Recycle More Part 2

Here's an list of easy ways you can recycle MORE in Minnesota. Some things may surprise you! Not all of these items can be put in your curbside bin. Please check with your county recycling coordinator to learn what can be left curbside and what needs to be brought elsewhere.

Recycle more paper
• Magazines and books with hard covers removed
• Window envelopes and junk mail. No need to remove the window!
• Cereal, pasta, rice and other boxboard containers. If the box holds food from your cupboard it can be recycled, if it goes in your fridge or freezer, it usually can't.
• Don't for get the bathroom: toilet paper rolls and tooth paste boxes are paper too.

Recycle more of those "odd ball" items

• Shoes- Minnesota-based Wipers Recycling recycles shoes into oil spill clean up kits.
• Clothing- U'SAgain and Goodwill both recycle clothes that can't be resold.
• Crayons- You can send in your unwanted, broken crayons to be recycled into new crazy crayons.

Riley Meets Blitzen

Saturday, there was a petting Zoo at The Woods in Maple Grove. Basically that meant one pony, a mule deer, a hedgehog and a reindeer. But Blitzen was pretty cool and so was the hedgehog! (I have a thing for hedgehogs, can't help it, they are just cute!) Riley liked the Bear mascot too! And of course the carmel apples were a draw ;) Yummy!!! We also bought Riley's Halloween costume this weekend...it's pretty funny, but I'll keep you in suspense on that one!

A Night to Blog About!

Josh and I had a date last night and it was a fantastic evening! A friend of mine from high school was in the play Forever Plaid at the Old Log Theater in Excelsior. He got us tickets to the show so before that we decided to go to dinner at Jake O'Connors Public House in Excelsior.

If you want a REAL Irish bar setting, this was the best so far...I love The Claudaugh in Maple Grove, but this place even serves BROWN BREAD! It was a great reminder of our trip to Ireland a few years back. Also, I ordered a Magners which is a cider beer. I started drinking Bulmers in Ireland and haven't been able to find that here, but I liked the Magners too, well Josh talked to the bar tender last night to see why you can't find Bulmers in the US and apparently Magners IS Bulmers...It's made by the same company and shipped to the US under a different name! Sweet! So I had my Brown Bread and Bulmers and some Butternut Squash Ravioli with Scallops and then we went to the play.

Forever Plaid was HILARIOUS! I can't say enough about it...I laughed so hard I was wiping my eyes through the entire show! I wish I could tell you all to go see it, but last night was the final performance. If any of you have seen the show, my friend TJ was "Jinx" and he was awesome! And the rest of the case was amazing too. Ok...so I'm rambling on and on about Beer, Brown Bread and Musicals! You now think I'm crazy or I drank too much...Oh well...it was a great date night!

TG Homecoming! Go Eagles!

Friday night we ventured to Riley's first TG Homecoming game. I think last year it might have been raining or insanely cold or something so we didn't bring her. This year it was almost 80 degrees still and a perfect night for taking the kids to the game. Alumni kids were given a foam finger to play with and Zack and Riley liked that - for a while anyway. Most of the time we were there the kids spent running literally in circles around the parents. I got dizzy trying to keep Roo from knocking over "big people" but they had fun! Kiley Marie even made her debut since it was such a great night! Most of us left by half time (right after the E'gals performance that Riley kinda got into with some dance moves of her own) but TG was leading so I assume we won. GO EAGLES! (P.S. Zack was pretty scared of the Eagle Mascot!)

Busy Weekend Part 1

Friday was a busy day for us. Josh took the day off of work and we went to Ren Fest in the morning and TG homecoming in the afternoon. I'll start with pictures from RF, but there aren't many good shots. We only stayed about 2+ hours because Riley wanted to take pictures with Mommy's camera phone, and she doesn't understand that Mommy has to set it up for her after every picture so she melted down! Now, that is mostly our fault. We're trying to push her to a later nap schedule but the transition means we sometimes have a crabby kid around noon. So we knew we were probably close to our limit anyway.

The pics are of Roo and my favorite - Chocolate Covered Strawberries! And of Riley assisting in a Merry Band...of course we didn't get a picture of the guy with the violin who invited her to join his Merry Band, but you get the idea.
More pictures tomorrow, Stay tuned...

Recycle More

More from my Living Green 365 newsletter. Haven't posted anything Green in a while and there's a lot of good stuff in the new newsletter so there will be more to come:

Simple actions make a big impact

• Recycling is easy and lots of people do it, yet I often get asked, "Does recycling matter? Does it make a difference?" The answer is "yes."
• At 43.2%, Minnesota has the second highest recycling rate in the nation behind only Oregon.
• In 2003 recycling resulted in a net reduction of greenhouse gases of 1.5 million tons, this is equal to taking over 1 million cars off the road.
• Minnesotans saved nearly $1.5 million in energy costs just by recycling their plastic in 2006.
• The recycling industry in Minnesota employs approximately 20,000 Minnesotans.

TIGF

In keeping with my Fall fun this week, I'm thankful for all the festivitites we have to keep us busy this month and next. We went to the apple orchard which was awesome, Ren Fest was this morning (next year I think we'll go on a Saturday, the Friday crowd is mostly school field trips - No Woodchuck:( and some of my favorite vendors weren't there today, but still a beautiful day for Ren Fest) and Homecoming is tonight. Couldn't be a nicer day for it. We still have some fun planned for this weekend too! And mostly today I am loving Good Earth decaf tea and pumpkin bars from Emma Krumbees! Yummy....oh, and in case you were wondering, my apple pie turned out pretty darn yummy too!