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?

Outdoors all this weekend!

So, in case you are living under a rock (like me... there are many different kinds of rocks, including sinus infections and for-sale condos), this Saturday is the Earth Day celebration at Centennial Park from 11-7. Make sure you check out the Greener Nashville Tent, where, along with Gardens of Babylon, they'll be giving away 1,000 free baby oak trees!



Many thanks to jeffmradio for tipping me off to the Billboard Green 10! I've really been digging KT Tunstall lately, and it's no surprise that Willie is up there!

Meanwhile, Rites of Spring is now swingin' over at Vandy, so head over there to catch some yummy tunes like Lady Antebellum, Feist & Old Crow Medicine Show. Between Rites and VU baseball vs. Auburn, I'm going to be at Vandy all weekend!

Tayst goes green!

If you haven't seen the tidbit in the Scene, Tayst restaurant, a little place across from the Gardens at Hillsboro Village on 21st Ave, has gone green!

So much going on in the 'ville!

In case you missed it, last Sunday was Earth Hour, where you were supposed to turn out your lights for an hour, but apparently the folks down in Australia didn't take March Madness into consideration when choosing a Sunday. Sadly, we did not participate due to the pressing need to watch the Elite Eight games.

Down in Williamson County, the kids at Hillsboro elementary/middle are participating in the Free the Children Water Project. The thought of all the bottles of coke and PowerAde that are not being trashed warms the cockles of me 'eart it does... but they're still drinking water out of bottles:

According to the scorecard, students can save up to $1.50 per glass by drinking water rather than milk, soda or juice and up to $1 per bottle on sports drinks. Every time they drink a glass or bottle of water, they put that savings into a cup. At the end of the two weeks, the money will be collected. (emphasis mine)

I don't know anything about the Free the Children thing, but the project sounds like a good idea to me, at least to raise awareness... but I wish they were thinking about the bottled water part of it as well (see Think Outside the Bottle for why)

In other news, there's finally an answer to the question of what will be done with the old Wild Oats building... a Trader Joe's is moving in! I think I've talked before about how I miss the old Wild Oats - I liked how small and homey it felt compared to the new Whole Foods. Not to say I don't like the WF, but I miss the way things were. I'm excited to see what a Trader Joe's is like, finally, and maybe I'll be going there instead of WF soon.

Also, in case you haven't checked out the Greener Nashville site or you don't get their eblasts, there is a big Green Business expo going on over at Lipscomb today.

That's it for this week, folks! Stay dry and warm, and let me know if you want to buy a condo!