LiveGreener Nashville

Freshaire paint - totally worth it!

2009-10-09T15:25:00.007-05:00

Well, I'm painting my room, and I was SO HAPPY to find that my local Home Depot finally offers a low-VOC choice!!! It was about 35% more than me getting "normal" paint.

Freshaire paints don't have quite the color selection of, say, Behr or Glidden (it's closer to Ralph Lauren's palatte), but I am blissfully happy with my choices of "Reef Pink" and "Arbor Vine"... and my sinuses are even more happy with the fact that there is barely any smell at all. One of my housemates, when I apologized for any smell he might have noticed, said "Oh! That was paint? It smelled a little funny, but i had no idea you had painted the room!"

I think that is pretty much a perfect endorsement of the product. That and my lack of migraine!

I painted two walls green and two pink, then added some funky striping running around the room.

wow. I am SO glad I bought a camelbak

2009-09-08T07:16:00.000-05:00

So - I've been grousing lately about how I want a stainless steel water bottle - my latest reminder was from the Think Outside The Bottle people, who were offering some logo-ed bottles for purchase.

But now...

oh, now.

SIGG, the big name-brand face to the stainless steel water bottle craze, which took off after the fuss over BPA in water bottles like Nalgenes (and prompted me to buy a Camelbak), has apparently been coating the inside of their bottles with... ::drumroll:: BPA!

I saw the story on Salon.com today, and I'm disappointed but not surprised.

One of the biggest challenges for Green Me is that I feel kind of powerless about stuff like this. I just finished reading The Ominvore's Dilemma (a post on that to come!), and it made me feel trapped in the same way this SIGG thing has done. Little ole me is just another block in the wall (like this lady).

I've got bigger personal fish to fry these days, so another Corporate Accountability Scandal doesn't faze me much. Sometimes, all you can do is all you can do.

So you should make a point to do the following: add SIGG to the list of products you don't buy.

Guest Post on Just Move Monday for the Zaftig Chicks

2009-08-27T18:00:00.001-05:00

Over the past two months I've been doing probably a million, bajillion things, but one of the less-stressful ones has been to read some of the blogs on the fat-o-sphere feed.

That's how i came to know of Bianca & Sylvia, the Zaftig Chicks.

As a way to fight the stress of the past two months, i've been hot-yoga-ing a lot, and when the girls asked if anyone wanted to guest-contribute a blog post, it seemed like a nice opportunity to write about my practice. You can check it out here.

Meanwhile, although I haven't been posting anything here, I HAVE been tweeting, and those tweets relate to green things, including the chickens (now there are 15!). The garden has been producing the first tomatoes of the season, and my belly is READY to give them a home... I'll definitely share more as Dallas' harvests come in.

I've been doing a little "activist" stuff, too. My friend Molly and I went to check out the new TN headquarters of Repower America and then I went with a couple strangers to visit the offices of the two TN senators to tell them that I support the ACES act.

ALSO - I give a hearty thumbs-up to the Murfreesboro toothpaste I got from The Green Wagon, as well as the castile soap shampoo (i can't remember the name of it) that you can buy by the ounce (!). They'll be opening their East Nashville location oh-so-very soon, so you'll have 100% more opportunities to buy green!

Meanwhile, think good thoughts for me as I embark upon a quest for better living through altering my chemical composition with the help of the Pharmaceutical-Industrial Complex :(

25% off sale at The Green Wagon this Saturday!

2009-06-27T00:03:00.004-05:00

Find your thrill(er)...

The Green Wagon's shaking off the summer weirdness and playing Michael Jackson tunes all weekend... plus everything's 25% off on Saturday.

I suggest trying the new toothpaste they have in stock - it's made in Murfreesboro!
And an Alchemy of Sol soap bar is NEVER a bad bet.

Cleaning up a broken CFL bulb...

2009-04-28T16:47:00.004-05:00

Many thanks to my uncle for sending this link my way...

I knew that you had to recycle your CFL bulbs in a special way, but this is getting ridiculous! What a way to scare people away from using CFLs! I mean, come on folks, you should be more worried about eating tuna than breaking one bulb...

