Natural Pools

I have a feeling that a pool is in our future (far off in our future though), but when we do get one, I want to make sure that it is done in such a way that it doesn't distract from the natural "on the farm" look of our yard (once we get our landscaping done and it doesn't look like an abandoned lot).  Today one of the blogs I read pointed me to Natural Pools.  I LOVE the idea of these both for the aesthetics and the greenness of it, and although I have my doubts about how well it would do in the humid Florida climate, after a lot of positive research I would definitely consider putting in a natural pool.  Maybe by the time that we're ready to get a pool, these will be more mainstream with how everything seems to be going "green" nowadays.

Cleaning My Bum

One of the "luxuries" that I had planned for our master bathroom was a bidet (I'm sure any European reading this is laughing at me for calling that a luxury). When we were in Europe, I really liked having one. I had that in the design for our addition long before I started on my green kick, so imagine my surprise today when I start doing research for "eco bidet" to find an eco-friendly bidet and I find out that just the bidet in itself it eco-friendly. It eliminates or at least reduces the need for toilet paper. I don't know why I didn't realize that before. Anyway... so I'm reading about this and find something called the "Washlet" that is apparently all the rage in Japan and Venezuela. So, I hop on over to the washlet website and could not stop laughing (again... Europeans probably laughing at me for laughing at this). The intro is hilarious! The actors each giving their little talk about their section is pretty funny too because they are so incredibly excited about this toilet seat/bidet. However, they totally sold me and I think I'm going to get a washlet for our master bathroom instead of a bidet. They aren't cheap, but once you look at the cost of a bidet, the hardware, and the installation, it's probably about half the cost. Plus, it's green!

And on an unrelated note... our a/c was blowing warm air last night (of course during the hottest day of the year so far!) so I checked the condensate pan and it was full. We had to turn the a/c off so the pan didn't overflow (apparently the auto-shutoff isn't working). I did a little research and found that the problem was probably a clog in the drain and I could possibly fix that with my wet/dry vac. It was already dark and I wasn't going to go crawling around the drain pipe in the dark (especially since I've seen snakes there numerous times), but in the morning I got my wet/dry vac out and VOILA! A/C is fixed! Go me! (I seem to be saying that a lot lately.)

I'm Famous... AGAIN!

A couple of weeks ago I submitted my "reuse hangers" suggestion to one of my favorite green blogs, thedailygreen (thanks to Megan for suggesting them), and they just published it!

Go me!

One More Green Thing

I don't buy Propel water in bottles anymore. I buy the little individual packets and mix it myself. I get the taste of flavored water without the waste of a whole water bottle! :)

Happy Earth Day- Recycled!

In honor of Earth Day, I'm recycling Erica's post about green things I do and plan to do. :)

(Note: I started this email immediately after reading Erica's post yesterday, but I'm just now getting around to finishing it so I'm a day late.)

Green things I do now:

• I have switched to "green" disposable diapers. Maybe they aren't as good for the environment as if I went to reusable diapers, but I know me and I know that reusable diapers just wouldn't work for me. I've been using Seventh Generation's disposable diapers for a few months now, and I love them every bit as much as I did Pampers. They have been every bit as absorbent, and they aren't as harsh on baby or the environment. I buy my diapers through Amazon's subscription offering which gives me an additional 15% off and free shipping and makes the price comparable to buying Pampers off the shelf (even the Sam's Club shelf). If you have babies in diapers, I HIGHLY recommend these diapers! The only drawback to the diapers is that they don't have any print on them so if you have 2 different sizes (like I do for the 2 kids) you have to come up with some way to mark which one is which size when you have them mixed like in your diaper bag or something. Also, order a size up from what you think you'll need. Their sizes seem to run a little small (compared to Pampers anyway).
• Using reusable batteries. I just bought an Energizer recharger and a bunch of batteries a couple of weeks ago at Target. I probably could've bought it somewhere better (or less expensive), but I was there and needed batteries and just couldn't bring myself to throw money at another set of batteries that I would just be tossing in the trash.
• I'm phasing in florescent bulbs anywhere that I can. They really seem to be getting better and better about not looking florescent, so that helps too!
• Building as "green" as possible. Our new garage will be green certifiable because of all of the materials that we're using. I'm looking into "green" carpets (recyclable and/or made from recycled materials). Looking into "green" landscaping. Everything is being done as energy-efficiently as possible and it helps that my contractor is into building green now so that helps.
• Turning off lights, unplugging chargers, and powering off anything that I can.
• Biking to Belle's school to pick her up instead of using the car.
• We got a reverse osmosis water system for our well water from the tap. I know bottled water is supposed to be one of the top green no-nos, so I have been trying to phase out bottles by refilling jugs with water from the grocery stores, but that just wasn't cutting it and we kept running out of water anyway. So now, we aren't putting 100s (or 1000s) of bottles of plastic into landfills each year. :) I have my own water bottles that I fill up if I need to take a drink with me somewhere. Also, I think twice before buying bottles of water/soda/whatever when I'm out and determine if I really need it.
• Something very simple... when I'm buying new clothes I always (unless I forget) take the clothes off of the hanger and leave the hanger at the store to be reused. I'm weird about my hangers at home because our clothes rods are kinda big so I only like to use the same type of plastic hangers and I don't reuse store hangers. This keeps me from just tossing them in the trash when I get home. If you do happen to go home with them though, donating the hangers to Goodwill or some other charity like that is good because they always need hangers for their clothes for display.
• Stopped delivery of phone books, limit my catalogs, and reduce junk mail.

Green things I plan to do:

• Purchase more "green" household products. I have picked them up at the grocery store many times, but then I tell myself that it makes more sense to cycle them in as I run out of the other "non-green" stuff. Otherwise, I'm just wasting what I already have and isn't being green all about not wasting? :) I'm also planning to look into more Seventh Generation products like toilet paper and paper towels.
• Use less paper towels. Sometimes paper towels are just necessary, but I know that I use them way more than I need to. I really need to be better about keeping a towel out in the kitchen to dry my hands off with after I wash them.
• Recycling. I'm half way there with this one. A few weeks back I ordered my recycle bins, but I still haven't received them. I have bins inside full of things to recycle... just waiting on the bins to dispose of the recyclables.
• Use ONLY reusable shopping bags. I've already got a headstart on this and own and use about 4-5 bags (it's amazing how much you can fit in one of those bags), but I still need some of the plastic bags because I use them to wrap dirty diapers in. I put 3-4 diapers in each bag (unless it's a REALLY stinky diaper and I need to get it out of the house), so I'm doing good with that too... so I'm "reducing" and "reusing", but eventually will do even better. Plus I'd like to invest in some really good reusable bags, not just the ones that you can buy at Publix that will fall apart before long anyway.
• I'd like to get into the habit of buying more produce locally.

There's probably more that I'm forgetting, but it's a start! :)

One last thing, when I first mentioned that I was working toward being greener, someone (Megan, I think) suggested that I check out thedailygreen.com. They have a tip of the day that I subscribe to, and they have some good suggestions. If you're looking to go-greener, I recommend that you check it out.

Stop the Cats

Green tip: If you receive catalogs that you don't look at and/or will never order from, you can stop receiving them by either calling a phone number on the back of the catalog or going to their website and just emailing their customer service with a request to stop sending the catalog. In the past I've always just thrown those catalog away, but now that I'm more conscious of the junk mail that I toss, whenever I sort through the mail I just keep a stack of catalogs to contact about not sending them anymore, then every once in a while I just sit down at the computer and cut/paste my email to the various catalog customer service email addresses (remember to tell them every name that might possibly be on their list including maiden names). I've been doing this for a few weeks now, so I'm sure it'll be a couple of months before I see the results (since many of the cats pre-print a few weeks in advance).

I ran across this free website that makes opting out of catalogs much easier, CatalogChoice.com. Once a few months has gone by and I see what catalog I'm still getting, I'll have to give this a try with the remaining unwanted mags.

And remember, just because you aren't getting the catalog doesn't mean you can't subscribe for emails on the store websites. It's much greener and much less hassle.

