the top where you can see it and pick it out, it's best to just scrap the pile and start over, because rotting animal proteins will draw scavengers like flies, rats, raccoons, etc. Then of course there will be snakes to eat the rats... and eventually your yard is overrun by pterodactyls picking off the neighborhood pets... just kidding - sorta. Seriously though, depending on how big the item decomposing in there is (a pat of butter or a full raw T-bone) is going to effect how long the smell lasts... leave the pile for a few days before you decide to trash it and if the smell has lessened, use your own judgement on waiting longer or scrapping the pile completely.

Ammonia Smell: If the smell is more like ammonia than rotting meat, it is most likely a nitrogen problem in the pile. Nitrogen is produced by the "green" matter decomposing in the pile (veggie & fruit scraps, grass, coffee grounds, pretty much any of the wet, moist material that you place in your pile). Even out your pile with more "brown" matter (such as dry leaves, paper, straw); experts recommend 30 parts carbon ("brown") to 1 parts nitrogen ("green") but I feel like that is a little excessive and a little over analytical. It's an art, not a science... and when in doubt, tinker around with the parts a bit to see if you can fix the problem easily without pulling out a calculator to figure out what to put in.

#8. I want to keep my compost 100% organic so that I can use it on my vegetable garden... how do I make sure that it stays pesticide/chemical/contaminate free?
Creating 100% organic compost is relatively easy if you eat organically, because most of your wastes will already be organic. If you have a mixed diet (i.e. some organic and some conventionally processed goods) you can create two compost piles to keep one 100% organic and still not trash your non-organic food wastes. Some other items to consider are the non-food items that you put into the pile... if you are putting in paper and fabric scraps, ensure they come from organic sources as well. If you (or your neighbors) use pesticides or fertilizers on their grass or trees, those chemicals will be in your compost if you decide to place those in the pile as well. I have read that most pesticides will decompose in an active compost pile in one year, but I have no proof that this is the case. Now, this blog and my lifestyle is all about moderation, so this risk may be negligible for you and if so, your compost will still turn out wonderfully! But if you are trying to ensure 100% organic compost, the key to success is thinking through every item that enters your compost pile before you toss it in.

There you go, you've started your compost pile, you've kept it going and you've solved all of its little compost problems (which were all just petty decomposing drama anyway). You are a sucessful compost pile parent! Congratulations!

Home Composting: Maintaining Your Pile

2010-07-27T09:00:00.001-05:00

So you've got a compost pile, eh? Once you've followed our tips to get your compost pile up and running, how do you keep it working for you (i.e. producing amazing compost for your garden and significantly cutting your household waste production)? Here are a few tips on proper care of a compost pile (and what we do as well! :P)

#4. Does it matter which compostable items I put in my pile or what order I throw them in?
If you follow Rule #3 in Home Composting: How to Get Started about what items are able to be composted you can pretty much dump any and/or all of the eligible items in the pile in any order that you would like. Just make sure you keep your balance of "green" items in the composter (grass clippings, veggies, fruit) high enough as compared to the "brown" items (leaves, paper, cotton scraps) that the decomposition in the compost heap generates enough heat to keep the pile at about 150F. Heat speeds decomposition and if your "brown" levels get too high, decomposition can stall to a snail's pace without additional "green" items and/or oxygen from turning the pile. If your compost hasn't begun to generate heat within 24 hours, add more green items until you can feel heat coming from the pile when you hold your hand close to the decomposing matter.

#5. When will I have usable compost for my garden?
By the book, the more you turn your compost pile, the quicker you will have compost. If you are out there daily with a pitchfork or a shovel and fully mixing up the pile (digging all the way day and pulling items up, mixing the new items on top into the middle and the bottom) avid gardeners tell me you can have usable compost in as little as 3-4 weeks! Keep in mind, outdoor weather plays a role as well so during the winter your compost pile will decompose more slowly than the summertime and (in areas of extreme cold) may go dormant completely until everything thaws out in the spring. Here in the deep South, however, a year-round compost pile is very doable. But, as you see in my discussion in #6, even if you are a lazy gardener like me and do not turn your pile you should have usable compost in 4-6 mths. My compost pile sat with zero help from December-May one year while I was out of the country and when I returned in June to plant, everything had been fully composted while I was gone (including all of my Christmas quilt fabric scraps!) with the exception of a few corn cobs (notoriously slow to decompose) and a few stumps that my husband had thrown in, somehow convinced that 6in chunks of wood would vanish in the pile overnight... what can I say, he's an optimist!

#6. How much work is a compost pile?

As discussed above, turning your pile really speeds decomposition and compost production. Here is where I admit to being a bad compost mom. Truly, I put zero effort into that little pile and I just harvest its yummy little contents every spring when I go to add fresh soil and till my garden before the spring planting. I never turn my pile... seriously, never. I tried the first year; it was June when I started so it was hot out and the mosquitoes were wicked out by the shed and I just thought, "Oh well... that's not going to happen" and it didn't. The good news is that, even if you can't afford one of these nifty compost barrels that you can just crank and flip to turn your pile, turning your compost is not necessary to it's survival. If you leave it long enough while it is producing heat, everything will compost and you can always help it along with a compost activator (we use CompostAlive!) after you add a big chunk of brown or green matter (i.e. after a whole yard full of fall leaves or a mid-summer's cut of you and your neighbor's lawn). You just dump a few scoops of activator on top of the pile and then soak with a garden house until water comes pouring out the bottom (a minute or two) and let it work its magic!

Having issues with your compost? Check in tomorrow for some troubleshooting tips to solve several common compost problems. Enjoy!

