Freshaire paint - totally worth it!

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.

Guest Post on Just Move Monday for the Zaftig Chicks

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!

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...

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!

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...

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!

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 :)

Go Check out The Green Wagon!!!

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!

Green remodel follow-up

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...

Thanks, Mom

There's been discussion around the office of late about moms.

My mom made an awesome wall hanging that I get to babysit until she has a place to display it.

But to the point, Stephanie brought up just how green our moms have always been, and we're only just now actually taking their advice. She's writing her mom a letter for mother's day (their tradition left over from the days of post-grad-no-cash-even-for-ramen, and quite a green tradition in and of itself), and this year she's writing about how her mom was green before it was cool.

Some stuff we brainstormed about mom-advice that now everyone is touting as being green:

Let it Mellow - why waste water on just flushing pee? Even I, in my please-dear-lord-let-it-sell-soon condo with the dual-flush toilets lets it mellow once or twice before flushing. You can save 1-7 gallons per flush depending on your toilet!

Washing dishes by hand - this is actually not true. Steph was talking about how her mom made them fill one side of the sink with hot water and the other with cold so that they didn't use running water or the dishwasher. This was true, with older appliances, but with the new Energy Star appliances, it turns out that even the most disciplined hand-dishwashers only equal the efficiency of newer dishwashing machines (according to a German study). Your best bet for greening your dishes is to use a soap that's biodegradable like Seventh Generation or the Melaleuca stuff I get).

Turning off lights when you leave a room - I've actually seen an increase in my electric bill since I started leaving a bunch of lights on. Since it's on the market, I leave the lights on when I know people will be coming to view the place, and it really is costing me money.

Close the refrigerator/front/back/car door - If you've never heard Jeff Foxworthy's imitation of his mother yelling out the front door "we're not gonna heat up the neighborhood," I highly suggest it. This is just good advice, and to take it a step further, think about adding those little insulator pads to your electrical outlets and light switches and moving your fridge away from the stove or dishwasher so it doesn't have to work so hard.

Use one cup a day - I've pretty much swapped over to all reusable cups, but even with that I end up using three or four a day. Steph and I had the same experience as kids, her in her own house and me at my cousin's - we were only allowed to use one cup a day, and we had a spot on the counter where we sat it when we were done with it. This can really cut down on the number of times you fill up your dishwashwer!

Hang the clothes out to dry - a while ago, Burban mom had a great string of posts about reducing her use of their clothes dryer. I'm not there yet (oh, I dream of the days I'll be in a place that's not for sale), but I can't wait. I did drag out the drying rack when i was living down at Matt's, and it was great. I kept it in the laundry room, where it was already warm.

Clean your plate - I always felt like this was encouraging me to overeat, but really, if we thought about the amount of food we put on our plates to begin with , we'd end up with the same result. Check out Crunchy Chicken's Project NOWASTE.

No buying drinks - when i was a little little kid, we weren't allowed to buy drinks when we went out to eat - we could get water or sometimes milk. This rule fell by the wayside as we and the Grand Southern Tradition of sweet tea wore our mother down, but my stinginess has brought me back to it, and brings up another great point about drinking bottled beverages, especially water. Just don't do it.

I'm sure we'll be coming up with others over the next week as we get ready for Mother's Day, but that's all we've got for now - any suggestions from y'all?

Greening the dogs

So, I have a good excuse. Last Friday, blogger wasn't allowing me access. That's my story and I'm using it for all it's worth. Never mind the fact I've felt like roadkill or that I'm still living at Matt's. but I digress...

For those of you who don't know, I've hooked up with Nashville PAW, writing something for their bi-monthly issues. The current issue (you can download a .pdf here) has my article about how to deal with the death of a pet.

What brings it up here, thought, is my next assignment - writing about how to go green with your pet! I'm really excited about this one, since I've already been making efforts to green up Madeline and Georgia, and I thought that I'd devote a post to what I've been doing with them, as a way to get geared up for the article.