Stop the Big Books of Wasted Paper

As a part of my mission to "go green", I have called all of the phone book companies to stop delivery of the phone books since I can just as easily look up online any information that I could get out of a huge phone book, and it doesn't cost any trees to do it that way. :) I'll keep one of my old phone books around in case the power is out or something, but I can just grab a new one of those from some where every couple of years. In case anyone else is interested in doing the same, I thought I'd list the phone numbers to call:

• Dex (Yellow Pages): 877-243-8339
• Yellow Book: 800-373-3280
• AT&T YellowPages (formerly Bell South): I called the number that 41pounds.org gave me, but they just told me to call my local phone company to request to cancel. If you have AT&T, call 888-757-6500 and just keep pressing 0 until you are able to talk to an operator.
• Verizon (Idearc): 800-888-8448, option 2.

41pounds also recommends that you to go optoutprescreen.com and request to stop receiving credit card and insurance mailings. They don't do this themselves as a part of the 41pounds service because it requires personal information that they prefer not to collect from their customers.

One more small thing... we got Chick-fil-A for lunch today and I thought of something else that I could do to help... When I get take out fast food and I'm just going to be bringing it home, I can request that they not give me any utensils. I always end up throwing them away and using my own silverware anyway.

Going Green

The Donald house is going green...

Lately I've really been studying up on "going green" (and I'm not just talking about my new blog colors). As we've been designing and picking out things for our addition, we've been keeping the "green" factor in mind and going green when we can. I never really thought about our house as being "green", but a few of the contractors have said things like "Living in a green house like this one, I assume you'll want to go with a product like x because it's green." I guess the fact that our house is all steel construction makes our house green. :)

I've never really been very concerned about environmental issues in the past, but lately I've been thinking about it quite a lot. One thing that I think started the research was our HIGH electric bill. Our electric bill has always been pretty high, but this summer (between the heat and being super-pregnant) it was sky high! I started looking into ways to reduce our electric bill and started realizing just how much electricity we waste. I did an FPL energy survey on our house and lifestyle and found out lots of interesting things that we're doing that wastes energy and things that we could be doing to save. I've tried to incorporate some of the simple things like only using hot water to wash clothes when absolutely necessary (before I always just washed darks in cold and lights in warm), not rinsing all dishes before putting them in the dishwasher (before I always rinsed dishes so much that they appeared to be clean if you didn't know any better... I still soak some to get the nasty off, but I leave the stuff that I know will wash off itself now), not washing dishes by hand unless I have to (believe it or not, it's actually more energy and water efficient to use a full dishwasher than it is to wash by hand), and turning off lights when not in the room (this is a no-brainer, but I am not always good about it). I've even started buying the energy efficient flourescent bulbs to use in places where it makes sense to use them.

This researching into being more energy efficient led to looking into other enviromental resource issues. Something I've been struggling with (in the "feeling guilty for not doing it" sense) for a long time is recycling. We haven't ever recycled and my excuse has been that it's tough to get the recycling people to come out to pick our things up. Because we don't recycle and our neighbor doesn't either, the recycling truck doesn't come our way. I'm sure that if I just make the effort to contact the city and notify them that we'll have recyclables out, they'll be out to pick them up. I haven't done this yet, but I've taken the first step and picked up our recycling bins and have a plan for how to incorporate recycling into our routine. This should be in place soon. Also, we don't have a garbage disposal so our organic trash all goes into the garbage too so I've started looking into composting the organic matter that I can. I may not actually start composting, but if I do it's a bit down the line but something that I'll keep in mind as a possibility for later.

This past week has been "Green is Universal" week on NBC. Pretty much everything on the network this week features green issues. I think it's been a very creative way to introduce green issues to the masses without forcing it down your throat. It's opened my eyes to a few more ways to "reduce, reuse, recycle", and even though it won't all happen overnight, I plan to make our family more and more green-friendly over time. In addition to starting to recycle, one major thing that I've done is to sign up for a service called 41 pounds. For just $41, this non-profit organization promises to reduce the amount of junk mail that you receive by 80-95% during the next 5 years. In addition to being good for the environment by eliminating "41 pounds" of junk mail from making it's way into your trash during a year, this service is just darn useful! I hate going through my piles of junk mail everytime we bring in the mail, and if I can eliminate that and help the environment at the same time... all the better!

In conclusion, if you have any suggestions for simple things that we can do to make an impact, feel free to pass them along to me! Go Green!