A Tale of Three Experiences

During the past several years of the EnviroMom journey, my family has worked hard to bring less stuff into our lives. We reuse. We craigslist. We hand up and down. Yet still, there is far too much stuff! We spent the better part of last Saturday clearing out the various toy stashes of our house. We've decided it's time to move on from the play kitchen. We hope some new toddler or preschooler will whip up pretend culinary delights with our pots, pans, wooden food and mini kitchenette. Coming soon to the Portland craigslist! Good riddance, um, I mean, what a glorious reused bargain! Any takers?

In lieu of less stuff, we've purchased or been gifted more experiences. Thus follows a tale of three experiences.

Experience One. Over the summer, we were given a family pass to the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, and were very pleased to find out it also got us in free to the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. I can't count how many times we've now visited. We've seen the planetarium and introduced the wonder of the starry night to our children. We've learned about nanotechnology. We've examined and re-examined the gestation of a child in the womb. We've built block towers and then tested if they would withstand simulated earthquakes. We've made mini 'fireworks' in the chemistry lab. The list goes on. Our two kids are very naturally interested in science, and having this museum membership has been a wonderful, rewarding experience. Except for the one time we bought supplemental tickets to the planetarium, this has been a gift that keeps on giving almost freely for one year.

Children helping with a green Thanksgiving

My kids tell me they want to help with Thanksgiving. Do you know that that means? Mashed potatoes accidentally spewed all over the kitchen. (Me: counting to 10). A whole tin of cinnamon dumped into the pumpkin pie. (Me: counting to 10 again, and breathing very deeply). The turkey slipping off its serving platter, landing on someone's toe, followed by a monster bout of crying during which the pumpkin pie gets knocked off the cooling rack and someone getting cranberries in her hair. (Um, counting to infinity and beyond...).

That's the horror story I fear, so I'm enlisting their help outside the kitchen. We started with making a centerpiece: corn husk dolls. Oh, round about last August, back when corn was in season, we saved some husks for this purpose. In the meantime, they've asked me about every day if we could make the corn husk dolls yet, and I delayed and stalled, finally to come to the conclusion that it was the perfect Thanksgiving craft project and centerpiece.

The only thing we needed other than the dried corn husks was two pipe cleaners, some string, scissors and a tub of warm water for soaking the husks. Here's how we did it:

1. Soak dried corn husks in warm water for about 10 minutes. I used a big casserole dish.
2. Take 6-8 husks, and tie them in the middle with string.
3. Fold over where you first tied, and tie over the folded husks, about 1 inch from the end, forming a head.
4. Roll one husk around a pipe cleaner. Tie in the center and at the ends. Stick these arms through the body of the doll, dividing the husks in half front to back.
5. Take two husks and cross over the body of the doll making X's in the front and back to define the shoulders. Tie over the X's and middle to make a waist.
6. I kept looking at how tiny these dolls seemed, yet this last step (pictured) fixed all that. Gather up about 8 more husks, pointed ends down, and tie around the waist, covering up the head. Then fold all these down, making a nice skirt. You could also gather some up and tie into legs, if desired.

I did not take near enough pictures during the process, so here's a link to a site that explains making corn husk dolls similarly. All in all, it was fun. Not too messy (just a tad wet). My kids needed a bit of help getting their ties snug enough, but otherwise good for elementary school aged kids. Now it's time to make some of those little must-have turkey hands for place-cards!

How do you involve your kids in greening your Thanksgiving?

Before I sign off for today, Heather and I would like to thank you all for your participation in this little ol' website. We are so very grateful for the positive community you are part of -- the sharing of ideas and challenges -- that helps us all to be better green parents. Happy Thanksgiving to all! We'll be taking a few days off to celebrate with our families, and will resume posting next Monday.

An alternative to classroom birthday party treats and trinkets

 
My daughter's birthday always falls over Thanksgiving break, and somehow we've never remembered to 'schedule' a classroom birthday celebration. THIS year, however, the girl wanted a little recognition. Who can blame her? Like last year's very successful experiment, she's once again opted to forgo a home or destination birthday party with friends and chosen an 'adventure day' with her family (we're going to the Oregon Coast Aquarium). So she wanted to make sure her friends were at least aware that she was turning eight. (Eight!?! Yowsa.)

