Mission accomplished!
I finally opened an Etsy store! My first item: a 75% recycled-cotton scarf.
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Tags: clothing, cotton, crocheted, handmade, recycled, sale, scarf, store
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serenityii
serenityii’s GO JournalWeekend
So I wouldn’t say we were incredibly green this weekend, but we were relatively green.
The dude who lives on the other side of Mr. Obsessively Mowing hadn’t mowed in a long time–longer than it had been for us. So on the weekend, he mowed his yard. . .with a riding mower. . .then used a weedwhacker. . .then used a leafblower. . .then mowed again. . .while smoking. Way to cancel out your lack of pollution, dude.
Bill mowed too–with our reel mower, of course. He is much faster at that than I am. It’s nice to have all the leaves to enrich our soil.
We drove about 40 miles in an old pickup to go on a bike/trike ride. The colors were beautiful, we got to see some cool stuff, and it was a blast! In the beginning I was pulling the kiddo and was having trouble keeping up with Bill, but on the way back he pulled the kiddo and I got up in the 20 MPH range three times (I wouldn’t be utterly shocked to learn I was going 30 the first time, although it was probably more like 25).
We had a picnic. It wasn’t completely environmentally friendly, but we did pretty well. I used baby food containers to hold the pumpkin seeds we scooped out of our pumpkins when we made jack-o’-lanterns. We have two kinds of seeds–salted and sugar & spice. We took pudding (containers are recyclable), applesauce (organic, again in a baby food container), sandwiches (reusable containers), juice (in reused juice bottles), tap water (in Klean Kanteens), baby food (recyclable containers), organic chocolate, not-so-organic chocolate, fruit strips, granola bites, and I don’t know what all. It was an awesome feast, if I do say so myself. I did take a Ziploc bag to hold the silverware so it wouldn’t get the picnic bag messy. We used one recycled napkin.
I gave my son one of my old toys this weekend. Well, really it’s more like four of my old toys that are compatible.
We went to Goodwill to donate a whole bunch of stuff. Clothes, chairs, cookware, drinkware. . .so now there’s more space for the stuff we’ll actually use, which is nice. . .especially in the cookware department. Led to some interesting discussion:
Bill: Why did we get rid of the silicone brownie pan?
Karen: Because we have two glass ones now, so we don’t need to use something that gives off a smell when I use it.
Bill: But we kept our silicone muffin pan.
Karen: That’s because that’s the only one we have left, so if we give it away and I have a cupcake emergency, I’m in trouble. Don’t worry, there’s an iron one on my Christmas list.
Bill: That sounds light.
Karen: But good for us!
Bill: Until somebody drops it on a toe.
Karen: Well, would you rather have a broken toe or cancer?!
Bill: Well. . .either one would take a long time to heal. . .
He does raise a good point. Our gorgeous stainless steel pots and pans are pretty lightweight, but the other stuff we’re converting to is all pretty heavy. I have trouble holding my terra cotta roasting pan steady in one hand (it weighs about nine pounds), which makes it hard to scrape stuff out of it into a container. The glass stuff isn’t too bad, but the iron stuff is heavy and slightly complicated to take care of, since it can’t go in the dishwasher and has to be seasoned. Still, I’m sure it’s worth it. I’ve been smiling a lot in the kitchen lately.
Tags: bicycle, Bicycles, bike, charity, Community, cookware, donation, donations, food, furniture, Local Food, organic, Organic food, Outdoors, picnic, tricycle, trike
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Detergent! Argh!
As I mentioned, I am not supposed to use citrus products on my silverware. I came to realize that I didn’t actually know for a fact that the Cascade I was using didn’t contain citrus, so I emailed the company to inquire. Here is the actual word-for-word response I got:
Thanks for contacting us. I'm sorry we can't answer your question via email. Most of the information we're able to share with consumers is either on our brand or corporate website (http://www.pg.com). If you’ve already searched those sites thoroughly and still can’t find what you’re looking for, please call us using the toll-free number on our product packages, and we’ll do whatever we can to help. We’re open Monday - Friday 9:00 AM - 6:00 PM EST. Thanks again for writing. P&G Team
I am inclined to think that, in layman's terms, this translates to, "Yes, there is a lot of citrus in our detergent, and there is also a lot of poison. We are going to let you damage your silverware, and we are dying to replace it for you."
Tags: Cascade, customer service, detergent, dishwasher, dishwasher detergent, Home and Garden
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Dishwasher detergent!
ARGH!
My silverware requires that I use a non-citrus detergent (so no lemon, no orange, no grapefruit, no citric acid, no anything citrate). We’ve been using plain Cascade in the dishwasher–but there’s no ingredient list on the Cascade box, so I can’t guarantee that there’s no citrus in it!
