Tiny Houses!

When we were living in New Jersey, basically when  I was in high school, we had a grey gardening shed out in the back yard.  It was small, had a potting bench and a couple hooks for rakes and whatnot.  I dreamed of how I could turn it into my own little house.  I could have a bed on one side (or a hammock! how cool would that be??) the kitchenette on the other side.  A few shelves for a pot or pan or book or two.  The only thing I couldn't figure out was where to place the toilet.  But then, the little shed was behind our house, so I could always go to the bathroom inside...  In my imagination, it was terribly cute, with curtains in the windows and everything.  Turns out, I'm not the only one with this idea.  I really wish I could live in a house like one of these.  Just sell all of our STUFF and move on in.  Little tiny house with lots of land.  Anyone want to buy some furniture?

I was good today

I was good today  and took care of several new year's resolutions at once.  Yay me!  I put Allie in the backpack and took a walk down to the grocery store.  Since I had the backpack and no reusable bag with me, there was a limit to what I could carry, so I ended up with just a carton of organic milk for Allie and toilet paper.  Exercise, fresh air and toilet paper.  What more could a girl ask for?

Speaking of toilet paper...  I would like to declare the toilet paper wars officially over!  I now have scientific proof that overhanging your toilet paper (as opposed to underhanging it) is the right way.  Yes, there is a RIGHT way to hang toilet paper.  Click here for the proof!  Not that I have ever doubted myself, but I have run into a few underhangers in my time (ahem, Becca!).  Now, if we could just get the whole world to overhang their recycled toilet paper...

And in case you're wondering, these are the brands of recycled TP we've tried:

Trader Joe's - cheap, soft.  Doesn't last long in our house... maybe a day.

7th Generation - expensive.  Lasts longer than TJ's, but not much.

Marcal - akin to Scott, definitely not the softest out there, but each roll lasts awhile!  And is carried by the grocery store down the street.  I got 12 rolls for $4.50 today - it was onsale with my Pathmark card.  

By the way, Kimberly-Clark, the company that makes Scott and Cottonelle toilet paper and Kleenex brand tissues, has a pretty dismal environmental record.  They're cutting down old growth forrest so we can blow our nose and wipe our butts.  For shame!  Check out the Greenpeace campaign!

Laundry. Bah.

Laundry.  It's never ending.  Just when you think there is nothing left to wash, you realize you're wearing clothes that will be back in the hamper by tonight.  Bah.  I'm beginning to think nudists have the right idea. 

Anyway, I have a few thoughts.  First, everyone should try Charlie's Soap.  There are a few stores where you can buy it in person, but its easiest to buy it online here.  Not only does it work great on clothes (and is safe for cloth diapers), but I used it to wash the kitchen floor the other day along with a cupful of vinegar and it worked beautifully!  Of course, it didn't last, but that is life with a 15 month old who likes raspberries.

My other thought is that I need another drying rack, preferably one of those enormous ones from Gaiam (I think they sell them at Amazon too).  I have a small sized washer, and even with the smaller loads, not everything fits on the drying rack I currently have.  My problem is that I don't have enough space to set up a ginormous drying rack, short of getting rid of the kitchen table.  I've been tempted to get the telescoping kind and to hang them above our washer.  Not very scenic, but then, our apartment isn't particularly scenic to begin with.  I figure air drying more will not only cut down on the dryer use (and electricity use and therefore environmental impact), but will also reduce the dust.  One can dream, right?

New Year's Resolution #4 - Jessie Rants

So, resolution #4 has been proving the most difficult, despite the large stocks of tomato sauce in our freezer.  Why? Because its winter.  Because we don't have all that much time to cook (and somehow I spend my time playing sudoku on facebook instead of cooking in the evenings - bad Jessie!).  Because trying to convince people that we don't need to eat meat on a daily basis is difficult.  Even more difficult is trying to stuff vegetables into the mouths of resistant adults.  Allie I can handle...

I have friends who are raising their kids more-or-less vegetarian.  They eat fish, but not other forms of meat.  At first, I thought they were being a little unfair - raising a child vegetarian means that they never develop the enzymes to digest meat, and then meat consumption makes them sick.  (Ask anyone who has been vegetarian for a long time, they can tell you in graphic detail what a little chicken stock can do to them.)  By raising a child vegetarian, you are making the decision for them that they will never eat meat, or at least, they will never eat meat without digestive consequences.  My friends make the argument that parents make lots of decisions for their children - raising them within a particular religion, for example.  I say that a Catholic kid can become Buddhist later in life without physical discomfort.  Its an ongoing discussion...

