Waste Less Wednesdays: Replace Those Soles

This week’s Waste Less Wednesdays post was originally published 3 years ago (it feels like just yesterday!). I’m happy to report that all of the shoes in this post are still going strong, and I just popped into the shop to get the heel replaced on a pair of my favorite winter boots.

Feeling like you have no soul* sole? Replace it!

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In today’s cheap clothing culture it seems that we aren’t investing in quality clothing and shoes that can be refurbished rather than replaced. Today we’re talking about how easy it is to replace/fix the soles of footwear. We’re hoping to encourage you to think twice before you toss your next pair of shoes or boots.

*sorry, but you know we needed at least one soul pun in this post. It’s best that we got it out of the way in our opening line. 😉

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Our Favorite Nature Books

It’s Amazon Prime Day, and we’re re-sharing a few of our favorite book lists. Last year, I shared my six favorite wilderness reads, books I would take on the trail with me or read by headlamp in a tent.

If you’ve been following along, Kate and I are hittin’ the books hard this year. Our Read With Me series is growing each month and as we close out April, earth month, we wanted to share our favorite nature reads with you. It was hard for me to pick only a handful, but these are the first ones that came to mind and they’re all quite different at that.

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Our Favorite Nature Reads :

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Kids’ Nature Books

We know, we know, it’s amazon prime day. If you’re in the shopping mood, below are a few of our favorite nature books for kids.

We feel that it’s very important to have an understanding of and appreciation for the natural world, and we believe that both of those things should start as early as possible in a child’s life.

One of the easiest ways to help children learn about nature is to spend time outdoors. Most children are naturally curious, and as they play and explore in nature, they will begin to ask questions about plants and animals, the habitats and ecosystems where they live, and the larger world around them. This is a great time to begin answering those questions and to work together to research the answers when they are unknown to either of you.

And that leads to our second way to help children learn about the natural world and our relationship with it : books!

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Books are obviously a great resource for teaching children. They are a reference when helping to answer a child’s questions, and they can provide insights into places and times that we’ve never been, which is awesome for awakening a child’s imagination. Of course, that will likely raise more questions, and the cycle continues!

Below are a few of our current favorite nature books for kids. Some of these are straight-up reference guides, while others provide that magical view into another world (because how many of us have actually seen the hidden world of animals under the snow or experienced the immense pressure and heat at the center of the Earth?!).

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The Great Pacific Garbage Patch

April is Earth Month, and it has encouraged us to dig a little bit deeper into topics and headlines that flash across our screen. A (literal) big one is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. There are many detailed articles about this topic, and we don’t aspire to recreate them, instead we’re hoping to get you a concise summary of the issue. Throughout this post, we’ll use the term “patch” to identify the area, but as we explain below, this is not an ideal description.

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And before we go any further, hopefully it’s obvious to you that the existence of a garbage patch within the ocean is a problem. Sea animals mistake the plastics for food, filling their stomachs with garbage rather than nutrients, leading to premature death from starvation. Other animals die by getting caught in the plastics and discarded fishing nets.

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34 Alternatives to Disposable Plastic Products

Happy Monday! In honor of Earth month, we’re sharing 34 alternatives to disposable plastic products. I hope you had a swell Earth Day yesterday. Initially I had a little lake kayak paddle planned, but a friend called and suggested a food truck rodeo in downtown Chapel Hill. After sharing a serving of every and anything that called to us, we headed to her deck to sit in the sunshine and plan a camping adventure. Soaking up eight hours of beautiful North Carolina sun was actually epically earthy. I enjoyed it to the max and ended up passing out well before midnight, a first in weeks for me!

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The food truck rodeo was a no waste event, meaning everything that could be recycled or composted was with the help of volunteers who stood by each trash can instructing consumers where to discard their plates, cups, and food scraps. It’s almost unfortunate that we need that type of vigilance to get it right, but we surely do. Besides proper waste disposal, the coffee truck was selling stainless steel straws! They don’t do lids or plastic straws, hooray!

Plastic straws and my wish to ban them forever is actually what inspired this post of 34 alternatives to disposable plastic products. There is just no reason for us to go through so many, so often. Two at once?! I want to punch that drink right out of your hand. I’m not saying I’ve never done it, but I am saying I will never do it again. I once spent an entire afternoon picking up trash on one of my favorite Thai islands and by far the most common item was plastic straws. It was heart breaking.

Major benefits of swapping disposable plastic for reusable items :

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Two Bits : Earth Day Edition

Happy Friyay! There’s a party goin’ on around these parts as we celebrate the kiddos’ April birthdays with their little buds. Mimosas for the moms, a kid corner for cupcake decorating, this delicious cashew dip for fruits, some veggies and hummus, lox and bagels all around. That’s really all it takes for a good time. We think that the less you try to coordinate, the easier and more enjoyable the event. Some simple prep beforehand leaves you with very little ‘to do’ during party time giving you the time and energy you need to chat with guests and actually enjoy yourself.

Besides a cupcake decorating station, we’re handing out ‘bug bungalows‘ to each of the kids so they can play outside and capture some specimens. Kate bought them from a local toy store, they’re sold out on Amazon, but here they are on another online shop.

Tonight I’ll catch a redeye to Philly, arrive Saturday morning, and finally see my pup, Cash, after more than forty days away. Hooooray! I’m excited to feel the air in Pennsylvania and see what’s in bloom, but I’ll head right down to my bug bungalow in North Carolina.

Sunday is Earth Day and I plan on spending a sunny afternoon kayaking on Jordan Lake followed by a long hike through the mountain laurels with Cash. While I normally encourage disconnecting in nature, now is a great time to snap some photos of the natural changes you witness and any wildlife you may see to upload to iNaturalist. Being a citizen scientist is helpful any day of the year, but what better day than Earth Day?! If you’re wanting a bit of mindfulness, check out the video above and get a primer on flower gazing, a form of meditation that you can take to the trails or your garden.

 

 

Read With Me : Nature’s Healing Spirit

Want to know something neat? Each time you click through to Amazon from our website, we are kicked back a few cents from each purchase with no extra cost to you. If you ever feel like going wild on Amazon, click through from our site and you’ll be supporting us at the same time! Thanks, yo.

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Sup nerds? Are you Reading With Me this year? Last night, I finished two great books. Nature’s Healing Spirit being a quick, devourable read that I finished within three sessions of picking it up. The other, How Emotions Are Made : The Secret Life of the Brain took me nearly eight months to comprehend, and let me tell you, it was sad and shocking when the kindle book ended abruptly when my progress bar told me I still had 40% of the book to read – damn you Appendix A, B, C, and D! More on that read a different day, today it’s all about Nature’s Healing Spirit – Real Life Stores to Nurture the Soul by Sheri McGregor.

Nature’s Healing Spirit is a compilation of  33 accomplished writers’ experiences with the natural world. Some passages are straightforward, concise, and clear in tone, while others tiptoe into the narrative and only slightly pull back the shades on their personal lives. Some stories have a succinct ending while others leave you wanting for more. Luckily, each author’s piece is followed by a short biography where you can find other published works and their websites.

You’ll Enjoy Reading Nature’s Healing Spirit If :

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