Home Composting: How to Get Started

2010-07-26T10:36:00.002-05:00

Compost... the solid gold of gardeners and the true measure of a dedicated green household (okay, maybe not the true measure, but...) Composting is very easy, no matter the size or type of your household and you can put as much time and money into composting as you would like and your results will reflect your efforts (more effort = faster digesting compost). There are so many varieties of composters (from entirely self-sufficient, indoor units to simple piles in the backyard) I will give you a general overview and show you what we find works the best for our family. We have been composting for over two years so we are by no means experts, but composting is definitely an integrated part of our lifestyle now!

#1. Why Compost? In an attempt to clean out a bunch of old veggies in my fridge that were about to stage a coup (because they were already in the process of turning) I salvaged all that I could for homemade vegetable soup (the red bowl) and all of the parts I couldn't use and the veggies that were too far gone went into the yellow bowl. It's obvious which bowl is more full!

I ran this experiment to illustrate that composting greatly reduces the amount of household waste that needs to be disposed of. In a commercial dump, many compostable items (including these new nifty, but loud, Sun Chips bags!) are unable to decay properly because the conditions for decomposition (air circulation/heat/etc.) aren't favorable. Those same items, in a simple home compost pile, can turn into usable compost in weeks! Plus, the items you compost become the best fertilizer for your garden that money can't buy... it's win-win!

Atticus, ravaging the empty compost bin after

I emptied it this year to spread the contents on the garden.

It is very light when empty and terribly tempting to a bored spaniel...

once it gets a few weeks of contents in there, the bin is pretty solid and heavy.

#2. What do I need to compost? As I said before, there are many types of compost bins from the high end to the common leaf pile, but here is what works for us. I didn't want to have to bother with worms (though I hear great things about worm compost piles!) so I went with a simple black standing compost bin. To collect scraps in the house (and to avoid leaving rotting food on the counter until I have a moment to take it out back) we purchased this counter top compost keeper for the kitchen that we empty into the outdoor bin once a day.

#3. What can I add to my compost bin? Pretty much any organic items that are not (and haven't touched) meats or fats. Meats and fats decompose differently than other organic products and adding these to your compost bin will immediately draw critters. Be mindful of organic items that have touched meats and fats as well, such as last night's salad already covered in olive oil vinegrette (plain lettuce leaves are fine, but once they are coated in oil, go ahead and put them in the normal trash can instead). But other than that, most anything goes: vegetables, fruits, moldy bread, clumps of hair from cleaning out your hairbrush, eggshells (rinsed), leaves, grass clippings (try to avoid weeds as their seeds will live on in your new soil for a LONG time and can take root in your garden when you use the soil if you aren't careful), cotton fabric scraps, old paper, dryer lint, shredded cardboard, fall leaves... the list goes on and on.

Once your compost bin/pile is started, tomorrow's post will tell you how to keep it up and running smoothly! Enjoy!

Settling in...

2010-07-25T23:12:00.001-05:00

Sunday brought us into our second week with our new rescue dog,

Cali(fornia), and I wanted to share her progress with you all. She and the boys are really getting along well (which basically means, Scout has started harassing her endlessly and she finally feels comfortable enough to give him a barking rebuff when she's had enough). Cali is still on antibiotics for a post-shelter cough that she just can't seem to shake, but she is beginning to trust us more and she's started taking her meds with just peanut butter instead of the huge battle we faced last week!

Just before escape attempt #1.

She looks like she's excited to go to the beach... it's all a facade!

Okay, so she doesn't look too terribly excited to be

going swimming with Dad after she was caught...

Cali perked up a bit when she realized that nothing bad was going to happen in the water. She still hated swimming (every time I took her out to waist-deep water, she swam hard and fast for the shore... that girl could win the Canine Olympics for speed and strength in the water!) but she would put up with the shallows as long as the waves stayed small enough.

And she rode in the back of the truck with Mama

and her brothers without any fuss at all...

Cali even managed to cut loose a little on the ride home

and enjoy the wind in her ~~hair~~ ears.

I know we are all still adjusting to each other, but we are all happy to say,

We're so glad you've joined our family, Cali!

The Politics of Food: "You Are What You Eat"

2010-07-19T14:55:00.000-05:00

I saw this artist's work a few years ago and I was fascinated! Mark Menjivar spent three years traveling the nation exploring "food issues," as his mission statement says, and photographing the inside of people's fridges as is... a perfect snapshot of the food going into their bodies and a byline to show the reader a little background into their lives to ponder about why this person/family eats the way they do. In You Are What You Eat, his photographs explores both life and food as the means to that life, even the reflection of it.

"These are portraits of the rich and the poor. Vegetarians, Republicans, members of the NRA, those left out, the under appreciated, former soldiers in Hitler’s SS, dreamers, and so much more. We never know the full story of one's life."

Wife Pursuing M.A. in English Literature, job lined up to teach at a college in Colorado following graduation, working to design a class on the politics of food for her future freshman- Gulf Coast, FL - 2 Person Household (plus three dogs) - Mid-Summer - 2010

In the spirit of exploration of ourselves, I present to you... MY FRIDGE! Yes, all of our veggies, our organic dairy products, and oh... a heck of a lot of bottles of wine and beer and some "carmel topping" that his mother bought for sundaes on his last visit... despite my best efforts, I haven't been able to get the entire family on board with our high-fructose-corn-syrup-free lifestyle. Baby steps, baby steps...

What a Good Sax will do to a Woman...

2010-07-18T19:53:00.000-05:00

Last night my husband and I went to our second Michael Buble concert, mostly because I sorta liked his music for our Saturday morning breakfast parties. We went to his first concert in our area in 2008, and he was such an all-around engaging performer that when I saw he was coming back down South I bought pre-sale tickets!

Anyway, we started off "date night" with some amazing fondue (can I tell you that the brownies dipped in white and dark chocolate was so amazing that we had to ask for more?! Nice restaurant, fancy outfits, four courses before dessert and yet the hubby and I are flagging down the waiter for another round of brownies! DE-LISH!) Then we skidded into the concert after the opening act was done (sorry, guys, I'm sure you were amazing but if you would have tasted those brownies you would have stayed too!) There was a huge group that had taken over our seats so we moved to the next pair of available seats in the next section. The ticket lady insisted on moving the squatters out of our seats, but I had Michael Buble's voice and a glass of white wine and I wasn't in the mood for anyone's night to be mussed with at that point, so we kept our new seats.

