Vegetable Garden and Baby Food

It's that time of year, the time to start planning what to plant and actually do something about it.   Last year I attempted to grow lettuce and tomatoes.  The lettuce I started from seed and not much happened, totally flop.  The tomatoes I bought plants from a local store and those worked out really well.  I didn't have a vegetable garden at that point and since this was my first attempt I just put the plants in pots and put them on my back deck.  This was due to the large deer and rabbit problem we have.  I kept up with taking care of them all summer, Husband loved having fresh tomatoes to snack on and I liked all the BLT's he made for dinner.  Success!

Blackberry bush from last Spring..it's even bigger this year!

Last fall we cleared an area in our yard in preparation for a vegetable garden this year.   Wish us luck!  Ok, wish me luck as this is my project and not Husbands.   We're already talking about what to plant and that's where the humor comes in.  We were walking the dog and discussing what to try.  We know we want tomatoes again.  I want lettuce..but I'll start from a plant and not seeds.   Then Husband says to plant a blueberry bush. I just looked at him and said "You don't eat blueberries."  He said yeah but they are healthy. I again repeated that he never eats them.  Then he said "But they are healthy and you could use them to make baby food for baby girl."

Did your heart just flutter a bit?  Mine did.  See, from the start I told him I wanted to make baby food instead of buy it.  There are a lot of chemicals in baby food that I don't feel she should be eating.  I also feel it would save money and peace of mind knowing exactly what was in the food.  He's been somewhat against this the whole time because he just sees all the work involved.    I figured the extra work was worth it.  I told him that I wanted to at least try it and if it didn't work, I was ok buying baby food but to keep in mind it would be organic.  So when he mentioned planting blueberry bushes because it's healthy for the baby and I could use it for baby food, that just made my heart flutter.  He's actually been thinking about it and thinking of ways to make this work.  He came up with a couple of vegetables that we could plant and he followed each suggestion up with "You could use it to make baby food."  I just love that.

I'm not sure exactly what is going to end up in our vegetable garden yet.  I don't know how easy it will be for me to keep it up but I'm looking forward to the effort.  We aren't going to plan to much this year, just enough to get into a routine and test out this adventure.

As for the blueberry bush, we decided to get a couple of them.  I've been wanting to add a raspberry busy to the mix so we're looking into that as well.  For those of you who have followed this blog for awhile, you might remember that we already have a blackberry bush.  It did so well last year that I'm still using frozen berries from it in my smoothies.  The blackberry bush grows along the fence that is around our pool and we plan to put the raspberry bush on the other side.  Eventually I imagine they'll connect.  Of course, we might decide to put the blueberry bushes in the middle. That will be interesting.  Either way, I can't wait to get the plants and put them in the ground. I imagine it'll be a couple years before the new ones start to give us a decent crop but I'm willing to wait it out.  Just keep your fingers crossed the deer decide not to eat the fruit. They leave the blackberries alone so let's hope they leave the others alone too.

The Story of Stuff

If you haven't watched any of the video's produced by The Story of Stuff Project, you are in for a treat.  Annie Leonard makes some really good points in the videos.  Even if you don't believe it all, I think it still makes you question things and look at how you live.

I recently watched their video The Story of Stuff and wanted to share it with you.  There were several good points that she makes.  For one she mentions that recycling isn't enough.  Seeing as how I've done a lot of reading/research within the last year on living green I already knew this.  However I used to think I was doing my part if if recycled, heck, I kept it out of the landfill didn't I?  But it's true that it's not enough. We need to look deeper into what we buy and why we buy things.

Wool Dryer Balls

I became aware of wool dryer balls sometime last year while browsing different green blogs.  The purpose of using wool dryer balls is to elminate the need of a dryer softener sheet when you dry clothes.  The sheets contain chemicals and cost money.  By using wool dryer balls you not only save money but you also keep chemicals from getting on your clothes.  Win-win.

I had looked into purchasing some but then found a tutorial on how to make some using wool yarn. I saved that and then never did it.  I happened to run across another blog article late last year that gave a tutorial on how to make them using wool sweaters.  This seemed more my style as I could pick up some wool sweaters pretty cheap from Goodwill.

I found the tutorial at Eco Friendly Homemaking and it seemed easy enough. Buy some wool sweaters (at least 85% wool), wash them in hot water, dry them, cut them into strips, sew the strips into balls (roughly the size of a tennis ball). That's it!  Ok, I can do this.  

I got the sweaters and then sat on my lazy bum and did nothing with them for awhile. I finally realized I was almost out of dryer sheets so I needed to get my arse in gear and make these so I could test them out and see how they worked.  Would they work as promised? Would I like them? Or would I have to find an eco-friendly dryer sheet to use. 

