Green Resolutions

Crunchy Domestic Goddess, one of the many wonderful green blogs that I follow, issued a fantastic challenge: share your green goals for 2009. One thing that I love about the blogs I've lurked around is how open they are to followers, commenters, and general participants -- there's a real community in the green blogging world, and I think it's wonderful how bloggers can lead each other to fresh ideas.

How about a review of 2008's successes? I didn't have a really green agenda at the beginning of the year, so this is really just a list of things I'm particularly happy about from the past year.

• Stepped up farmers' market patronage significantly (now only shop at grocery store for flour, sugar, and some other necessities not available/affordable at the FM)
• Cut out most paper towel usage (I still haven't bought any, but future MIL keeps supplying)
• Baked bread at home
• Switched to "green" cleaners like vinegar, baking soda, lemon juice, and Clorox's GreenWorks cleaner
• Didn't buy a car, even in car heaven (i.e. I use public transportation, walking, or biking)
• Slowed down unnecessary purchases
• Cooked more at home
• Greened up the office (more recycling bins, healthier/less packaged snacks, more annoying reminders to recycle)
• Started worm composting
• Increased knitting skill (+2 intellect, +3 dexterity, -4 exercising time)

And now for this year's goals:

• Learn to can (like Crunchy last year, I'm a novice to "putting things by," but I love the idea of making my own apple sauce and preserving it for Southern California's brief off-season)
• Completely ditch paper towels
• Completely ditch unhealthy cleaners (that bottle of 409 has got to go)
• Increase knitting skill further. More specifically, complete a major project (sweater, blanket, or stockings) before 2010.
• Start a container garden.
• Join the local CSA. This is unfortunately a long-term goal because the annual sign-up isn't until autumn.
• Seriously reduce consumption.
  
• Plan a green wedding (I'm getting hitched in June 2010).
• And, finally, get out an enjoy this beautiful country. I have so much to see in the U.S. and I am aiming for 2009 to be a good time to accomplish some seeing.

I hope that everyone else is successful in their New Year's resolutions... I certainly hope I am! Do you have some green resolutions? Share them in comments.

And Back! BookReview

I hope everyone's begun a wonderful, healthy, happy new year. I'm finally back from my seemingly endless, 8-day venture "back east" and ...I could use another vacation. We saw tons of lovely people, I had a delightful breakfast with my bridesmaids, and TheBoy and I spent a great deal of time just bonding and getting along together.

Over the vacation, I made some progress on a number of eco-related things, chief of which included finishing "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle." Kingsolver's book really urged me to look hard at the way and things I eat. Unlike Pollan's, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," which really only made me feel guilty about eating, Kingsolver's uplifting views challenged me to work toward a positive, wholesome food outlook.
Now, I loved "The Omnivore's Dilemma," but I felt that Pollan only presented negatives -- what not to eat -- a completely valid piece, but his only positive options were too inaccessible for me. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" could easily have been equally inaccessible, considering that it takes place on a rural farm in Appalachia, but Kingsolver worked hard to bridge the considerable gap between temperate Virginia and my home here in Southern California, land of the endless growing season.

Book Summary: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year in Food Life" is, as the title suggests, primarily about food. The author's family moves from Tuscon to Southern Appalachia to ahcieve a year of local-only eating, with all the necessary steps involved in that decision. Kingsolver presents a concept of the "vegetannual," a fictional everyplant that represents all stages and seasons of plant production. We move from the seedlings and greens, in the vegetannual's spring, to fruits in the summer, to roots and squash in the autumn. The winter season bears harvests "put by" in cans along with dried and frozen goods. Kingsolver animates their year of food life with highlights from a family vacation, a Tuscan second honeymoon, and generous dashes of good humor.

There are no bananas in the Kingsolver kitchen, but this delightful book provides plenty of interest with husband Steven L. Hopp's brief, on-topic essays about ecology and where to find more information along with daughter Camille's fantastic recipes and youthful interjections. The book is light-hearted and interesting, reads clearly and with pleasure, and provides a wealth of knowledge along with completely approachable topics. The accompanying website provides an index to the book and also a complete listing of all the recipes, including the 30-Minute Mozzarella (pdf) that I'm dying to try out.

Overall, I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in getting more involved with their food, food choices, and health. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is a wonderful book brimming with knowledge and good taste.

Incidentally, I'm not the only one to read books about food lately -- TheBoy is embarking on the audio book version of "The Omnivore's Dilemma" and Farmer's Daughter reviewed "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" on her ever-delightful blog.