Our seats, comically far from the stage...

We sing along and laugh at Michael's jokes (honestly, the man is an entertainer and a half... funny, witty, adorable accent and, oh by the way, he can SING!) And then as he finishes a song he heads off-stage for his goodbye by walking down our aisle... there were security men galore and I angled for a good, fairly close up shot of Michael as he passed. Here is the result...

Not my hand, for the record... Not big on petting celebrities, I'm afraid...

Imagine my surprise when he mounts a set of steps to a big platform behind our row (that I had previously assumed was some mixing booth because we were so far back) and continues the show... RIGHT BEHIND MY CHAIR!! I am now hustling back to my chair, my shoddy "photo-over-screaming-girls'-heads" behind me, and enjoy Michael's "thank you to the Gulf Coast for all of our strength and courage" (yea, we're pretty great! Turns out he gave 400 free tickets to the concert to people affected by the oil spill... I knew I liked this guy...) and his own, four-feet-away rendition of "Home" which always makes me cry thinking about my husband and I being apart for our jobs so often...

Anyway, all in all, an amazing show and one that took place (at least in part) less than four feet away from me! I love Michael Buble and I love that we lucked into such great seats too!! Now if only he would stop dating such waifish model types, maybe I'd have a chance... But wait... is that a ring on his finger?!? Drats... missed my chance! Wink! Enjoy!

Please, I love getting dressed up and going out on dates with the husband!

Our New Addition...

2010-07-15T20:36:00.003-05:00

It has been almost six weeks since Sadie passed and, though we are not fully past her death yet, we had room in our home and in our hearts for another dog and so, just a few weeks after her death, we went looking. We wanted a dog who, like Sadie, had been passed over and wasn't adoptable because she was ugly, old, or just generally a sweet dog who inexplicably wasn't going home with anyone.

We tried met-ups with several pups and nobody got along well with our boys (including one dachshund mix who literally chased Scout around the room snapping and barking until he dropped his treat and hid. Scout - 45lbs, dachshund mix - 11 lbs.... hilarious...)

I had seen a Vizsla-Pointer mix at a local pet welfare and I'd waited a couple of weeks to visit her and finally went on my own on July 1st. I just loved her, but it takes a few visits to really get to know a dog. The next week brought another visit, this time with my husband, and on the 13th we took the dogs to meet her... and she came home with us! Formerly known as "Kali," we changed it to "Cali" so that she could be a California girl like her mama, me! Also, I am convinced that changing the letters up in common names only leads girls to grow up to be strippers and I want more than that for my little pup!

She's supposedly six years old, but she's got a bit of gray around her muzzle already. We are at least her third home after three shelter stays from Sacramento to the deep South (and she's been at pet welfare for six months already with no interest in her at all!) based on the history that we were given, but her history doesn't start until she was 3 1/2 and being a Vizsla-Pointer mix she was bound to have a ton of energy as a pup and I'm sure she was probably turned into a shelter at least once after her puppy cuteness wore off. She's still got a lot of spunk in her (especially after a few minutes inside in the air conditioning) and she's kept me busy asking to go outside every half hour so that she can run wind sprints up and down the yard until I get too worried about leaving a geriatric patient out in the 108F heat index! Watching her play with Scout is a hoot (she bounces like an South Central lowrider... perhaps she's more of a California girl than I thought!) and other than the fact that you can tell that she thinks we are going to send her back to a shelter at any minute (yesterday's vet visit was... interesting...) things are going great. YEA for our expanding pack!

Update: Want to see how Cali is settling in at our home? Here is an update from a few weeks later...

Watermelon and Cucumbers and Squash... Oh My!

2010-07-15T19:36:00.000-05:00

Though I was trying to wait for these cucumbers to darken into a deeper green, the little critters were starting to munch on them already so today became harvest day! YEA!! As you can see we had quite a bountiful little harvest for this round of cucumbers! With the hot weather here in the South, we should have another round in a month or two (judging by the weather and the dozens of tiny, spiky little baby 'cumbers that are already starting to grow in the garden!) so I've decided to make this entire batch into pickles and relish. The canning posting for those suckers should be coming very soon!

Next on the harvest list are the butternut squash who look amazing (if a little early... I think of those more of a fall treat, but Mother Nature bows to no man... or clock...) Cardinals are also out in force right now too and I think of them as winter birds... am I crazy or are there just no seasons in the South?

Finally, my "little watermelons that could" are finally coming in slowly but surely. Last year my UPS man mocked my efforts in the front yard because our lemons were bigger than our melons! I don't know that we are outpacing last year's melons for size, but putting in bird netting this year led to some ambitious vines and some interesting fruit placement, like this watermelon perched on top of the fence rail! I'll keep you posted on the harvests as they come!

Green Groceries on the Cheap?

2010-07-12T20:29:00.000-05:00

We were out of town all weekend driving to Virginia and back visiting family, so with so few hours of sleep this week, I am reposting a comment on the Green Baby Guide that has plenty of content for a beginning-of-the-week blog post. Thank you so much to Joy of the Green Baby Guide for giving me the idea for this post! Enjoy!