For her whole life, Georgia has been pad-trained. This is thanks to the efforts of mom and dad, who managed to train a mutt to pee only inside a little blue square. Over the years, many of my friends have been alternately fascinated and grossed out (high school friends seemed to take it in stride, but over this past year, my poor roommate, Maggie, just couldn't stand it). When Georgia came to live with me in Nashville, she continued on her pad plan, and with the occasional weird accident (we think it's more of a political statement than 'accident'), she's done pretty well, even though she's 15.

Madeline, on the other hand, is NOT pad trained. She is insane. Ceasar Milan and I are trying to work through this, slowly but surely. We have had several successes. We are going on walks in the evening, which seem to chill her out a little bit. She does, generally, let me know when she wants to go outside to pee. But since I am driving so far to work these days, she is now spending her days in the bathroom, with a puppy pad that - ::shock:: ::awe:: she uses! This was a major victory for us. Then, last night, I caught her using Georgia's pad! This is wonderful! Still, she has her accidents, but I got her some Pooch Pants for times when i just can't monitor her every move, and things are working out well.

So - what's so green about this, you ask? Using those blue pads is AWFUL! It's like using disposable diapers! YUCK!

Well, about 6 months ago, I started experimenting with washable alternatives to those things. What I've ended up with is a combination of using washable pads that are meant for baby mattresses and putting 1/2 towels on top of them. The pee soaks in, but the poo gets tossed in the toilet. The pads get reused for a few days, but the used towels go in a trash can that (IS STIIIIIIINKY!) gets washed at least once a week. I'm using more water, but less stuff is ending up in the landfill.

I also found a really cool link today that fascinated me - here's a clip:

The Fairbanks North Star Borough estimates there are over 20,000 dogs within the 7,000 square mile borough. In Alaska, dogs are used for transportation, recreation and competitive sports. All these dogs produce a large volume of dog manure. Prior to this study the recommended disposal method for dog waste was to tightly seal it in plastic bags and haul it to the landfill. One musher reported that he threw dog waste over the river bank. Another said he tied the dogs on the river in the winter so the waste would wash away during the spring. Pollution from dog waste poses a serious threat to water quality, wildlife and public health.

WOW! Anyway, it's about how you can compost dog poo. Now, if I were cool like my brother and lived in a house, I could have a compost bin and a garden. But since I'm a city girl, into the sewer it goes.

So, that's my big 'green' project as far as the dogs go. They also are using Mrs. Meyer's Oatmeal Pet Shampoo and this new freshener stuff I just got from Pure Ayre. I'm looking forward with Madeline, who (since she goes outside) will probably need some sort of flea repellent. I got this Sentry product that I am going to try - it's all essential oils.

Georgia seems to have adapted to the towels-instead-of-blue-pads just fine, and the shampoo is a delightful experience for me, so we're pretty happy.

Well, onward and upward. We're venturing into March Madness season, folks, so things can only get more insane! I'm off to the VU vs. UT game tonight - catch it on ESPN if you know what's good fer ya!

Green Remodel phase 4: on the market!

Well, folks - the two-week (unplanned) hiatus has come to an end - after much effort, sweat, sawdust, paint and adrenaline, my Graybar unit is on the market!

You can check out the official photos here.

Notice all the cool enviro-friendly stuff - those toilets are dual flow (according to Dad, you don't need the second flow - the small one is enough... thanks for the TMI, dad), the floors are solid bamboo, the a/c control is digital. We left in the original cabinets but repainted and re-hardwared them, and we left in the kitchen countertops and matched the rest of the countertops to them (reuse is one of those three Rs!).

Also, I took a video of the place while it was still in progress (with all intentions being to post it last week - ::sigh:: this remodel really got the better of me!)



As for me, I'm camping out in Murfreesboro with the dogs and my very gracious, very patient brother. I'll keep you updated - my next post, I think, will be about Nashville's Lipscomb U, which is one of a handful of universities that has been chosen for a green-test pilot program.

Green Remodel phase 3: cleaning up and health concerns

With the floors nearly completed and all the plumbing stuff ordered, last week we reconnoitered to clean up what had quickly become a dust bomb. The sheetrock dust, sawdust and good ole people dust had combined to make the 1,000 square feet of condo look like a war zone.