In the tutorial the poster says she made about 11 in an hour. I must be really slow because it took me a lot longer than that.  It wasn't that it was hard, it was just more time consuming than I expected.  However she also states the dryer balls should last 2 years.  The first handful I made I didn't sew at the beginning of the strip and the end, I only did at the end. I soon found this was a problem as they started to unravel in the dryer.  I think by not sewing them at both ends I wasn't wrapping them tight enough.  The second batch I sewed I sewed at the beginning and end of each strip and pulled tighter.  These have stayed together, for the most part. I've noticed the last trip coming loose on some.   This hasn't been hard to fix though, I just put it back together and sew the sides.   I made about 15 dryer balls and have all in the dryer for each use. 

How do I like them?  I can't say that I've noticed the dry time speeding up, that's one thing mentioned in the tutorial..that the dry time is faster.   However I don't have any static on my clothes.  Well, there is on exception. I"ve noticed my workout clothes can have static.  I do all my workout clothes in the same load and most of them say not to use dryer softners/sheets.  I don't notice the clothes being staticky when I wear them, just when I take them out of the dryer sometimes.  I pretty much wear all the tech clothes too, so I'm sure it's whatever material is used that causes the static. 

Other than than noticing those two issues, neither of which bothers me and I actually consider an issue, I love using these.  They were super easy to make, I just made them while sitting in front of the tv, and they'll last about 2 weeks. Sure I'll have to fix some of mine, but I imagine as I make more and get better at it and find a process that works for me I won't have this issue.

Now, you might be saying that this is too much trouble when dryer sheets aren't expensive.  So let's take a look at it.   I looked online and Walmart (ugh I hate that store and rarely shop there) has a 160 ct box of Bounce for $6.84. This comes to roughly $0.042 per sheet.   I don't know how many loads an average household does with kids, but for a household of 2 we do 4-5 per week.   So it would be $.21 per week or $10.92 per year. Still not a lot.  Ok, so let's go further. I'll be using cloth diapers and we decided against a diaper service. I'll be washing them every other day.  So let's just say I'll be doing at least 10 loads of laundry a week, no idea how many loads I'll do of baby girls clothing.  Now I just doubled my cost, at least. It's going to cost me $20.92 a year.   However I wouldn't be using Bounce. I would be using a brand such as 7th Generation because I feel more comfortable with it.   I looked online and a dryer sheet by that brand would run me about $0.062 per sheet, $0.62 per week or $32.24 per year.  The dryer balls will last me two years, it cost me about $7 to buy the sweaters.   So for two years I've spent $7.  If I used dryer sheets I would be spending at least $64.48. 

You might look at that and say your time is worth the $65.  You're right, time is important.  However I'm going to stick with the wool dryer balls.  We watch money pretty closely in our household and I spend more on products from eco-friendly companies and products are better for me and the environment. So I already have some areas where I spend more. This means I look for areas where I can save.  This is one of those areas where I can save a little bit of money. It's a small amount but it adds up in time.

Let's also factor into this that when you purchase dryer sheets the environment is effected.  Chemicals, utilities, etc were used to create those dryer sheets, to ship those dryer sheets etc.  Not to mention the waste that was created to make them and package/ship them.  For the environmentally concious person making your own wool dryer balls from used sweaters is a very easy way to lesson your carbon footprint.

Mastercard + cloth diapers?

I don't normally watch commercials.  I'm one of the millions in love with their DVR because I can record all my programs and watch them later, when I can skip adds.  However dealing with insomnia often finds me watching tv when most people are asleep. This means I'm watching, or listening, to a lot of commercials.

I just happened to catch a MasterCard commercial and I was just staring at the screen, not really paying attention, when I noticed something.  The toddler in the commercial is wearing a cloth diaper.  At least I assume it's a cloth diaper.  It certainly looks like the toddler is probably in a pre-folder with a cover.  I was surprised and then excited.  It's so nice to see a commercial for a major company showing this.  I don't know how many will notice that it's not a disposable.  I don't know how many who do notice will bother thinking "hmm..that's not a disposable. It's cloth. Let me look into this."   However, it's a start.  Even if the commercial gets one person to think about cloth and make the switch to cloth, it's worth it.  I can only hope this will be a trend and we'll see this more often.

Here's the commercial in case you haven't seen it yet. Not that I'm promoting the company, they aren't paying me for this, but it sure would be nice if they did.

 

Trashy Eye Opener

Over the Thanksgiving holiday Husband and I had some house guests, his brother, wife, and their (almost) 4 year old son.  They stayed with us for a week.  They've stayed with us before and we always offer and never mind. We have the room and since they live out of state it's always good to be able to see them.