I always know when there's a birthday party at school because my kids walk off the bus munching a cookie or cupcake or waving a small plastic toy in the air. This is the norm, and I can understand why parents continually choose to follow the norm. It's easier than coming up with an alternative, and perhaps they don't want their child to be perceived as different. I, on the other hand, love to rock the boat! And I think that a commercial-made (as required by the school district) sugary snack after six hours of school is never a good idea. I've seen how it can turn a tired kiddo into a Tasmanian Devil. Ew.

So after a short discussion my daughter and I decided that a fun alternative to sugar and toys would be to play a classroom game. The teacher thought it was a fantastic idea, so she led the class in the classic Heads-Up 7-Up during the last 15 minutes of school one day. The kids loved the game. My daughter got a birthday crown and everyone sang to her, and she was very happy. Recognized. The end.

In the grand scheme of things, it's a small gesture. But I feel like these little moments provide opportunities to talk to my kids about what we value, and what's really important in the grand scheme of things. I see them -- these happy, vibrant children of mine -- 'getting it' and standing up for their (our) choices. After the games were over a girl asked my daughter what I'd brought for the class. "We're just playing games today." "But what did you bring?" "We brought fun! Didn't you have fun?" Yes, yes she did.

Baby step: tailor your green message

Here it is. Days before American Thanksgiving, the biggest travel and family gathering time of the year. Thanksgiving brings families together to reconnect, eat, see how much the kids have grown, eat, get on each other's nerves, eat, bicker, eat, hopefully go for a walk, eat some more, and then go home so tweaked off at one another that you won't speak again for another year! Nah, hopefully that's just an exaggeration. Our family doesn't fight too much. We get on each others' nerves but are more prone to biting our tongues.

If you're anything like me, you've gained a reputation for being the eco-freak of the family. Quite possibly, you've got an uncle who is just itching for you to bring up global warming so he can tell you what a load of conspiracy crap you've bought into and make mincemeat (not pie) of you. Take a step back, and reconsider your green lifestyle. If saving the planet is your goal, so be it. But think of it in terms that others may better relate to. Case in point. I had coffee with a friend a few weeks ago thanks to a Facebook post of hers about wanting to get one of those single shot plastic cup/coffee brewing machines, and I couldn't stop myself from advising her not to do it. All those bleeping little plastic cups! It just made me ill. I felt I needed to save her. So we met and I pleaded my case. Save the world from a stream of plastic cups! Don't buy it! Truth be told, I don't think she cared a whit about the waste, environment or plastic. She's just not there, you know? My cause, not hers. Then I remembered that she was a big supporter of the Susan Komen Race for the Cure. So I changed my angle. I started talking about health and the toxins in plastics and the possibility of plastics adding to our body burden. The myriad possible causes of cancer. Truthfully, I am woefully unschooled on toxins. But I got her attention. And I think she chose not to buy that coffee maker, for far different reasons than I had started out with.

Just food for thought (and at least this food is calorie free). Think about what you do. Maybe you love a good fight and can't wait to talk turkey with that uncle and make mincemeat out of him! But saving the planet isn't the only benefit of the many green things we do. And if you frame your lifestyle in terms of frugality, a return to old ways, or health, you may just enlist a few more soldiers in the green army even though they might not call it that.

Follow EnviroMom on Twitter and Facebook

OK. Bear with us. Gulp. This is scary. Yet we've dived into the deep end of the digital pool. We are now tweeting and have our very own EnviroMom Facebook page. Please become a fan. Pretty pretty please. With fair-trade sugar on top. As for the Twitter thing, we'll give it our best shot. I think we might need an English-Twitter translation guide for newbys. Just what in the heck does @ # RT mean, anyway? Something to noodle over this weekend while in our Thanksgiving food comas. Links will live on the right sidebar. Big, big thanks to the folks who are already Twitter followers and Facebook fans!

EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club: week 8

If there's one thing I suspected and confirmed while participating in the Meatless Supper Club, it's that there are no gourmets in our family. We like simple food. Spice is welcome, but only with the adult members of the family. 'Quick and easy' are also appreciated most of the time. That's why this week I'm vegetarianizing an old stanby: fried rice. I used to think this was a dish only a restaurant could make, and then after I met my husband he demystified it. I found that once I knew a few tricks of the trade (such as Minute Rice isn't really rice), I too could fry rice like a pro, and that our home-made version is lower fat than restaurant versions, low cost and a fail-safe, go-to meal in our house. Typically, we make fried rice at least once a week because rice is our main starch and inevitably you have leftovers. That's key. You need day old rice, not fresh.  Here's our house fried rice:

Fried Rice with Bacon (D'oh! I forgot -- this is the Meatless Supper Club)

Fried Rice with Tofu

4-5 cups cooked day old rice (I used a mix of white and brown)
2 scrambled eggs
7 oz. firm tofu, cut into small squares
1 cup carrots, cut into small bite-size pieces
1 cup peas
soy sauce
cooking oil (I used canola, peanut and sesame)

Start with prep. Chop the carrots into bite-size pieces. Squeeze out extra water from the tofu, using about half of a regular 14 oz. package, then cut it into small cubes. Pan fry the tofu in a few tablespoons of oil (I used peanut oil, hoping that would give a little extra flavor but mostly only made my kids plug their noses). Remove the tofu from heat, once it's golden brown around the edges. In a big saute pan, scramble two eggs, and when they're done, add to the tofu and set aside. Put the carrots and peas in a dish with a bit of water (the carrots I used fresh, and the peas frozen), and micro-steam to soften. Once done, drain the water.

Once the prep work is complete, squirt a bit of canola or cooking oil into a big saute pan, and fill with day-old rice. Use a spatula to break up the sticky chunks of rice, and as it heats, stir fry it around. Once it's heated through and de-chunked, pour some soy sauce onto the rice in the form of a letter 'Z' that fills the pan (this is just enough soy sauce for us, but use as much as you like). Then stir fry that until it's evenly distributed through the rice (I usually put in a few drops of sesame oil too for flavor, but this is optional). Now the rice is done, then it's pretty much just like tossing a salad. Add in the veggies, and stir fry to evenly distribute, then the egg, and finally the tofu until it's all mixed up. Voila! I kept my sides simple and served this with a plate of cut apples.

On serving this meal, I kept waiting for the kids to say: 'where's the bacon?' but they did not! I'll note that in our house, bacon isn't a pig product -- we only use 'pig-urky' (our name for turkey bacon). Yet by taking the meat out of our regular fried rice, we brought the meal even further down on the food chain. This meal was enthusiastically gobbled up, and they asked for seconds and licked their plates clean. One final note on fried rice -- it can be made with anything, and it's an ideal low-meat meal if you have leftover chicken, pork chops, steak or whatever. Play around with the veggies and proteins to find the mix that you like.

It's hard to believe that it's the last week of our meatless challenge. The time went fast, but as one of our bloggers mentioned what an interesting seasonal transition it's been -- when we started we were still working with summer squash, tomatoes and basil, and slowly we've moved to warm and soul-soothing soups, winter squashes and casseroles. Without further ado, let's see what our guest bloggers have dished up for our final week of the EnviroMom Meatless Supper Club.

Sponsor Spotlight & Give-Away: My Pumpkin Doodle

We are delighted to welcome My Pumpkin Doodle as one of our newest sponsors! My Pumpkin Doodle is all about "offering quality organic & earth friendly products at affordable prices, so that going green can be easier on your family budget." The store carries a wide range of products like organic bedding and mattresses, reusable bags and bottles, green cleaning products, soy candles, wooden toys and organic clothing for the whole family. And lucky for all of us, the store is offering EnviroMom readers a 20% discount with the code 'enviromom.' Please visit the store and check out all of their offerings!

 

Today's give-away features one of our favorite reusables -- the fashionable reusable shopping bag! The bags are made of 100% rip-stop nylon, are washable and can carry up to 35 lbs. They have extra long handles, extra pockets, and tuck into a neat matching pocket for easy storage. One lucky winner will get to choose any TWO bags (and there are lots more designs on the site), a $16 value. A good gift for a teacher? Sister-in-law? Or just keep them for yourself? Leave a comment below to enter. We'll close comments Saturday morning, Nov. 21 at 9:00am Pacific Time and announce the winner shortly thereafter. Good luck!

