Better Living Through Twitter

I follow Martha Stewart on Twitter so that I can get a peek at what it could look like around here like if I only required two hours of sleep a night and had a team of stylists following my life around with a big open wallet. Martha will also occasionally share one of her Good Things™ that is so good that it is, if not life changing, then certainly life altering. This is one of those tips.

Martha tried three times to post a YouTube video about potato peeling. Each link was a dud. Her last try she cited as a triumph, although that link was dead too, proving that her team should never leave Ms. Stewart unchaperoned with her Blackberry. Intrigued, I searched YouTube for potato peeling videos. (Don’t think about that last sentence too much or you might start to judge me a little.) I believe I found the tip that she had so unsuccessfully been trying to tweet. It is spectacular.

The tip is this: Score a raw potato with one circular line around the “equator.” Boil the potato for 15 minutes. Remove the potato from the boiling water and place in an ice bath for 10 seconds. Hold one hand at each end and pull the peel off. It will slide right out of its skin. It might sound unexciting, but watch the video here (or below) and be amazed. I don’t know which video The Martha was trying to link to, but as always, I like the Japanese version of stuff like this. (The "before" part where the woman is showing how hard it is to peel a potato "by hand" is my favorite.)

As the keeper of the Thanksgiving flame in our family I am thrilled. Mashed potatoes for 15 never looked so easy, peasy, Japanesy.

Museum of Me

Earlier in the week, Krista Colvin, professional organizer and mistress of Organize in Style tweeted the following words:

Your closet is not a museum of who you used to be.

Fine words. I get it. My closet is not supposed to be a tribute to my former self/selves, but even with all of my (what I believed to be) rigorous weeding out of the old, my closet is still showing a few museum worthy relics.

The gallery includes:

The Outpatient Counselor: 3 pairs of grey slacks, 8 pairs of black slacks. I hate the word “slacks” but these office appropriate, wool blend, salutes to boring-ness can only be described as such. How does Ann Taylor stay in business now that I no longer work outside the home?

The 11th Grade Cheeleader: I really don’t wear this uniform as much as I should. Go Mariners!

The Bride: In keeping with our eloping/Las Vegas/attend-by-watching-the-live-streaming–ceremony-on-the-internet/happiest day of my life themed wedding, my “gown” is a white sundress from the sale rack at Macy’s. The veil is from a bridal supply store in LA’s garment district. I do not believe Bob will be wanting to wear this wedding dress to his own wedding (you never know) but I can not bear to part with it.

The Nightclubber: Vintage, black velvet car coat. This coat is still partying like it’s 1991. I can no longer remember exactly what went under this but I would imagine that black lace leggings were involved. This little number might be put to better use by my impossibly cool, sometimes goth, always gorgeous, goddaughter. On me, it gives a whiff of funky yet tragic bag lady.

The Attends Awards Shows Gal: I have not been to a black tie event in five years but you would not know this by perusing the depths of my closet. I will probably not be needing the black tea length ball skirt for Bob’s pre-school graduation ceremony.

My current self is about to be very popular at the Goodwill drop-off.

Into the Fold

I love order and organization. (At the moment, there is not much evidence in our home that could possibly prove this to you so you will have to take my word for it.) You may know of my somewhat challenging laundry situation. I fold a small island of shirts every week. In order to keep the stacks from toppling and merging into one big cotton pile of I-just-wasted-40-minutes, I use the Japanese t-shirt folding technique.

This thing has been around on YouTube for years and is still my secret laundry boyfriend. Or as my kid would say, “I just love it, love it, love it all the time.” I enjoy the classic Japanese video but you can also find the video instructions in English.

Apparently there are some Gap retail alumni who are still obsessed with the Gap fold, which utilizes a plastic folding board as its centerpiece. The sleek Japanese fold offers similar results but requires no equipment.

ご幸運を祈ります。

(The Japanese phrase above translates to “Good Luck.” Or possibly, “I cut and paste information I find on the internet without a real vetting process.”)

