Shopping Well Spending Wisely

One bite at a time together: join a CSA (project 43)

Slowly but surely, I’m working through Tsh’s ebook One Bite at a Time and chronicling my adventures here. As you can see from this month’s installment, we are an average American family who needs to fine tune and tweak ever so gradually, or else we’ll give up entirely.

Several months ago, I decided to take advantage of the agriculturally rich area we live in, and shop the local Farmer’s Market. My kids got used to heading out on Wednesday afternoons and indulging in a churro and all the sweet strawberries and orange slices they were allowed to sample from the farmers.

Although I was enjoying this exercise in eating locally, I was always still reaching for the familiar.I saw tables covered with a rainbow of produce, but I just wasn’t brave enough to buy it. After all, I wasn’t even sure what it was called, much less how to cook with it.

Fast forward a few months when one of the (fairly large) local farms started a CSA (that’s Community Supported Agriculture). It seemed like everyone I knew was doing it. But I was scared.

You see, we aren’t big veggie eaters. I mean, sure, I can steam a head of broccoli and we can grill a mean ear of corn…but a leek? I don’t even know what a leek looks like…but it certainly doesn’t sound very good. And I was pretty sure there would be leeks in our CSA box. Also, beets terrified me. I didn’t want beets in my house.

After a couple of months of hemming and hawing, I finally took the plunge and joined, and I’m SO GLAD we did. Here are my top five reasons for joining a CSA (and why you should consider joining one too!):
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There’s still time: 20 great Christmas gifts on Amazon

Okay, so unlike other years, I’m going to START this annual post of mine with its disclaimer: Yes, I love shopping locally, and I love supporting mom-and-pop shops. It’s my preferred way to shop when everything lines up well. And I encourage you to do the same as much as you can.

BUT. Amazon truly is a godsend for busy parents who still have holiday shopping to finish and who curl up in the fetal position at the thought of bringing their kids to a store during Christmas. For this reason, among others, I’m glad Amazon exists.

It’s a week until Christmas, which means time’s running out to buy your gifts—but you have until today (December 18) to order with standard shipping; this Friday (December 21) to order with free shipping via Amazon Prime.

So if you don’t want to deal with in-store shopping but you still have stuff to get, here are some of my favorite gift ideas, all found on Amazon.

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5 Favorite flash sale sites for girls

I get a lot of questions asking where I find the cute clothes I have on my baby girl River (if you want to keep up with me on Instagram you can see more of River’s style), so I thought it would be fun to share where I find most of her things.

Flash sale sites are my best friend lately, ever since I had a daughter and finally (after three boys!) got the chance to shop for girl clothing. You can often find designer pieces at a discounted price, but I also love these sites for introducing me to clothing I wouldn’t normally come across (and certainly wouldn’t find here locally). Below are my favorite places to shop!

5 favorite sale sites for kids clothing:

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Eco-friendly dishes for kiddos

Written by contributor Dottie of Modernkiddo.com

Hi friends! I’m super excited to be here chatting with y’all on Simple Design. Especially about something so near and dear to my heart—finding cool, eco-friendly/BPA free alternatives to those bright, plastic dishes that our kiddos (and we) love so much.

Plastic ain’t so fantastic

As you probably know plastic has been getting a bit of a bad rap over the past few years. Even those darling dishes made of Melamine are posing a problem. As Time Magazine reported, the problem with Melamine – even though that type of plastic has been around for more than 100 years, it easily scratches and stains. Like most BPA plastic, the scratches leach the chemical and there is little known information on the safety of Melamine.

The FDA is investigating its safety but they’re still okay with Melamine right now. However, who knows how they will feel about it in a few years. If you can’t break up with your sweet, separated melamine dishes, that’s OK too—just replace them yearly to avoid heavy scratching and think twice about putting them in the microwave and dishwasher. But, hey, you might as well invest in some pieces that will allow you to rest easy and make your kiddos smile too.

Never do the contents of my mailbox look so beautiful as during wedding season.

Brides around the world are packaging up beautiful little invitations with sisters, friends, and occasional future grooms. We’re oohing and awwing at their creations, updating our calendars, and instantly wondering:

“What kind of gift should I give?”

This season, I challenge you to think about wedding gifts differently.

Shortly after Martin and I were married, we moved abroad. All the beautiful wedding gifts we received were boxed up and stashed away in Montana. That was five years ago.

Now we’re back in the US, building a little home in the back of an airplane hangar. I keep thinking: What types of things are we going to need? What will we eat off of? Drink from? Sleep on?

With each wedding invitation we receive in the mail, I get flashbacks to all those not-so-practical wedding gifts we have sitting in boxes. And yes, many of those gifts were things we put on our registry. Back then, with the little department store gift scanner, we thought, “These are the things adults are supposed to have.”

As I dig into the time capsule Martin and I buried five years ago, here are four things I wish I knew about wedding gifts (both as a bride and a gift giver):
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