Green For Good

We've all been there: pushing your heaped cart out of Target and wondering what the heck happened. There appears to be a certain vortex effect inside Target which causes one to neglect their carefully planned out shopping list and start throwing things, willy-nilly into the cart. In those gleaming, red accented aisles, we're reminded of everything we need, (nay, everything we can not go on without!) and heck, the price is right so into the cart it goes.

Source: someecards.com via Ada on Pinterest

After my latest trip to Target, as we heaped the shopping bags in the back of the car (thankfully I actually remembered to bring in my own bags this time, because what is it about Target clerks and putting two items in each bags to guarantee you come home with at least 10 Target bags? Is it some sort of brand loyalty building practice?) I decided it was time to reevaluate some of the household "essentials" that I pick up each time. (I don't even go past the clothes and shoe sections in Target any more - I know trouble lurks for me in the clearance racks.) It seemed like there must be a better alternative to dropping a couple hundred dollars at Target a few times a year on what are mainly disposable items: shampoo, paper towels, cleaning supplies, etc. etc.

The result of my analysis is that we're slowly shifting towards a more paper-free household. As someone who heats her home with wood, I feel no guilt whatsoever about lessening my dependency on the timber industry (don't worry lumberjacks, I'll always need you) and I don't think we'll ever be a completely paper-free/eco-friendly household - there will always be a roll of paper towels, some plastic wrap, and plenty of Ziploc bags in this home.

I finally broke down and bought a set of reuseable paper towels. I'm anxiously awaiting their arrival - she's so backlogged with orders there's an eight week wait!

After cleaning out my clothes dresser last month, I save all of my old socks and now use them for dusting.  Good-bye Swiffer duster refills. 

One bad habit we have is using Kleenex for napkins during meals. We eat every meal on the couch (the dining tables is covered with seedlings - don't judge) and since there's always been a box of Kleenex on the couch end table that's what gets grabbed when fingers turn sticky after a meal of tacos or burgers. The sad result is that we were going through a lot of Kleenex and sometimes didn't have them on hand when someone actually needed them to blow their nose.

I realized we could drastically reduce Kleenex use if I replaced the box of Kleenex on the end table with a basket of cloth napkins. I had enough flannel fabric hanging out in my sewing basket from a previous project to make 10 napkins. A simple hem and we have a soft, reuseable alternative to Kleenex napkins. Winning!

Speaking of Kleenex, I've always appreciated those who use handkerchiefs, but I've never much cared for blowing my nose in an almost transparent piece of cloth. However, these bamboo hankies look quite lovely and may be phasing out paper tissues in the cabin shortly. 

I've been using Pinterest to find simple recipes for homemade cleansers. FYI, steam cleaning your microwave by nuking a bowl filled with three parts water to one part vinegar for 5 minutes is way more effective and efficient than scrubbing it out with store-bought cleaner. You're welcome.

I hate the flimsy plastic produce bags you get in grocery stores and at long last, have my own reuseable produce bags! What does this mean? I will never waste another second of my life trying to open the !@#$% plastic bags at the grocery store. (All thumbs here.) Oh glory be! 

I've found a lot of "going green" inspiration on Etsy. I love the idea of reuseable recycling bin liners. Our recycling bin always looks like hell because I can't bring myself to replace the trash bag liner every time I take out the recycling. While I'll keep a disposable trash bag in the kitchen trash can for the time being, there's no reason why every other trash can in the house can't have a reuseable liner.


While the world greens up outside, it's nice to be making some green moves inside as well. (Sorry Target.)

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Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Around here, we do our best to be good stewards of the Earth. When you consider the fact that the earth's temperatures have be "above normal" my entire life, reducing the amount of waste we produce, recycling or composting what we can, and staying eco-conscious seems like the least we can do.

Granted, there are plenty of times when I curse our recycling (we have a nasty habit of going 4-5 months between trips to the recycling center), but every time we come home from the recycling center with empty bins bumping around in the truck bed, I'm happy that we took the time to wash, sort, and drop off our recycling so all of that paper, cardboard, plastic, glass and more can get another lease on life. I try to do my best to reduce our use of non-recyclable household supplies by washing and reusing plastic bags and always bring my own shopping bags to the grocery stores. I also opt for eco-friendly cleaners like Mrs. Meyers. All that being said, we're far from perfect recyclers and I always having a niggling feeling whenever we go to the dumpster that we produce more trash than we really should.

I'm not sure why I've been thinking about this lately, although if I had to guess why recycling's been on my mind, it's probably because the shed is currently oozing recycling and today's activities will include a much needed trip to the recycling center. I was also inspired by this post from Food in Jars which highlighted bee's wrap, a reuseable alternative to plastic wrap.

