I love bananas.  And that’s a problem for two reasons.  I’ll get to those in a minute, but first I wanted to let it be know that I personally have nothing against bananas and would love to be eating one right now.

But I won’t.  One reason is the discovery of a food allergy to bananas.  This was not found the normal scratch your skin testing kinda way.  It was from a pricey blood test, but it was worth it.  Knowing what foods drag down my immune system has helped me in staying healthy all summer (I know, I know, it’s just summer…..we’ll see what happens when Sabrina’s back in school and then it’s winter).

Second is in line with my Project Reduce Resource Requests.  My decision to stop eating bananas was actually a precursor to the project.  I was really having a hard time fathoming requiring a fruit be shipped all the way up from Costa Rica or Ecuador just because I liked it.  I don’t need them, no one requires a banana a day to live.  So it was a choice.  When viewed at that angle, I realized I didn’t want to keep requesting more and more bananas be shipped up here.

You may think I hate a global economy or that I only wish my food to come from within 100 miles as some people do.  Both of those thoughts would be wrong.  I don’t really think that much or strive for greatness that way.  I have nothing against people who grow bananas (although I have a problem with non organic methods after visiting banana farms in Costa Rica).  I just don’t need them shipped up here.  I can find my nutrients elsewhere, like avocados which only need to be shipped from California.

But seriously, I’ve taken to reevaluating a lot of my food requests and find I don’t need fruit from far flung places just because it tastes good.  Nor do I need water from Fiji (oh brother!)  It might mean I’ll eat a bit more bland greens at every meal.  Although, in Washington, we are blessed with good hops for beer and good grapes for wine.  I’ll be ok after all.

Another project of mine that’s been on the back burner for a couple years is organicreviews.org.  The general idea is to increase awareness of organic products and to get feedback/reviews from the internet at large.  I also like the idea of an organic calendar (a calendar of organic events that is) and the more research I do on events the more excited I get.  Lastly, I’ve included a directory which is light at the moment, but will grow.  Ohh!!  And there’s a blog too!  It’s growing as well with content being brought in from various organic sites around and original content.

If you happen to read this, pop on over to organicreviews.org and take a look.  It’s not ready for prime time but next week I’ll be requesting beta users to sign up and give it a whirl.  It’s light on content at the moment but as with anything new, that’ll build as time goes on.

And while you’re at it, sign up for the blog here or here.

I have forgotten the power of free.  Free is indeed a good price for many, even if nothing is ever truly free (you usually have to put stuff somewhere).  With my recent move we’ve been putting a lot of stuff on the curb with a "FREE" sign beautifully scribbled with a failing unnamed pharmaceutical (yeah, I had to use spell check on that one) company ball point pen on ripped up moving boxes.  It’s super classy and I’d use a picture of it here, but people seem not even able to resist a FREE sign itself.  I’ve had to make two signs so far, they’re that classy.

Sure consideration was given to having a moving sale, or carting all the stuff down to the thrift store and donating it, but man, those things take more work than I’m willing to give right now.  There’s enough stuff that has to be carted around from one house to the other.  Kristi’s bed frame needs to be returned.  The other Christy’s mattress and box spring needs to be returned.  And everything seems heavy.  Sooooo, out to the curb it goes.  And zowie does it ever disappear quickly!  I’m talking middle of the morning on a weekday and the stuff just gets sucked up.  One artist took a cabinet for her brushes.  A mom and daughter loved a bookshelf.  And these people took stuff BEFORE there was a free sign on them!  Without telling people stuff is free, they still come up and ask.  The neighborhood curb is a wonderful thing.

There’s also another option if you have stuff to get rid of and don’t care to move it yourself.  It’s called Freecycle.org.  I first used this site 5 years ago or so back when I really liked getting stuff (especially free stuff).  The concept is simple; list your free stuff.  That’s about it.  Craig’s List also has a free section.  Both work well for getting and giving free stuff.

But for me I had two reasons to use the old curb (or grassy area as is the case here) instead of the internet.  1) Time.  Most of the stuff put out on the curb is gone within an hour.  2) Not having to schedule or hassle with pickups.  People see the stuff and if they want it, they take it.  No hemming and hawing. Just…..gone in 60 minutes.

I’m going to give it the ultimate test later today with a full size glass doored Ikea bookshelf.  Someone with the right vehicle will have to spot it.  I give it 2 hours tops though.  People just can’t resist other people’s free stuff.  And I can’t resist being free of the stuff I no longer want.

And yet another pet project, Focus of the Day, will be starting up next week with the Random, Nepal and National Parks photo feeds.  Currently there is no new content through the summer because, well, I’ve been focus on getting out more (and I’ll have more of my own photos to share because of it!) and enjoying the summer.  But now with school starting up and life settling down a bit, I’m ready to get these three feeds regularly stocked.

Check out the site Focus of the Day.com.  For those unfamiliar with the site, it’s run mainly using RSS or ATOM feeds to bring you a new picture each day either through email delivery or your favorite feed reader.  While the site itself is fairly simple (and will be getting a facelift soon when I bug my cousin again), the photos are a real treat each and every day (including weekends!).  No spam, no politics, no ads.  Just photos.  Delivered daily.