Happy Earth Day!

2009-04-22T10:20:00.002-05:00

To celebrate, i give you a picture of my very modest veggies...
they're all coming up! whoohoo!

Top left: spinach
bottom left: romaine
middle: green-leaf lettuce
top right: tomatoes
bottom right: bell peppers

giving gardening another go...

2009-03-13T10:03:00.001-05:00

Last year I tried to grow some tomatoes.
Target had some little grow-pots in their dollar-bin and I thought wouldn't it be sweet to have my own tomatoes...

well, sadly, instead of April showers bringing me tomatoes, they just washed away the little sprouts and all the soil. It was pretty sad.

This year, I am determined to NOT let my little sprouts die in a torrential rain storm.

And I DO have sprouts!
They're tiny, but they're there!

This picture was taken a week ago - right now the middle container is chock-full of sprouts and the tomatoes (in the left container) have just begun to sprout.

I am very excited about the prospect of salads every day!

warning: cheapy cheaperson, susie homemaker, & hairy-armpitted feminist, all in one post!

2009-03-05T13:40:00.000-06:00

Perhaps I have gotten my second green wind.
Or, perhaps I have just gotten progressively cheaper so that now i've swung over to the other side of being green - from trying to buy organic and buy green to not buying anything. new. ever.

I've been using freecycle like a fiend.
I traded in the Prius for a Yaris because it cut my car payment (hey - in my defense, the mpgs are comparable - check out this guy's blog).
I'm trying - again - to grow some tomatoes. This time, I'm also trying some lettuce and spinach! (more on this to come - I'm not going to provide details on the project until i see little green sprouts!)
And, perhaps the greenest/cheapest thing of all - I have started to make my own pantiliners. Yep. that's right. Pantiliner as in 'Stayfree', 'Always', and 'Kotex'. Except mine aren't big wads of plastic and cotton or paper or whatever else the "big three" use. They're made out of an old flannel shirt and a pair of terry-cloth shorts that I wore in middle school gym.

Now, if you're not as "susie homemaker" as I am (thanks to my roommate for that label...), you can buy cloth ones. They can be really pretty! Check out here, here or here.

But if you, too, need a project to keep you busy while you're watching some poor teenager cry her eyes out after getting rejected on American Idol, you can EASILY make your own!!

first, I used a pair of underwear to figure out how much coverage I needed and made myself a paper template, which I used to cut two pieces of cloth, one for the body-facing side and one for the underwear facing side:

Then, I used one of the cuffs off the flannel shirt for some extra padding on the inside of the thing (you can see above where I'd already started sewing it in before I got the bright idea to take some pictures):

Then, I put the outside faces of the two pieces of fabric together and used a looping stitch (I totally forget the name of the stitch, maybe a slip-stitch?) to sew about 3/4 of the way around the outside of the piece so that it was sewn inside-out and was like a little pocket that opened at the top. then, I squished the bottom up through the top so that it was right-side out but still open at the top. At that point, I went ahead and sewed up the top. This means that most of the piece has a nice hidden seam but at the top you can see the stitching. Oh well. Not like i'm going to be showing this off at a cocktail party. I used one of the buttons from the flannel shirt on the little flaps so i can button it around the crotch of my underwear.

Why do I like this?

Well, I would much rather have terry cloth against my skin than some weird amalgamation of cotton, plastic and paper.
Also, the stupid "wings" on the disposable ones always end up sticking to my skin and not to my underwear - they never leave sticky stuff on me, but it's kind of like pulling a band-aid off. not cool.
But ultimately, it's because I am sick and tired of buying something that I throw away! It ends up being between $10-$15 every month between pads and tampons and the other stuff a gal might want to buy.

