went exploring yesterday and got lots of pictures to show for it.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
beautiful garden, talented artist, fresh fruit, refashioned clothing...
beautiful garden, talented artist, fresh fruit, refashioned clothing
or if you prefer to look at everything all together... joontoon's photostream
Monday, July 6, 2009
pics, pics, pics
howdy everyone.
summer has hit germany. it's hot and wonderful. we're having loads of fun, sweating our butts off, learning lots of new stuff, rediscovering little bits of childhood goodness (i.e. southern sweet tea and playing in the woods) and suffered from a brief tummy flu which has been successfully cured.
things are great and as usual we've got lots of pics to prove it...
yesterday and for friends and family more of yesterday even more pics taken by our dear friends.
new dress and haircut and if i have the nerve to battle the internet once more today, there's more to come, too.
hope you enjoy! i'm off to catch up on housework, take a much needed shower and hopefully set up our new bicycle trailer.
summer has hit germany. it's hot and wonderful. we're having loads of fun, sweating our butts off, learning lots of new stuff, rediscovering little bits of childhood goodness (i.e. southern sweet tea and playing in the woods) and suffered from a brief tummy flu which has been successfully cured.
things are great and as usual we've got lots of pics to prove it...
yesterday and for friends and family more of yesterday even more pics taken by our dear friends.
new dress and haircut and if i have the nerve to battle the internet once more today, there's more to come, too.
hope you enjoy! i'm off to catch up on housework, take a much needed shower and hopefully set up our new bicycle trailer.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
the pledge
it's june 1st, a day i've been mentally preparing for the past couple of weeks. the reason today is special? it marks the first day of a 2-month long experiment for me.
i've decided to take the wardrobe refashion pledge.
the official rules as stated on the website are as follows...
1. No buying new! (handmade is excepted; So this allows for Etsy purchases etc!!) All clothing must be Recycled, Renovated, Preloved or Thrifted, or Handmade only for the term. Employment related and special needs clothing (ie sports, school), shoes and undies are excepted from the rules, although you are encouraged to have a go at making these.
2. In extreme circumstances, maybe a special event, or the worlds greatest and most amazing never to be repeated sale that you simply can not pass up, you may use the Get out of Refashionista Jail Free card. You are able to use this card once during the 2 month part of your contract; ie 1 for 2 months, 2 for 4 months etc. Of course you need to fess up on the blog and display the button!
3. You must post on the blog at least once a week to let the community know what you've been up to. This will not only give you brag points, but inspire and encorouge others! Of course you need to display the button on your blog and have copied the pledge in at least one post, and provide a link to your pledge under the button.
4. You need to be honest and admit when you've fallen off the Refashionista Wagon! Go directly to Refashionista Jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200! Apply for parole once there.
refashioning has long been something of interest to me and i've collected several big moving boxes full of pre-loved (or not so loved) clothing in the past few years hoping that i'd one day put new life into these items and make them wearable again. once i really got into sewing though i unfortunately also really got into buying fancy new fabrics and so i created new items from scratch using new materials and those boxes have remained more or less untouched.
doing lots of thinking about consumer culture lately and having lots of interesting conversations with my awesomely driven creative and independent thinking husband i realize that i must try as best as i can to make use of the resources we have and that unfortunately the only way to change consumer culture is to avoid being a consumer of mass production whenever possible. even if that means being inconvenienced at times. so there are lots of "thinking outside the box" challenges ahead of me and i'm very much looking forward to facing them.
in addition of taking the pledge for clothing i've also promised myself that we as a family will take the spirit of no buying new! re-use! and less is more! to all aspects of life. over the next two months we will only purchase things we actually truely need or which will help enable us need less (i.e. we just spent 100 bucks on a bycicle cart to pull around the children in and will need to purchase new tires and small bits to get our bikes in running order so that we will have fewer reasons to use a car) and when we will try to purchase used items whenever possible.
i will post on the wardrobe refashion blog at least once a week about the wardrobe part of our experiment. if we make other cool discoveries or come up with cool anti-mass-consumption stuff i'll most likely post about it on our family blog.
so now here's the official part...