So I Thought I Could Dance

When my mom cleaned out her attic last fall, I came into possession of three storage bins packed with my own childhood stuff that I had not laid eyes on since my senior year of high school. As I have documented here, I am on a mission to de-stuff my stuff. As I dug my way through the bins, my vintage ephemera (old crap) fell into one of three classic categories:

Items I no longer had a use for:
Example - A plastic Foxmoor Casuals bag stuffed with notes passed between me and Dioni Verduzco circa Miss Konecny’s third period typing class in eighth grade.

Sweet, sweet circular file material.

Items someone else might be in need* of:
Example - 13 issues of Seventeen Magazine circa 1977-1982 - “Phoebe Cates fashioned this kicky poncho herself, in just a weekend!”

My 1977 Back-to-School Issue currently has one bid ($1.99) on eBay.

*The word “need” is subjective.

Items that rule:
Example - A 1st Place Disco Dance Trophy from 1978. This honor was awarded to my own John Travolta (an eighth grade David Clarke) and myself in the Junior High multi-purpose room in a school-wide assembly. I do not remember what song we danced to (Disco Inferno? Boogie Wonderland?) but I am certain that there was much Spandex involved and zero cool people. My career in dance would never again know such lofty heights.

Tragedy + Time = A New Piece of Awesome to Display On Our Mantel.

More buried treasure like that please.

459 Words About Laundry

Not long ago, our son woke from a nap wailing, “I don’t want to do laundry!”

I don’t know where he gets it.

For three people, we generate a ridiculous amount of dirty clothing. Bob has more costume changes in a day than Cher. Between the potty accidents, novice level eating utensil skills and the general boy-ness of it all, we’re looking at about 5 complete changes every 24-hour period. It takes mere minutes for a fresh fitted sheet on our bed to resemble the Shroud of Turin. The dog and cat both sleep with us in the bed. The level of fur and dirt and half eaten snacks hiding between the sheets proves that Daisy and Pearl are not sharing our bed - we are sharing theirs.

I was on the lookout for some way to make the laundering process cheaper, efficient, and more pleasant. I turned to my guide, the internet. Trent the blogger over at The Simple Dollar is semi-obsessed with making his own laundry detergent from scratch. He is convinced that it saves him a bunch of money. His original post about make-it-yourself detergent then spawned 5 or 6 subsequent posts and a heated debate among his readers. There are over 500 comments on the original post alone. More reasons I love the internet.

We have a front loader and need to use a low-sudsing soap so I won’t be trying Trent’s bucket of home-made slime. However, in the name of green and money saving, I have gone back on my dryer loving word and have resolved to line dry some of the laundry during the summer months. I know lots of people do it and it’s not like I’m churning my own butter here but the full clothesline does have a pioneer quality about it. As a bonus it gives the backyard the feel of a set from a high school production of West Side Story.

On the web, I found volumes of laundry strategies and systems. As efficiency goes, I tried the Mon-Whites/Wed-Darks/Fri-Sheets-and-Towels, The Load-A-Day-Every-Day, and The Do-It-All-On-One-Day-Only-Once-A-Week. While the idea of a set template appealed to my OCD, my search brought me back to the conclusion that with laundry, like much else, there is no hidden magic. The only way to get it done is to just shut up and do it.

For now, I will be sticking with the Throw-A-Load-In-When-I-Think-Of-It method that I have come to rely on. My goal will be to try to keep the clean stuff coming before Bob has no choice but to dress in an ill-fitting Christmas themed pajama top and we are all wearing bathing suits as underwear. Not that this has ever happened… too much.

The Big One - Redux

I’ve had a lot of response to The Big One, my post about earthquake/emergency preparedness. I like that we are all bonded by fear and procrastination. You are my crowd. Some of you have been commenting, e-mailing and Facebooking (that’s a word now) more tips.

Tedd wrote, "Having been right smack dab in the mayhem of the Loma Prieta quake, I would like to add my suggestion - have sleeping bags, pads and a tent conveniently located and safely accessible. As was the case with us, your house may not have fallen down, but you can't necessarily go back inside for a few days, let alone want to with the aftershocks. Outside can be a much safer place, no matter what the weather is like."