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Comments are closed! Thanks for playing, everyone!

And the winner of two of these fab bags is...cg! Congrats, cg!

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Creative reuse: An old filing cabinet becomes a closet organizer

Since the kids went back to school in September, it seems like the list of projects I have to do hasn't gotten any smaller. I tell myself every year that I'll get so much done once I have more time, and then all that 'new time' seems to magically disappear. Why is that?

One thing I did recently accomplish that I'm quite proud about was organizing a messy closet in our guest room. Does everyone have a junk drawer? Well, this closet would best be described as a junk closet. As much as it embarrasses me, I'm going to show you the before picture:

Yep. Sad, I know. In my defense, this is the only closet in my house that looks like this. All the others are fairly organized. But this closet somehow became the home of every gift bag we'd ever received, every cardboard box, every undisplayed nick-nack, every to-be sewn remnant, every to-be-crafted craft project, every unhung picture or frame, every to-be-smoked hookah pipe (not really -- the hookah is part of the nick-nack department but now that I'm well out of college, having a pipe isn't as cool as it once was) and lastly a very big collection of vintage hats. You know -- the kind ladies used to wear all the time. Don't ask me why I have a collection of hats. Back to the closet. I feared for my life when I opened the door. Finally, enough was enough. I set aside some time to organize.

Here comes the part I'm really proud about -- because it involves another mini project on my endless to-do list. Over the summer, it became evident that the two particle-board file cabinets I had storing all of the important papers in my office were falling apart. The cheaply made file drawer supports were plastic, and its support pegs broke. I tried gluing them back together to no avail. Then I fumed over it for a while. How in the heck did I end up with two cheaply made file cabinets? Wouldn't it have been a better idea to make a date with a shredder rather than keep stuffing the files so full that the drawers got so heavy that the supports broke? My bad: poor shopping choices from long before I became an EnviroMom. So that was the conundrum: what to do with two broken file cabinets. The way I saw it they were not good enough to donate to anyone. Who'd want a broken file cabinet? With our one garbage can a month, it wasn't like I could throw them away. So I fumed some more and finally decided I'd have to take them to the dump and pay extra to trash them. But that still made me mad and I didn't want to. Finally it dawned on me that I didn't have to use them as file cabinets any more. The only part that didn't work was the plastic file supports. The drawers and the cabinet structure were still strong and true. The answer became suddenly clear. I could stick these in my junk closet and create order out of chaos and complete two projects at the same time!

So that's what I did here. I used one of the file cabinets vertically (on the lower right), and one horizontally on a shelf, middle right). Then I sorted my junk into categories, and found the new spaces created by the cabinets made it easier to see what I do have and keep it all organized. Meanwhile, I've shredded my way down to two file drawers full of important papers that now sit on the floor of my office (not pictured), and I've been searching high and low for an old metal filing cabinet but have yet to find one. Once those old drawers are emptied, I'll use them to better organize another closet because they really do the job. All in all, I'm quite please with the result of my closet organizing especially since it also managed to keep something surprisingly still useful out of the dump. So once again, the time that I was stewing (let's not call it procrastinating even if it seems like that) allowed a creative idea to develop that prevented waste and solved two problems at once. Hip, hip, hurray for creative reuse!!

And please. Someone. Anyone. Tell me you have a really messy junk closet to help me feel less embarrassed. Maybe you even have a broken down piece of particle-board furniture that's looking for a new life. Please share.

How are you conserving electricity?

I've recently gotten hooked on the personal finance blog Get Rich Slowly, and while I was reading founder J.D.'s interview with his 'millionaire' next-door neighbor, this tip jumped out at me:

“Learn to figure your own power bill and know why it is what it is. People should learn about electrical use. That’s a drain on your monthly budget. Every penny saved on electricity is a penny you can use for something else.”

Obviously, if you're saving money on your bill you are also conserving electricity -- good for your wallet, good for the planet. So I looked up our electric bills from the past two years and discovered that this month's bill is $20 more than it was a year ago. In fact, every single month this year our bill has been between $7 and $40 higher than the previous year! Yes, the rate has increased, but our family's usage has also increased. Where? How? It doesn't feel like we're using more energy, but apparently we are. This distresses me.

