I’m signing back in again, my friends.  It’s wonderful to be back on my feet again.  All at once, I am eager to do so many things while urging myself to spend as much time on the couch as I can.  Are you as notorious as me for overdoing it after you’ve been sick?

We started working on the hallway.  In all honesty, I began painting it months ago.  I am beyond amazed how we managed to live with an unfinished paint job. When you live with something, you kind of start accepting that it’s how it is.  You can walk by it a million times and never be bothered while a visitor would walk in and think, “Oh My Gosh!”  That’s been our hallway.

Though perhaps you would agree that a 95% finished paint job could be better than this:

This picture is our hallway when the last tenants lived here.  We can’t wait to show you the finished space!  Meanwhile, back to the couch…

A nasty bug has been lurking in our house.  

While I am still here, my “here” is really about fifteen feet away on the couch with blankets and tea.  Know that I have not forgotten about you, dear friends.  Here is a poem I wrote in college after feeling just about as I do now.  

I remember years ago.  Whenever one of us was sick, my siblings and I would always try to help each other.  Our gestures didn’t always turn out too helpful sometimes.  I’m sure you can relate!

I’M SICK

I’m sick of being sick,
and I’m tired of being tired.
But Mama, tell my brother
who spills my soup
and steals the remote—
He’s fired!

If you’re like me, you’re ready to do anything you can to cut costs, right?  We listed six ways you can lower utility bills.  Now it’s time for the list of efforts that really just aren’t worth your time.  These items won’t reduce your bills by more than pennies, and they create loads of pollution just to manufacture.  They’re just time suckers, and we say skip ‘em:

1. Don’t place that plastic film over your windows.

It doesn’t do much.  Put your hand by the window in the winter.  It’s still cold.  All you’re really doing is sealing up the house and making it impossible to open your windows.  That fresh air is essential to a healthy home!  Thick curtains are a much better investment, and they don’t look tacky.

Total time: probably a lot.  All that sticky plastic or tape?  Ugh.  Total cost: $5  Total savings: pennies, maybe more

2. Don’t put those little styrofoam plug insulators under your switch plates.

If your house is old or poorly insulated, you’re going to feel it around your light switches and plugins where the insulation is even thinner or nonexistent.  Unfortunately, a sliver of styrofoam can’t do much to change that.  They’re a pain to install.  Pound for pound, this option offers the worst benefits.

Total time: 3-5 minutes per switch.  Total cost: $2 a pack  Total savings:  probably nothing measurable.  It has no R value, the scale used to rate your level of insulation

For more green thoughts, swing by A Lil’ Welsh Rarebit where Christy interviewed me on simple steps we can all start doing for the environment.  She cleverly called it “Vegetarians Driving Hummers?”  Thanks Christy!

And don’t forget to dish the dirt.  Have any “must do” green things you hear about all the time?  You know, the ones that just make you shake your head in disbelief?  We’d love to hear what crunches your crackers.

(Images from Improvements and batticdoor)

What’s a birthday without a few decorations?  Now that we’ve got the invitations on their way, how about prepping the house?   It’s time to start the next segment of our Green Birthday Guide.

As a kid, there’s nothing cooler than seeing someone put up a few decorations in the house that are Just For You.  Honestly?  I don’t think that changes when we’re adults IF someone else does it.  You know I wouldn’t be reminding you of this bit of joy without a way to make it greener, right?

Here ya go:

Make a Recycled Newspaper Pennant Banner

We got our hands on a Wall Street Journal in English (yea!), and I don’t have to tell you how glum a newspaper like this can be around this time of year.  So after Martin and I drank up every beautiful English word, I decided to brighten the paper up.  (Go ahead and roll your eyes.  Brighten up anything in the WSJ?  Pah-leez!)

To make your own:

1. Draw triangles on the newspaper.  Mine are 6 inches tall and 5 inches wide with a half inch lip on the top.  (The lip is a must for attaching thread later.)

2. Paint and decorate your triangles.  I use acrylic paint.  The low water content will keep your paper from curling, and the paint is cheap.  (If you don’t want to see your plummeting IRA behind the pretty paint, mix a little white paint with your color.)

Here’s the supplies I used.  Believe it or not, I’ve found these exact same stamps in Germany (at Idee) and the US (at small scrapbooking stores).  Of course, they were almost twice as expensive in Germany.  So was the paint.  Oh well.