Lisa wrote, "After waking up in mid-air and landing on all fours from the boom and pop of the Northridge quake, I still keep these things under the bed and/or in the nightstand: wooden clogs, sweats and a t-shirt (Good when you are nude - hi! - and need to get out of the house quickly), a hard case for glasses (If your glasses are thrown across the room they won't be crushed and you can also find them easier if it's dark), and a flashlight."

Jerry wrote, "Because cell phones might not work, I would also have an old fashioned plug in phone in the emergency supplies box. Make sure the phone has a cord, because new fangled digital (cordless) phones require electricity, whereas old school phones do not."

So maybe you’ve pulled it together and gotten your supplies. All of that tuna and duct tape cannot save you if you are smushed under a bookcase. I found a link about what to do during the actual shaking part at the USGS site.

If you really want to pound an anxiety cocktail, the fine folks at USGS have another page with a nifty Real Time Earthquake Map that charts all of the latest quakes. When I last looked, there had been 692 in the Southern California area in the past week. It's neat. (And by "neat" I mean horrifying.)

Top of the Heap

Photo of Bob by Karen Peterson

As a gal who is notoriously fond of organization and order, I have been harboring a dirty little secret for a while now. I have had an organizational breakdown of the paper variety. For years I had a system involving a hanging file for receipts categorized by tax deduction, an action file and a file for correspondence. It was tidy and delightful. I also had a desk, and a filing cabinet, occasional uninterrupted free time, and no pre-schooler. That’s all changed. Excuses? Why yes.

My in-box procedure for the past year or so has involved tossing all of the paperwork and mail that accumulates into The Basket. When I need to locate something, I tear through The Basket (aka That Damned Basket), swearing about how much time I am wasting until I lay my hands on what I’m looking for, or I don't. My filing system consisted of emptying The Basket into an old P.F. Chang’s to-go bag and cramming it in the closet when company was coming. The horror.

Every few months I would spend an evening filing, shredding, and promising myself not to let it get so bad next time. I broke that sweet promise over and over again. Even though I hated it, I was obviously comfortable enough with my mountain of paper to continue doing nothing about it. I’m so complicated.

A few weeks ago, you may recall, I made the decision to do Inbox Zero; a technique for prioritizing and organizing email for maximum productivity. It was a little time consuming to get set up and once I got to zero it took awhile to get used to the naked look of my inbox, but now, I love it. The same types of procedures will be used to corral my out-of-control paper situation.

Today is the day where I take the next step: Paper Zero. I will climb the pile and then implement a new system. Unless I would like to have the “help” of my 3-year-old, this all must be accomplished during naptime. I will come up with a number of important and pressing reasons why I should continue putting this off. (Twitters, Facebooks, snacks) I will ignore the whinier me and get going.


I breakdown the piles of papers (mail/bills/cards/coupons) and odds and ends (crayons/Chuck E. Cheese tokens/batteries of indeterminate age) and organize them by category. Then with some manila file folders and the P-touch label maker, I make it happen. The key to my innovative system is that all of the files have to be accessible, eliminating the apparently Herculean effort of getting the blue plastic file box out of the cabinet and putting it back. These new files will return to the infamous Basket, which will now hold only files. Paper that finds its way into the house must find an immediate and permanent residence.

An hour and 20 minutes later I have reached: Paper Zero. As with most unpleasant things, the build up and the dread were much more dramatic and unpleasant than actually just getting it over with.


I am wondering if I have the fortitude for Laundry Zero.

The Big One

A few months back, my friend Stephanie forwarded an email to me with an alert from someone’s friend of someone’s friend at Homeland Security forwarded from someone at the U.S. Geological Survey. It explained that due to an alarming amount of recent seismic activity, a large earthquake might be in the immediate offing for we in the So Cal area. It went on to mention that, earthquake predictions are unreliable but to use this time as the motivation to check your preparedness and be ready; if The Big One didn’t happen in the next 3 days, it was still going to happen sometime.