This year was a bit of an eye opener though. I'm not talking about having a 4 year old around either, we'll be there before we know it.  I'm taking about waste.  Over the last couple of years I've slowly been making changes in our household so as to reduce waste, waste of all kinds.  These changes have turned into habits for us and we don't even think twice about it.  That is, until this past week.

The monthly challenge on Reduce Footprints was to reduce the electricity usage this month.  Perhaps that is why I was very aware every time lights were left on and devices plugged in.  I noticed that a laptop was plugged in and charging almost the entire time.  Yikes!  I only plug mine in when I need to charge the battery, which isn't daily or even every other day.   We also left the router and modem on the entire week.  Ok, most people do this.  We don't. We're in the habit of turning the router off when we aren't using wireless and unplugging both at night and not plugging them in until they are needed again.  I also noticed lights being left on and the tv being left on when nobody was around to use them.  I think these are ones that really bothered me.  Why leave a light on if you aren't in the room?

The other thing I noticed was the amount of trash and recycling.  In a normal week we fill the recycle bin about half way.  It was full this week and I had more to add to it.  Yes, I'm glad all of that was kept out of the trash but, wow, that is still a lot of "waste".    The trash? Oh my!  Normally we have 1 bag of trash per week, it's not even a full bag normally.  With having the holiday at our house I knew there would be more waste and figured two bags, that's pretty normal.  Oh no..we had two trash cans full.  FULL!  How does that happen?  I don't even know what was all in the trash.  I know some of the waste was due to having a child around.  There were a lot of single serving containers for drinks and snacks.  These were recycled when they could be, but not all of it was recyclable.  But that shouldn't have caused us to have so much waste this week.  Should I even mention how it can take us months to go through a roll of paper towels, but in one week almost an entire roll was used? Yikes!

There was also one incident at dinner.  Husband and I were getting containers together for his parents to take leftovers home and his Mom kept telling us to put it in a ziplock bag.  I ignored this as much as I could but she didn't let up so finally I commented that using ziplock bags would be wasteful.  I prefer to just give them containers they can then return to us at a later time.

This was really an eye-opener for me.  The things Husband and I do to be more eco-friendly and to keep waste at a minimum have become habits for us. I still slowly add in more things as I come across them and I think adding things in slowly has helped us become as eco-friendly as we are. None of what we do seems out of the ordinary or like it causes us too much work etc.  It's all so natural for us.  It also showed me just how different our household is from others.  I would imagine the things I noticed are normal for a lot of households.  That's really scary.  

I don't want this to seem like I'm complaining about having house guests either.  I will readily offer our house for their next stay in STL.  I just find this very fascinating. It almost feels like my own person science experiment.  Now...to somehow get them to slowly change their ways..that's the challenge.

Eco-Friendly Birthday

I’m not talking eco-friendly as far as wrapping paper, etc, I’m talking gifts.  Although, to be honest, only one gift was wrapped and I recycled the paper. Not everyone would be pumped to get a composter for their birthday, but this girl was!  Yes, I got a composter. It is actually a gift from my in-laws, but the idea came from my husband.  He told them I would like it and his Mom didn’t believe him.  So for those of you
who wouldn’t enjoy the composter put yourself at ease because I did get a couple of other things (arm warmers and a gift card to a local running store. Heaven).

I’ve been wanting to start composting for awhile but the issue was a composter.  The ones I was looking at were around $100 or more and I knew my husband wouldn’t go for that.  He’s only eco-friendly because I force the issue in the house.    I played around with the idea of using a bucket to make one, but never really went further with that.

Therefore getting a composter for my birthday was an awesome gift.    I got the composter on Saturday and the first thing I did on Sunday after I arrived home from my long run is get Husband to help me put it together (it wasn’t hard).  We then had yard work to do so I already put it to use.   I then baked a cake and bread in the afternoon and was able to put even more stuff in it.

The composter I have is the tumbling composter from Suncast.  I can’t really give a review of it just yet as I’ve just started using it. Plus I really need to read up on composting again to make sure I do it right.  I’m sure it will be trial and error. Plus starting in the winter
probably isn’t best, but at least it’s something. 

Stay tuned for future updates where I tell you how well (fingers crossed) this adventure works for me.

Catalog Choice - I'm loving it

Several weeks ago the Change the World Wednesday challenge was on paper usage.  One of the things mentioned was to sign up with catalog choice and start elimination unwanted catalogs in the mail.