The Pledge
i've decided to take the wardrobe refashion pledge.
the official rules as stated on the website are as follows...
1. No buying new! (handmade is excepted; So this allows for Etsy purchases etc!!) All clothing must be Recycled, Renovated, Preloved or Thrifted, or Handmade only for the term. Employment related and special needs clothing (ie sports, school), shoes and undies are excepted from the rules, although you are encouraged to have a go at making these.
2. In extreme circumstances, maybe a special event, or the worlds greatest and most amazing never to be repeated sale that you simply can not pass up, you may use the Get out of Refashionista Jail Free card. You are able to use this card once during the 2 month part of your contract; ie 1 for 2 months, 2 for 4 months etc. Of course you need to fess up on the blog and display the button!
3. You must post on the blog at least once a week to let the community know what you've been up to. This will not only give you brag points, but inspire and encorouge others! Of course you need to display the button on your blog and have copied the pledge in at least one post, and provide a link to your pledge under the button.
4. You need to be honest and admit when you've fallen off the Refashionista Wagon! Go directly to Refashionista Jail, do not pass GO and do not collect $200! Apply for parole once there.
refashioning has long been something of interest to me and i've collected several big moving boxes full of pre-loved (or not so loved) clothing in the past few years hoping that i'd one day put new life into these items and make them wearable again. once i really got into sewing though i unfortunately also really got into buying fancy new fabrics and so i created new items from scratch using new materials and those boxes have remained more or less untouched.
doing lots of thinking about consumer culture lately and having lots of interesting conversations with my awesomely driven creative and independent thinking husband i realize that i must try as best as i can to make use of the resources we have and that unfortunately the only way to change consumer culture is to avoid being a consumer of mass production whenever possible. even if that means being inconvenienced at times. so there are lots of "thinking outside the box" challenges ahead of me and i'm very much looking forward to facing them.
in addition of taking the pledge for clothing i've also promised myself that we as a family will take the spirit of no buying new! re-use! and less is more! to all aspects of life. over the next two months we will only purchase things we actually truely need or which will help enable us need less (i.e. we just spent 100 bucks on a bycicle cart to pull around the children in and will need to purchase new tires and small bits to get our bikes in running order so that we will have fewer reasons to use a car) and when we will try to purchase used items whenever possible.
i will post on the wardrobe refashion blog at least once a week about the wardrobe part of our experiment. if we make other cool discoveries or come up with cool anti-mass-consumption stuff i'll most likely post about it on our family blog.
so now here's the official part...
I, Karoline Stephens, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings! Signed xxx.
Monday, June 29, 2009
more happy hippie pics
since either flickr has decided to hate me or this crappy internet connection and flickr can't work together, i'll try and upload more pics straight to the blog.
hoping that'll work. the quality won't be as high but once thee flickr situation is sorted out i'll add the full size images to our flickr collection.
so...
btw, if any of you have considered buying a baby carrier but are afraid it's not worth it because you won't get to use it long enough...
joon was exhausted after water fun and wanted me to carry her home. i strapped her in the manduca and was very surprised how comfortable it was. sure, she's heavy. but it was totally possible. i hadn't carried her in over a year and it felt kinda nice having her ride on my back again. she fell asleep and i climbed across the little mountain between our house and the woods with a sleepy toddler on my back. that trip would not have been possible with a stroller.
so. buy that carrier! and once you're really done with it you can resell it for a very good bit of your initial investment.
hoping that'll work. the quality won't be as high but once thee flickr situation is sorted out i'll add the full size images to our flickr collection.
so...
btw, if any of you have considered buying a baby carrier but are afraid it's not worth it because you won't get to use it long enough...
joon was exhausted after water fun and wanted me to carry her home. i strapped her in the manduca and was very surprised how comfortable it was. sure, she's heavy. but it was totally possible. i hadn't carried her in over a year and it felt kinda nice having her ride on my back again. she fell asleep and i climbed across the little mountain between our house and the woods with a sleepy toddler on my back. that trip would not have been possible with a stroller.