3.  Cut out the flags and arrange.

4. Assemble the flags.  Flip them over and fold down the lips.  Add a bit of glue, and lay your string along the seam.  Press closed.  I use a paintbrush to spread the glue.  Sooo much easier than a bottle.

That’s it!  Now where’s the party?

(Images by Making This Home for the Green Birthday Guide)

Part of a living a simpler life absolutely has to be finding the time to kick back a little.  

I, of course, have absolutely no experience in this.  After all, I move to Europe and what do I do?  Start remodeling a kitchen before I even have a mattress to sleep on.  Slowing down a little is my worst habit.  How about you?  Some signs that you could use a do-nothing moment:

If you’re guilty of all of them like me, care to take up a challenge with me?  Life is too short to run around constantly.  We could benefit from slowing down a little.  We have all of these conveniences like cars and cell phones.  Instead of making life easier, it means we’re constantly running errands.  It isn’t like Little House on the Prairie where Pa used to go to town once a month.  Oh no.  We’re heading out all the time, and we’re on our cell phones with urgent calls through the entire process.

Sometimes I have to trick myself into chilling out.  I do things like getting lost in Berlin on purpose or walking to German class instead of taking public transportation or my bike.  If I were a kid, the thoughts in this poem are how I’d trick myself.  I wrote it just for all of you.  A simpler life could be a really good life.

on a seesaw in Berlin

INSTEAD OF STANDING STILL

The opposite of standing still
is rolling down a grassy hill
or running from a laughing man
with a squirt gun in his hand.

The opposite of standing there
is running around everywhere
or hopping down a country road
to snatch a slimy toad.

The opposite of standing here
is prancing like a baby deer
or being told it’s time for bed
when you had plans instead.

But opposite of constant speed
is the pause from moving that I need.
So I’ll take a little breathing break
and be a sunning snake.

(Image by Martin for Making This Home)

If there’s one thing I hate in the kitchen, it’s trying to find something.  I guess that’s annoying in any part of the house.  Yet the kitchen is the worst for me.

Deep cupboards are great for holding a lot of stuff.  You just can’t find anything.  Stuff gets piled on top of each other.  You have to haul dining chairs into the kitchens or climb onto the counters.  It’s annoying as heck.

So just because we had very little space to work with, I knew that no matter what, I didn’t want to lug any more chairs or get any more bruises from banging my shins on the counter.

That’s why I pulled out the stubborn card when we started designing our kitchen.  I think we were at about this point, smashing into the wall:

My mom has these really cool pullout drawers where she keeps casserole dishes and small appliances in her US kitchen.  I thought:  why not do the same with food?  Hidden drawers are the perfect solution for storage.

The next challenge was finding drawers.  We were often met with stern responses like, “We don’t do that in Germany” when Martin and I presented an idea.  Or they may have said, “We don’t do that in Germany… you weird American kids.”  Fortunately, if they did, my German wasn’t good enough to tell.  I just kept smiling and nodding like I understood exactly what was going on.  Which I didn’t.  As everyone knew.

But you know what I did know?  I knew to take a camera with us to a huge home and kitchen store.  With the world’s greatest luck, I spotted this:

I became the lookout for pushy salesmen as Martin snapped a few pictures.  We could have just pretended not to speak German when the salesmen approached us.  After our crazy experience buying a couch in the same store, I knew that I could get away with the stubborn card at home, but I couldn’t get away with the I-only-speak-English card here.

We went home.  The next day, our favorite little kitchen shop that sold us our stove/microwave combo unit and later our granite countertop helped us pick out the perfect drawers.  Now I can find anything I need in our little version of a pantry.

We pour pastas, rice, and basking supplies into glass jars from IKEA.  They have clear tops, so all I have to do is glance down at each drawer to see what’s for dinner.

We only changed one thing from my mom’s kitchen (and the store models above).

My mom’s storage unit opens from the side like a cabinet or fridge door.  After years of having wild kids around (not me… my siblings), my mom’s wood door got a little banged up when anxious hands forced the door shut before the drawers were actually closed.  (Again, it wasn’t me.)

Martin totally designed a pull-out door front instead of a traditional cabinet door for the day my siblings decide to fly to Germany for a visit AND cook us dinner.

They’re so lucky I’m stubborn.  I’d hate to see Martin get upset with them after all the work we did on that wood.

(Images by Katie for Making This Home)

Brought to you by:
Second Nature Kitchens, a UK based supplier of quality kitchens.

Also brought to you by:
A leading door handles specialist - Door Chic can handle all your DIY requirements.