How to Lower the Grocery Bill while still staying Green?
Good for you all for looking at your spending this closely and knowing where you put your "food dollars!" So many Americans don’t pay attention and we all know where that leads our nation… Anyway, I agree with Joy, that to go organic, a food box through a co-op weekly or bi-weekly (for a two person family, bi-weekly is enough for us) and then planning meals around it is the way to go. We get whole chickens from a local farmer and those have gone up (to nearly $12 a chicken!! Sweet heavens! This economy, I tell you what!) but between that and organic meats from our local grocer (Publix here in Florida) we keep the grocery bill at about $200/mth for two people. Now, that’s not awesome, but I share your problem that I make recipes set to serve four and they serve me… and three servings for my husband!! But here are a few super basic, but easy to overlook tips:

#1. Are you including toiletries or other houshold items in your “grocery” bill? A regular $40 grocery checkout can soar to $140 easily with a month-plus worth of shampoo, toothpaste, dish soap, paper towels, etc. in the checkout aisle. Look at buying these items in bulk through “Subscribe and Save” on Amazon.com (especially if you buy Seventh Generation, Alba or other “green” brands that can be super pricey in the super market!) where not only do you get bulk prices but you receive an additional 15% when you subscribe for a regular shipment (which you can cancel anytime without penalty! Bonus!) Drugstore.com has more items in bulk but no subscription discount that I know of.

#2. ALWAYS make a list, NEVER buy anything not on the list. Ever… ever… seriously, I know we are all grownups and we think we can walk around Target without a case of the “gimme-gimmes” (a great Bernstein Bears book, by the way!) but we can’t. Make a list with literally EVERYTHING you need and buy off the list and not a single item more. Seriously, it works. This is after considering what will be in your CSA box and knowing what is in season, but don't just wander around mindlessly picking up high fructose corn syrup products wrapped in ten layers of plastic packaging. Gross...

#3. Become a substitutioner… I used to be a Martha Stewart recipe fanatic but dinner parties through her regularly cost $200+ because of her exotic ingredients. Even everyday recipes that call for mushroom soup when I don’t have it necessitate a trip to the store. So I am “The Great Substitioner”… I google first the item I need and substitutions for it (if something useful comes up, I go with that) but generally I just think about the item “Mushroom soup is thick, creamy, and salty” and then add accordingly with what makes sense (milk, cornstarch/cream of tartar to thicken and salt). And voila! A meal! Now, my husband is not at all picky (and he’s never had a bad meal) but in our three years I cook nightly and several times a weekend (we never eat out) and I’ve only made two meals that weren’t edible to me (none that weren’t edible to him!) One was bean soup that I reheated from the freezer and burned (it tasted like cigarettes… BLEH!) and a crockpot recipe that I followed by the book and it had no consistency and smelled like dog food… the dogs wouldn’t eat it, but my husband loved it!

#4. Use up EVERYTHING in your pantry. Challenge yourself for a month to use EVERYTHING in your pantry. It puts your cooking skills to the test and uses the Economics ideal of “sunk cost” at its best. Old canned pumpkin is not only delicious in June, but everyone loves a quick pumpkin pie cobbler because they haven’t had one in ages!

#5. Create your own standby meals and always have the ingredients on hand for them and then add in what you’ve got. Mine are quiche, vegetable soup and crumble. For quiche I either need to make a pie crust (flour, salt, butter) or have one in the freezer; eggs; milk; and whatever is leftover and soon to "go off"… meat, veggies, spinach/greens, bacon, cheese, etc. Quiche takes whatever you’ve got a little of and makes it into a meal for a family. Crumble takes whatever fruit you have that’s about to go off tomorrow, sprinkle it with lemon juice and a 1/2 cup sugar, and then put together equal parts flour and brown sugar with enough butter (a few tablespoons) of cold butter cut in to make a crumbly texture. Put that on top of the fruit and bake at 350F for about 45 minutes or until the inside begins to bubble... VOILA! Instant dessert and no one even requested it! Congratulations, you’ve just won four more wife gold stars!

Hope those help! Here is to Going Green in a bad Economy! Thank you to Green Baby Guide for the idea for this post!

"I wouldn't feed this meal to a dog!!"

2010-06-30T17:46:00.000-05:00

"He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals."
-Immanuel Kant

It's 5pm, do you know what your dog is eating? A post at Re-Nest started my wheels turning about what we are feeding our pets (and what those of you out there in TV Land might be feeding yours) so I thought I would share our experiences with you. My family eats an organic, "Paleo" diet as much as possible (all things in moderation, of course!) so we decided to have our dogs go "Paleo" as well and buy grain-free dog food.

Why Grain-Free?
Grain-free foods and treats contain ingredients and nutrient levels which most closely resemble the ancestral diet of dogs and cats; high in animal based proteins and a healthy balance of fats and low carbohydrates(derived from vegetables and non-grain sources). The protein content in grain-free dry foods is high but not so high that can damage a dog's system (there are claims that raw-meat only diets can damage a dog's pancreas and more) and the rest of the food is composed of fresh fruits and vegetables (not corn gluten, which is the corn by-product that most dog food is made of). It only makes sense that animals descended from wolves and wild cats would be healthier eating a meat-based product instead of a corn-based one, but in our corn-based American society these days, who is really surprised that we are feeding our pets corn too?

How did you chose your food?
   There are tons of options of dog food options out there from a Raw Food diet (this all-natural, rehydratable"just add meat & water" one looks pretty neat!) to your average bag of kibble at the grocery store but here was our criteria when we chose our dog food:

1. Quality of the product: We wanted a high-quality product that provided the best nutrients specifically formulated for active dogs.

2. Ease of Use: I think that raw food diets (especially one that incorporate vegetables and other necessary nutrients and enzymes) is probably the best thing for my pet, but do I have time to be baking breakfast and dinner for a pack of dogs twice a day? Um, No... I wanted to be able to buy the product, put it in a huge Tupperware to keep it fresh and then scoop it out twice a day at mealtimes. Dry food without preparation was a must.

3. Price: Buying raw meat for our pets, especially organic meat, is often cost prohibitive for many families, ours included. I do believe that feeding creatures, be they children or pets, quality food now saves on medical bills later but sometimes the price tag right now is just too high. Bagged, grain-free foods can be found at reasonable prices at a variety of retailers, even in the boonies where we live, or can be bought in bulk online.