Now, before you go saying, "would you want to re-use toilet paper, too, D? And what about the fact you'll be using water/energy to launder these?", let me say this:

a) some people DO have reusable toilet wipes (scroll down on that link to see her tidy little stack) which I think is awesomely cool and wish i had the energy to do and
b) i'm not tossing out my underwear when/if I 'leak' so why not just have a piece of cloth that is meant to get dirty? I'm a lot more scared of some of the cleaning rags I have than I am of some stains on my unmentionables.
c) Maybe it takes a bigger carbon footprint to wash something than to just throw it away, but poo on that. I prefer to reuse, I like cloth on my tush, and I feel totally crafty having made these.
d) there's no way to quantify the weird looks your roommate will give you when you sit on the couch working on one of these bad boys, which makes them priceless.

So, there you have it. So far, I have two of these bad boys. They get better the more that I make. I'm in the middle of a third one and I have plenty more cloth to use before I'll need to cannibalize another piece of old clothing! The real trick seems to be getting good needles and thread. I've been using the thread out of those little dollar-sewing-kits (read = I've been cheap) so it breaks a lot. New needles and thread are on my buy-when-you-feel-less-cheap list.

Anyway, a happy recession/depression to you all!
a post on gardening will come.
eventually :)

another very un-green project at work.

2009-02-20T13:28:00.002-06:00

Yesterday, we had a VERY un-green (does that means it’s “red” since that’s opposite on the color wheel?) project that national marketing asked us to do. We were supposed to print off every piece of communication that we have with students from the first time we talk to them until the last time we talk with them... email templates, day-one packets, phone scripts, direct mail pieces, everything.

That's right. print off emails. awesome

I thought you all would enjoy the ridiculous stack of paper I generated. As you can see, I am sad. What’s pictured is only the Operations part, this doesn’t count what our Marketing department did. We figure we used about a ream of paper for the project and then we had to mail it to national.

Wow.

The Green Wagon ROCKS

2009-02-13T17:38:00.004-06:00

If you haven't yet stopped in to check out how awesome Jen Casale's Green Wagon is, you are missing out!

Check out the über-cute pants I got for my valentine this year...
They're made by a lady in Lebanon, TN, from old sweaters!

Go Check out The Green Wagon!!!

2009-01-16T09:58:00.003-06:00

You guys, this is very exciting!

My friend Jen Casale is opening her store, The Green Wagon, today at 10 AM.

I am sure that this place is going to be AMAZING. Jen is brilliant, creative, and all sorts of superlatives.

Go check it out and buy something!

egg on my face...

2008-09-30T16:47:00.007-05:00

Well, first of all, if you knew all the details, you would forgive me for being such a slacker about posting. Trust me, you would not want to read any blogging I might have done over the past three weeks!

BUT...

I'm feeling a bit perkier now, and I have something to share with you all - which is also the cause of a bit of embarrassment on my part (because I haven't updated like I should).

I've been named a Runner Up for Greenest Greek by my sorority's magazine, Anchora!!!
Check me out... along with all the other Green DGs!!! Part of what makes me green is this blog, and since I haven't been updating like I normally would... well, you can see how it's kind of embarrassing.

Anyway, I promise that I haven't left green-dom behind, just put it on pause for a while.
My latest project is figuring out where to recycle in Murfreesboro.

Also, I just finished reading Skinny Bitch (they have a website, too), and I'm not quite transformed into a vegan yet, but I have definitely stopped eating all artificial sweeteners (the phrase that made me buy the book even though I'm on a Skinny Wallet diet right now? "When methyl alcohol, a component of aspartame, enters your body, it turns into formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is toxic and carcinogenic (cancer-causing). Laboratory scientists use formaldehyde as a disinfectant or preservative. They don't fucking drink it."). That's my first step. Next step is cutting out dairy (chapter 5).

Anyway, it's "fall hell" right now at my job, so this is all I can manage... but yay for being a Green Greek and yay for trying to be a skinny bitch!

Bovine Ambition

2008-08-19T09:48:00.004-05:00

I want to be exactly like Alexe P. van Beuren.

Check out her latest column in the Oxford Eagle:

Bovine Ambition

Outside my study window lives the only sign of my agricultural ambitions: a fifteen by twenty plot of raised beds, including a pre-existing boxwood, and forty-one heirloom tomato plants.