Holiday Hiatus

Here in Tinseltown, we believe in long, drawn out, unpaid vacations. Because this (frankly unwanted) vacation time will impinge upon my constant computer vigilance, I will be updating less frequently until the beginning of January.
In the meantime, if there's anything you'd like to see written about in this blog, post a comment and I'll cover it. Otherwise, look forward to local food lectures, ideas for green decluttering, and eco-friendly snack ideas.

Happy holidays, everyone! Enjoy your snow, mistletoe, and other optional holiday accouterments.

In case you thought this post would be without pictures, allow me to prove you wrong. May I present our mushy-lovey wannabe Christmas card photo:

Edit to Lower-Impact Christmas

Though we love the idea of reusing this year's do-it-yourself tree, we'll probably go with a Cardboard Christmas tree next year. This product seems super great and my only problem with it is that I found it after we had already made our own.

Our Low-Impact Christmas

Lately, I've been trying to get in the holiday spirit in this snowless, not-that-cold town. Let me tell you, it's tough. First of all, I wore flip flops to Thanksgiving dinner... can we say "major paradigm shift?" Then, there was the issue of the tree. I'm allergic to cut trees, they make my face melt in boogers. Despite my allergy, we didn't want to buy a PVC-and-lead-laden synthetic Christmas tree.
We were left with quite a dilemma.

I searched online for sustainable alternatives and I found a few possibilities, but none of them seemed right for us. First, there was the giant Christmas tree made of knitted sweater sleeves. Now, I like knitting, but I've already got a few projects on the needles and I can't multitask that well. Then, I found patterns for mini knitted Christmas trees, but we wanted something on which we could string standard size lights. There was also the incredible Mountain Dew Christmas tree, made of more Mountain Dew cans than we could ever drain. Obviously, not a real option for us, though a truly unique recycling effort.

We tried other living tree options: like tiny evergreen indoor shrubs or potted pines, but they cost a good deal more than our budget allows and I have a totally un-green thumb. So, we were left with a potentially evergreen-free holiday.

No, we had to create our own Christmas tree alternative. TheBoy suggested something that I initially shot-down, but which later became our option: a paper tree. I had thought maybe of a hat rack or a ladder (or tripod, which we actually have), but we decided against those, too. A few more soul-searching conversations later, and we had decided to make a brief Target run for some posterboard, green paint, and a paint brush.

We ended up coming home with two neon green posterboards, a bottle of Crayola non-toxic kids' paint, a quality paintbrush, and some pretty candy-cane striped ribbon. Some creative cutting and sloppy brushstrokes produced the proto-tree and some tape, LED Christmas lights, striped ribbon, and a few ornaments gathered up to make a truly festive, sustainable holiday wall ornament.

After I'd finished the tree, I still had some green paint leftover. Following a suggestion that I found on the wonderful internets, I painted our still-fresh Halloween and Thanksgiving pumpkins. After a few more coats, I'll use a pretty silver sharpie to color on some stars and make our previously fall-themed decorations into a lovely holiday bauble. After the holidays, I'll cut the bottoms out of the pumpkins and roast the seeds to make a delicious, edible New Years treat -- I may even wash off the paint and feed the gourd to our pet. I'm sure they'd love the treat!

Aside from the tree, we're trying to lower the impact of our gift-giving. Without skimping on quality, we've been able to produce great gifts for our family and friends. Instead of gifting TheBoy's dad with another worthless golf thing, we all chipped in to buy him a personalized iPod -- something that he'll really use for a long time. For his mother, we found a local-artist-made cheese plate made out of a recycled wine bottle. I knitted up a gift bag in polyester yarn made from recycled plastic bottles. How awesome! For one friend, instead of a lame-o worthless gift, we found him an affordable flatware set to replace his flock of years-old plastic forks. For all our other friends, we're making cookies -- having fun and spending time together, instead of finding them landfill-bound gag gifts. Overall, we've spent this holiday season thinking hard about how useful and loving our gifts will be when bestowed upon our loved ones.

What things are you doing to make your holiday lower-impact?

The Second R

The three big R's of conservation: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. All three of them are important, and I'm going to start a three-part series on them, starting with number two (of course!).

Really, I think that reusing is the easiest method of conservation. Unlike reducing, which takes habit changes, and unlike recycling, which can be tough if you don't have curbside pickup -- all you need to reuse things is a little creativity.

Take, for instance, my reluctance to buy a rolling pint o make my gingerbread cookies. You can read the whole story here, but the short story is: rolling pin was too pricey, so I used a wine bottle.

