Primavera

Ah. Spring is officially here and I am thrilled! Welcome, welcome, welcome! We have been waiting for many months for you to arrive....

The weather has been so lovely that the mood in the city is changing. People's Winter blues (including mine) are being replaced with a fresh, peppy, energizing aura. Today I started on my Spring cleaning. A bit of dusting and cleaning behind furniture and the appliances should do the trick this year. Oh and of course I also want to clean out our closets of clothes and shoes we no longer need. Another thing I want to do is organize all the toy mayhem! It's a nice feeling to shed the clutter and organize your living space.

What is also very exciting is that we will be starting our garden soon. This year we want to grow a bit more and so our garden boxes will be much larger and with more variety than last year. It will be quite the adventure! To follow on our garden's progress visit The Mainland Gardener.

Well I'm off to put the kids to bed for a nap and to have a nap myself...

The Shop Local Challenge

April over at Nurtured has posted about this very interesting and worthy cause and I wanted to pass it along as well. The 3/50 project challenges consumers to pick 3 of their favorite local stores and spend at least $50/month at local businesses. In today's fragile economy, I think this is a very good idea! A few local stores and restaurants we frequented have closed because of poor business in this awful economy (for example, Frog Hollow Books). I would hate to see more of them closing up. If you have favorite places you like to shop at or eat at, then make sure they stay around! It's up to us to support and ensure these businesses stay in, well, business!

With this in mind I have picked 3 of my favorites and although I already spend money at each of them, I will now make a conscious effort to visit them more often and make sure to pick up my needed products there, rather than at, well, you know those big-box places! I admit that sometimes I end up going with the cheaper price (after all this bad economy is hurting us all in some way), but understanding what this means for our local businesses I am committing to shop local whenever possible. Plus, if there's anything that I normally buy at a big-box store, I am now going to make the effort to find out if I can purchase it locally first. I encourage you to do the same! Remember that every bit helps.

My list goes something like this...
1. Nurtured: everything you need for cloth diapering, plus more; much, much more! Definitely could not do without it!
2. The Healthy Bug: they have great variety and great specials too!

3. Home Grown Organic Foods: they have a weekly home delivery of delish organic fruits and veggies, plus other local yummy foodstuffs.

Some of our other favorite places:

- Farmer's Market: the perfect place to support lots of local vendors and farmers.

- Cheelin Restaurant: the most delicious Chinese food I've ever had!

- Tree House Cafe: good food, lots of fun and not too pricey!

I look forward to adding more to my list!

What does your list look like?