Thirty-nine, come to think of it. The blight got two that I ripped out yesterday.

I am twenty-five years old and there are days when I want nothing more than to rise at dawn, don overalls, and pad forth from my sleeping family to go deal with chickens, fruit trees, a vegetable garden, and yes, a cow. A milk cow, to be exact.

Somehow, the whole town knows of my ambitions. Yesterday at the farmers' market, the husband of an acquaintance asked me how my pursuit of cow-dom was going... (Click to read more)

This chick is soooooooo awesome. If she weren't already married I'd be hightailing it down to Mississippi with a ring in one hand and a cow in the other.

summer time, and the livin' is LAZY

2008-07-25T11:38:00.005-05:00

23 days between posts... my, aren't I turning into quite the lazy-butt!

In my defense, things are moving quite fast in all this heat, so fast it's hard to keep up.

I have decided to rent out the Graybar condo. Despite all the remodeling we did (and how darn cute i think it looks!), we were unable to sell it and frankly, folks, I'm just ready to move on. I'll be moving over toward the 12 south district (walking to the frothy monkey and the devi clinic? yes, please!) and two very sweet girls will be moving into Graybar.

Needless to say, moving out is taking up a lot of head space! Mixed in with all of that are money-thoughts. The Prius has been the "biggest" green thing I've done, and it has been cause for lots of thinking about both my place in the big world and my little concerns about money and quality of life.

The past 8 months have been a time of great changes for me in the way i think about my life and my goals about how i want to live it. Living like a hotel guest in the condo while it's been on the market has been at the center of these thoughts... one big thought was "should I sell the Prius?"

Cons:
- I only have to fill up once a month most of the time
- what am I gonna buy to replace it? some old clunker that breaks down all the time? I've been using the Prius to drive to Memphis & Chattanooga for my new job and it really pays off b/c the company reimburses mileage at $0.505 a mile!
- if i get a bike, what the hell am I going to do when it rains? when i have to look nice (i.e. not sweaty?)
- I just bought a new set of tires for it
- I am seriously attached to the cute little thing

Pros: (here's where it gets interesting)
- According to the Kelley Blue Book site, I could actually private-party sell my car for just $1,413 less than the loan i took out on it originally... that's $2,554 more than I currently owe on the loan. What i boils down to is that I could basically sell the prius and it would have only cost me $6K to use it for 17 months.
- If those numbers are correct, I could get a bike and stop using gas pretty much altogether (just renting a car when i need to drive out of town - and if those numbers are correct, I could rent a car 40% of the year.)

So.
I'm really having a hard time with this.
Given that the condo has not sold, while the renters will be covering my mortgage costs, I still have the debt i incurred in remodeling the little beastie. Not having a car payment would mean i could pay those suckers down much faster than I will currently be able to.
But, I whine to myself, I like her so muuuuuuuuch...

Well, a happy Friday to you all. I'm looking forward to a weekend of a little packing (I probably have 2 boxes of stuff in addition to the furniture) and a lot of taking advantage of my last weekend to be blissing out on the back patio. This time next week, chickadees, I'll be out of that condo until at least July 31 2009.

Urban Dictionary

2008-07-01T09:13:00.002-05:00

I've known about Urban Dictionary for some time now, but it was only recently that I realized that they, too, had a Word of the Day email (just like dictionary.com).

Today's WOTD delighted me...

carbon guilt n. The feeling of guilt for using too much carbon, e.g. too much air travel, driving to the corner shop in the car, etc.
'Man, I have to fly to Zurich for the second time this month'
'Whoa, you must have some major carbon guilt over that'

The City Chicken

2008-06-20T12:00:00.000-05:00

So.

My little tomato plants are doing okay. I haven't killed them yet, which is a sign that they're very robust, perhaps even Super Tomatoes. Hopefully not Killer Tomatoes, just plants that can survive my flakiness.