Realizing that's there's a viable alternative to plastic wrap got me thinking about some of my "green" trouble spots. We use a lot of paper products like paper towels and Kleenex when we could be using reuseable towels or cloth napkins. I always opt for the store stocked plastic bags when buying bulk, whether I'm buying produce or basmati rice, when I could be bringing my own glass jars or using reuseable mesh produce bags. And I use plastic wrap every now and then, when I could be using bee's wrap.

Reuseable paper towels by Mamamade

I may not be much for spring cleaning, but as we move into the new season, it seems like as good a time as any to reassess some of my household habits and trying to green things up a bit. 

How about you? What are your best tips for reducing, reusing, and recycling? What are your "going green" problem areas?
 

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A True Story

The other day, Andy said, "You know, one of these days, we should really put some effort into straightening up around here."

And while I admit that we may have a bit of a mess/disaster issue on our hands when I am losing things - knitting needles . . . books - in the couch on a nightly basis (and we can't even blame children for the current state of our happy abode), my knee-jerk reaction to Andy's critique was, "It's fine. NBD." Who doesn't feel more at home in a home that looks like a tornado ripped through it?

Obviously, it could be way worse. Conversely, it could also be a lot better.

But like Scarlett O'Hara always said, I'll think about this mess in October.

Oh wait, Scarlett said "tomorrow," didn't she. . .

 

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Happy Little Miss Homemaker

Last week, Andy and I devoted a large portion of our evenings to watching all of Mad Men Season 1. (Behind the times, I know.) Despite the affinity I felt for Peggy throughout the first season, I spent today much more like Betty than Peggy.

Well, no, I didn't spend my day chain-smoking or start consuming wine at or around 1 p.m. But I did spend my day off engaged in decidedly homemaker-esque tasks. And what a happy little homemaker I was . . . which I guess makes me less like Betty than I previously thought.  ;)

I'm what Suzy Guese calls a "nomadic homebody." As much as I love travel and a good adventure, I need an equal, if not greater amount of time spent puttering around my home to really feel balanced. After a long, busy work week, the cabin and I were overdue for some quality time together.

When I woke up this morning, a mountain of dishes waited by the sink, "past its prime" produce rattled around in the fridge's crisper drawers, the recycling spilled out of its bin and across the floor, and the bathroom was smelling less than fresh.

So today, I vacuumed the entire cabin, finally blocked an afghan for my mother, cleaned the bathroom, did two batches of dishes, did some ironing, took out the recycling and trash, and managed to prepare a balanced supper from a nearly bare fridge. Mundane tasks, yes, but each one was a major accomplishment both for the cabin's appearance and my well-being.  

I performed fridge triage, the happy results of which were a batch of crockpot marinara sauce -using some bruised and otherwise unattractive tomatoes - and these Asian inspired fridge pickles from a cucumber no longer in a state for salad and some garlic scapes from the garden.

I've been chomping at the bit to try these nutty granola bars ever since Marisa posted about them over at Food in Jars.  I have a tried and true granola bar recipe that both Andy and I like, but the chief binder in that recipe is marshmallows and I've been looking for a slightly more wholesome recipe. I finally got a batch made this evening. I'm pretty sure I overbaked them, but they're still darn nommy and *very* calorie rich. One change I would make if I were to make them again would be to use all butter instead of a mixture of coconut oil and butter. (Or I wouldn't use coconut oil that's been in the pantry for an unknown amount of time. . . ahem.)  Besides, who has two thumbs and likes butter? That's right . . . this guy.

I also fertilized the vast majority of vegetables. One patch of veggies that didn't get any fertilizer was the potato patch. These guys already got a goodly amount of Tomato-tone last week and they're looking quite content in their straw-y abode. Maybe, just maybe, this crazy "let's grow potatoes in straw" experiment is going to work. 

It was a good day.

Are you a happy homemaker or do you find chores to dull to be truly pleasurable? 

 

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Two Pairs of Long Underwear is Not Enough!

Last week, the temperatures crept above freezing and the skies let loose with a slug of rain. As the sloppy mix of precipitation fell from the sky, apparently the weather checked out the calendar and determined it was, indeed, still winter. The rain turned to snowflakes and just like that we had a fresh eight inches of snow. Now this week, temperatures are hanging out around the 0F mark.

Apparently the weather has been consulting the calendar, but I can't be bothered. Yesterday  I headed out to the mailbox with jeans on. (Fear not, I had plenty of other warm clothing on: hats, mittens, down vest, down jacket, boots too.)  Remember all those cotton commercials with people hopping around in cotton clothing, looking as fresh and sunny as if they'd just danced off the clothesline? Those commercials were so summery because cotton is not designed for winter -- at least not if you live north of the Mason-Dixon line. That ol' north wind whistled right my cotton jeans for the duration of my short little walk yesterday.

You may remember from my earlier post, the Northwoods Puritan  that I typically leave the house wearing this:

Yep, that's a lot of down and a lot of wool.




