A Tiny House, Sustainability, and Trail Mix: Get Back to the Basics

Disclosure: A Tiny House, Sustainability and Trail Mix: Get Back to the Basics is a sponsored post. I received the following  free for an honest review. Posts may contain affiliate links.

The Big Adventures of Tiny House

The Big Adventures of Tiny House is a story about an old farmhouse that gets recycled into something new: TINY, a little house with a big heart – and WHEELS! With the help of Big Truck and lots of friends they meet along the way, Tiny travels the country to discover the true meaning of home.

The book was inspired by the real-life adventures of Alexis DeHart Stephens and Christian Parsons of Tiny House Expedition. They’ve journeyed more than 25,000 miles so far throughout America.

My Review

I adored this book! I’m a bit obsessed with Tiny Houses. I love watching the shows on HGTV where the people are searching for tiny homes. It’s so much fun looking inside of them and imagining what it would be like to live in one. It’s my dream to travel and live a smaller life. Who knows. Maybe when my kids have their own homes and families, I’ll be able to do that. In the meantime, I can dream.

In The Big Adventures of Tiny House, an old farmhouse gets a brand new life. Along the way, Tiny learns about what it means to be a home. He travels the country and makes many new friends. I love the illustrations in this sweet book. They bring such a depth of understanding to the story. The houses have their own personalities, and this helps the story come alive.

The Big Adventures of Tiny House shares a message of sustainability, eco friendly living, acceptance and so much more. Though this book is recommended for ages 3-8, I think it is a book everyone will love!

Purchase The Big Adventures of Tiny House

Sustainability Made Simple: Small Changes for a Big Impact

Lauded by Booklist as “an essential guidebook for anyone who wants to make a difference,” Sustainability Made Simple provides kid-friendly, practical pointers for families interested in adopting a greener, more sustainable lifestyle. Raising an environmentally friendly family is a win-win for everyone — going green contributes to your family’s health, your pocketbook and the overall well being of the planet. Better yet, reducing your family’s environmental footprint doesn’t require “going off the grid” or making drastic changes that take time and money. Saving the world starts at home and the best part is that doing good can be a fun, family affair!

From chores around the house to throwing a party, Sustainability Made Simple: Small Changes for Big Impact (Rowman & Littlefield) reveals fresh, actionable steps anyone can make at home, school, work, and on the road to reduce their environmental footprint like:

• How to make meal choices that are good for you AND the environment
• Get your hands dirty — plant a veggie garden, flowers that attract butterflies and bees, and herb gardens too
• Simple tips for making your kitchen a more sustainable-friendly area of your home
• Sound advice on how to take sustainability “on the road” while on vacation, shopping or running errands and taking the kids to soccer practice

With an emphasis on science, facts and practicality, environmental experts and co-authors Rosaly Bird and Lauren DeMates introduce readers to the concept of sustainability and humanity’s growing impact on the environment, and translate science-based evidence into easy-to-understand language to show how these big issues are linked to daily life and how working towards sustainability is an opportunity to do things better.

My Review

I love that Sustainability Made Simple IS simple. It can be so overwhelming when you think about sustainable living as a whole. By breaking it down into smaller, doable steps, that feeling of “never being able to make a change” goes away. Here is an example from the “In the Bathroom” chapter: use cold water instead of hot when you can, shut off the water when you’re brushing your teeth, reuse towels, and avoid toxic chemicals in your personal care products. You also get a list of those chemicals to avoid.

Buying reusable bags for your shopping is another simple step you can take to make a huge difference! I love the bags from Baggu and in this giveaway, you’ll get your own.

 Purchase Sustainability Made Simple: Small Changes for Big Impact

Food on Foot

What did great adventurers eat during their expeditions to the far corners of the world? How did they view the role of food in their survival and wellbeing? What about hikers and backpackers today who set out to enjoy nature, pushing their own boundaries of comfort for adventure. How does food impact their experience? And what do they have in common with pilgrims and soldiers?

Food is a significant element of our relationship with nature. Whether a historical expedition or a weekend camping trip, a journey made on foot requires sustenance. Without mastering our relationship with food we would have not been to the South Pole or summited Mt. Everest or expanded to the west of America. However, in the reporting of these expeditions so far food has rarely taken a central role. It is possible to take a different stance and look at our time on trails with food as the leading character.

Here, Demet Guzey offers a fun and interesting read on the social and cultural history, developments and challenges in food on trails and in the wild. She explores personal accounts, news articles and anecdotes to highlight how food has accompanied us in mountaineering, desert travel, and pilgrimage, in the army or on the street. From tinned foods to foraging in the wild, worm-infested hardtack to palate-dulling army rations, loss of appetite in high altitude to starvation at the trenches, no stone is left unturned in this tour of how we manage food on foot, and how disasters happen when we do not manage it so well. Readers will delight in both the stories of many of the famous explorations and the more current journeys.

My Review

I do not think I would have done well in the early days of travel. I mean, maybe I would have been used to it, so it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but….Some of the foods early travelers ate are not things I find appetizing. And some things they were forced to eat due to horrible winter weather conditions, and they would have starved otherwise.  Those stories are fascinating. I read a book about Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance Expedition several years ago. Their adventurous spirits had to have been tremendous to have even envisioned that journey.

This book is a must for anyone who loves reading about historical journeys and food.

 Purchase Food on Foot: A History of Eating on Trails and in the Wild (Food on the Go)

Trail Mix with Puffin Cereal

Food that we eat “on foot” has definitely come a long way.  Variations of trail mix may date back to the 1940’s though the term became more popular in the 1970s. It is the perfect food to take on hikes because it is light and can pack a bunch of nutrition if you make it with the right ingredients. We always take trail mix on road trips too.

This trail mix is made with Peanut Butter Puffin Cereals, dried cranberries, almonds, chocolate chips, and coconut. So simple, yet so delicious!

Puffins cereals are non-GMO and they’ve got gluten free varieties for those of you with gluten allergies. I want to try this Puffins Power-Up Smoothie Bowl next! I just need to freeze some bananas soon. This makes a great breakfast for dinner option, so you don’t have to get hot from cooking!