So what do your dogs eat?
    We are actually in a food transition right now. We have fed our dogs EVO for the past two years and absolutely LOVED it! Unfortunately, Proctor & Gamble just bought out EVO and, as they did with IAMS after the Eukanuba buy out, they plan to "adjust the formula" in the food after the buyout is complete in June 2010. By law, P&G has six months to inform the consumer that the formula has been changed, so your dog could be eating grain & other junk for six months (while you are paying full price!) and you would never know!
     In light of the buyout, we are in the process of switching over to another grain-free dog food. We have tried "Taste of the Wild" and "Orijen" foods (both in their red meat/bison formulas) and we have decided to go with "Taste of the Wild" because it is significantly cheaper. I bought three huge bags of EVO this month before the formula changed, so once the pups run out of that I will put them completely on "Taste of the Wild." and see how it goes... Another review to come! Here is a site that lists all of the grain-free dog foods and their contents if you would like to compare foods and chose for yourself.

What differences did you notice after transitioning to grain-free food?
We transitioned right after bringing a new dog, formerly a stray, into our home (Sadie, our little princess that you've seen on the site before). Her ribs were showing she was so thin, her coat was awful and she was generally unhealthy when we brought her home. Our oldest dog, Atticus, was a little chunky thanks to too many extra treats from his Mama (oops!). After several months on grain-free food, all of our dogs had healthy, thick, coats (we received a flood of compliments on the two boys coats today while volunteering at the local pet shelter! And those dog people know a good coat when they see one!), much improved overall muscle tone for all of the dogs and their previous health problems (chronic yeast ear infections in both spaniels) disappeared! We haven't had to take the dogs to the vet other than for accidents and their annual shots since switching to grain-free! And the dogs weights all evened out to be "perfect specimens" without having to feed any of the dogs more or less food than the recommendations on the bag.
Additionally, because the food is so nutritionally dense, you are able to feed your pet a smaller quantity of food. Those of you out there (like Re-Nest's author) who are feeding your 50 lb dogs four cups of traditional, corn-gluten dog food daily will be able to cut back to two cups of grain-free food, in our experience. The grain-free foods are more expensive, but the smaller quantity needed allows us to make a smaller bag of grain-free last as long as the grain-based food we were purchasing previously.

What do I do with all of my old corn-based dog food?
Don't know what to do with all of that old dog food? Corn Gluten is also a great natural, broad-leaf weed preventative for your lawn. It is part of a long term maintenance program, so check out "corn gluten" on an organic/natural gardening page, but you can sprinkle the old dog food straight on your yard and it will disintegrate after a few waterings or good rains!

Our Sweet Princess

2010-06-05T12:01:00.002-05:00

We are taking a break for a few weeks here at High Cotton Home.

Our sweet Sadie was cut down in the prime of her life this week and loosing our little family member has taken such a toil on us. Our sweet princess pranced away to be with the angels on Friday morning, June 4th, and our lives will never be the same again.

We need some time as a family to regroup and to honor our baby girl's memory, and so we are taking a break for awhile from the blog... I can't imagine taking the dogs to the beach without her right now, or even having one of our fun Saturday mornings full of breakfasts and music and dancing and love...

Our angel is home with us now and she will forever be a part of our family. God can borrow our sweet Sadie Sue for a little while, but he has to play with her at the ocean all day and return her to us when we reach those pearly gates... I can't wait to have my baby girl back in my arms again. We are a pack of five and loosing one of our pack is incomprehensible for each and every one of us. From our family to yours, hug your babies a little closer today, and to our sweet Sadie Sue... you are such a good girl, princess... Thank you so much for holding on as long as you did to let Mama & Daddy say goodbye. We know you did it to save our family, and we know you are prancing in heaven, so happy that we finally figured it all out.

We adore you, angel... kisses on your little black piece-of-coal-in-the-snow nose...

We love you a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck.

- Mama, Daddy & your brothers

These photos are the Sadie I remember...

Fast as lighting...

I just know she is about to bark right here...

"Throw the Frisbee, Dad! Come on, throw it!"

Bark, bark, bark, bark, bark...

Leap tall bushes in a single bound

(she lept this literally from a stand-still... she was amazing).

Love you, Mama...

Always the one who would swim out the farthest,

our smart & brave Sadie was the first to come back with the prize.

Farewell, my sweet baby girl...

Hump Day Happiness

2010-06-02T14:14:00.000-05:00

If you are the kind of person who saves wine for a special occasion or silk panties for an anniversary, than today's post is not for you... but if you regularly make margaritas because of, not despite of, it being Thursday or wear real pearls to the grocery store, than listen up... Today's post is on candles, mostly taper candles, and how happy they make me at the dinner table each night. With slow food, the entire meal becomes an event and giving it an added edge with crystal glasses, candles burning, great textures for your cloth napkins... it just encourages you to linger even more. Sure, we could catch American Idol or Biggest Loser on whatever nights they come on, or we could spend an hour with me cooking dinner (while the hubby plays with the pups in the backyard) and two hours lingering at the table talking and laughing together (let me recommend the soundtrack to The Big Chill as the perfect cooking and lingering music... I love it...). Here are a few that are on my list to purchase...

Ana Candles are already a lust of mine and they have been on my "Ebay Saved Search" for six months or more (let me tell you, NO ONE is selling Ana candles on Ebay... boo). They run about $21 a pair and at the rate we go through candles (a set of tapers every two weeks) these are a little pricey for our blood... but I am going to splurge soon... very soon...

I found these Hand Painted Robin's Candles on Ebay and my obsession with birds (my mom too, it's genetic... we buy bird everything) spills over into thinking these candles are perfect. Pretty sure I could paint my own candles, but these are so darn pretty, and at only $8/pair, who can beat that?