I want to switch to something greener, but almost everything green contains citrus. We picked up a box of Planet dishwashing powder, but it has horrible reviews on Amazon. I almost want to give it away instead of trying it, they’re so bad!
Does anyone know of a green citrus-free detergent? Or how to make one that won’t be bad for the dishwasher?
Tags: citrus, detergent, dishwasher, dishwasher detergent, green, Home and Garden
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Halloween
Oh yeah, and we got Endangered Species chocolate for trick-or-treaters this year!
Tags: chocolate, endangered species, Endangered Species chocolate, food, Halloween, trick-or-treat, trick-or-treaters, trick-or-treating
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We remembered!
We remembered to take our bags to the grocery store last night and to use them! The bagger thought we were buying the Halloween ChicoBags and tucked them into a different bag *eyeroll*, but other than that things went decently. We ended up with two or three plastic bags in addition to the two canvas bags and two ChicoBags. My mom says she’s planning to make bags for me, too. And our Annie’s bag with Bernie on it is currently holding my yarn, but I hope to remedy that situation soon.
I’ve added bags to my Christmas list, also. And a compost tumbler!
Tags: bag, bags, canvas, Chico, ChicoBag, ChicoBags, food, groceries, grocery, reusable, shopping
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Healthier living
The road to going green is, in my mind, quite mixed with the road to going healthier. Getting rid of our aluminum cookware is divided into the same category of my thoughts as using cloth napkins or recycled-paper towels. So what are we doing to get green & healthy now?
* Today Bill put in another CFL. A flood bulb in our family room went out and I figured we’d replace it with an LED, but now there’s talk of replacing the whole fixture, so I don’t know what will happen.
* We have a crop of probably 5-7 raspberries a day. A locally grown, antioxidant-rich snack for Bill (the seeds bother me and our son doesn’t eat the majority of fruits & veggies unless they’ve been pureed by Gerber). We also got about a serving of popcorn from this year’s crop. The pumpkin plant keeps blooming, but the pumpkins just don’t form.
* For my birthday, I got two stainless steel pans (there is aluminum in the bases, unfortunately, but it’s completely clad in steel), an iron pizza pan, and an iron skillet.
* We’re getting rid of clothes, books, chairs, cookware, etc. It’s a little late for a garage sale and I don’t have the patience for Freecycle at this point, so we will probably donate them. But we might sell some of the stuff online.
* As we use up yucky products, we’re replacing them with green products. We’re already using BioShield toilet cleaner. When we use up our 409, we’ll be using Bi-O-Kleen multipurpose cleaner. By the way, where do we get the borax or whatever to make that homemade multipurpose cleaner that was featured on GO? I haven’t seen that anywhere. The thing is, I don’t want to waste the old products we have left, but I also don’t want to use them if they’re toxic. . .
* We adopted my grandma’s table and chairs when she moved into a smaller room in her retirement home. Just arranged those in our dining room today, in fact. I don’t think we’ve ever had any new dining room furniture.
Tags: bakeware, cleaners, cleaning, cleaning products, cooking, gardening, home, Home and Garden, house, raspberries
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LED tea lights!
Found these LED tea lights, and they’re awesome, and it’s a good deal!
http://www.cudge.net/candles_detail10.htm
No more using up lots of wax tea lights, no more blown-out flames, no more burning risks, hopefully no more toxins!
Tags: candle, candles, Consumer Products, decoration, jack-o'-lantern, led, light, lighting, lights, pumpkin, tea, tealights
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Vacation
Well, we went on vacation. When you are out away from big stores and need particular products (and don’t have time to arrange special orders locally), it can be very hard to cut down on the miles you travel. What we did manage to do:
buy some nice organic and natural products (some of which we could get on vacation, but can’t find at home!)
recycle
get better mileage (Bill fixed the exhaust before we left)
Tags: green, organic, recycling, Travel, vacation
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Pumpkin
Sadly, our little green pumpkin that was doing so well deflated and turned yellow. "Where’s my pumpkin go?" my poor son asked. The plant hasn’t stopped blooming, but I don’t know if I expect more pumpkins or not. Our raspberries look like they’re doing okay despite the fact that little bugs attacked the leaves this year. We got maybe an ear’s worth of popcorn.
We’ve been kind of neglecting the farmers’ markets. Sometimes they’re as much garage/bake sale as veggie market. . .there was a guy with an "edible lawn" sign last time, which intrigued me, but we just haven’t gotten back. Bill never seems inclined to buy anything there, so it seems a bit pointless sometimes.
We have been buying more organic and local food, so that’s good.
One of our flood lights went out the other day. I figured we’d get an LED flood bulb, but Bill’s talking about replacing the whole fixture, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
Tags: Agriculture, farmers' market, Food Production, garden, gardening, groceries, Local Food, Organic food, pumpkin
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