Thank goodness mom arrived with her organizational skills (and, of course, a healthy dose of guilt for us about how messy we've been). We got that place clean and empty in just one afternoon. That freed up space to finish off the floors, and now we'll move on to the painting while our tile guy flies through the bathrooms and we await the arrival of toilets, sinks and countertops.

But getting the rest of my stuff out of the place and trying to quell the dust cloud (which resulted in both Matt and Dad hacking and horking) got me interested in how to stay healthy when you're remodeling. Obviously, you can't help making dust & dirt or disturbing what's already there. Not only that, but sometimes you're forced to use supplies that aren't exactly carbon-based-life-form-friendly.

Case in point is the experience of laying the bamboo floors in the back two rooms. We had to take up the carpet & pad that was there and then lay the floor directly on the concrete. In addition to the nasty dust created while trying rip up the carpet and then scraping bits of padding off of the slab (the padding was originally glued to the concrete with god-knows-what-kind-of glue), we then had to saw the flooring to fit where needed and then glue it down (whereas in the rest of the house we could nail it to the existing wood floors). Not only do you have a lung issue (ack - concrete dust and wood dust?!), but you have the problem of how to remove glue from your skin (Dad, that health nut, uses turpentine).

So - what can you do to stay healthy while remodeling? How can you keep your lungs safe? What can you use to clean so you don't burn off your skin? Here's some stuff I've found that can see you through any remodeling project.

Dust is oft-encountered and rather benign-seeming at first - from sheetrock, wood, etc. One of the first projects we did was opening up the wall to create a bar area between the kitchen and living room. This resulted in sheetrock removal, repair... and DUST.

Different kinds of dust cause different reactions, but in general, inhalation can lead to allergic reactions, asthma, diminished lung capacity, and cancer. Check out the CDC NIOSH report and the section about wood dust on this site.

There are lots of facemask options at out there, ranging from super-cheap to luxurious. And, if you're going to be kicking up dust in a localized, interior area, check out this super-cool toy called a ZipWall! I really wish we'd had that!

As for the glue, dad looked and looked, but could not find one that was non-toxic.
We bought this. When you're using this glue, it's best to wear a mask against the fumes and chemical-resistant gloves. When you need to clean glue off the wood itself (or your skin... if you didn't wear the aforementioned gloves... DAD), you CAN get something less corrosive than turpentine (which ) - try these wipes made by a glue company.

However, as I was looking for safety information, I came across this glue that is 100% green! MAN, I wish we'd known about this! It's DriTrac EcoUrethane. ::sigh:: I just have to remember that this *is* a learning process.

In my search for safety-related information, I also stumbled upon a very in-depth document provided by the CDC NIOSH about ergonomics for construction workers! Although my focus in terms of health was about avoiding poisonous stuff, I was intrigued that this document exists! It focuses on tools that help avoid physical stress as well as educates the reader a little bit about ergonomics.

Anyway, all of this continues to be a learning process! I will certainly be happy when the messy part is over, and we can finally get this puppy on the market. For now, though, I'll just have to content myself with digging into all this new information!

Green Remodel phase 2: bathrooms & painting

Obviously this remodel is getting to me - three days late on posting! Last week we tore up the carpeting in the back bedrooms. It was only 2 years old, and with the exception of about 5x11 feet in one room, was clean and totally usable. I put in on Freecycle and within 4 hours, found someone to come get it that same night! Freecycle is AWESOME.

Anyway, we are now laying the bamboo flooring, so my mind is of course looking forward to the next project: bath fixtures, toilets, countertops + sinks, and painting!

First of all, i did not know it, but you can replace the face of a shower fixture without actually having to install a completely new set-up. I was looking at something like this, but then decided that, since the plumbing is perfectly fine, it would be better to look to replace the rusty facing on the shower fixtures. We're still looking for a place to buy them.