Knowing that it would be pretty easy to do this via Catalog Choice I've been making the effort to do so.  So far I only have two catalogs that I've requested to stop being sent to my house via this website.  Two isn't much, but it's better than non.  It's also the only two that we've received. haha!   You need info from the catalog so I can't go in and request ones that I know we sometimes get until after I've received them.

I like that my account shows how much I'm saving by doing this though.  I've saved 1 fully grown tree, 30lbs of greenhouse gas, 71lbs of solid waste, and 11 gallons of water.  Not to bad, so far.

I haven't just stopped at Catalog Choice though. I took it a step further.  We receive an alumni magazine for the college where Husband got his MBA.  He doesn't read it. He doesn't even look at it.  When I do the bills on the weekend I put it right in the recycle bin.  Well, we received it on Monday and on Tuesday I went online and couldn't find a spot to elect not to receive.  So I called the number and requested they stop.  They said they would remove his name from the list, but we'll see.  Considering how common his name is and they didn't get my address, I'm not so sure this will really happen. I figure I'll give it till the end of the year (I know most places create lists well in advance) and if we are still receiving them I'll try it again.

I also contacted a company that constantly (as in once a week) sends us mail begging for cash/donations.  This is a charity that we both agree is worth supporting and we do donate money, but we do it online.  So I went to their website and filled out a contact form asking them to remove us from their list since we donate online and don't want the waste of receiving the mailings.  I received a personal reply within 24 hours saying they would remove us from the mailing list.

I'm feeling pretty good about this!  I know it can be time consuming doing all this, but if I remember to save the mail as it comes and do it when I have time, little by little I'll be able to get the junk mail to a minimum.

Oh blackberries, I can't wait to eat you

Last year my sister gave me 2 clippings from her blackberry bushes.  I got a totally of 3 blackberries from them, but that was ok. I didn't expect to get any because I had planted them that Spring.   This year the two bushes have taken off!  I can't believe how many blooms I had and now how many fruits I have.  I'm really looking forward to eating fresh blackberries that I know are free from chemicals (and free in general since I didn't pay for the plants nor do I spend any money on the upkeep of them).  I'm looking forward to freezing those I can't eat before they go bad for future smoothies..and blackberry cobblers.

Here's what the blackberry busy looked like last weekend, look at all those white blooms (ok so some of them are about gone but still)! (if you want to see a bigger image, click on the pictures)

Here's what it looks like this weekend, barely any blooms.

But wait..instead of blooms I have fruit!   

And, as you may have noticed, instead of using an arbor or something else for the vines to climb on, I'm using my fence.  My plan, and seeing how much it's grown I can see this really happening, is to have it take over the fence. haha!  Not only will this provide us with some privacy that we are wanting but it will provide me with lots of yummy fruit.  I'm going to have to see if my sister has raspberries. It would be nice to have raspberries too.   I worry about the deer eating the fruit, but we'll have to see what happens.  there isn't really a way to keep them out since this fence is only around the pool and the rest of the yard isn't fenced in.  Husband said he saw a chipmunk eating one but if the deer stay away and the chipmunks and rabbits only eat the fruits at the bottom, I'll consider this a success.

Practically Green - an update

I took some time and played around on the Practically Green site trying to see just how green I truly am.  I have to admit, it was a lot of fun.

I clicked on each of the 4 actions and went through each suggestion under them and either marked it as done, added it to my plan, or marked it as not applicable.

Here's how my numbers were after taking the survey:
water - 30
energy - 79
health - 430
stuff - 460

Here's how my numbers were after updating each suggestion:
water - 55

energy - 1910

health - 1215

stuff - 800

Other than my water, which is rather embarrassing, everything else really jumped up and I'm very happy about it.  I went from being fairly green to being wicked green. I like the sound of that.

I have a huge list of things on the planned list. Several I'm already planning to do this Spring, such as start composting, plant veggies, etc.  Others are things that I'm going to be more aware of when I'm shopping, such as buying organic cotton towels and sheets when next needed.  I also have a long list of stuff on the health side I already planned to make changes with, but have to use up when I've already bought first.  Such as using healthier cleaning supplies and beauty supplies.

One of the other fun things about Practically green is that you can compare yourself to your friends, if they are on the site..and yes I facebooked bout this and hope others join, and also others in your area.  I'm proud to announce I'm the most green in my area. Although I suppose I have to admit I'm the only one in my are on the website. lol!   You can also see over-all leaders and compare how you are doing. I'm way behind the leaders but that's ok. That just means I have a lot of things I can improve on.

Electronic Bills - what is your carbon footprint?

If you are like me, you have heard it and seen it.  I'm talking about paying bills electronically and receiving bills electronically, instead of paper bills.

My guess is most of you have already switched to paying bills electronically. I did a long time ago.  It's cheaper all around.  Right now my bank isn't able to send a payment electronically to all the companies who get our money, but they can with most of them.