We compared notes on our shocking lack of preparedness. Stephanie mentioned that after a quick mental review of the supplies in the house for her family of six, if the big quake should hit now, after 20 minutes they would be eating each other. We were not much better off here. At best, we were “prepared” for 3 days of eating mayonnaise sandwiches in the dark. Unacceptable.

My mom was still living in Northern California during the big and deadly Loma Prieta quake in 1989. More specifically, she was in Aptos, 2 miles from the epicenter. As I watched the live news coverage of the quake, there was very little information to be had other than that the epicenter of this giant quake was based in my mom’s living room. I had no way of contacting her. I was worried, but the one thing I did know was that as long as she had made it through the shaking, she would be prepared for what came after. I knew she had enough canned goods and batteries in the house to outfit the neighborhood for a month. She ended up losing some glass things and had some structural damage, but she was lucky, and fine, and organized, and ready.

So, I knew what ready looked like. It wasn’t us. That one dead flashlight in the garage wasn’t going to do much for us in the event of a big quake, mild storm, or even 20 minute power outage.

I decided I needed to make it all happen while I was still motivated by fear and paranoia. I made a late run to Ralph’s (at 11:00 PM on a school night) and filled a shopping cart with 3 first aid kits, a palette of batteries, gallons of bottled water, a serious ton of weird canned stuff (Dinty Moore Beef Stew anyone?), and a small propane BBQ.

It's done. We have stuff. We have a plan. We have emergency kits in both cars. If I am forced to camp out on the 210 for 3 days, I can make coffee. We have a butane lantern for seeing the rubble. As directed, I also hid some cash. After the quake, ATMs and credit cards could be worthless and Coinstar does not accept tears.

According to the Holy-Crap-You-Are-Screwed email, here is the basic list of stuff to have on hand. (Not just for earthquakes - this also works for tornadoes and hurricanes, times of civil unrest, or living until your unemployment check kicks in.)

• Half gallon of water per person in your household per day. At 7 days, that’s 3 ½ gallons per person.
• A week’s worth of food – and don’t forget a manual can opener and a propane stove or outdoor grill to cook it on.

Some suggestions for your food cache:

• Canned meats, fish, fruits, vegetables, beans, soups
• Protein bars
• Dry cereal or granola
• Peanut butter
• Nuts
• Dried fruit
• Crackers
• Canned juices
• Non-perishable comfort foods, like chocolate
• Bottled drinks with electrolytes, such as Gatorade
• Baby food in jars, plus formula, for the little ones
• Pet food

• Lanterns and flashlights - It’s going to be several weeks, possibly months - without electricity.
• Batteries
• Battery-powered radio
• Extra prescription meds - You can ask your doctor for a 1-time additional prescription, then rotate those into your regular supply each month to keep them fresh.
• First Aid kit - Include anti-diarrhea medication, in case you ingest some bad water.
• Garbage bags - You can line your toilet with these, too, since there won’t be any water to flush when you get that diarrhea.
• Alcohol gel for hand washing
• Toilet paper, paper towels, disposable diapers (For the baby. Or you. You are a mess.)
• Whistle
• A communication plan - The California phone servers will be down and/or overwhelmed, but you may be able to reach someone out of state if you use a cell phone. Designate one out-of-state person to be your family’s contact person, and make sure that all your family members living in LA know to call that person if you are not all together when a quake happens. If your kids are at school when it hits, they need to know to call Grandma in Florida so that Grandma can relay messages for you.

Those are the absolute basics. Don’t forget to keep food, water, and blankets in your car, as well as an extra pair of sneakers, socks, and a sweat suit or something comfortable to wear. If you are unfortunate enough to be on a freeway at the time of a major quake, you will probably be stuck there for days. Bust out the coffee.

Learn Something Already: Day 1

I recently read that it’s important for brain health to learn something new everyday. Because of the way my memory likes to let go of the important (my ATM pin code) and retain the unimportant (lyrics to Head Like a Hole) this could be challenging but it can’t hurt. (Can it? What if it hurts?) My goal this week will be to gain some new (possibly painful) piece of knowledge every day.

