Please pass the bread.

Today, little one and I went to our local grocery store to pick up all of their day-old bakery products for FoodLink in our area. It was our first time doing this, so really, I had no idea what to expect. We picked up three shopping carts full of products -- loaves of bread, buns, muffins, cheesecakes, pies...the list goes on and on. It was staggering how much was there. Had we not picked it up, it would have been thrown in the dumpster. I just assumend that since there was so much, they had been saving it for us for a few days. Not so. They throw away this much food every day. Every day? I couldn't believe it. Since we have been on a bread baking kick lately, we know just how much work we were talking about here. What a waste of effort. Then there is the still more important side. People are hungry. There was all this food that can help and we got to make that food availible to the people who needed it. I left there feeling like I really made a small difference today. A perfect lesson in life for little one.

In that same spirit of making a small difference, I just finished my first eco-bag. I used an idea from this book for the decorations.

The picture doesn't really show the snazzy yellow stitching around and through the shapes, but it really makes the bag, so I thought I'd mention it to you. (The green beads behind the bag are little one's addition to the picture. She wanted more color.) I'm pretty proud and will definitely carry it with me to stores. I think that I'm going to make another one that I can just wad up and cram in my car for all the kid fallout that seems to collect there. Maybe oil-cloth, so that I can just wipe off the gross that is inevitable. All in all, not bad for a friday, don't you agree?