     These French Script Candles make me think of playing while drinking strong coffee and making blueberry pancakes on Sunday mornings while I let my main man sleep in for a few extra hours (yea, we don't have kids, we give in to little luxuries a lot... smile...) Also, super affordable and on Etsy as well, which always makes me happy to be supporting artists themselves, directly at the source...

     If you like scented candles (though not tapers) Yankee Candle is making a few strides... Yankee Candle used to make these "Beanswax" candles with two wick which meant they were not only made from soy, but also actually burned well as opposed to those huge one-wick wonders that Yankee Candle usually sells. They only came in a half dozen scents but Yankee Candle discontinued them stateside and overseas this past year. You can still find them floating around at discount stores (though I may have bought out my local T.J. Maxx of all of them last December... sorry about that...) but other than that, my excitement at a greener face to a cooperate company was short lived. I found these Yankee Candle Soy Wax Signature Tumblers online, but I haven't actually seen them yet so I am reserving judgement until I track one down...
   Anyway, tonight, light some candles, put out some crystal and linger until those wooden chairs make your butt hurt... than move to the couch and keep talking! Enjoy!

Aphid Death

2010-05-31T23:27:00.000-05:00

Since we bought our house two years ago, I have attempted to make all of my gardening organic, natural and sustainable and have had mixed results on all fronts. To be honest, I have never really tried using chemicals or pesticides on plants so I have no real experience with how much better or worse my natural and/or organic methods are than conventional gardening, only which natural/organic methods work and which do not. For all I know, I am battling Goliaths that agri-farming hasn't seen in decades. If so, I can only hope that my heirloom, pesticide free fruits & veggies taste better and help me live longer, and that all this isn't in vain!

Anyway, in addition to my herb, fruit & veggie garden, we have a full yard of all sorts of plants leftover from the previous owner. My favorite is the towering magnolia tree who I am most impressed by after seeing the FEMA records on our home and knowing that she was quite a few feet under salt water on at least a dozen occasions and yet she keeps on plugging on strong. A close second in my romantic Southern fantasy garden (I dream it will look like the gardens in Charleston one day and I have desperately planted a half dozen hydrangeas out my back steps in the hopes that they will one day cascade heady blooms over the rail of my porch... the sandy soil and extreme heat have succeeded in keeping them only about a foot high and two feet wide for two years... a girl can dream, can't she?) are the two fabulous gardenias that flank my raised bed garden. But, the bane of my existence, are the aphids who frequent said gardenias like they are a biker bar serving free liquor. Last year I spent the entire summer (and it's a long one in Florida) spraying both plants daily with a diluted mixture of dish soap & water and the results were minimal to say the least. This year, while wandering around Lowe's on a paint color scouting trip, I saw that Ortho (the usual pesticide folks) also had an EcoSense line and that they touted their Insceticidal Soap as able to stop aphids in their tracks.

On May 12th, I started an experiment to see which was better: my dishwashing mix or the insecticidal soap. Was this $5 spray bottle full of nothing more than what I was mixing up myself at home? Or was there a secret to what made the little buggers fly away and never return that I hadn't mastered yet? Anyway, I was going to spray one bush with insecticidal soap and one with my dishwashing mix (I didn't have a control... my apologies, it's a small garden) and see who did the best after two weeks. My experiment stopped after Day Two, the insecticidal soap won. Hands down. No contest, no second judge... my dishwashing mix was a pitiful pop-gun compared to the bazooka of the insecticidal soap.

Now, I know $5 a bottle is pricey (and I hate that there weren't any refills available at my store or even online it seems) so the waste potential is enormous. I have two good size (4ft wide x 4 ft tall) gardenia bushes and I generously coated them on the top and bottom of EVERY leaf until the tree was pretty much dripping with soap. The one bottle, with this level of coverage for two bushes, only lasted me one use. Thankfully, the aphids stayed away for nearly a week before I had to use a second bottle to try again. That lasted just as long, but then my husband did some overzealous pruning and cut both gardenias way back and the aphids haven't returned, so I'm not sure if the weather changed somehow to run them off or if the pruning cut back on their numbers. Either way, I am happy!
Previously, with my dishwashing soap solution, I would spray the tree off with water (to disturb the aphids and encourage a lot of them to fly away) and then coat each leaf just as thoroughly with the soap solution. The next day the aphids would be much fewer (as you can see from the first photo of the gardenia above, the plant was just lousy with them. They would rise in great plumes when you rustled the leaves and even took off and started eating my tomato plants, which I didn't even know they liked!) But there was never a real elimination of the aphids, just a decrease in their general numbers. I got so angry toward the end of the summer and I was so ruthless toward the little buggers, my husband started to make fun of me (hence the title, "Aphid Death," though I still maintain that would make a great band name for the right group...). The next day after spraying the insecticidal soap, the aphids were gone. Not one little flying creature for an entire week!
Overall, I give it 3 stars out of 5. Now, I can't in good conscience give this product too many stars because #1. The packaging is so small (even for a spray bottle, it's a small spray bottle) and doesn't appear to have refill available to reuse the bottle; #2. Though the company statement says:

“Formulated with specially selected active ingredients, Ortho® EcoSense™ Brand* offers sensible effective solutions for insect control, plant disease and rose care. Kill bugs and control disease to help flowers, vegetables and roses thrive.”

I feel like (and perhaps it is just the environmental skeptic in me) that this product can't be 100% natural when coming from Scotts/Ortho brand who makes their living on lush, chemical laden lawns at all costs (though, to be fair, I couldn't find any compelling evidence one way or the other that this branch of the company was actually "green." All the reviews I found were far more anecdotal than scientific). Otherwise, I love this product for the results I had. I was so frustrated by aphids and this completely eliminate my problem. Now, if your aphid infestation is not that bad, the dishwashing soap trick may work for you (two tablespoons liquid dish soap in a spray bottle and fill the rest with water) and save you a bundle of cash in the process. But for the length of my frustration, this product is currently well worth the money for me... now if I could just find it in a larger bottle...