As far as going paperless for statements. That's been a bit harder on me.  Most things I've done this with, but credit cards I haven't been able to yet. I tried to.  Then I forgot to pay it one month.  We have a credit card that doesn't do ebill and that's the one I forgot to pay.  I told myself I would remember the next month. Nope.  I switched back to paper bills.

I've also been receiving some statements for utilities that I either 1) have the bank automatically make a payment every month since it's always the same or 2) use ebill to get my balance via my bank.  I don't know why I haven't bothered to cancel those yet, probably because I didn't think about it.

I'm going to make an effort though!  It's just a waste.

I found this handy calculator at PayItGreen.  It calculates the resources used by receiving paper bills.  You input the number of paper bills and statements you receive each month and the number of paper payments you mail each month.  The handy calculator tells you the carbon footprint for that.

I entered a total of 6 items.  I was astonished to find that with only 6 items each month, that generates to a waste of 2 lb's of paper, 35 pounds of greenhouse gases, and 19 gallons of water.  Yikes!

You can bet I'm going to see what I can do about getting that number down as close to zero as I can. As of right now the only one I can say I'll have to continue to get is the credit card statement, I don't want to be hit with a late fine of $25 because I forgot to pay it.

Practically Green

I saw a blog post at Sprout's Green Family regarding a website called Practically Green and knew I had to try it out.  The goal of practically green is to help you become more green.  When you sign up you are asked to complete a survey that can be a bit lengthy but stick to it.  You will then be rated on how green you are.   Then you can play around on the site, with the different areas, and view ways to be more green.  You can update your green status by marking different things that you already do, add some to your list of things you plan to do, and mark others as not applying to you.  This can increase your green status.

I started out being Fairly Green.  Which actually made me a tad upset because I feel I do a pretty good job of being green. I know I'm a lot more green than most people I know.

The different areas you are graded on are broken out like so:
Water
Energy
Health
Stuff

Water is by far my worst area.  My points are only 30.  Energy is my best at 790, Health comes in at 430, and Stuff is 460.

You can also earn badges based on the things you do.  I've earned the bronze badge in energy and stuff right away.

I decided to see how  high I could increase my score by going over the different things recommended and marking all the ones that I have already completed or already do as Done.   I found several things that just aren't applicable to me or aren't going to happen for awhile.  One example is to buy or build a LEED house or apartment.  Since we don't plan to move until we are old and gray, I marked this one as "not applicable".  Another example is the option to install a dual flush toilet.  We recently replaced two toilets with low-flow toilets but not dual flush, I'm marking that one as not applicable as well since we aren't going to replace them again.  However I did get points for having a high-efficiency toilet installed. Another example is to replace our water heater with a tankless one.  We don't plan to buy a new water heater for another year or two so I marked this one as "add to my plan" and we'll research options when the time comes.

Don't get me wrong though.  There's a ton of stuff suggested that I think is somewhat easier and cheaper.  Example, one suggestion is to turn the water off when you brush your teeth.  Done!   One of the things I believe will be pretty in-expensive is to install low-flow valves on all faucets.  I did a brief search and it looks like it would cost $6 or less to do this for each faucet.  Even better, the website Practically Green links you to a video so you can see just how easy it is to do this.  I added this one to my plan. In fact, this was something new the website taught me. I knew you could buy low-flow faucets but I never thought about seeing if I could convert my current ones to be so.  Since we have replaced all faucets (except 1) in our house, fixing the faucet is the way we will go.   Another simple and easy action is to switch to a reusable water bottle. Done!

As you can see, the steps you can take to be even more green range from being major (replace your water heater) to simple (use a reusable bottle).

I'm off to play on the website and see how high I can get my numbers and what I can add to my "plan" so I have a list of things to work on changing.  I'll be sure to do another post and let you know how I did.

Indoor clothes line

In January when I did a Change the World Wednesday post regarding laundry practices I mentioned clothes lines.   Due to my allergies I'm unable to dry clothes outside.  However, it struck me that I could hang a clothes line inside.  It took me awhile, but I finally did it!  I felt I would share how it works.

I'm lucky enough to have a laundry room on the main floor of the house (we have a ranch).  Even luckier is that there is a lot of storage in there.  On one side are open shelves and the previous owner attached gizmo's to it that allow me to hang up hangers.  They fold up so they are out of the way, and I only have them down when in use.  I use this every week when I do laundry.  It's an easy way to hang up pants and shirts that come out of the drier still a bit wet or that don't go in the dryer at all (mostly my running clothes).

