DIY: Puppy Peanut Butter Rounds- A Great Gift for Our Furry Friends

Ever seen those booths at the mall or even at the Farmer's Market that sell gourmet pet treats? Well, being inspired by what I had seen and knowing that Bailey loved them, I decided to make some of my own to save some moolah and enjoy knowing that I had made something. I love that feeling.... Anyways, these were SUPER easy and would make a great holiday gift for our furry friends! We have lots of neighbors since we live in an apartment complex and many of them have dogs.  Pop a few of these in a cute paper sack with a little note written on the outside and these will be a much-loved gift. 

These are Peanut Butter Rounds and Bailey can't get enough. The best is that they are healthy for puppies with no preservatives (at least in my ingredients), no fake additives, and no yuckiness that might be bad for pups.

Peanut Butter Puppy Rounds

1 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour

3/4 cup oats

1/4 cup wheat germ

1/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup water

Simply mix together the ingredients.
I mixed them in our super duper KitchenAid mixer. Can't beat it.


Then separate the dough into small balls.
The original recipe called for 1 1/2 inch balls.
I made mine smaller because Bailey is a small.

Then flatten the balls with a fork (or your hand/finger like me) and
place on cookie sheet.


Then bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 mins or until golden brown. *


*Note: I have dark baking pans so I baked mine at 315 degrees for 10 mins. My treats weren't golden brown, but they were done all the way through and Bailey didn't seem to complain.


This is Bailey's serious face. Her "I will do whatever tricks you want me to even the ones I won't normally do just to have that treat in your hand" face, which means she LOVES them. Let me know if your pup does!

**Note**  This makes a rather large batch and we don't give Bailey tons of treats. (She's little so maybe one or two a day).  We, in error, did not store the treats in the fridge and some of them started to get a bit moldy within a week and a half or two so I suggest cutting the recipe in half and/or store the ones you aren't using soon in the fridge to help them last longer.  


Enjoy! 

Thrifting Find: Vintage Wooden Ornaments

This year's Christmas tree in our apartment is studded with vintage wooden ornaments that I collected this November at thrift stores.  They are gorgeous and beat up a bit and perfectly lovey.  They definitely breathe a bit of child-like goodness into our apartment.  And the best part... 95% of the ornaments were only 25¢.  The other 5% were only 50¢.  I got over 75 ornaments.  That's about $20 for a tree full of vintage ornaments.  Considering how much the plain ole glass ornaments are... that's a stellar deal.  It's also pretty priceless not looking like everyone else. 

Nutcrackers are my favorite.

 

Our lights were the big vintage ones as well. So dreamy....

Happy Graduation!!

My apologies for having to interrupt the stream of daily simple living posts, but we spent Friday and the weekend celebrating Andrew and his graduation from the MBA program with family and friends.  These celebrations of people are an essential part of sustainable mental and emotional health so it fits perfectly with the other posts.  It's always important to appreciate and celebrate the opportunities we have in life and the family and friends with whom we get to celebrate.   After all, who doesn't like a party? :)

Congratulations Andrew!! 

We are so proud of you!!

Sustainable Gift Wrap Ideas

If you haven't noticed already, the holidays can produce A LOT of waste which is a big no no when it comes to living consciously and sustainable.  

Not so good for the environment = not so good for us.  

In our apartment, we have done about half online shopping- half in stores.  The extra boxes that we receive from online purchases go into packing the other gifts.  We reuse EVERYTHING  or at least try to and recycle everything we can't use.  Take this box for example, it does not contain tea, but a special surprise.

This year, I wrapped my gifts in traditional wrapping paper for the most part.  While this can be used and recycled, next year and for the holidays and special occasions in between, I'm going to try out some more sustainable methods of wrap like using reusable grocery bags and newspaper (which I've used in the past).

Simple Organic has fabulous ideas that are so cute, while being sustainable and cheap!

Click here to check it out!

And.... Calamity Wilde Mercantile had some great ideas here.

Baby, It's Too Cold Outside!

The wintertime inevitably brings cold weather which inevitably makes you want to bundle up and stay inside out of that biting wind.  If you're like me, nature (before the first frost hits) is a daily part of life.  I run in it.  Walk in it.  Am inspired by it.  Etc.... It seems rather essential to my well-being.  If you're also like me, when it gets cold outside, my interaction with nature on any level beyond avoiding its chill is cut down to nearly zero.  I even notice that when I walk outside I don't look up and see the trees, I duck my head to avoid the wind and head to the car.