Havin' a ball...

2010-05-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

The thrill of victory...

Hopefully on this holiday weekend you are not only giving thanks for our veterans and their sacrifices, but you are also able to spend time with your friends & family and get a few projects done around the house. In light of that, today's posts (yes, post-S, multiple posts today... wow... feast or famine, right?) will be about spending time with your furry family (and hopfully the people kind too) and getting some work done in that long neglected garden before summer really kicks in.

And without further adieu, the Romp-n-Roll review! We picked up this little beauty at our always fabulous, 3 Dogs and a Chick, based on rave reviews from the staff there. We chose the 6" ball (though the other sizes were available as well) because we thought the weight was probably the largest that Sadie, our smallest dog (about 40 lbs) could successfully swing around and fling by the rope on her own while playing. Though the ball comes in Red, Blue, Baby Blue or Pink the pink and baby blue balls are scented (bubblegum and blueberry, respectively) and the novelty of that was just too appealing for me not to get one of those. We chose hot pink because we figured (color blind as they may be?) that the color would be easier to see against the water when we tossed it out good & far.

Jolly Pets, I'm sorry to say, does not appear to have any organic, sustainable or green commitments in their company's mission but they do claim to place a great deal of pride in the quality and durability of their products, and they all come with a manufactures guarantee. They also make toys for horses (which I love) and zoo pets (mixed feelings... hate that the animals are in the zoo, but happy that someone is making quality toys for them to play with if they are already there) and apparently horse products is where they got their start, so they have a long history of making durable items.

As you can see, Dad got in on the tug-o-war fun as well...

To be honest, we haven't tried this toy indoors yet because it went to the beach the same day we bought it. We hung it outdoors to dry afterwards and it has gotten soaked in a thunderstorm everyday since so we haven't been able to bring it inside while it was dry yet. I imagine, based on outside play, it will be your average tug-o-war rope toy on dry land.

In the water, this toy is awesome! Extremely buoyant, easy to throw (I felt like a medieval warrior with a mace every time I would swing it around my head to give it a really good chuck out into the sound!) and the dogs loved it! This one stayed buoyant, even when pawed down underwater, and the size (for better or worse) just fit in the mouths of my medium sized dogs. More so than the "Zisc", which is pretty much meant for one dog to play with at a time even if they all have fun chasing it, the Romp-n-Roll allowed all the dogs to hold on to the toy and even play with one another more as they tried to steal it away from one another before bringing it back.

After our beach session, the ball was in great shape, but it did have some pretty serious teethmark dents on it, but they did not appear to take away from the structural integrity of the toy. The rope was in perfect condition after all the tugging as well. Overall, I would give the Romp-n-Roll 3 stars out of 5. The dogs loved the toy (but really, they are generally easy to please! ;P) and I liked that they could use it to play with each other as well as with us. Its water performance was the best I have seen yet as far as visibility and floatation were concerned. I disliked that the company doesn't have any sort of green/sustainable mission or efforts (at least not that they publicize) and that the ball had dents after one use (I don't think they will hurt the toy long term, but you can tell it has been "used" for sure). Lastly, the cotton rope on the toy, though of good quality, retains a lot of water and having to leave it outside to dry makes it hard for the toy to transition from outdoor to indoor use.

Hope you all found this helpful, and as always, enjoyed the photos of the "live testers" in action!

Ladies and Gents, No Photoshopping here, this is actually what

Scout's face looks like when he shakes off! Makes me laugh...

Hump Day Happiness

2010-05-26T11:00:00.000-05:00

I found an amazing chocolate bar at Fresh Market last week and may have fallen in love... it is not your "everyday of the week" kind of chocolate, but for a decidedly indulgent afternoon treat (especially in the bathtub with a glass of wine and a stack of magazines) this one is my new favorite...

I gave a bite to a friend and he said it tasted "like a cup of tea" but I think that was all of the orange flavour and spices that tickle your tongue... Really, it is amazing, it is organic... who could want for anything more? Hehehe...

And though, I promise to avoid politics as much as possible on this blog, I did want to share this op-ed article with you all because of how much I love the author's conclusion... I don't know if we have to be paranoid about letting our children out to play in the public places of the world but how much better would it be for the entire family if we were out there playing with them?

"Sure, it would be nice to uncage New York's children so they can feel the ecstasy of free play. But it's no less fun if we watch over them. In fact, it might be more fun. Tag, you're it."

Enjoy tingling your tastebuds and engaging your mind... Happy Wednesday!
Photos courtesy of http://www.chocablog.com/

Blessings...

2010-05-23T19:32:00.000-05:00

“Not what we say about our blessings,

but how we use them, is the true

measure of our thanksgiving.”

~W. T. Purkiser

I wanted to post today, but life has gotten away from me, and I must admit, I can't even genuinely apologize for it because I have so enjoyed my life this weekend... here are a few photos that made me smile today that remind me of all of my blessings... May you enjoy yours this Sunday as well...

Hump Day Happiness

2010-05-19T10:08:00.000-05:00

This past Friday night we attended The Hangout Beach, Music & Arts festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Though we got there a little late to enjoy the entire festival (those darn jobs holding us back from our weekends! ;P) we did catch the Zac Brown Band who had a real New Orleans jazz band on stage with them the whole night. I've always been fascinated by the power of live jazz, especially the improtu nature that creates so much of the music. Morbid as it may sound, I've always wanted to have a full New Orleans jazz band and a gospel choir to sing at my funeral, whenever that day may come! :) "Oh, When the Saints... Go Marching in.."

