Archive for May, 2005

May 31st, 2005 - Turn it off

Turning back the technology tide–a coffee shop has turned off it’s wi-fi access on weekends after having seen a difference in the place over the last couple years. Customers are again having *conversations* over coffee.

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May 27th, 2005 - Cleaning products

I’m Freecycling my purchased cleaning products! woohoo! It’s about time. Some of these I haven’t used since we moved into this house (Comet–I think it lasts forever). I’m getting rid of 12 things, plus some insecticide/fungicide/miticide for plants. My chemicals shelf is soooo empty. Need to decide on a few others as well. For instance, I have some crayon and ink-away products from the makers of GooGone, which altho petroleum based is fantastic. I use just a tiny amount when necessary. Need to think about these, with Maggie growing up. Do I want to just use natural remedies, or keep these around? my intial thought is that if the natural remedy doesn’t work, I can live with the crayon/ink stains! (On clothing, however, I do use hairspray on ink. I do this at least 6 times a year on my work clothes due to carelessness so have to keep it around as I’m not buying new clothes just to save on hairspray!) On the otherhand, our dining room does have nice wallpaper; I hate to have it permanently marked. On the other hand, I could always buy more if it came to that. (I also have a Magic Eraser which might work wonders. I supposed that’s toxic, but it has worked wonders when nothing else does. I’d prefer a solid object to liquids anyway. I wonder what’s in this thing. It’s magic!)

I also still have Murphy’s Oil Soap (I think that’s considered decent stuff; will have to check), GoJo (although I haven’t used it in ages, maybe it’s time to go; it’s a washing stuff that doesn’t need water. We used it as kids for really grimy stuff [and used water with it]), Terro ant killer, carpet cleaning solution (wonder if our machine can use something else?, also just realized some of that might be for the machine we rented. We own one now so maybe I can FreeCycle those containers, too. Also reminds me that I should put the machine’s cleaners in this lockable cabinet before Maggie gets to the back entry.), Basic H (heavy duty cleaner that gets stains off countertops from Amway; lasts forever). I think everything else is natural or laundry products (which I’m looking at moving over to 7th generation eventually). Wonder about the dryer sheets. We didn’t use any this winter, although we had some loads where it would have been nice. But we *can* live without them. Hmmm…..

The other nice thing about doing this is that I discovered 3 containers of waterproofing spray (one for outdoor fabrics, the others for shoes and backpacks. I will use this up!) and I found Eric’s shoe polishing brush that he wanted two weeks ago. I was looking right there, but didn’t dig under anything so missed it. At least it’s been found.

I just noticed after months of having it in my bookmarks that I misspelled this website. I called it my Bog.

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May 26th, 2005 - Wooden toys

I’m rather out of things to buy at garage sales, so I was wondering if I could justify going. (I LOVE saleing.) I thought of something this morning: wooden toys. I would much prefer Maggie to have wooden toys (than plastic). And the best place to find toys is garage sales!

She already has some: rattle, blocks, alphabet blocks, Lincoln Logs, “tool bench” (little wooden thing you can hammer wooden pegs through), cool thingy with metal wires and wooden blocks that run around the wire (I adore these toys), a car. I think that’s about it.

I went through her clothes this weekend, and I pretty much have all she’s needs through 18 months. There are just a couple things to add in, but only a few.

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May 24th, 2005 - Fighting chance

One of my favorite artists/writers is Brian Andreas. One of his recent daily story peoples goes like this

What do I get for this? I said & the angel gave me a catalog filled with toasters & clock radios & a basketball signed by Michael Jordan & I said, But this is just stuff & the angel smiled at me & swallowed me in her arms. I’m so glad you said that, she whispered to me. I knew you still had a chance..

(I get one with a drawing every day. I can’t find where on the site to sign up again or else I would have linked it. His drawings and stories are quite quirky, and usually quite funny.)

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May 24th, 2005 - Spread the seeds of the Organic Rebellion

“The true ways of the farm are now almost forgotten,” says Obi Wan Canoli. [GASP! from Cuke] “But there is a new hope. A growing resistance called the Organic Rebellion is fighting back. You must learn the ways of the Farm if you are to join the Rebellion and rescue Princess Lettuce.”

My husband found a wonderful movie, Grocery Store Wars. (Produced by the Organic Trade Association.)

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May 23rd, 2005 - My garden’s in!

Sorry for not posting at all over the last week. My parents and brother were visiting after Maggie’s baptism (for which my mother-in-law and her mother an an aunt, uncle, and cousin were in town for the weekend).