So how can I figure out what's racking up our bill? Through another GRS post on electricity I discovered Michael Bluejay's guide to saving electricity. Now this is an amazingly comprehensive site and he covers it all, even explaining how to read your meter and what a kilowatt hour is. Here's something I never considered: I'm home alone five days a week for 7 hours a day, spending most of that time in my office. Yet the heat (set at 68 degrees) is running all day, warming the entire house! Bluejay recommends using a space heater instead. While I can't imagine us solely heating our home with space heaters, there's no reason I can't use one in my office and turn off the central heat during the day. Duh.

Here are some other ideas I need to implement:

• Get a Kill A Watt and figure out which appliances are energy hogs. (Maybe our second freezer is the culprit here?)
• Get a Smart Strip for the computer and entertainment center, which automatically cuts off all of that phantom energy that is always being generated even when these electronics are turned off. (Anyone using these? Any noticeable results?)
• Put the computer in sleep mode when I walk away. I need to put a sign by the door reminding myself to do this!
• Change out more of our recessed and overhead light bulbs to CFLs. All of our table lamps are CFLs, but I haven't been super happy with the light quality for the recessed fixtures. Any good brands to recommend?

The one thing I feel good about is that we've taught our kids to be vigilant about turning off lights when they leave a room. They are both the Light Bulb Leaders in our house and will not hesitate to remind their parents to flick the switch.

Have you taken a good, hard look at your electric bill lately? Have you made any energy-saving changes that have had a noticeable impact on your bill?

Good read: achieving balance with 'Practically Green'

The best antidote to a blustery autumn weekend is getting cozy with a warm drink, a comfy chair and good book. Thus, I've just finished reading Micaela Preston's book Practically Green. Micaela also writes the popular blog Mindful Momma, and we've gotten to know one another virtually by participating in the Green Moms Carnival. This is a concise and compact book that covers a huge amount of topics, and it's really beautifully laid out with lovely floral motifs throughout. Michaela was kind enough to provide me with a free copy to review. A couple of the things I really like:

• It has copy and clip guides to help you when shopping, especially decoding all the myriad standards, codes and verbiage that sometimes get slapped on products, leaving shoppers dazed and confused.
• There are over 30 do-it-yourself projects, from healthy snack recipes, to home-made cleaning and self-care products, as well as ways to refashion past-its-prime clothing into new goods.
• Insights into how her family of four makes choices and finds the best balance.

What I especially liked about Micaela's book is the grounded-ness of it. She keeps it upbeat when talking of heavy subjects like climate change. She's a proponent of balance, and not beating ourselves up if we can't afford or manage to do everything perfectly 'green.' I have a tendency to focus on my failings and get down on myself, but Micaela reminds us of the important impact we make from any positive green changes we achieve. I also appreciate that she often writes about money savings. There's a fallacy in the marketplace that you have to be rich or at least upper-middle-class to really go green. And when you price things like dual- or triple-pane windows, that appears to be the case. But the many small changes that most people can achieve do add up to money savings, such as with cleaning products. Sure, if you're rich, go ahead and buy all the Mrs. Meyer's product lines. But if you've got a tight budget, you can keep your house clean and toxin free by whipping up your own cleaning products with your arsenal of baking soda, vinegar, essential oils, lemon juice, etc. I've tried a handful of these kinds of recipes, and really like that the ones Micaela includes are the tried-and-true ones that work in her own home. It's the balance: spend time or money. Your choice.

The first time I ever read a reference book about green living, it overwhelmed me. I was like, organic cotton? Huh? Do people eat cotton? I've come a long way in a few short years, but I'd still never recommend that first book, especially to someone newly green. I think Practically Green would be a great reference or starter book for someone wanting to lead their family into a greener lifestyle. It's plain-spoken, optimistic and has many easy and money-saving ideas in it and wouldn't overwhelm the lightest green newby. Practically Green is also a small book, so if you don't copy or clip the included shopping guides, it'd be easy to stick the whole book your purse and bring along. The flipside of the compactness of this book is that is does use a small typeface, so use caution if you're thinking of it for someone who has trouble reading small print.

If you can't wait to get your hot little hands on it, Micaela is hosting a Practically Green virtual book party on her blog this week.