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?

Green Remodel phase 3: cleaning up and health concerns

With the floors nearly completed and all the plumbing stuff ordered, last week we reconnoitered to clean up what had quickly become a dust bomb. The sheetrock dust, sawdust and good ole people dust had combined to make the 1,000 square feet of condo look like a war zone.

Thank goodness mom arrived with her organizational skills (and, of course, a healthy dose of guilt for us about how messy we've been). We got that place clean and empty in just one afternoon. That freed up space to finish off the floors, and now we'll move on to the painting while our tile guy flies through the bathrooms and we await the arrival of toilets, sinks and countertops.

But getting the rest of my stuff out of the place and trying to quell the dust cloud (which resulted in both Matt and Dad hacking and horking) got me interested in how to stay healthy when you're remodeling. Obviously, you can't help making dust & dirt or disturbing what's already there. Not only that, but sometimes you're forced to use supplies that aren't exactly carbon-based-life-form-friendly.

Case in point is the experience of laying the bamboo floors in the back two rooms. We had to take up the carpet & pad that was there and then lay the floor directly on the concrete. In addition to the nasty dust created while trying rip up the carpet and then scraping bits of padding off of the slab (the padding was originally glued to the concrete with god-knows-what-kind-of glue), we then had to saw the flooring to fit where needed and then glue it down (whereas in the rest of the house we could nail it to the existing wood floors). Not only do you have a lung issue (ack - concrete dust and wood dust?!), but you have the problem of how to remove glue from your skin (Dad, that health nut, uses turpentine).

So - what can you do to stay healthy while remodeling? How can you keep your lungs safe? What can you use to clean so you don't burn off your skin? Here's some stuff I've found that can see you through any remodeling project.

Dust is oft-encountered and rather benign-seeming at first - from sheetrock, wood, etc. One of the first projects we did was opening up the wall to create a bar area between the kitchen and living room. This resulted in sheetrock removal, repair... and DUST.

Different kinds of dust cause different reactions, but in general, inhalation can lead to allergic reactions, asthma, diminished lung capacity, and cancer. Check out the CDC NIOSH report and the section about wood dust on this site.

There are lots of facemask options at out there, ranging from super-cheap to luxurious. And, if you're going to be kicking up dust in a localized, interior area, check out this super-cool toy called a ZipWall! I really wish we'd had that!

As for the glue, dad looked and looked, but could not find one that was non-toxic.
We bought this. When you're using this glue, it's best to wear a mask against the fumes and chemical-resistant gloves. When you need to clean glue off the wood itself (or your skin... if you didn't wear the aforementioned gloves... DAD), you CAN get something less corrosive than turpentine (which ) - try these wipes made by a glue company.

However, as I was looking for safety information, I came across this glue that is 100% green! MAN, I wish we'd known about this! It's DriTrac EcoUrethane. ::sigh:: I just have to remember that this *is* a learning process.

In my search for safety-related information, I also stumbled upon a very in-depth document provided by the CDC NIOSH about ergonomics for construction workers! Although my focus in terms of health was about avoiding poisonous stuff, I was intrigued that this document exists! It focuses on tools that help avoid physical stress as well as educates the reader a little bit about ergonomics.

Anyway, all of this continues to be a learning process! I will certainly be happy when the messy part is over, and we can finally get this puppy on the market. For now, though, I'll just have to content myself with digging into all this new information!

My worry over being clean while being green, part 2

So now you all know about my historical mania over being clean, but what I didn't talk about yesterday was the product-end of the whole thing.

One of the first times I was really confronted with what we're putting into our environment came from my friend AblePonder, when she told me about how she was looking for a shampoo without sulfates. AP was living off-campus in a darling little house, and we were both taking that Oil & Water Use class. While talking about the expense of living off-campus and the expense of living, generally, she mentioned something about the sulfates in shampoo, and that started a domino effect in my head about the stuff I use to clean, both me and my living space.

Now, it wasn't immediate, but it got me curious, and then curiouser. I was shocked at the price sticker on "environmentally safe" shampoos and cleaning products - and especially when something is expensive, I'm slow to change. I bought some shampoo from my stylist, Shana, that was sulfate free; she was selling it because it was safer for color-treated hair (oh yes, that's another topic altogether, one that I'm afraid to start researching). But I started talking to her about it, and got more than I bargained for.

Shana had just started buying Melaleuca products, and got me to go to one of those in-house presentations (Amway, anyone?) where they convince you to buy their stuff. I was not really enthused about it, because I didn't really have an extra $50 a month to spend on something silly.

But then, of course, due to peer pressure I started using the stuff. I'll quit after a few months, I thought. But then I started taking the vitamins. I don't know if it's psychosomatic or what, but I sleep better and have more energy when I take the vitamins on a regular basis. And since I was buying the vitamins, I started trying the other stuff, too. This was around the time that I moved out of my Hillsboro Village apartment and into my Green Hills condo, and I was cleaning a LOT - cleaning the apartment to move out, cleaning the new house to move in... and I used the Melaleuca cleaning stuff to do it. It didn't burn my throat and nose, and it didn't make me dizzy, like 409 or Clorox cleanup does.

