Even the little things help...

Little things we do:

• recycle all the paper products, glass and plastic that the city picks up here, this cuts down a lot on the amount of trash we produce
  
• try to buy items with less packaging, but not necessarily in bulk (due to storage space)
  
• Mike bakes bread and I've found recipes for taco seasoning mix and Bisquick mix, this goes with less packaging but also I'm sure is healthier than store bought. We've cut down on buying boxed food with tons of sodium and have been using make from scratch recipes. Allrecipes.com has been a huge help with this!
• switched to cleaners from concentrate that do a little bit of everything, and also earth friendly dish detergent that the verdict is still out on. I can't tell if it's the detergent or our half-size, hard-to-fit-dishes-into apartment dish washer. Sometimes it's less frustrating just to wash by hand!
• with all our new necessities coming up with the baby, we've been able to buy/get all the big stuff second hand. We have a hard time buying new when there is used still in perfectly good shape. Don't worry, we've haven't put the baby's safety in jeopardy by doing this.
• we will also go the cloth diapering route once baby is here, we have diapers ready but can't really comment on them until after we've used them. I'll definitely be posting about this later along with our reasons to go this route. You'd be surprised and overwhelmed by all the options available now.
  
• I've been getting a lot use from the public libraries everywhere we've lived. Why buy a book that you'll only read once when you can get it at the library?
• Mike bikes to work and we only have one car, granted this one car doesn't get good gas mileage but we will drive it until it drops then get a used more efficient option.
  

Much of these little things may not stand out as being better for the earth but are. Less consumption and production puts less stress on our resources. Which also leads to less trash and junk being thrown out.
We don't consider ourselves extremist and obviously there are many things we aren't doing that we could and need to work on. But we want to make a specific effort to take care of and use wisely all that God has given us whether it be natural resources or the financial and physical blessings we've received.
So if all you do is change one little thing at a time, that will eventually make an impact.

Loosbrock Current Events

I remember back in social studies class each week we had to read the newspaper and present a current event to the class. Well this is similar but I didn't have to read the newspaper to find the events:

Baby news: Everything is going right on schedule and I'm officially in the 9th month!! After having an ultrasound today that my mom got to sit in on, the baby is healthy although a little on the small side. So that means I will be pounding the water, food and getting more rest.
House-hunting news: We've had our eye on a particular house for a few months. We'd go back and forth on deciding if it's too much work or not and how cheap is cheap enough. So with some family advice we've cut it loose. It probably will get cheaper but not what we need in the long run. We kept our eyes open for 2 br apartments just in case we didn't do this house thing and found a much bigger place for a smidgen more than what we are paying now. It's a complete God thing since the owner is a Christian, the location is better, and we can move in now. Now is imperative since Baby will be coming within a few weeks. One great thing about the new place is it's across the street from a public swimming beach on a nice lake. One potentially hazardous thing is across the street from this beach is a DQ, which means it's basically at the end of our driveway!!! Thankfully it's not open year around or I'd not be loosing my baby weight!!
So all that to say we will be making our annual move but not cross-country, more like 5 miles to east. How do you even pack for a 5 mile move?? Will paper bags work instead of boxes?

Family news: Mike's dad has made it back safely from his second and final tour in Iraq. We were able to meet him at the airport and spend a relaxing weekend with him.
My mom has made it back safely from Kenya and Philippines. She has been up here this week visiting before Baby comes and helping clean the new place.

And now for the weather: Whoever came up with April showers bring May flowers, I hope was talking about MN. We still have some sort of snow falling even though it isn't sticking and nothing budding or blooming!! And did you know it can be snowing during a thunder and lightning storm?