However, I still wanted to hang up a clothes line so I could hang up socks, towels, etc that were still wet when coming out of the dryer.  The dryer is old, left by the previous owners, and while it does a good job it often times doesn't dry all the clothes when only one run.  I found myself running a lot of loads through twice.

I hung up two different clothes lines.  one is under the open shelving.  I liked this because it would be out of the way.  I hung up another one in front of the cabinets that hang over the washer and dryer.  I originally liked this idea but wasn't going to put it here because then it would be in the way when I tried to open a cabinet door.  However, I soon realized that I could hang the clothes line in such a way that they wouldn't always have to be hung.  This way I could have a clothes line in front of the cabinet doors, but it wouldn't always have to be there so it wouldn't cause problems.

The only thing I bought for this laundry room addition was the clothes line, it cost less than $3.  I looked in our supply of nails, etc and found some hooks.  Luckily there were 4 matching sized ones.  I then got to work. Installing both these lines took me less than 30 min.  I used a drill to drill the holes in the wall. I roughly measured but mostly just eye-balled it. It's not something that anybody is going to be paying attention to.  I then used, well, I don't remember what they are called.  They are the plastic pieces you hammer into drywall so you can then put screws in them.  So I hammered those in place.  The four hooks I had then screwed into each one of those.  I then tied the clothes line onto each hook.  That's it!  Now, I did go back and tie a washer onto one end of each of the clothes line.  This allows me to easily hook/unhook each clothes line without having to loosen the knot.

Here's a picture of the laundry room with the clothes lines and the extra gizmo's to hang up clothes.  (Just ignore the mess. lol! It's a laundry room afterall...the door is always closed)

Here's the same photo but with everything circled so you can see it better.

I've been using these clothes lines for several weeks now and I'm very happy with them.  Husband is a bit worried that I'll cause mold to grow on the wall since I'm hanging wet items next to the wall (in regards to the clothes line that's under the open shelves).  So I try to just hang stuff there that doesn't really touch the wall or that's not very wet.  I've used the one above the washer and dryer to hang up all sorts of things ranging from light socks to heavy towels.

So far I haven't used the clothes lines to hang stuff up instead of putting them in the dryer and I'm not sure I will.  However, I have not put anything through the dryer twice since installing these. I usually do roughly 4-5 loads of laundry a week and I was having to put at least 3 loads through the dryer twice.  Now I don't have to and it makes me feel better knowing I'm not wasting resources.

You might wonder why we have 4-6 loads of laundry for only two people. It seems crazy to me. I usually have roughly 2 loads of darks in the winter..thanks to jeans and sweaters and 1 load of medium colors.  That's 3 right there.  I then have a load of towels, bed sheets, and rags.  Then I have a load of running clothes, due to needing special detergent I do all the running stuff by themselves. It's a small load but I wait until I've used all the available running clothes for the weather we are having.  I then do a load of socks/undershirts roughly ever 2-3 weeks.  Sometimes I'll add this to the towel load but if I forget then I end up having to do it by itself since it gets so full.

Homemade Croutons

I can't help it, if I'm going to eat a salad it better come with croutons.  I do enjoy a good salad, but there's just something about a crunch crouton to make it better.

On my quest to do away with most processed foods and to make more from scratch, I tackled my crouton obsession.  I do limit the amount of croutons that I'll eat in a salad but since I eat an average of 3 salads a week for my lunch at work, that's still a lot of croutons.

Now, my favorite are the Texas Toast Croutons and price isn't really an issue since they go on sale for $1 a couple of times a year and I always took that opportunity to stock up. Plus, I can normally use coupons to make it even less.  However I still wanted to try homemade. I didn't for a long time though because I figured it wasn't worth it, it would cost more for me to make them.

image source 

Then it dawned on me, it would actually be more eco-friendly for me to make my own.  Here's why.  Husband is the one you normally eats sandwich bread in our house. I tend not to take sandwiches for lunches during the week and I rarely eat toast. I can go several weeks without eating any sandwich bread.  He eats it almost every day.  However whenever I bring home a new loaf of bread, he will stop using the current loaf.  This means that I tend to throw away at least 5 pieces of bread from each loaf.  It bothered me, but by the time I would go to use the bread it would be stale so I wouldn't use it either.   Then one day the light bulb went off.  Duh!  Use the bread he discards for my croutons!  Then I'm not actually buying anything specific for the croutons, which solves my issue of it costing more to make than buy, and I'm saving food from being wasted.  Plus, since I'm not buying a bag of croutons from the store, I'm not throwing away a bag in the trash that will live in a landfill for the next 50 years (at least..or so I'm guessing).   How is that for being eco-friendly, eh?