As I've used this stuff more and more, I keep being surprised by it. Using their body wash & deodorant, I don't smell at the end of the day (or the next day, since I've started alternating days on showering). I always felt like using the Olay body wash and Secret deodorant that I was just covering up my smell - but with this new stuff I really feel like I just smell like myself, not a stinky, gross version of myself.

Still, I wasn't really sold on the "Melaleuca" label... until my ex-roommate Alex moved out. Alex's dog, Chance, had assisted Alex in making the carpet in their bedroom really gross. It's pretty near impossible to keep the carpets clean anyway, what with the city dirt combined with the tar-sealed parking lot outside and the wood floors in the rest of the condo. I told Alex that he'd need to clean the carpets after he moved out. Well, Alex was pretty strapped for money, and so he and his girlfriend tried to clean the carpets themselves. They got into my cleaning closet and got out the "Sol-u-mel" stuff, which Melaleuca bills as a triple-threat stain-remover, deodorizer and cleaning product.

I sort of hate myself for raving like this (I feel like I sound like an infomercial), but that stuff is AMAZING. Case-in-point was Alex's carpet. It went from dingy-grey to the off-white "ecru" it was when we moved in! I was really stunned. Not only that, but I started using it as an additive to my laundry when i did sheets and towels - it removes smells COMPLETELY. I wash my dogs' towels and rags, there is NO TRACE of urine or "dog"smell. My friend Steph used it to wash stuff that her cats had peed on, and it also came out of the laundry smelling like new.

Now, AP uses a lot of vinegar and baking soda when she cleans, and I've taken that up, as well. Using vinegar and water on the wood floors seems to be keeping that nasty black dust at bay, and baking soda is a great laundry and cleaning additive.

Frankly, even though I'm impressed by the Melaleuca stuff, there's still a part of me that wonders if I'm not making a mountain out of a mole-hill. Would using vinegar and baking soda on everything - from my hair to my laundry to my floors - not be just as effective? And cheaper?

I'm still quite in the middle of this thought process. With the new Whole Foods & Whole Body down the street, I've been wanting to try to get away from Melaleuca (because there's a minimum to buy every month, and there's a shipping charge, both bank-breakers - and the shipping isn't a very green option).

Any suggestions for stuff that you love would be very welcome! What do you use to clean?

My worry over being clean while being green, part 1

First, a little update for you all - since I turned off my a/c, my NES bill went down by 30%! This is very good for my pockets!

Now, on to this week's topic: being clean.

First of all, I've always been a little manic about being clean. When I was in elementary school, there were these two boys who smelled simply awful, and I was not very nice to them about it - I vividly remember telling them, in front of everyone, to stand behind me in line because they had to be downwind. I was not (nor am I, actually), a very discreet person. I don't like other people being dirty and I don't like being dirty myself. My dad is a pretty smelly person, and my dogs are pretty smelly, too. Trying to eliminate the smells and dirt around me is a losing battle that I continue to fight, and part of that fight for me has always been showering at least once a day, wearing deodorant like a madwoman and spending Sundays cleaning. I talked before about being sweaty; maybe this is where my being clean paranoia comes from? I'm extra-paranoid because I've always found myself to not be very clean? I'm not sure.

Anyhow, several things have conspired lately to have me thinking about being clean in a bigger sense than just me.

A while back, there was news of Cate Blanchett taking two-minute showers and foregoing hair-washing in an effort to conserve water and therefore be earth-friendly. I thought about it, and although i generally take short showers, I have started experimenting with only showering every other day... and it is actually okay. I wash my face in the morning and put my hair back or in a braid, and I don't find that I smell or that I look gross. Maybe this is because I do nothing but sit in an office chair all day - not moving equals not sweating. Maybe it's because i've finally made it out of greasy-gross adolescence. Maybe it's because, like with the a/c, winter makes it easier. Whatever it is, I'm doing okay with alternating days.

Another factor may be the new dog in my life, Madeline. Now, Georgia, who we've had since I was 10, has never really smelled. Sure, she'll lay in the sun every so often and come away stinking, but in general she's never had that signature dog-smell. Madeline, however, definitely smells. It's sort of a dog smell, but it's also sort of unique to her. I love cuddling with her, so maybe i've gotten used to it, but maybe overall i'm just getting less manic about being so hyper-clean all the time.

In October, Slate ran a story on why being really clean can cause problems. I've always agreed with this in theory (of course, not with any actual science or self-research to back it up) - I've heard that kids who grow up on farms are less likely to develop allergies, etc. I think that being so manic about it is akin to a lot of other manias - if we'd just let go and be sensible about things, we would be better off in the end. I mean, living in the city has sort of encouraged me to let go. I track in black sooty stuff every day and so trying to keep my floors clean all the time would just be insane. And with two dogs in the house, it's just not possible to keep the place free of hair - mine or theirs!

So with that, I bid you a hearty adieu this Friday - I'll be back tomorrow with a follow-up to this, to tell you about my obsession with green cleaning products and how much happier I am with them!