Allie Zottola

My heart is so incredibly heavy. Our Lola girl passed away yesterday.

Lola was my birthday gift when I turned 14. My dad and I went to a local shelter and picked her out together. She was an adorable, wild little puppy and changed my life in the best way.

She saw me through high school, college, getting married, moving, adopting Malcolm and Mavis, pregnancy, and having a baby.

She was by my side through so many life changes. She always went with the flow and accepted each new family member and circumstance.

She loved a good, long walk, car rides, food of any sort, and snuggling on the couch. We pet sat together and shared food and years of memories. When Jimmy would take her to work with him she would hang out in the office and quietly greet new visitors. She had her stubborn moments, and she adored digging in the trash.

We went on so many walks together. In the heat, snow, on the beach, with other dogs, by rivers, in the woods, and so many other places. She was my baby girl for 13 years.

I had her before I started this blog and even before I met Jimmy.

Her passing came as a complete shock. I let her and Mavis outside yesterday afternoon and Mavis came back in as soon as she went to the bathroom, as usual. Lola did her usual thing of sniffing around the yard and sunbathing while Sadie, Mavis, and I hung out inside. Our neighbor knocked on the door and said I should check on Lola because she was laying strangely.

I went outside to check on her and she had passed. I’m not sure what happened. She was laying in an odd position, so I don’t know if she hurt her neck while rolling in the grass, or if she had a heart attack or seizure or something else. Whatever the case, I think her passing was fast and hopefully peaceful. She was totally fine that morning, and I’m glad she didn’t have a long, slow, and sad decline in health before she passed.

My parents were nearby and came over, and my dad and Jimmy buried her at Jimmy’s work–one of her favorite places. Thankfully I had a chance to pet her one last time and feel her soft ears and paws and say goodbye before my dad and Jimmy took her.

Mavis was doing okay until bed time. We went to bed and she started howling and crying, so she slept between Jimmy and I last night. We’re all just completely heartbroken at the sudden loss of Lola. I’m so thankful I had so many great years with her. She was truly such a sweet girl.

Case in point: below is the last picture I have of her. I laid on the couch to take a nap on Saturday and she and Mavis hopped up and napped right along with me.

I miss her so much already ❤

I’ve made a few changes around our household to help the environment and save money. Let me know if you do any of these or have other environmentally-friendly and money-saving habits!

Disclosure: this post contains affiliate links, so if you purchase something, I’ll earn a little coffee money 😉

Growing our own food. Each spring, we plant a garden. It’s so much fun (and work, lol) and saves us a ton on produce. We’re still harvesting veggies now in October!

Hanging laundry to dry. This is a no-brainer. Unless it’s our bedding, I’ve been hanging everything up to dry. It takes a little time to hang everything and it definitely takes longer to dry, but it’s no biggie. Also, did you know energy companies charge more for electricity during their peak hours? I try to do laundry during off-hours to save on electricity.

Recycling and reusing. So, this is crazy, but our neighborhood doesn’t have recycling. For a while, I was good about collecting anything recyclable we use and giving it to my parents since they have recycling in their town. Then we had a child and life got busy… but I’m back on the recycling train again and it feels great! Thanks, mom and dad, for letting me give you bags of cans and plastic containers 🙂

I’m thinking of getting a dual garbage can that has a slot for regular garbage and one for recyclables. Along with recycling, I’ve been re-using containers as much as possible. If we finish a jar of peanut butter (which, lets face it, happens a lot around the Zottola house), I wash it out and use it to hold a serving of rice pudding for Jimmy to take to work in his lunch. I’ve also been washing out and re-using gallon and quart zip-top bags. I’m thinking some reusable food storage bags that are dishwasher safe would be a lot easier, though. When there’s something I need, to try to borrow instead of buy or buy used.

Re-usable k-cup pods. I think everyone knows that k-cups are super convenient, but they’re also expensive and throwing away the plastic cups isn’t great (though I figured out you can recycle some of them!). I found this pack of re-usable k-cup pods and coffee scoop (that perfectly measures and cleanly scoops the coffee!) and they have been working well!

Saving vegetable scraps. Every time I cut up vegetables like carrots, onions, celery, zucchini, etc., I save the ends and scraps and collect them in a gallon-sized bag in the freezer. When the bag is full, I dump the scraps into my slow cooker, add about 12 cups of water, and have about 12 cups of homemade vegetable broth by the end of the day! Since I make soup a lot, this saves us from buying broth at the grocery store, plus it’s delicious!

Making as much homemade food as possible. Baking our own bread, making salad dressing, granola, snacks, and meals homemade as much as I can saves money, tastes great, and eliminates all the packaging that comes with pre-prepared foods. I also try and buy things like oats, coffee, and grains from bulk bins.

Making our own cleaners. This has been fun! Castile soap can clean almost anything, I have a great laundry detergent recipe, and I just tried out this fabric softener recipe and liked it.

Washable nursing pads. Sadie and I are still going strong with nursing (this is a lovely surprise to me since we had such a rough start to our nursing journey), and I’m sick of buying disposable nursing pads. A box of 100 disposable nursing pads costs around $10, but I found this set of 14 washable nursing pads for just $11.99. I don’t know why I didn’t make the switch sooner!

Using less paper towels. Man are paper towels convenient! They’re also expensive if you use them a lot and they get thrown away after one or two uses. I try to use our kitchen towels to clean instead of paper towels. I’m looking into making a roll of unpapertowels. We’ll see, though… I’m not very good at sewing!

Other helpful money-saving and ecofriendly items we use and love:
-Stainless steel straws (we’ve had these for a few years and they’re great!)
-Lunch boxes
–Laundry drying rack
-Spray bottles (for making DIY cleaners)
-Glass food storage containers (we have this set)
-Reusable water bottles (this is my fave!)

Living My Full Life

Author: Allie Zottola

Losing Lola

A Few Eco-Friendly + Money-Saving Changes I’ve Recently Made