My parents help me put in the garden! Dad installed a gutter with my help; the back end of the garage has a roof that drains directly into the garden. There was always a line of rocks where the water hit the dirt. On Wed, we prepped the ground (need some leveling, marked out the two beds, raked in compost/manure) and planted potatoes. On Friday, Mom and I planted greens, corn, onions, carrots, basil, cabbage, and chickpeas. Dad got the chain link fence down at the far end where I’ll put in the compost piles. (We never got around to putting in the wire for it; I’ll do that later this week I hope.) They suggested a late attempt at spouting the cherry tomatoes, pumpkins, and summer squash, so I put those in plastic cups in the kitchen window on Saturday. I’ve always said I had no place to do seedlings–we have two cats and two dogs and the only place they can’t get to is a north-side room. Dad suggested the window over the sink–although we’ve found Sith (male cat) up there twice, it’s only been twice in 2.5 years so it seems safe. Plus, Shmi (female cat) is more likely to try to eat plants than he is. On Sunday, I planted three violas (a type of pansy); they are in full bloom but I hope they bloom again when I have greens for a pretty salad addition.

I can’t wait for things to start popping up!

Mulch: I’m a big fan of mulching to reduce the need for weeding. We did this as a kid and I can’t understand people who don’t do it. The only problem: We have a mulching lawnmower, so there’s no need to bag our grass clippings. Plus, we can’t use clippings from the back since the dogs poop there. So even if we did bag, it would just be a little bit from the front yard. We have some non-mowable areas, but not enough to mulch the entire garden. Dad gave me an idea last winter: Use shredded paper. I was already shredding financial papers and I added in everything else that wasn’t glossy and didn’t have glassine windows. Mom noticed one problem however: It’s very white. Which means the sun is being reflected instead of absorbed. Currently, that means the ground won’t warm up as well. Later on, it will mean more sun/heat on the new plants. (Luckily, some areas have concentrations of shreddings from phonebooks, which are darker.) So I’m trying to find enough grass materials to lightly cover the whitest parts. Not sure what I’ll do later in the summer when I need to refresh the mulch. Maybe I’ll not cut down some of the non-mowable areas until absolutely necessary.

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May 13th, 2005 - Reducing junk mail

Woohoo to Roger’s wife for making him recycle junk mail envelopes! But, how do you reduce them coming in? I write about this earlier, but just discovered that I’d done some incorrect HTML so you couldn’t read the post. So here’s the info again:

You can request to be removed from Direct Marketing Associations lists. Costs $5 to get your name off snail mailing lists online. You can also print out and mail the form. I thought I’d already done this, but I haven’t. Will go do right now….Wait, I did do this. I thought so! We’re still getting junk mail, but I did think it had lessened lately. Note that you need a separate form in a separate envelope for each name–I did three (me, me maiden, Eric). Suppose I’ll need a fourth for Maggie soon…. (What you do is fill out the form on that page then select the button for mailing. The next page is what you print out and mail.)

I also ran across the New American Dream’s online form for creating letters to credit card companies, banks, etc. It just creates the letter and you have to print and mail. But it has a number of popular company’s info preset for you which is cool. I think I need to do a few of these. I never look at the solicitations from our credit card companies. I’ve even requested decreases in our credit lines when they automatically increase them!

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May 13th, 2005 - Honorary doctorate for founder of Earth Day

As most of you probably are not aware, the founder of Earth Day is from Wisconsin. This weekend, former U.S. Sen. Gaylord Nelson, also a lifetime advocate for “rich land, clean air, safe water” in Wisconsin, will receive an honorary doctorate of humane letters May 14 at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (where I work). Wish this was last year–I attended the ceremony last year. He would have been a cool person to meet.

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May 12th, 2005 - Leap Frog products are evil

Maggie was given a My First Leap Pad as a baby shower gift. I’m not too into these products, but the person who gave it to me had heard me talking about giving one to my kid sister (who’s special needs and needs lots of help learning to read and write). So I figured as long as it was a gift, we’d play with it, but probably not buy additional books (unless I find them cheap at garage sales). It’s for 6-36 months and Maggie will be 6 months in a week so I decided to open it up this morning.

I really hate the company now.

It took me longer to disassembling the packaging in order to recycle the cardboard than it did to get the product out! The most annoying part were the 6 twist ties connecting the cardboard and the plastic covering. But it wasn’t just the ties–they each had a piece of plastic on either side of the cardboard/plastic as well (I guess so the cardboard wouldn’t tear–but it was corrugated!). The twists were a bear to undo, especially since they had to also be pulled out of the additional plastic pieces. 18 pieces of garbage, mostly plastic (the twisties had metal inside plastic). There was also tons of tape holding everything together. I suspect a lot of people just throw it all away instead of trying to recycle or include the twisties and plastic pieces in with the cardboard. ::sigh::

Posted in Kids | 2 Comments »

May 10th, 2005 - SUV

I’m happy to see that our Honda CR-V is the third-best compact SUV in terms of greenness according to the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) (link is to the entire list so maybe you will find your car, too!).