As the condo is still on the market, my daydreams of being greener by growing my own veggies and hanging clothes on a line instead of using the dryer are still just daydreams. Still and all, the way I'm living now seems itself an interesting experiment in being green. Living so minimally - no cable, minimum wardrobe/makeup/accessories, being strapped for cash - is really not that bad. Not to say that I don't sort of lust over the thought of watching the History Channel now and then... or actually putting on eyeliner... or being able to participate in NPR's summer e-pledge day (I've been wanting to do the $5/month thing since Jeff did it last year but I keep thinking "it's dumb to do that when you're eating off-brand mac'n'cheese...").

Anyway, my daydreaming of tomatoes has been amdended, now, to include chickens. Chickens and tomatoes. I think I could subsist off of tomatoes, fresh monzarella and eggs for the rest of my life. Why? Because I was thinking about having one chicken. I mean, you can keep chickens as domestic pets as far as I know.

What happened is that I was reading on Slate.com and found my way to this site, called The City Chicken, about keeping your own chickens in urban areas. While i don't think it's feasible to have a chicken right now (or maybe ever, if I'm going to be renting somewhere), I was thinking that it might be possible to have one down at mom and dad's when they move here. That would also mean I could just make them raise the chicken! Brilliant!

good vs. evil

2008-06-16T16:21:00.005-05:00

So, I've run into two products today, both of which deserve a mention.
First, Brunswick Beeworks
is a new local honey supplier! The closest local honey they have at Whole Foods is from Goodlettsville - and Brunswick makes candles and skin stuff!
Whoohoo!

Second, there's a Slate article about Proctor & Gamble's Olay Body Wash Plus Spa Exfoliating Ribbons. YUCK. I read a while back about the Giant Sea of Plastic and was freaked out, but this Olay stuff is actually DELIBERATELY putting microplastic out there! We're not talking about plastic trash that's breaking down, this stuff is MADE like this and put in something that we're using to wash our bodies and then flushing "away".
Yuck yuck yuck.

E2A: I sent that article over to Beth at Fake Plastic Fish, and lo and behold, she already knew about it! Check out her blog post on it, from nearly a year ago!, because it's got some great resources.

"I hit a dog..."

2008-06-16T09:42:00.004-05:00

While I'm mildly ashamed to admit that I watched Jackass, I will staunchly and loudly proclaim that the one scene where they rent a car, modify it and then crash it was hysterical - mostly because when they return it, they say "I hit a dog." Not that hitting a dog is funny, but, you know.

Anyway, thanks to xkcd.com for another idea of what to do with a rental car...

I want some of these

2008-06-12T16:37:00.004-05:00

Ideal Bite, an enewsletter I subscribe to, is selling bags with their logo.
They are super-cute... when i have some cash to throw at those folks, I'm going to buy some.

For now, go subscribe to their newsletter - my designer friend Molly put me onto them and they are sassy and funny and ALWAYS topical! Love 'em!

Green remodel follow-up

2008-06-12T16:30:00.000-05:00

I've been enjoying the bamboo floors for 6 months now, and stumbled upon an article on Slate.com today that had me revisit the decision.

If I'm remembering properly, this is the flooring that we bought.
I have searched and searched but I can't find anything about this company on the internet. Next time I'm at HD, I'm going to look for the company's number on the box... although it's possible i'll have to call HD instead.

I'm still pretty happy with the floors. They're easy to clean and haven't undergone any real damage since I've been using them daily. I wonder, though, about the points cited in the Slate article.
What kind of sealant is on there? what kind of growing practices were used on that bamboo?

In the end, i guess, there's only so much we can do. There are only so many hours in the day. I hope that, like my Prius purchase, my buy will spur others to also buy bamboo products and make them more popular and prevalent. But I can't spend all day, every day researching the minutae of different companies. It feels exhausting.

I'm doing the best I can, I guess, and ultimately I'm happy with those floors b/c they were the best decision I felt I could make.

And they are just so pretty...

Greenius at Cafe Coco

2008-06-03T09:49:00.006-05:00

So last Wednesday I went to see the awesome Stacy Allyn Baker (Boatman) at Cafe Coco and couldn't believe I hadn't seen any sets there before. Their back room is kick-ass... there's a bench built in along the back wall where we sat and I am totally going back again.