Day 1
HowToCleanStuff.net has an article listing the 10 dirtiest things in your home. According to this list, the bathtub is the #1 dirtiest spot in the house. The HowToCleanStuff people can make this assumption only because they have not seen the amount of dog hair living beneath our couch. They go on to explain that there is more bacteria in the bathtub than in the toilet. (I have a bad smell look on my face as I type this.)

What I learned: I might be cleaner before a bath than after.

(Has this propelled me to rise above my laziness and procrastination to even rinse out the tub yet this week? No, but I’m not enjoying the bathing like I should which must count for something.)

The Weight of My World

Back in the fall, when we moved into the house we are currently renting, we were told that the garage was unavailable. Our landlord explained that she had inherited the house when her grandmother died some years before. At that time, in order to get the house cleaned out and ready to rent, she had haphazardly jammed all of grandma’s belongings into the garage and locked the door. She explained that until recently, the thought of opening it up and going through all of the stuff had been too emotional to deal with. After getting to know us, she felt comfortable enough to give us the key to the garage and told us we could move things around to make extra space and use whatever room we could find for our own storage.

My friends will tell you that part of my particular brand of crazy includes an organizing jones. My spices are alphabetized. Shirts hang in my closet according to color and sleeve length. My P-touch label maker is my co-pilot and Australian super-organizer Peter Walsh is my hero. I adore the shows with the clutter-y folks and their mountains of crap getting tidied into submission.

I had our storage bins labeled, categorized and lined up in the driveway ready for their new home. I was up to the task of granny’s garage. The challenge was that because this was not my stuff, I would not be making more room by throwing anything away, I would merely be rearranging the hills and heaps. The easier part was that because I had no emotional attachment to any of these things, I anticipated a faster job with no time wasted on the sentimental journeys that can slow down a clean up of one’s own.

The little one-car garage was packed. Nothing was put anywhere specific, just piles sitting on piles. Her purse sat on a brown recliner as if she had just set it down. Gas bills and perfume bottles and the dinner menu from a 1973 Caribbean cruise were stuffed together in a grocery bag. I marveled over a large collection of used McDonald’s coffee stirrers bound together by rubber bands. I realized that I had not been prepared for the emotional exhaustion that would come from getting to know someone through the lifetime of objects collected and left behind.

Once I finally finished pulling everything out, I did the basics; grouped like items together, sorted, boxed, and labeled. When the project was over, the transformation was pretty remarkable. I looked at the now empty half of the garage, ready to be filled with our family's things. I was feeling the weight of too many belongings. I thought of my own stuff and what it said about me and what I value. I considered the person who might be left to sort through the possessions I leave behind. I wondered if holding on to less might free up the energy to spend time building a legacy of something more. I opened one of my bins and started sifting through.

Before

After

3 New-ish Things That Make My Life Easier

There are 3 little things at the top of the list of stuff that has recently changed my life for the oh-so-much better. Little things. Really small, really good things.

*Spoiler Alert: I will be waxing euphoric about kitty litter. For real.

There’s a commercial where a guest walks into a woman’s home, sniffs and says, “Oh, I didn’t know you had cats.” I have a fear of that little scene being played out at our house.

The “Oh, I didn’t know you have a cat” smell at our place would aromatically conflict with the “Oh, I didn’t know you have a dog” smell or the “Oh, I didn’t know you have a kid who occasionally pees on the rug” smell, of which we are all so proud. Of the many nasty smells that can waft through a house, cat box smells are among the gaggiest to me. I bow before one of my favorite inventions of this century: Cat Litter Crystals. Any brand of crystal style cat litter will do, but the cheapest ones I’ve found are at Trader Joe’s. One need only change the littler once (Once!) a month (A month!) and there is no smell. Bless you crystals. If you think this isn't a big deal, then you are simply wrong.

