Compost Beginnings-Circle of Life

Last year, Biceps and I made our DIY Spinning Composter to speed up the process of breaking down organic materials (a couple of weeks instead of a couple of months).

The composter was repinned so many times on pinterest, that we made a video showing exactly how the composter operates.

I love recycling the stuff I normally would toss in the garbage as I’m cooking.

I’m using a large pickle jar to gather my kitchen scraps-taking it out to the composter when it’s full and overflowing with goodness.

I opted for a glass jar, rather than plastic-due to the stinky factor.

Soon, what you see here will be composted down into beautiful black compost.

My garden will say “Yum!”, pushing this nutrient rich compost through their hardy roots and into the plant .

And I will say “Yum” when my plants are producing a bountiful harvest due to the increased nutrients, with which I will once again compost the peelings, tips and scraps back into the garden.

It’s the circle of life.

How to make Easy Sushi (No Raw Fish)

Biceps and I LOVE Sushi. We don’t however, love the price tag on restaurant sushi, or the empty stomach an hour later because tried to get by on two rolls a piece.
Making sushi at home can sound overwhelming-and I am by no means an expert. I am a sushi hack.

Sushi is super cheap to make at home, very low calorie and makes Biceps one happy man. Win-win-win.

It’s rather easy once you know what you are doing. Steering clear of raw fish in my sushi, I opt for either raw vegetables or cooked crab.

(ps-I shared this over at Curbly in January)

Here’s what you’ll need to make your own sushi:

Raw Vegies-1 cucumber, 1 avacado, 2 carrots
1 Package of Cooked crab sticks (if desired)
1/4 Cup Sweetened Rice Wine Vinegar
5 Cups Sushi Rice (I use Nori brand)
10-15 Seaweed papers
Rice Cooker

Measure out the amount of rice and water according to your rice cooker directions. (I use 5 Cups of rice with 6 Cups of water). Turn on the rice cooker and let it do it’s thing.

While the rice is cooking, thinly slice up the crab meat (if desired).

Peel the skin off of the cucumber.

Next, slice the cucumber in half.

Using a small spoon, scrape out the seeds from the center of the cucumber.

Cut the cucumber to length in reference to the size of the seaweed paper. Thinly slice the cucumber lengthways.

Once the rice is finished, transfer it to a non-metallic bowl.

Add about 1/4 C of Sweetened Rice Wine Vinegar per 5 Cups of rice. (if you can’t find sweetened, add a two packets of Splenda or 2 TBS of sugar).

After coating the rice with the vinegar, spread a thin amount of rice evenly on the seaweed paper.

Add the cucumber, crab, avacado, etc 1/3 of the way down on the seaweed paper.

Begin rolling the seaweed paper away from you, starting from the end closest to the contents.

Once the seaweed paper is completely rolled up, it should look like this-but prettier. I left some rice hanging out of the end so that you could see where the end of the paper was.

Using a bread knife, cut the sushi roll into 1″ slices. Occasionally, run the knife under cold water to keep it from sticking to the sushi roll.

Line the sushi up like a little army on your plate. I recommend soy sauce and wasabi to further enhance the roll’s flavor. Enjoy!

Linking up here, along with other parties:

Discipline is Great? Being Debt Free.

Biceps and I have been on the path to becoming completely debt free. We aren’t credit card users and we have always bought our cars cash, but we do still owe on my student loans, our rentals and our personal home.

Using Dave Ramsey’s mortgage calculator, we trimmed our budget in order to accelerate our payoff schedules on each debt that we have (student loans, rent houses and our personal home).

Trimming our budget means opting for picnics instead of fancy dinners, watching limited basic cable on our 27″ ginormous old-school t.v. …

…sharing one car instead of buying a second dream car,

…me biking almost everywhere on this cheapo deapo bike…

…and finding cheaper ways to live (making my own face wash, facial moisturizer, lip balm etc).

This also means any improvement that I do on our home (i.e. redoing our living and dining rooms with these awesome colors), must be paid for by extra income or selling something in the house we no longer need.

2

Lord willing, we will have my student loans paid off in two years…

4

our rental houses paid off in four years…

6

and our home paid off in six years.

This means that by the time we have one of these hooligans-our only bills will be electricity, water and cell phones. Which I am trying to figure out a way to get around paying for these, too.

I think I could live off of candle power, roof water and a tin can for a phone. Not sure about Biceps, though. He’s pretty pampered.

The reason that I’m telling you our financial goals is to help me maintain my motivation when I want to splurge on something. I will feel accountable to you and remind myself that it’s not part of The Plan.

I don’t really ever need another new shirt, a fancy bottle of wine or more camera equipment. What I need-truly need–is:
to “owe no man anything” and
to have ability to serve others with my time by becoming free from the enslavement of working to own something.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, we will be completely debt free in 2018.

Discipline is tough when I want to spend but am the only one that can close the wallet. It’s sometimes embarrassing when everyone else wants to order drinks and we ask for water. However, the sacrifice and the discipline will be more than worth it when I write that last check to our bank.

And on the memo line of that last check, I will write-“It’s been interesting.”

Kitties likes to scratch

The kittens have yet to be decorated with anything other than their own fur. I’ve been hoping to find some very chic and hip collars for them, but so far have found only something that reminds me of Blue’s Clue’s pattern.

However, if they do ever escape,Bianca and Maxwell need identifiers. So, Blue’s Clues pattern it was-pink for Bianca and blue for Maxwell.

Maxwell did not like his new collar.

At this point, half of it is in his mouth, locked in his jaw and he can’t seem to figure out what to do with this new accessory.

He flipped…

…and he flopped, in a rather ticked off manner.

Bianca threw herself to the ground and tried using the rug to remove it.

I’m unsure what her real plan was here.

Let’s just say, we’ll see how long term the ol Blue’s Clues collars will be. I think the shelf life may be rather short.