I really want to go this Thursday (alas, I have to go down to the ATL to talk to some quilty-ladies about their website plans for the next year), because Greenius is playing at 9 PM. My friend Melanie (who just got married! yay!) says it's "organic music designed to make society grow."

I love it! I can't believe I'm out of town for it, but I'm going to hit them up next time. Of course, me having to guzzle gas doesn't mean you can't go! Go check 'em out and let me know how it was!

bad habits, good habits, red fish blue fish... what?

2008-05-22T11:26:00.004-05:00

So Tyler, our new part-timer, has been making coffee in the mornings at work and I simultaneously love him and hate him for it. Because I love the coffee but I really ought not drink it. It turns me into a jumping bean.

I had been furtively sneaking small amounts in the little disposable starbucks cups that we had left over from some event Lauren did, and that seemed sufficient to keep me from drinking much of it, but it also meant I was using disposable cups :(

anyway, I'm a sucker for sale items at starbucks and snagged a lovely mug there the other day for $3, so now I have my own coffee mug for my desk at work.

In the same beverage-related vein, after all the hubbub over BPA in Nalgene & other plastic bottles, I used it as an excuse to pick up a Camelbak for me and for mom.

They are both on my desk right now, lovely and green in the flourescent lighting.

thanks, Mr. Hunt

2008-05-20T10:21:00.005-05:00

So, back when i was buying the Prius, I thought long and hard about the impact that its actual production (well, the production of any new car) would have on the environment. I had heard about the toxicity of the batteries and the problems with producing them, and I knew that buying anything new is not really a green activity.

However, it's always nice to get some concrete numbers to go with what you already sort of know. Many thanks to Jeff for the link.

I did pretty much know this when i decided to purchase the little bugger, but I hoped then, and I do still hope, that my purchase wasn't stupid. I hope that by hopping on the hybrid bandwagon, I helped just a little to push forward hybrid and electric technology.

::sigh:: I don't know. I've already put 25K on the Prius over the past year, so, according to the article, I'll have overcome that new/old car carbon gap. Of course, if I just stopped driving altogether, that would be even greener...

and spring became the summer

2008-05-19T13:51:00.003-05:00

Well, regular season college baseball is at a close - the conference tourneys start up at the end of this week - and summer is surely upon us.

I totally forgot to tell y'all that my "carbon pawprint" article (downloads a .pdf) came out in the March/April issue of Nashville Paw. Somewhat of a combo of me and Heather, the editor, composing it, but it's alright I suppose.

I have a temporary roommate for the moment (please, universe, see fit to have my condo sell) who is AWESOME. Here's her website. She just moved back to Nashville from NYC and is waiting for the lease to be up from the person renting her house, so I'm getting the benefits of having a wonderful person to share my space, pay attention to Madeline and cook dinner! And, this Saturday (last I heard), she's starting a Yoga In The Park class in Centennial! It never occured to me before, but doing yoga on the ground - not on concrete or a wooden floor - really sounds wonderful.

A couple of weekends ago, Madeline and I went with Julie & Hayley to the Centennial Dog Park, and it was AWESOME!!! Maddie is so weird - she didn't want to have anything to do with anyone but me when we were in the big dog section (which, really, there were small dogs in there, too, lots of dachshunds and shih zus and terriers), but when we went over to the small dog section, she was friendly as could be! The thought of living 1 block from there makes me tingle with delight. Walking to work, baseball AND the dog park? I'm smitten.

The more I think about it, the more I'm contemplating jettisoning the Prius. Well, really, I'm thinking about making Matt take it, getting rid of his big 'ole truck, and just having him bring it to me when i need to make a long drive (or, heck, renting one!). Talk about cutting costs! No insurance, no necessary parking space, no oil changes, no car payment! WOW!

Anyway, I'm rambling. Summer is definitely in full swing outside, with June just around the corner. I cannot WAIT for some poolside margaritas and some beer on the lake.

toothpaste for dinner

2008-05-07T10:04:00.001-05:00

This guy's stuff is awesome!