I've made croutons twice now and liked the way both batches turned out. I think that making croutons is something that I'll have to do every 2-3 weeks since I don't make a lot each time.  It's so easy and fast though, so I'm not worried about it.

To make croutons, all you need are spices, bread, and olive oil (or whatever oil you prefer).

I cut the bread into squares.  For me, since I normally have around 5-6 pieces of it, I just stack it up on a cutting board and cut it all at once.

I mix the spices with some olive oil.  So far I've been using about 1/4 tsp of the following spices: garlic powder, oregano, and parsley.  All of which I already had at home and didn't need to buy.  I've also been known to sprinkle in some onion salt but don't put it in too much or it will be salty.  I'm also planning to try doing this with just garlic powder. I do love garlic. Oh, and fresh Parmesan cheese. I think I'll sprinkle on some of that next time too.  I haven't measured the amount of olive oil I use.  I just kinda pour some in a bowl and mix with the spices.  The more bread, the more olive oil.  You don't need a lot though.

Pour the mixture over the bread and stir.  Don't stir too much or too hard, if you do you risk breaking up the bread and then you get crumbs and not croutons.   You basically just want the bread to be coated with it.

Spread the bread out evenly on a cookie sheet. I do spray mine with Pam first so it doesn't stick.   Then place in an oven at 325 degrees, for roughly 10-12 min.   You want the croutons to be crunchy but not burnt.  Once cool, store in an air-tight container. I've read some sites that say to only keep for a day or two, but I keep mine for over a week and so far they haven't made me sick and they have tasted fine.

That's it!  Anybody can do that right?  You get tasty croutons without any preservatives, you save bread from being thrown away, and you keep bags from ending up in the landfill.  Sounds like a win-win solution to me.

And you thought recycling was a new idea

Did you know the ancient Roman's recycled glass?  According to Discovery News large quantities of glass were recycled in Britain during the 3rd and 4th centuries A.D.  Archeologist have found that the majority of the glass that came to Britain during that time period was made from recycled glass.

Of course, they did it because they didn't have the raw materials and not in an effort to go green.

It's an interesting article, I recommend reading it for more information.

If you had brought over paper plates, I wouldn't have used them anyway

I used the above line several weeks ago when Husband's Brother and his wife and kid were in town.  They came over one night after we got off work for dinner. My mother-in-law come over as well.  We ordered pizza and when it arrived I got out my dishes.  My mother-in-law, in trying to be helpful, said something like "oh, I'm sorry. I meant to bring some paper plates but forgot them."  My response was "If you had brought over paper plates, I wouldn't have used them. But thanks for thinking of us."   In fact, she says something along those lines whenever we have people over at our house for a meal or a celebration. I usually have the same response.

In fact, even if I wanted to use disposable plates she wouldn't have had to bring any, I have a cabinet with tons of unopened packages.  I just refuse to use them if I don't need to.  So why do I have them?  I've bought them when they have been on sale, where I could get a good brand (ie..not the cheap stuff that will bend and drop your food on the floor within 10 seconds of you putting your food on the plate) for around $1.   This is something that I always feel I need to have on hand in case we run out of regular dishes.  We don't have a lot of dishes, it's just the two of us.  However a couple times a year we have my family over for pool parties and since my sisters keep having babies, I'm quickly running out of dishes.    I suppose I keep these as backup, just in case they are needed.   I've stopped buying them though, once I realized that chances are I'll never use them and it's rather embarrassing to open up the cabinet and see how much I own.  

Every time I'm tempted to use them, I don't.  I just can't imagine using one and then throwing it away when there are perfectly good dishes in my cabinet that I could wash and use again.

In fact, we are having Christmas this year.  I'm not sure I'll have enough dishes.  I think I'll stop at a store and look for some cute, but inexpensive, plastic dishes that the kids could use.  Then we aren't worried they will drop them or push them off the table, and I know I won't have to use disposable dishes.

Yellow Pages, I don't need no stinking yellow pages (or..How to stop home delivery of the Yellow Pages)

I can't remember where I first read about somebody wanting to opt out from receiving the yellow pages that are delivered to your home. I'm sure it was on a post for Change the World Wednesday, but can't be sure.

Anyway, today I went on a hunt. How can I do this? I never use the Yellow pages, why would I when I could just look it up online.  Not every place will take the yellow pages to be recycled either, so they either end up collecting dust in my closet or I put them in a recycling bin hoping they can be recycled.  Wouldn't it be better for the world if I just didn't receive one at all?

I went online to the local phone company that publishes one of the two phone books I receive.  I didn't find anything so I did a search on their website, and didn't find anything.  So I resorted to a google search. 

If it all works out, than by golly, I hit the jackpot!