But lately I've been thinking that their decision not completely off base.  I don't want to deny Allie meat altogether, but the reality is that Americans eat WAY too much meat.  Once or twice a week is more than sufficient protein in our diet, especially when we're consuming eggs and dairy as well.  All of the environmental reasons have been discussed at length here and here and a hundred other places - just google environment and vegetarianism.  But there are really good health reasons as well!  People who eat meat have a greater chance of developing heart disease, various kinds of cancer, and Alzheimer's disease.  The way we raise meat in this country is horrifying as well.  Even if you take the animal welfare out of the picture (which is important too!), you still have the fact that factory farms are filling our food animals with antibiotics, creating lots of antibiotic resistant bugs, and feeding animals unnatural foods, which is unhealthy for us.  Did you know that grass fed beef contains less cholesterol than grain fed?  And then there are the processed meats...  do you actually know what is in a hot dog?  If you did, you wouldn't eat it.  Ew. 

The moral of the story can be summed up as whole grains and vegetables, good, lots of meat, bad.  What I want most for my daughter is for her to grow up healthy and happy, and on a planet that is prepared to support her generation.  Given all of the environmental and health reasons to go mostly-vegetarian, what am I waiting for?  

Carbon Offsets - Have you tried it?

While finishing up the last of changes on my thesis, I had on the National Geographic channel's program called 6 Degrees.  The earth's temperature has already risen by .8 degrees celcius.  Eek!  So I decided to take a step to reduce my carbon footprint - I offset the carbon produced by our car.  While the Prius is great compared to other car types, we still produce almost 2 TONS (yes, TONS) of CO2 a year.  So I went to the carbon fund website and offset those 2 tons, taking care of the carbon produced by our car.  Offset - I donated towards projects that will take that 2 tons out of the atmosphere this year.  They have many different projects and you can specify what you'd like your money to go towards (renewable energy, energy efficiency or reforestation are the general categories).  Someday soon I'll offset the carbon produced by our "small apartment' living lifestyle...  but I should wait until I get paid again. Bah.

MLK Day of Service

Quickly, since I'm really supposed to be finishing my thesis talk right now, I wanted to let folks know that I'm going to try and answer President Elect Obama's Call to Service and spend MLK day volunteering.  I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do, but I want to make sure that its something that Allie can participate in (or at least, be there).  Among the options is helping clean up Central Park and delivering food and winter clothing to NY residents in need.  There are also health fairs, emergency fire education and all sorts of other projects to fit your interest.  To find a volunteer project near you, check out usaservice.org and enter your zipcode.  Or create your own! 

Anyone up for joining me? 

It's the End of the World as We Know It

Global warming.  We've all heard about it.  CO2 is a greenhouse gas, trapping the heat from the sun.  The glaciers are melting.  The polar bears are starving and drowning.  Its enough to make me try and breathe less.  But tonight, I learned something new.  The solution to global warming is pollution!  Ok, that really wasn't the take home message, just my sarcastic paraphrasing of it.  But seriously - it turns out that all of the particulate pollution we generate has been having the effect of blocking out the sun.  Solar dimming!  Er, the good news (?!) is that this has actually damped the effects of global warming.  The bad news (?!!) is that now we're polluting less.  But no worries!  China and India are picking up our slack!

So it turns out that the famine in Ethiopia that occurred during the 1980s was due to particulate pollution generated by North America and Europe.  The pollution carried itself on the trade winds to the African coast, dimmed the sun and totally changed the weather pattern.  This prevented the monsoon rains from falling, drought occurred, leading to decreased crop production and famine.  When we cleaned up our act, the rains returned (mostly) and people are eating.  

The most direct (and astounding!) evidence they have of solar dimming actually comes from September 11th.  After that dreadful day, all commercial planes were grounded for 3 days all across the U.S.  This means that these aircraft were not leaving their contrails across the sky, blocking the sun with their clouds.  Do you know what happened during those three days? The temperature spread (i.e. the daily high minus the overnight low) got bigger by 2 degrees!  That doesn't sound like much, but in the world of global climate, its actually huge.  The day was hotter and the night was colder.

Ok, so what does this mean?  This means that the global warming crisis is actually MUCH WORSE than current measurements are telling us.  This means that our pollution is actually masking the effects of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.  Want to hear something even more depressing?  As the temperature rises, there will be a tipping point at which the oceans no longer trap and store methane gas, and the methane will be released into the atmosphere.  Methane is a MUCH worse greenhouse gas than CO2.  We're doomed.  Bah.

Ok, everyone, stop breathing!   Save the rain forest! Kill your television and read a book you checked out from the library!  By candlelight!  Aah!  

Hey God? Can we have a do-over?  I think humanity needs it.  Then again, I'm not sure I can promise we'll do better the next time around.  **sigh**