Next up, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. They really are magic. Leave a 3-year-old-boy alone for two minutes with a box of crayons/cup of coffee/used diaper and your walls will resemble a crime scene. The Eraser makes all the bad stuff go away. I don’t know how they work and I don’t care. I just love them with a white, hot, blinding devotion. The plain wrap store brand types are not as good. The new Febreze scented ones do not seem to work as well either and they leave your place smelling like a strip club. (Yeah, pretend you don’t know what I mean.) For best results, go Eraser classic.

Number 3 on the list is my current favorite edible exception to the “good, fast, cheap – pick any two” rule. My friend Lisa first told me about this recipe from Giada De Laurentis’s cookbook, Every Day Italian. This dish is simple and inexpensive. A dish that includes a can of tuna among its ingredients has no business being this good.

I use whatever type of whole wheat pasta we have in the house and canned Tongol in water instead of the albacore tuna in oil (less mercury, so they say). The lemon peel is key. (Sans lemon peel there can be a whiff of Fancy Feast about it all.) Giada’s original take on this also includes an optional recipe for making your own marinara sauce, but that would eliminate the easiness part and who needs that?

Fusilli with Tuna and Tomato Sauce
Ingredients
* 1 pound fusilli
* 1 (26-ounce) jar marinara sauce
* 2 (6-ounces each) cans albacore tuna packed in oil, drained
* 1 tablespoon drained capers
* 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
* Salt and freshly ground black pepper
* 1 tablespoon chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves

Directions
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until tender but still firm to the bite, about 8 minutes.

Meanwhile, combine the tomato sauce, tuna, capers, and lemon peel in a heavy large skillet. Using a fork, break the tuna into chunks. Simmer to blend the flavors, about 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Drain the pasta, reserving 1 cup of the cooking liquid. Add the pasta to the sauce and toss to coat. Toss the pasta with enough reserved cooking liquid to moisten. Stir in the parsley and serve.

Turning Green-ish: 15 Green Habits and How We Sort of Do Them

I enjoy the mother earth. I know she’s on hard times. The warming, the extincting, the carbon footprints, the whole deal. I super get it. I am willing to help a gal out. I’ve been reading lots of green lists lately and there is an overwhelming amount of information on the subject out there. The intimidating number of tips for greening it up at treehugger.com is enough to make me give up the whole thing and buy a Hummer. Finding a green starting place for two grown-ups, a toddler, and 2 animals is taking some time. The following habits are the ones I see around most frequently. There are definitely some adjustments to be made here at the Rosen-b pad and we’re trying to turn it around with varying degrees of success and enthusiasm.

• Turn down the hot water heater to 120°F. Easy one. Showers at our house are always rushed and tepid. The days of the long, hot, relaxing shower went away when we turned down the hot water heater for baby safety reasons and cut showers short for not-enough-hours-in-the-day-too-exhausted-for-the–luxury-of-cleanliness-please-God-just-one-hour-of-uninterrupted-sleep reasons. Plus, when you are extremely sleep deprived, water hitting your skin sort of hurts.

• Grow a vegetable garden. We tried planting radishes because I heard they were easy, quick growers. Turns out, this is true. Oversight: none of us really like radishes. We have a cherry tomato plant and some herbs. We’ve got some zucchini in the side yard that should be enveloping the entire house by August. This may not qualify as gardening. Right now, it just seems like watering.

• When it's yellow, let it mellow. The big people here have this one down but when you’re a 3 year-old guy and you are potty training, flushing is the pay-off. The whole family will “let it mellow” once our son Bob is burning through less than 4 pairs of Elmo big boy underpants per day. Until then, flushing is the fun part.

• Use cloth napkins instead of paper. We do this many nights of the week but could step it up. One recent evening, we were eating outside on the patio with cloth napkins, yet using paper plates. I will file that little gem in the category of needing to think it through more.

• Keep the cell charger unplugged when not cell charging. My new cell phone inexplicably came with Usher’s “Love In This Club” as a ring tone. I change it, it changes back. It also holds a full charge for a total of 8 minutes. I can vow to keep it unplugged from the charger only during the time that I am beating it against the kitchen counter for cutting off another call. Love not in this club ya’ll.