We’re already looking forward to buy a hybrid SUV for our next car. However, I don’t expect that to be for quite a while! In case you are thinking, “How can someone like AnnMarie own an SUV with her feelings on environment consciousness?” Good question and I wonder myself. It certainly wasn’t my first choice. When we bought the car, we were expecting to have two children, plus we already had a dog. The three would not be able to fit in the backseat of a car. (I also have this thing about minivans, and you can’t restrict the dog to the back anyway.) We now have just one daughter but we have two dogs. So it’s still the best option for us.

I also walk to work 99.9% of the time and we try to limit our trips around town. By the time we’ve owned it two years (the end of June), we’ll have driven less than 18,000 miles, including two trips to New Jersey. (But not including the one we’re taking this summer in July).

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May 10th, 2005 - Fast Food Nation and buying meat

Eric and I have both read Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (link to Amazon). This, combined with watching SuperSize me is what sent me to organic/natural foods (Red Radish and Cattleana Ranch). I don’t understand how Eric can continue to eat at McDonald’s (he picked some up on the way to the Ranch Saturday!). I’m completely grossed out by fast food and store-bought meat right now. I’m considering buying the book to make sure I read it once a year as a reminder. There were passages in the book that I couldn’t even read; they even grossed out Eric who doesn’t easily feel that way.

Mr Schlosser carefully details how food is processed in the US, particularly meat but also potatoes (French Fries) and a few other products. What impressed me was the change from small, local producers to mass farms and production facilities. One might think that cleanliness, for instance, would be easier to attain in a large, controlled environment. At least in the facilities he toured and heard about, definitely not.

Interestingly, fast food restaurants are probably a healthier, food-borne illness-wise, place to buy meat compared to the grocery store or public school cafeterias. Why? As soon as there’s an incident of illness, the companies immediately (well, eventually when the word gets out and they can’t contain it) insist of higher standards from their processors. The USDA, which provides and buys the meat for schools, does no such thing. At least at the time of the writing, they could and did buy some of the worst meat available. (The problem with the USDA is that they are responsible for promoting our nation’s food supplies and at the same time restricting and inspecting them. And guess who has the money–not the USDA or small farms! Our food turns out the worse for wear because of this.)

So Saturday morning we finally made it out to Cattleana Ranch to buy grass-fed, pasture raised beef (and a couple free range chickens). We’re having a pot roast tonight! My first pasture beef since I was a kid…..

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May 10th, 2005 - Laundry detergent

Well, what do you know–Seventh Generation does make a free and clear laundry detergent. There’s also one without enzymes for sensitive skin (what difference do the enzymes make? I have no idea). They are non-petroleum based detergents, which I think is wonderful! Well, guess I’ll have to look more closely at what the Red Radish caries!

We also have a front-loading washing machine, so this goes along nicely with that.

I have to be sure to wait until I finish what we have. (Unlike the cleaning products, I’m comfortable with my laundry detergent. I wonder why? Because I interact so little with this? It doesn’t touch me like spraying EndDust around does.) Sometime last year, All was on sale and I bought a bunch. Then it was on sale somewhere else and I bought a bunch. And then we figured out how long it took for us to use a bottle–some 2 or 3 months. And we had 6 or 8 bottles of it! We use a little more with Maggie–instead of 2-3 loads per week we do 3-4 (plus the dog towels which get bleached).

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May 10th, 2005 - Wood cleaner and more

I fianlly made one of the recipes from Better Basics for the Home : Simple Solutions for Less Toxic Living (link to Amazon) which I mentioned previously. It’s a simple wood cleaner consisting of water (1/4c?), vinegar (1/4c), olive oil (a few drops, or jojoba I think), and liquid soap (1/2 tsp). I haven’t cleaned my dining tables in months because I keep saying I’ll make this….. It was so quick to mix up and worked wonderfully! woohoo!!!! It has an indefinite shelf life, so I hope this gets me back cleaning it regularly. So much nicer than using the sprayed stuff. Now to get rid of the EndDust I just bought.