If you would like to submit content and have a link to a site of your choice, please leave a note in the comments section here.

To make life easier, here are the direct links to sign up for each of the feeds:

• Random
• Nepal
• National Parks

If the Carey Adventures don’t seem to be giving you the fix you need, check out Sheri & Todd’s Adventures.  Two friends of ours who are currently on a trip through Yellowstone National Park.  Follow them along on zany, whacky and sometimes OUTRAGEOUS adventures here, there and everywhere.

As mentioned in a post last week, I’m working on decreasing the amount of non-renewable resources I request.  And here I am at the first weekly update!  Not a lot to report this week, mostly stuff I’m resisting purchasing:

• Sent in boots to be repaired instead of buying new ones (they shouldn’t have come apart anyway)
• Took less showers.  This is not glamorous, but as I didn’t have a lot of appointments outside the house, I got lazy.
• Resisted the urge to buy a new camera even though they are reaaalllly cool.
• Hooked up TV to a power strip that is off most of the time, reducing energy consumption minutely.
• Hooked up main power hog computer and internet equipment to timed power strip.  All that stuff shots off while we sleep, cutting energy use by 1/3.  I know it’s not a lot, but it’s something.
• Donated a LOT of stuff from moving houses.  Along with reducing resource requests, I feel it’s important to increase renewable resource requests.  While used stuff isn’t technically "renewable" as in it can’t go on forever, having ample used clothes, furniture, books, etc. out there helps others buy used.  And Kim does a FANTASTIC job of always shopping thrift stores for most all of our household and clothes needs.  If we get new clothes, they come from our parents and are usually for Sabrina.  (although I have to admit to buying two pairs of organic hemp swim shorts 3 weeks ago, but I’ve been living in them ever since!)
• Didn’t buy one thing from Amazon this week!  This one is really hard for me because I love the Amazon Prime Oneclick button.  Sooooo easy to get stuff shipped free to your door in two days.
• Got back my GPS which was repaired.  They actually sent me a refurbished unit and I’d like to think they’ll repair the old one, but I can’t confirm this.  I really wanted to buy one of the newer ones, but mine worked and it was less money to repair.
• Went biking with flip flops for 19 miles and did fine.  I thought I’d really need boots or shoes (see previous bullet about boots)and have been meaning to buy some, but putting it off.  I’m happy to note, you can bike in flip flops just fine!  Sometimes the weeds on the side of the road whack your open toes a bit, but other than that….
• Kim regularly declines bags when shopping, either bringing her own as a lot of people around here do now, or just carrying the stuff out.
• Because of where we live, Kim was able to walk to an appointment in town instead of driving.

On to next week!

First, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to check out The Carey Adventures!  Now, if you’re reading this from a feed reader or you’re Tambee, you don’t need to read the rest of this post.  But if you’re reading it on the site itself (and you’re still not Tambee) you are missing a chunk of content!    A possibly yummy chunk.

How can this be so, you ask?  I’ve started using Digg to mark web pages and other blog posts that are of interest with what gets posted on this site (Adventure, travel, photography, organics, etc…).  By using Feedburner to manage the RSS and other feeds, including email subscriptions, I can splice in those things I mark with Digg into the feed.  However, those items so marked won’t be showing up on the website!  So you may be missing some awesome, cool, bitchin’ content.  I try not to mark everything under the sun with Digg, only things I think others might find useful and relevant.

So if you haven’t already signed up, click here to read this site in a feed reader (Bloglines, myYahoo, Goolge, etc..) or here to sign up for email delivery of this blog.

Thank you!!  

pwc

As I noted in a previous post, I’m working at reducing the amount of plastic bottles I require from product manufacturers.  In that post I noted how many bottles I had around the house just for various types of soap, both hand and shampoo.  In my quest to find a bar shampoo I came across Rawganique.com and an organic shampoo bar made from hemp.  Hemp?  Yes, it said hemp, so I figured what the heck, let’s give it a try!

I purchased the gift pack which included four soap bars and one shampoo bar.  At first I thought the shampoo bar was just another soap bar as the color and consistency was the same.  But after lathering up (I’ll leave out the scary bits) and putting hands to head, I was impressed with the amount of lather I got from such a small amount of bar soap.  The lavender and sweet orange zest is a nice way to start the day!  The rinse felt a little bit like it might be stripping away a bit too much natural oil, but after a couple weeks of trying it out my hair is best described as "normal".  I also like that I can take about 50lbs of this stuff on an airplane as carry on and I won’t get stopped!

Coming out of Canada I did have to sign for the package, but other than that, ordering and delivery was smooth with a minimal of packaging.  I’d gladly order from them again!

The Quilomene Wildlife Refuge, located in Central Washington bordering both the Columbia River and foot hills of the Cascade Mountains, is a favorite retreat for a small group of local off-road enthusiast.  We took a trip over the 4th of July weekend in 2008 and while the area can be hot and dusty in the summer, what we found was something quite different for the first couple of days.  All of the trip logs can be found linked below.  Join us in recapping this always fun and interesting trip through some stunning environments (click the links below to see individual day reports):

Thursday - Day 1

Friday - Day 2

Saturday - Day 3

Sunday - Day 4

Sepia Dub, yo