Another instance was when I had TheBoy's lunch all ready to go, but his lunch carry-bag was dirty. Instead of letting the box go unwrapped (and possibly spill all over my backpack), I used a dinner napkin as a temporary furoshiki, or Japanese lunchbox wrap. TheBoy was also able to use the napkin for its intended purpose of cleaning up untidy lunch messes.

Another, more fun creative reuse was the first time I did laundry in our new apartment. We hadn't bought a drying rack yet, but I hate drying clothes and wasting all that energy just to shorten the wearable lifetime of my clothing. So, I piled our clothes all over the house, including on an endtable in the living room. What a sight to see!
Even much simpler reuses can be really effective. I have a lot of little items in my kitchen -- mostly stuff that I use to pack our lunches. So, instead of letting the drawer become a horrible jumble of junk, I used a flatware organizer to keep all my lunchbox accessories tidy and accessible. This picture doesn't truly do the drawer, or its contents, justice -- you can barely see the pink jelly bean-shaped Easter egg that my mother gave me: I use it to put nuts and small candies into our lunches without them getting everywhere. You can see the reusable silicone baking cups, though -- I constantly use them in our lunches to organize small portions of foods that shouldn't touch other foods. Today, in fact, I'm using one to separate some vegetable stir fry from grapes in TheBoy's lunch. Of course, simply using reusable lunchboxes counts as reuse, too.

TheBoy wore an old pair of pants into unwearable rags. Instead of throwing them out, I'm giving them new life as a draft dodger -- I'll patch the holes (with rag patches, likely) and sew the legs and waist shut. Addition of some batting and maybe some baggies full of sand or kitty litter will make that old pair of pants into a charming way to keep cold air from seeping under our door.

Another of the very simple things we reuse is ziploc bags. TheBoy's mother gave us a huuuuge package of baggies when we moved into the new place and, instead of potentially insulting her and turning them down, we accepted them and use them very carefully. We use one gallon size bag to keep our worm compost scraps in the freezer (so they don't rot and make the worms sick). Instead of throwing out the bag at the end of the week when we feed our worms, I wash the bag with soapy water and reuse it until it no longer seals, and only then will I reluctantly pitch it our. We reuse bags like that frequently, just not with raw meats. If a bag holds strawberries in the fridge, it's eligible for a second life as a cookie bag or bag of toiletries for travel.

What interesting ways have you found to reuse things in your own household?

Saving Paper

This morning, the heavens opened over L.A.
And this morning, I awoke to the glorious sound of rain -- not from the outside, tapping on the window, but from inside, dripping into my windowsill. ::sigh::

Fortunately, the windowsill is wide and the rain was only leaking in through a relatively small hole, so there was no major problem, but we were still a little miffed ("what hasn't gone wrong in our apartment" was the phrase of the morning). There was one positive outcome of the rainy windowsill, though: I got the opportunity to save a great deal of paper towels by reusing a dirty bath towel. The windowsill, you see, is pretty dingy (the fires in L.A. left a huge dust deposit) and I was sorely tempted to take advantage of the water to clean up the sill and dry at the same time, with paper towels. Instead, I achieved the same goal with a brown bath towel that won't show the dirt. Though this seems like a small accomplishment, to me, it's a major leap.

I grew up cleaning up all messes with paper towels, no matter how extensive. Paper towels, of course, have their place: they're great for bug killing (I actually cut up paper towels to make tiny, bug-killing swatches) and they're fabulous for wiping up staining spills (more on that in a moment), but, by and large, they are a nuisance about which I feel guilty.
So, I am attempting to switch off my paper towel addiction. By enriching my already plentiful stock of dish towels, I hope to keep the kitchen paper-free. I hope to hit up some thrift stores for new-to-me items and, when they're stained beyond recognition, I plan to donate them to either the rag pile or an animal shelter where they'll use the towels as bedding for lonesome animals.

Part of my reluctance to use non-paper towels, especially in the kitchen, is my intolerance for stains. Slowly, though, I am learning to let go. A stained kitchen towel is not a sign of weakness or any other negative. Instead, it is a positive, healthy, natural progression in a paper-free kitchen. I can be proud of my stained towels for the positive impact they'll make on my environmental efforts. And, if I'm feeling a little less proud, maybe I can set aside a few towels for when company comes over.

Fortunately, most of our towels are hand-me-downs from my mother and are already colorful, so a little staining won't make a huge difference.