I’m trying to decide whether to get rid of the DrainO/Liquid Plumber that I have. I’ve kept it around in case of a really bad clog….but I’d so hesitate to use it. And if I got rid of it, that’s one less chemical to worry about Maggie finding. Slowly but surely there won’t be any need for a lock on the cabinet under the stairs. (I think I have a month until I need to put on on there!) The other decision is: Do I throw them away so no one else uses them but they end up in the dump? Or do I send them out through FreeCycle where they get used? I’m leaning towards the latter because someone who got them would probably have bought the same thing anyway. I’m also pitching the Formula 409 or whatever cleaning solution it is. I’ve been using vinegar and water for everything. And I can always use soap if necessary. And I’m keeping my Amway Basic H (or I?) for tough counter stains; I’ll have to check the toxicity of that but I think it’s relatively harmless. I think that’s leave me just with laundry detergent, bleach, GooGone, and a heavy duty hand cleaner. Guess I’ll still need that lock, because I can’t do without detergent and bleach even if I got rid of everything else.

Which reminds me–I wonder what the Seventh Generation laundry detergent is like? I use All Free and Clear because I’ve been known to break out from others. (I even take it along on trips, or else wash clothes in just plain water.) But I saw the 7th stuff at the Red Radish…..

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May 10th, 2005 - Baby food

Since I was talking about homemade ice cream, Karne wondered if I made baby food for Maggie. The answer is….

NO.

But that’s only because she hasn’t started eating it yet. LOL We plan to start in about 2.5 weeks, when she’s 6 months and I’m home for the weekend. At that time, yes, I’ll be making it. I have a great book, Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron (link to Amazon, where I bought it, too). It even has a recipe for rhubarb without sugar! I’m planning on making oatmeal first, then she’ll get bananas, then the remaining frozen pumpkin from last fall. She’s be eating whatever we get from the garden right along with me this summer and throughout the fall/winter of course. I plan to buy only a couple jars of baby food to put in the diaper bag and the emergency tornado kit.

I’m even considering that she might get ice cream or sherbet before she’s 2. Yes, they still have a good deal of sugar in them, but that’s the only really “bad” ingredient. (I don’t count the cream because she’s supposed to get some fat and she won’t be getting much anywhere else!) Well, that’s only if Eric lets her have some–he loves what I’ve made so much (vanilla i.c. and orange sherbet) that it’s gone in two days!

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May 9th, 2005 - Pick your own!

I just found a website for Pick your own fruit/veggies farms (the link points to WI, but they have all the states). Woohoo! now….to just find time to pick my own fruit. I have to get raspberries again, of course. Now that I’m making my own ice cream I’m extra interested. I can make raspberry sherbet. Oooooh ahhhhhhhh. And strawberry ice cream…… And, should I want to, I could pick peas and make ice cream from that–yes, my book has an ice cream recipe with peas!

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May 9th, 2005 - Ordway book review

Holly Ordway writes great book reviews, such as yesterday’s on The Progress Paradox, in her Spending Wisely blog. I want to read this. After I’m done with the dozen books lying around my desk and at home….I’m done with some of those but need to write them up in here. I don’t write nearly as long reviews as she does, however!

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May 4th, 2005 - Ice cream

Sorry I haven’t written much lately. Been busy…..

I bought an ice cream maker via Amazon last week; it should arrive today which means homemade ice cream tomorrow! On the financial side: I should have checked EBay first. I’m doing a little buying/selling there right now and it didn’t even cross my mind. I found one going for $10, 3 hours before it ended, brand new. I would have saved $40 if I’d seen it. Aaargh. I got the CuisiPro Donvier, which is non-electric. Also non-ice/salt.

On the food side: We don’t eat a lot of ice cream, but making it at home will means it’s healthier for us. No funny unnatural ingredients. And I’m looking forward to trying lower fat ices and serbets. I bought two books–one is Ben and Jerry’s and their recipes are quite high in fat (plus raw eggs). But we do love their ice cream in moderation so I hope we can make something resembling the real thing. Also got another one that talks about the history of ice creams and after 200 recipes has a chapter on ice cream physics/chemistry so you can make your recipes! That sounds like fun!

I’ll let you know Friday if the banana ice cream (recipe from Alton Brown/Good Eats) is any good….

Posted in Money, Food | 2 Comments »

My Adventures in Simple Living

Archive for May, 2005

May 31st, 2005 - Turn it off

May 27th, 2005 - Cleaning products

May 26th, 2005 - Wooden toys

May 24th, 2005 - Fighting chance

May 24th, 2005 - Spread the seeds of the Organic Rebellion

May 23rd, 2005 - My garden’s in!

May 13th, 2005 - Reducing junk mail

May 13th, 2005 - Honorary doctorate for founder of Earth Day

May 12th, 2005 - Leap Frog products are evil

May 10th, 2005 - SUV

May 10th, 2005 - Fast Food Nation and buying meat

May 10th, 2005 - Laundry detergent

May 10th, 2005 - Wood cleaner and more

May 10th, 2005 - Baby food

May 9th, 2005 - Pick your own!

May 9th, 2005 - Ordway book review

May 4th, 2005 - Ice cream

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