That's why this winter, I am going to make a concerted, pro-active effort to interact with nature as much as possible in a full nature immersion sort of way.  AKA- I will not be just looking out the window (though that's a start); I will be going for walks in the frigid outdoors.  There are mounds of studies that proclaim the benefits of nature on the human psyche and the exercise can't hurt either right?  So bundle up and go for a walk.  Try going when you notice it isn't snowing or the sun is shining.  Once you get moving, you really warm up and I can tell the benefits already on my mind.  Bailey really likes it too.

An Easy DIY Gift for Pups!

If you're looking for a little treat for your pup for Christmas or maybe looking to wrap something up for the neighbor's cute dog this holiday season consider making this chew rope which is SUPER easy and cheap.

Supplies: scissors and fleece material

 

step one 

Cut 3 strips of your fleece to a desired length.  They by no means have to be perfect as you can see in the picture.

For small dogs, I suggest about an 1.5" wide, 9-12" long. Bigger for bigger dogs.

 

step two

Tie a knot in one end.

 

step three

Braid the rest and tie a knot to finish.

This is so easy and dogs love them, especially smaller ones like Bailey (miniature schnauzers).  Fleece is easy to come by on the cheap too.  I got this fleece at the thrift store in plain fabric form, but you might have an old worn out fleece blanket lying around you can upcycle or find one at the thrift store.  Fleece of some pattern is also usually always on sale at arts and crafts stores.  

Super Easy and Cheap Christmas Decor DIY

Andrew and I were gifted a very large and very pretty vase for our wedding.  I think it's beautiful, but I wasn't sure how to decorate with it for Christmas until... I went on a walk with Bailey one day and was inspired.  So here's a very easy and cheap decor DIY for Christmas that is very easily customizable to your tastes and needs.

Step 1
First things first, gather your supplies.  You will need branches that fit your space.  Mine are about 2.5 feet tall. (yeah BIG vase)  You want your branches to be DRY, clean, and branchy.... with lots of little branches shooting off everywhere to create interest and movement. 

I found mine by just walking around outside.  You really shouldn't have to cut them off a tree so just keep looking so you can keep our trees intact. 

Step 2

Gather some ornaments, bows, ribbons, candy canes, lights, etc to decorate your tree. I grabbed some simple glass ornaments I got at the thrift store.

Step 3
Because I liked my branches the way they were, I skipped this step, but if you want, you can paint your branches to compliment your decor.  Gold, silver, etc.

Step 4

Arrange your branches however you want in your vase.

 

Step 5

Decorate till your heart is content.  For me, simple was better :) 

Holiday Gift Guide

Yesterday I talked about the theory behind gift giving and concluded that we should give gifts.  The challenge then becomes what gifts.... Here is my brief but Holiday Gift Guide of some specific kinds of gifts to purchase.

Find Coffee Here.

Find Soap Here.

Purchase something that empowers others.

 

This soap from WOW! and coffee from Humphrey's Street Coffee are both products made from kids living in inner city Nashville. They make the soap and the coffee and proceeds go to college scholarships for these students and a little bit to spending money for the kids to help out their families.

You can make a flat out donation to a favorite charity on behalf of someone.  

I'm a fan of Harvest Hands Community Development Corporation.

Find out about them and Donate here.

Then you can write a note to that someone telling them how special they are to you. 

You can support a local artist (or a non-local one) through sites like Etsy.com.

A couple of finds that would make great gifts for a special lady friend:

Wide Eyes

 

A Slouchy Hat 

Bath Spice Gift Set

Happy Gifting!

The Giving of Gifts

If your family is like mine, there comes a point when most of the grand kids are grown and you've all lived a decent chunk of life and as a result, you've acquired a decent load of stuff in your closets, in your house, in your kitchen drawers, in your car trunks.... you get the picture.  Thus, my family, like I suppose other families as well, moved to the next logical conclusion: because we have so much stuff and we don't need more (after all it's just stuff), we should stop giving gifts.  And so we did.

Well, it turns out that we don't like that so much. You see, it turns out the stuff is just stuff as we suspected and wasn't really missed in and of itself, but the act of giving gifts, the act of thinking about someone else so as to get them the perfect gift and fighting crowds at the mall just to get it, and the act of giving something to someone else out of your own selflessness are meaningful acts.  If you think about it, the giving of gifts is a cherished ritual of many cultures, even our own.  When I studied abroad in Japan, for example, almost everyone that I met gave me a gift out of respect when we met.  It was a tangible way of welcoming me to their country.  The same is true for the people of Indonesia and the Philippines (and many other countries).  The three wise men brought the newly born baby Jesus gifts upon their arrival in the famous Christmas story.  In the southern United States we offer people food.  In Colombia, they offer guests coffee and so on and so on....