As for the toilets, I think this might be my favorite 'green' item of the moment - a dual-flush (or "dual flow" or "european") toilet. These toilets let you use only a little bit of water if a big flush isn't necessary. This is so much better than letting something "mellow"! This should really be a visible 'green' upgrade, so I'm anxious to see if people like it. (if you search eBay for "dual flush toilet", bunches will come up - I think we're going to buy this one)

On to the countertops... we're still not sure what we're going to be replacing the bathroom sink countertops with. There are three options: silestone (what's in the kitchen), granite (a piece from the salvage yard), or "vetrazzo". Vetrazzo is the brand name (like Kleenex) for a concrete + glass slab. We are in the process of getting an estimate from 3D Concrete Design down in Murfreesboro. The concept is really cool - use recycled glass and concrete to make a really stunning, unique countertop. Check out their site for an idea of what i'm talking about.

On top of the countertops, we're going to have vessel sinks, the kind that sit on top of the countertop like a bowl. They have perfect ones at Southeastern Salvage, but they didn't come with the fixtures (which are insanely expensive at Home Depot), so we bought them off eBay instead.

Lots of 'green' stuff is about being healthy, and the paint we're going to use is more on the 'healthy' side than the truly green side. Dubbed "low VOC" (VOC meaning "volatile organic compounds"), it will smell less and release fewer harmful chemical compounds. Low-VOC paint is new - not recycled (which you can get but isn't good for interior surfaces) - but it is specifically formulated to not have that "off-gassing" effect that a lot of products have. Check out this article for more information.

So, that wraps up today's remodeling post - I'm sure there's more to come, as we are neck-deep in jazzing this place up. Next post, I'll talk about keeping your body healthy while doing a remodel - not an easy feat in many places, where demolition can be quite a rough ride!

Green Remodel phase 1: floors, tiling & lighting

So, we're getting pretty gung-ho about this green remodel!

Admittedly, some of the stuff we have done thus far has not been very green - we did buy standard lumber to finish out the header in the kitchen/living room (to create a bar pass-through from the kitchen to the living room, creating an actual dining area), and we have used standard sheetrock to finish it out. The door we put in to replace the window in one of the bedrooms was just a normal ole door - nothing really special except that it should be MUCH more insulative than that old drafty window that was there.

Still, we're working on some really big projects that ARE green, including flooring, tiling and lighting.

The flooring is what i have been most excited about for the longest time - we have 100% bamboo sitting in boxes ready to be laid. We looked for a long time for a product that was not veneer - I do love the look of bamboo, but what really flips my skirt up is the fact that bamboo is so very sustainable. Yes, taking out the old flooring to put in new isn't exactly 'no impact', but the idea here is to do a remodel, which buyers want, while also being as low-impact as possible. We are planning to 'freecycle' the old floors if possible, so ultimately i hope that someone will get some use out of the old wood floors.

The bathroom tile we're using is standard ceramic tile, which is made out of mud and then baked in ovens. There are tiles that are sun-baked, but they break easily; one of the perks of using ceramic tiling is that, if you get a quality product, it should last for a really long time (scroll down for the meaty part). We were able to buy this at the closest Home Depot, rather than have something specially shipped (I'm going for the least of any evils here while being on a tight budget, so I grudgingly went to HD for the purchase). We will install this ourselves in a few days, over the existing, broken/gross tiles. Sadly, Home Depot does not offer any overtly 'sustainable' tiling (they have this promo going called "Eco Options," so I thought they might, but the store associate we talked to didn't have ANY clue about this. If you're going to shop big-box, you've definitely got to come prepared and know exactly what to ask for. Sure, our tile is made of mud, but what about the grout compound? and what about the manufacturing process?)

We have already had the new lighting installed; we purchased 'Radium' track lighting from ikea - this replaces the old tracklighting, and it's only mildly green. First of all, they're halogen lights, which are the gluttons of the lighting world. However, these halogen bulbs have a lower-wattage than those used in the Home Depot version of the fixture. So, you get the same pretty lights without as much of an energy sink. We will also be reusing an old tracklight set for above the bar area, and reusing some old pendant lights. The rest of the house will be outfitted, where possible, with CFL bulbs (there are already a few).

So, that's it for the biggest projects - next up, I'll talk about the bathroom counters & sinks, dual flow toilets, and re-painting. Also,

If you're still hungry for more info, check out this site... I am finding it incredibly useful!