But I digress... the jazz band made my night and they played all the way out of the concert that night so I was able to catch these shots of them as they headed out. I have a special love for New Orleans (this past Mardi Gras I would get up early every morning and walk Bourbon Street for miles to photograph in the morning sunlight while everyone else slept off their Hurricanes until noon...) but the without the jazz, the Big Easy just wouldn't be the same. This Hump Day's Happiness is the music of the New Orleans jazz bands... download a bit onto your iPod (or whatever you have... buy a record, make a mixtape, etc.) and let yourself slip into the sunny South for awhile... I can almost taste the beignets now...

Life is Good Today...

2010-05-15T16:46:00.000-05:00

This morning I got up to go paddle-boarding with some friends but I couldn't find them at the beach so I decided to come home and take the dogs to the ocean instead. It was a gorgeous day out and the dogs were so excited when I told them to get in the back of the truck that our third pup took off down the road and took herself to the beach on her own!

Our youngest dog, Scout, is a little obsessive about always carrying around a Frisbee in his mouth. His "outside Frisbee" is so dirty from playing fetch in the backyard that we won't let it come in the house anymore but he pitches a fit when he has to come in without it. I was at a local doggie boutique the other day and saw this soft, durable Frisbee and thought it would make the perfect "house Frisbee" for our obsessive little canine. The company engineers all of their toys out of "Zogoflex®," an extremely flexible material that is designed to be recyclable and to create virtually no waste during their manufacturing process, plus it is completely latex-free, a huge bonus for latex-sensitive owners and pets!

Zogoflex "Zisc"

Even better if you have dogs that are even a little tough on toys, the company guarantees that toys made of Zogoflex material will last a lifetime or you get your choice of get your choice of a free replacement or your money back and the toy gets recycled! (West Paw Design Guarantee) At $13 a pop for these sucka's, a guarantee that you will never have to buy another one is pretty perfect!!

Okay, now for the review! As an indoor toy, this Frisbee is great! As long as you don't wing it too hard, you can throw it in the house without too much worry about knocking anything over. When it hits the walls/doors/furniture is is so flexible that it never does any damage and doesn't even leave a mark. The flexibility also helps the dogs pick it up because they can use their paws to bend it and get it in their mouths easier so no more loud scraping noises and frustrated barking as the pups nose a Frisbee along the floor for ten minutes trying to pick it up!

As an outdoor toy, the "Zisc" was touted for its ability to float so the first thing I wanted to try was to see if it would stay on top of the water. Good news and bad, the "Zisc" floats but if a pup runs into it the Frisbee sinks about six inches below the surface and takes awhile to come back to the top. This was a problem for the dogs in the beginning as none of them wanted to put their face underwater (apparently no one ever taught my pups to hold their breath... whoops!) and they kept abandoning the toy in deep water because they couldn't pick it up (and then I had to swim out to retrieve it!) But after a few tries, the dogs figured out how to hold their breath (Scout blowing bubbles underwater from his little snout was priceless!) and had a ton of fun with it. Plus, the bright color really helped them to see it when it was far out into the sound. When we used regular plastic Frisbees out in the sun, eventually the weather and sun damage would make them brittle and they would always break in the dogs mouths and I was afraid that they would swallow one of the pieces.

Overall, I would definitely recommend the Zogoflex "Zisc" but I would probably only give it 4 stars out of 5. I love the sustainability of the company, the flexibility of the product and how much the dogs love it. I wish it floated a little bit better and the price tag is still high, even if it does come with a money-back guarantee. I am especially happy with my purchase because I was able to support Nicole, the owner of "Three Dogs and A Chick," and local businesses!

As these tired pups will tell you, life is good today...

Enjoy your weekend!

Hump Day Happiness

2010-05-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

Wednesday is upon us, "Hump Day" as we always called it in college, and to celebrate being halfway through the week I have decided to begin a tradition (we shall see how long she shall wave!) of sharing something that has made me happy this week and hopefully will do the same for you... a bit of mid-week indulgence, like lighting taper candles for a Monday supper or eating an entire red velvet cupcake in one sitting... or two cupcakes... with that delicious cream cheese frosting... Mmmmm... smile...

So this week, our debut is... drumroll please... silk pajamas! I spent all day Tuesday home with my husband wearing only silk pajamas (I didn't even sleep in them... I got up, showered and then consciously chose to dress in pajamas for the rest of the day...) from sunrise til bed. Delightful. They are warm when you are chilly, cool when you are hot, and they make you feel divine, etheral and decadent as you float around the house, whether you are doing dishes or picking out paint colors for your bathroom. My pajamas are covered in giant hibicuis flowers in a variety of shades of sunset and were a splurge after a college breakup, but here are a few that I thought you might love and appreciate in your life...

Chi Silk Loungewear

A fair trade option with a chic Asian inspired top... you could totally have friends over and still wear these...

Organic Silk Satin Pajama Sets

This camisole top and bottom set is so pretty I may need to put this on my own wishlist for the future! I love the edging that looks like rose petals... sexy and adorable... score!

Pretty Plum Sugar
Gorgeous pajama sets and robes from a favorite Etsy seller... makes me want candlelight baths, hot tea & time to journal... simply divine...

The dreamer Satin Pajama

And because moderation is key in all things, even indulgence, here is a significantly less expensive option in satin from Victorias Secret... it is neither fair trade nor organic, but if you reduce your footprint elsewhere you can still splurge a little and share in the experience... Enjoy!

Photo (Header) from ultra-health.org

Débutante

2010-05-11T13:23:00.000-05:00

Thank you for joining us at High Cotton Home! This blog celebrates “the good life” that we find in everyday living. A natural life lived in moderation celebrates happiness and the good things of this world and this blog seeks to do the same. Today, our “debutante” enters the world to share with you tips, tools and things to make you smile about building a home, raising a pack & celebrating the love found in a healthy life well lived. Please check out our “About Me” for more information on why we have embarked on this journey and thank you so much for joining us as we set sail! Bon Voyage!

Photo by Renae Sykes of Magical Moments by Renae