Check out this link for Yellow Pages Goes Green. 

On the home page there is a link you can click on that says "Stop home delivery of your local yellow pages".

Once you click on that you then have to click on another image but finally you are on a page where you can enter your zip code. Once you do that and hit enter it will display the companies that publish/deliver the yellow pages in your area.  

For me, they provided the company name, phone number, and a link.  One of the links took me to an opt-out form.  The link for the other company took me to a page where I could fill out a form to tell them how many phone books I wanted.  I wasn't sure about this one at first because it needed my name, phone number, email address, and delivery address.  Then just gave an option for submit but there wasn't anything for the number of copies I wanted.  I clicked submit anyway to see what happened and that did take me to a page where I could request how many of each directory I wanted, which I changed to zero.  

Since I just did this today, I can't tell you if it worked or not.  However, I have my fingers crossed that it will. I still wanted to share this info, though, so you can do the same if you wish. 

Last but not least, on the Yellowpagesgoesgreen.org website the following info was listed as to why it's a good idea to opt out and I thought we would all agree with it:

Why opt out?

• Helps conserve energy - companies that print them are burning up 3.2 kilowatt hours of electricity.
• Saves trees - companies that print yellow pages had more than 19,000,000 trees destroyed.
• Saves Fuel - companies that print yellow pages are wasting 7,200,000 barrels of fossil fuel.
• Saves time - easier for consumers to find up to date listings online.
• Good for the environment - stops unsolicited delivery of 540 million books per year.

Bottom line..... It's the right thing to do.

Do the Reuse Challenge - I am

I first read about this challenge when I was reading The Nutritionist Reviews blog. 

The Do The Reuse Challenge is bing hosted by Aladdin.  There are three different challenges and the goal of each is to challenge people to not waste as much and save money at the same time.  Sounds like a win-win situation to me!

Challenge one: Coffee Cups.  The goal here is:

Those coffeehouse stops can be satisfying, but having your own mug and making coffee at home can feel pretty good too. You'll save money, cut calories, and help keep some of the 23 billion cups Americans are projected to toss this year from reaching landfills.

Challenge two: Water Bottles.  The goal here is:

Getting 64 oz of water a day is good for you, but using four disposable bottles to do it? Not so much. Grab a reusable water bottle, and you'll be on your way to a healthy body and a healthy planet. Not to mention the money you'll save!

Challenge three: Food Containers.  The goal for this one is:
Food for thought: We each spend about $2,350 a year on takeout lunches. That's a lot of cash, and a lot of trash. Packing your lunch puts the dough back in your pocket and keeps 1.8 million tons of packaging out of landfills. Plus, you're more likely to make healthier food choices!


Now, let me explain why I signed up f or the Food Container challenge.
1) I don't drink coffee...ever.   Neither does Husband.  This means we can, technically, already say we have 100% achieved the first goal.

2)I'm too cheap to buy water when I can get it out of my tap at home.  For those of you who don't think tap water is good enough, let me just say that we finally bought a new fridge that has an ice maker/water filter and I'm now able to fill up my bottles using filtered water. Yay!   I can't say I never buy water bottles, but it's pretty darn rare and when I do, I almost always take the bottle home to recycle.  Oh..and regarding traveling, no worries, I bring my own bottles with me.  Did you know you can bring an empty bottle through airport security and then fill it once you past security?  Cheaper and eco-friendly.

3) I'm too cheap to buy lunch everyday. I usually say I can't afford it, because in my mind I can't (even though I suppose technically I could).  So this one won't be much of a challenge for me either since I never bring anything in a disposable bags, it all comes in Tupperware.  However, I selected this challenge for one reason.  Restaurant leftovers.  Oh yes...I'm one of those individuals who rarely eats their entire meal when at a restaurant.   So what happens?  I need the restaurant to provide me a container to take my food home in, I did pay for it afterall.  Now while I don't have official numbers, I would guess that 95% of the restaurants I've taken home leftovers from provide me with containers that are not recyclable.  What a waste!  My goal is to start bringing my own containers when I go out to eat.

I know, some of you will think I'm crazy.  I've done this twice and let me tell you that the waiters think I'm crazy right along with you.  I even had one, as I was putting the food into my container, ask if I wanted a disposable container.  Um..no..that would defeat the whole purpose wouldn't it?   I normally carry purses large enough to fit a couple of smallish containers.  I try to bring two, one for me and one for Husband.  I also bring my own reusable bag to put the containers in once I fill them so the place doesn't try to give me a plastic bag.   The two times I did this, I was able to save 3 disposable containers from ending up in a landfill.    Fingers crossed I continue to remember my own containers.