so. buy that carrier! and once you're really done with it you can resell it for a very good bit of your initial investment.
happy hippie folks
after a couple of days of acclimating to the new situation we are now fully enjoying life so close to the woods in a nice organic quiet neighborhood.
first thing this morning right after breakfast we went on a wood hike again. mika napped in our manduca and the rest of us happily marched towards the big playground and small stream which offers endless playfun and runs through the woods right behind the play area.
joon has gained so much confidence in the past couple of days (and so have we!) so she can now ride on all the "big kid toys" on her own.
soon after we got there though a large group of ten-year-olds arrived in all their pre-puberty glory so we fled the scene and set up camp by the water instead. within minutes joon's pants got wet so we just undressed her and let her play naked. pictures of that are found here but you need to have or create a flickr account AND add "joontoons" as a friend or family. keepin' the crazy internet stalkers away from our kiddos. ;)
i'm also working on uploading lots more pictures to a public set which will be called "forest fun" but somehow the internet is done being my friend for the day. i'll letcha know as soon as everything's up.
so. happy hippie greetings from all of us to all of you! hope you're enjoying summer wherever you are!
Sunday, June 28, 2009
building, styling, riding, tarzaning, kidwearing, NIPing, picking
lots of new pictures for the loving grandparents and all others who care to keep up with our currently kinda strange life here. (hoping the upload will work. internet at this house is a bit wonky.)
as you may know we're spending a few weeks at my mom's house. we've been helping my sister move (bleh!), reorganizing two rooms in that old house and spending lots of time outside.
the girls are doing really well, they're extremely happy to be in such a wonderful place with lots of attention from family members. joon is in heaven getting to go outside whenever she feels like it and playing with all the random odds and ends she gets to discover around here. her days are filled with exploring and she's obsessed with watching "poppins" every night before bed and most mornings before starting her busy day.
today we finally took a much needed break from working on the house and went on a long hike in the woods. walking to the woods from here takes about three minutes so we'll be doing lots more hiking in the next weeks. joon loved the big playground and met a two-and-a-half-year old boy named julian who was the perfect size for her to ride the seesaw-carousel with. his dad basically looked like dave's twin, they're also german-english bilingual AND the kid attends the waldkindergarten we're hoping to send our girls to. needless to say we were pretty stoked to meet these guys and silly shy german me did not get their phone number. i regret that now but am guessing we'll run into them again some time soon.
after her nap joon got to pick this year's first tomato. yum. our garden is doing surprisingly well considering we've been really slacking at keeping it in good shape. living here has certainly helped make it easier for us to take care of it though and in another week or so we should be drowning in tomatoes.
so. off to go back outside. i'm hoping all our pictures will upload despite the annoyingly slow internet connection here.
as always though, a little tease...
as you may know we're spending a few weeks at my mom's house. we've been helping my sister move (bleh!), reorganizing two rooms in that old house and spending lots of time outside.
the girls are doing really well, they're extremely happy to be in such a wonderful place with lots of attention from family members. joon is in heaven getting to go outside whenever she feels like it and playing with all the random odds and ends she gets to discover around here. her days are filled with exploring and she's obsessed with watching "poppins" every night before bed and most mornings before starting her busy day.
today we finally took a much needed break from working on the house and went on a long hike in the woods. walking to the woods from here takes about three minutes so we'll be doing lots more hiking in the next weeks. joon loved the big playground and met a two-and-a-half-year old boy named julian who was the perfect size for her to ride the seesaw-carousel with. his dad basically looked like dave's twin, they're also german-english bilingual AND the kid attends the waldkindergarten we're hoping to send our girls to. needless to say we were pretty stoked to meet these guys and silly shy german me did not get their phone number. i regret that now but am guessing we'll run into them again some time soon.
after her nap joon got to pick this year's first tomato. yum. our garden is doing surprisingly well considering we've been really slacking at keeping it in good shape. living here has certainly helped make it easier for us to take care of it though and in another week or so we should be drowning in tomatoes.
so. off to go back outside. i'm hoping all our pictures will upload despite the annoyingly slow internet connection here.
as always though, a little tease...
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