One of the hardest things about returning to your hometown (homeland?) is having to come to terms with some of your assumptions about the place. It's really easy to head down the rabbit hole of "hey, I grew up here. I know how to handle this winter stuff." Although I did not go far away for college, during those four years away, I developed some funny winter dressing habits. Namely: "I'll just throw on this winter jacket and just run from heated building to heated building rather than dress weather appropriately." Last winter was an exercise in relearning how to dress for winter and saw me acquire a pair of L.L. Bean wool pants and a second pair of long underwear. Last winter I learned wool pants are an article of miracle clothing that will keep you the perfect temperature be it 30F or -20F.  Worth the fashion faux-pas? Oh heck yes.

And this winter? This first honest to goodness "real" winter in who knows how long?

This winter I have learned that two pairs of long underwear is simply not enough.

Wool pants are itchy and I cannot wear them without a pair of long underwear on first. I treat my wool pants like snow pants: they don't get washed a whole lot. However, the underwear I treat like any other article of clothing: it requires regular washing.  

Except we don't have laundry capabilities at the cabin.  I don't want to wear my long underwear for a week straight. That's kind of gross. And to be honest, sometimes I just get tired of wearing loden green wool pants day in and day out.


Still, not a big fan of freezing my tushy off.

Today, as the sun rises, it's 0F outside. Looks like wool pants and long underwear weather to me. Not even going to think about putting on jeans.

How do you keep warm in the winter months? 

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Wordless Wednesday: Bless This Mess

They say you have to give up on some things to be a successful writer. I have chosen to give up housekeeping.

The advent of working from home this winter has not only lead to major procrastination issues but two computers and one very crowded desk.

Who doesn't use plastic bins as their filing cabinets?

Not enough work space? Just utilize your extra bed!

All I have to say for myself is please . . . bless this mess!

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Anne of Green Gables Set Me Up for Domestic Failure

My mother did not raise my brother and I as slobs. We made our beds each morning. We were expected to vacuum every evening. Despite my mother's belief that our house was always dirty, we really grew up in a tidy, clean home.

In college, to stave off the omnipresent housekeeping battles among roommates, we established a cleaning schedule. Each week all the roommates alternated between cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming, cleaning the bathroom, and scrubbing the floors. Of course that left dishes as a free-for-all and as can be expected among a group of stressed out girls that did not go well.

The point is, while I prefer a tidy house, I'm not the sort who's going get their knickers in a twist over a little dust and will go so far as to claim that a little dust strengthens the immune system. But oh are there times I wished my living space was just a little cleaner.

Let's take this past week for example. Andy is undertaking yet another project that involves cutting holes in the ceiling (installing a bathroom fan over the shower to help battle against the mildew problem) and that means the living room that was clean for about two minutes when we took out all the recycling last Tuesday, is again a pile of power tools and empty cardboard boxes. The rug by the couch is so dirty that I haven't done my knees exercises the last few mornings because I can't be bothered to vacuum. The kitchen counter seems coated with some mysteriously sticky substances that Mrs. Meyers' countertop spray can't penetrate. The bedroom basically looks like to went through a hurricane of dirty clothes.

When I first read Anne of Green Gables, I was an impressionable young adult. In the books, the characters are always overwhelmed with domestic duties: cooking, cleaning, etc. There is a particularly poignant scene where Anne expresses a desire to make sure every inch of the house is always spotless because while guests to the house would never know that cellar steps hadn't been swept or the attic dusted, she would know it wasn't clean. It seemed so admirable to set yourself up to such a high standard of cleanliness and deep down, I wanted to be like Anne. I wanted to be the perfectionist who knew there was no dust to be found in the house. 

But I can't do it. I just can't. 

I mean, do you know how often you're supposed to be washing your sheets?! At the risk of an over-share, let me just state that I feel lucky if I get the linens washed once a month around here. This morning I swept up a dust pan full of dust, hair, crushed tortilla chip particles, and goodness knows what else from our kitchen floor, which, for the record is about 12 square feet. I can almost feel the glare of Marilla Cuthbert (Anne's guardian) on me every day I walk through our front door.

With today's standard two income households, housekeeping seems like the most logical first thing to let slide. (After all, I can deal with a dirty house, I'm less tolerant of an empty stomach.) I could blame Anne of Green Gables for prompting me to set unattainable standards of cleanliness. But the truth is that Anne and I are from different eras. I don't spend every day cleaning and preparing meals. I spend my days out of the houses pursuing a paycheck. Even my days off involve more errands than cleaning. I should feel any range of emotions about the fact that I will not be Good Housekeeping's poster girl any time soon: guilty, disgusting, a failure. But for some reason, I don't.

Because let's be honest, even Anne, after she'd hunkered down with Dr. Gilbert Blythe, hired Susan, the housekeeper.

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