So what is it about gifts that make us want to keep on giving and receiving?

An article in the New York Times reads,

"Gift giving has long been a favorite subject for studies on human behavior, with psychologists, anthropologists, economists and marketers all weighing in. They have found that giving gifts is a surprisingly complex and important part of human interaction, helping to define relationships and strengthen bonds with family and friends. Indeed, psychologists say it is often the giver, rather than the recipient, who reaps the biggest psychological gains from a gift."  Click here to read the whole thing.

Thus all in all, the giving and receiving of gifts seems to be an important act and I would say an act of love, and for our family, we all missed that expression of our love for one another so we moved back to giving gifts.    

BUT ISN'T THAT THE OPPOSITE OF THE SIMPLE, ANTI-MATERIALISTIC LIFESTYLE YOU ARE PROMOTING?!?

Yes... BUT that's why I encourage you to RETHINK gift giving for your family and friends and holiday festivities.  Think outside of just setting budget limits, think more about the nature of the gifts.

Ideas I've had/seen/heard:

1) Instead of giving a $25 gift (or whatever budget) to everyone, everyone writes each other a letter about how much the recipient means to the sender.

2) Only works for certain crowds, but require that all gifts given are handmade by the giver.  It can be cookies you baked, a scarf you knitted, a painting you painted, etc.

3) Cut down on the number of gifts given by exchanging names instead of getting for everyone.  Still makes you all warm and fuzzy inside.

4) Have everyone bring a gift of a certain price limit and play some Dirty Santa.  Directions vary, but here are some pretty basic ones.  For this, you have to think about gifts that a lot of people will enjoy so you still have to think outside of yourself and this one tends to be funny especially for a family or group of friends that tend to be competitive.

5) Play Dirty Santa and make it a regift exchange.  I went to one of these last night and it was hilarious! It also wasn't full of new stuff that only fills our land fills in 5 years.  It upcycled! People got DVDs, scarves and hats, a tie that looked like a salmon.... The rules were you had to regift an old gift or something you had around the house and not spend money.

I got this little bundle of fun and I found that I....

a) Love Nerds b) actually really wanted a Christmas mug, but because it wasn't necessary, I wouldn't get one (now I have one and don't feel wasteful) c) love news toys for Bailey d) (that's a University of Tennessee ornament) Like having an ornament that commemorates Andrew's and my first Christmas together here in Knoxville.

And thus, this gift = awesome.

What are your ideas?

Christmas the Simple Way

Christmas and the holiday season is the opposite of simple for a lot of people.  You may feel this way as you rush around buying gifts, decorating the house, and cooking and planning and cleaning and on and on and on.  

Yeah... 

The holidays often play out this way, but there are other ways you can make the holidays simpler and more fulfilling.  You can refocus your thoughts and activities to what the holidays are really about for you whether that be a spiritual connection or a time for getting together with friends and family.  You can make it about serving others and the environment. 

In order to help the holidays feel a bit less stressful on the mind, body, and budget, during December I will be sharing simple living tips that revolve around holidayness.

So for the first tip, GO THRIFTING not shopping!

Being newly married, Andrew and I don't have Christmas decorations. We've conquered this lack of festiveness in two main ways that revolve around simple living.

1) Our families have generously donated some on our behalf.  This is a very easy way to not spend money (aka save some awesome cash) and to reuse and upcycle as to not create more waste in the world. We've got enough of that.  People often have so many holiday decorations stored up, they don't minded sharing.  Which leads to....

2) We go thrifting for  Christmas goodies. The key to thrifting is to go often, as thrift stores put out new goodies almost daily so I have been doing a lot of decoration thrifting.  This is cheaper and again reuses old stuff so it ultimately reduces waste.  The profits from thrift stores also usually benefit charities.  The one I frequent most in Knoxville for example, benefits the American Society for the Blind.  I got these old school Christmas lights for only $2 and they look great in our sun room along the top of the window. I love the big bulbs and they were in perfect condition.   I will have to share how I have used my other holiday thrift store finds soon!

These are great ways to conserve this holiday season.

Welcome to my blog!  

Please click around and learn about me and this blog and how you can contact me!

In these inaugural posts, I will be sharing how Andrew and I celebrate Christmas the simple way.

Thanks for visiting!