Have a green holiday!
Here we are just four weeks from Thanksgiving and I really haven’t thought about what I’ll do this year for Christmas. The holiday season is, without a doubt, one of the most consumer oriented, waste producing times of year. Not to sound like a grinch–I love the holidays, but several years ago, my family decided to scale back on Christmas and make it more about family get together than gift exchange. We limit gifts to less than $20 or something hand made and focus instead on trying to get together for the holidays. We cook a big, family, gut-busting meal, pull out card games and family albums, and laugh til we cry.
Learning about light pollution
If you’ve never seen the sky on a truly dark, cloudless night, then you are missing one of the most beautiful sights you will ever see. Here in New Mexico, we try to control light pollution. Our subdivision rules include controlling light at night, which we appreciate, because the night views are truly incredible. We have one “security” light and it has sensors for both motion and light, so it only comes on at night if something passes by and triggers it. It is also solar powered, so it can be placed almost anywhere without the hassle of wiring it in. If you want to learn more about the efforts in this country to control light pollution, check out this very informative article from Lighter Footstep on five ways you can reduce light pollution.
Breaking the Hard Copy Habit
I am a lover of hard-copy books, despite my geekiness. But one of my goals for living more sustainably is to buy less paper and use more digital. I did a little research on how to do that and wrote an article that is posted on Helium. I hope you will take time to read it and visit me on Helium.
My favorite "cook book"
Living sustainably goes beyond “green living”, at least for me. After seventeen years as professional staff in a major research university, I was looking for a change. My job was taking up more and more of my time and energy, particularly as I got more and more into grant writing, and yet it was less and less fulfilling. To change that, I have two simple rules–simplify life and spend more time doing things I enjoy.
When my kids were living at home, I cooked all the time and on Saturday nights, we often chose a country and cooked dishes from that country. In the process, I taught my boys how to cook. After they fledged and left the nest, I cooked less and less and spent more of my time doing work related tasks–reading journal articles, editing grant proposals, etc. and just snacking for meals or eating TV dinners. Now I have started cooking again and am enjoying it more than ever.
One of my favorite “cook books” is AllRecipes.com. It allows you to rate recipes, add recipes to share with others, search out recipes and see how others have rated them and, my favorite feature, have a recipe box where you can save recipes that you like. You can search by country, which is what my boys and I often did, or you can search by ingredient or any other key word. My youngest son, my mom and I must stay on a gluten-free diet, so today I am trying a recipe for Tres Leches for my wedding to see how I can modify the recipe with gluten-free flour that I get from Bob’s Red Mill. I usually have really good luck with their gluten free flour mix and we are looking forward to trying out this cake recipe. I will let you know how it turns out!!
I will write more later on the other projects I am working on for the wedding–my dress with crocheted accessories, the ceremony, the food–all done in an effort to keep the day simple, beautiful and memorable.
Disposing of old prescription drugs-don’t flush!
This is one of those things that I really hadn’t thought about until it popped up in my reader. Don’t assume that the best way to dispose of old medications is to flush them. Municipal water systems are not equipped to handle drugs in the water–a scary thought, particularly if someone was up to no good. The Office of National Drug Control Policy has issued guidelines for disposing of medications instead of flushing them. The United States Geologic Survey has additional publications on drug, hormone and other contaminants that are in our waterways.
Recycling electronics
This is something we struggle with all the time. Being a family of geeks, we have way too much obsolete electronic clutter around. We don’t want to send it to a land fill, but sometimes you can’t even give the stuff away, so it just piles up in the garage. This article from GreenLivingTips has several good resources for getting rid of old electronics.
Phone Book Rant
Seven phone books in six months. (Make that TEN-I just opened my front door and found three more on the step–what a waste!)??? We have lived in this house six months and so far have received seven (now ten) phone books–greater Houston area, Yellowbook, YPOne, the Real Yellow Pages, etc. Every time I turn around, I see another phone book wrapped in plastic out in the drive way. The reality is that I rarely ever use a phone book anymore. I look online for everything. I think we should have an option, when we have our phones installed, that we can request NOT to receive phone books.