• Buy local and/or organic. The organic thing can be spendy but the stuff that’s in season is usually a little easier on the wallet. We go to a sweet little farmer’s market by our house on Thursday evenings. I buy a couple of vegetables and some berries out of peer pressure but I am really there for the kettle korn. I’ve heard that our kettle korn guy has questionable politics, and I still can’t quit him. Damn him and his cauldron.

• Use reusable shopping bags. We have a bunch of these that we bought at Trader Joe’s. It feels awkward to use the Trader Joe’s bags at other markets but to get another set of bags just to use at Von’s is ridiculous. That the issue of reusable bag branding loyalty is taking up any real estate in my brain is even more ridiculous. Pray for me.

• Before buying anything new first check Craig’s List and Freecycle. We do this because we are cheap, not because we are green, but let’s pretend.

• Turn off your computer completely at night. I am doing this now, although it makes me the teensiest bit queasy. Part of me knows I don’t back up my files enough. (Unless “never” is suddenly enough.) Another part of me knows that sometime in the near future, I will go to turn on this little Powerbook relic, and it’s just going to flip me the bird.

• Line dry your laundry. Call me a baby, but I don’t like the sandpaper feel of air-dried towels. My showers suck enough (short, tepid, see above) without the loofah as towel treatment. I have been trying another thing I read about which is a nice laundry hack. Use a dryer sheet once. Use another dryer sheet once for another load. Then use those two old sheets together instead of a new one for the third load. These two aging sheets work as well as one new one. Delightful. Is my clever dryer sheet math saving the planet? Probably not. Again, this is something I do because I am cheap, not because I am green. However, because I am now keeping score, I will call it green. So very, very green am I.

• Eat less meat. We aren’t that meat-y anyway so designating Meatless Monday into the calendar was pretty easy. We don’t get into the details with our son since he still doesn’t quite understand where meat comes from and believes that beef comes from a “beef tree”. (His idea.) We do not yet have the heart to tell him otherwise. Little Bob is an extreme animal lover and we are pretty sure that once he puts the meat = creatures thing together he will hate us and we will all be forced into vegetarianism. Yes, omitting the truth is lying, but we are desperately clinging to our bacon while we still can.

• Switch to Shade Grown coffee with a Fair Trade label. We have been getting the Shade Grown coffee from Trader’s for awhile now because if you grind it on the espresso setting it tastes almost as good as the expensive French Roast stuff that we really like. Again – did it to save a few bucks and unknowingly added to the greenness.

• Use the Diva Cup for your monthly cycles. Que es la Diva Cup? Googled it. Read about it. Gagged a little. If you are not familiar with this device, accept the brief explanation that it is a little re-usable deal that takes the place of other products during your lady time. Yeah… no. If you are a Diva Cup lover, God love you. You are a better woman than I.

• Buy reusable water bottles. We did this. Didn’t take long before all of ours tasted like coffee, even after repeated washing. Need to get some bottles designated for water only. Difficult since every vessel in our home is used as a vehicle for getting more coffee into the grown-ups.

• Pay bills online with paperless billing. I’m usually low on stamps. I like activities that can be accomplished in my pajamas. Paying bills online was made for a go getter like me. For even more help, I love mint.com. Mint is an easy online accounts and budgeting manager. After the initial 20 minute time investment to enter accounts information (my husband’s initial 20 minute time investment), this thing will chart expenses and remind you when to pay your bills. A gentle Mint reminder is so much nicer than the angry pink past due notice and the interrupted-phone-service-due-to-unpaid-bill type of reminder lacks subtlety and is best left behind in our twenties.


My husband Jeff drives a hybrid. I drive an aging station wagon. We have a front loading high efficiency washing machine. We have a low efficiency refrigerator from the Nixon era. We are switching over to those spiral-y light bulbs. We are switching over to those spiral-y light bulbs except when they don’t really fit in certain lamps and look weird. With greening, as like most things, there is oh so much room for improvement over here.