1001 Little Ways to Save Our Planet

Oh my goodness.

If you buy just one book this year, let it be 1001 Little Ways to Save Our Planet. It is such a good beginners resource for everything environmentally responsible.

Here is what it says on the back

"With ideas for recycling, conservation and energy efficiency, 1001 Little Ways to Save Our Planet offers quick, simple ways to reduce your impact on the environment and start living in harmony with the planet. Green-living tips include how to limit the damage done by global warming, pollution and toxins, as well as decrease reliance on fossil fuels and make eco-friendly choices such as buying from sustainable sources. Even if your an energy-guzzling, 4x4-driving, plane-loving consumer, you'll be amazed at how just a few small changes in your work and home life can reap big benefits for the global community."

Hurry. Go. Buy it. Or borrow it.

Here are some of my favorite tips:

298: Remembering to turn off the tap (faucet) while you're brush your teeth, applying make-up or cleanser, or shaving helps save an incredible amount of water. Turning off the tap (faucet) while brushing your teeth can save 7 litres (2 Gal) of water. Try to get into the habit of turning the tap (faucet) off whenever the water is nt actually needed.

217: Instead of buying fabric softners which can leave chemical residues on clothes and pollute the environment in their manufacturing process, try adding 60 mls (1/4 cup) white vinegar to the rinse water.

729: Ten tread mills in the average gym use the same amount of electricity in a day that it would take to run your hairdryer non-stop for an entire year. Stick to weights and non-electric machines like spinning bikes.

Simple Habits that Help the Environment - Part Three

USE RECYCLED TOILET PAPER

Oh no! I'm talking about toilet paper again. I'm fixated. Don't judge me. But there is just so much TP consumed each year that it is hard not to be. Think about how many trees that is.



So, why not use recycled TP. Think about how many trees it would save. At the moment, Jeremiah and I are fortunate to be in close proximity to Trader Joes and we buy their 100% recylced toilet paper.

It isn't difficult. Make it a habit.

Simple Habits that Help the Environment - Part Two

TURN THE SHOWER DOWN

Still in the bathroom, but not quite as personal a subject. Turn the shower down. Unless you have the absolute worst shower in the world, and I know you don't because I know where it is, you can turn the water controls towards off quite a significant way before you notice any significant pressure change from the shower head. But less water will be flowing and that is what is important.

Fresh water is the worlds most precious resource, and we are running out fast. It takes two seconds to turn your shower down. Make it a habit.

Simple Habits that Help the Environment - Part One

USE LESS TOILET PAPER

OK, I know this is a bit of a disgusting one to start off with, but it is so simple.

Be honest, when you pull the paper off the roll, how much of that do you really need? You are probably pulling close to an arm's length right? That's about six sheets. Per wipe. It's not necessary, I promise. You can use at least half that and still keep your hands clean.

So every time you pull the paper off the wall, put half of it back.

You can also save even more per wipe, by folding the paper over after each wipe and wiping again. In theory, you should use a quarter of the toilet paper that you were previously using. Think of the trees you save.

Credit goes to my husband, Jeremiah, for commenting on the amount of toilet paper I was using and forcing me to rethink my bathroom habits. It doesn't take much effort to use less toilet paper. Make it a habit.

Pound Dogs - Why adopting is the right thing to do.

In a coffee shop in Galt last night, I overheard (as I'm sure the whole place did) a man talking very proudly about the dog he was going to get. From his dialogue I established discovered that he didn't yet know the name of the breed, he hadn't ever owned a dog, he didn't know how much it cost, he didn't know the breed's temperament, he didn't know how much grooming the dog required or whether it needed long walks. He knew he wanted a puppy. And it had to be a lassie dog.

He wants something that will make him look cool. It is a shame that there is no Irresponsible Dog Owner of the Year award. He'd be a finalist.


Meet Chocolat and Simon. Two of the most grateful and loving dogs you'll ever meet. Both mutts. Both intelligent. Both loyal. Both adopted.
Because they have been rescued, they are not one of the 7 million adoptable dogs and cats that are killed each year due to overpopulation. Simon came directly from the pound. Chocy was a stray.

Seven Great Reasons to Adopt
1. You save lives.
When you adopt a dog or cat, you save not just one life, but possibly the life of the animal that will fill its space in the adoption cycle.
2. You know what you are getting
What you see is what you get. Unlike puppies and kittens that develop habits and personality traits, an adopted cat or dog can fit straight in to your family.
3. Instant Friends
The bond between a rescued dog and it's owner is just as strong as in those situations where a dog was raised from puppyhood. And you have the added advantage of a grateful dog. Go adopt a dog and then tell me dogs can't be grateful.
4. No inhumane puppy mills or backyard breeders involved.
The above are so irresponsible and disgusting, that is all I will say about them. Sure you can buy from a reputable breeder, but why? There are plenty of purebred dogs waiting to be adopted (for a lot less money).
5. Adoption Counseling
This is something you don't get from a breeder. If you haven't ever owned a dog, or even if you have, adoption counselling is the way to go.
6. Training and Socialisation
A lot of rescue organisations do some training and socialising of dogs, in order to make them more adoptable. Another thing you don't have to do.
7. No Vet Visits
When you get a dog from a pound or rescue organization, the dog will have had all its shots already, so you don't need to spend additional money on them. Also, a lot of rescue organizations will spay or neuter an animal before putting them up for adoption. Another additional expense you don't have to worry about.


Jeremiah and I got Atticus through Dogsonly.org who were advertising him for Saving Pyrenees in Need (SPIN). Atticus was dumped in a "high kill" pound (given two days) and SPIN saved him.

Atticus, Chocy and Simon are just some examples of how wonderful rescue dogs can be, and why adopting is the right thing to do. If you have your heart set on a particular breed, find that breeds rescue organisation. There is bound to be one. See below for some links to good adoption sites.




petfinder.com

Pets 911

1-800-saveapet

Rocet Dog Rescue

Just type "dog adoption" or "cat adoption" or "[insert breed] adoption" into your search engine and you will find hundreds of links.

The Love behind My Cooking

- AN INTRODUCTION

Now that Jeremiah and I are down in California, we have no full-time chef to prepare our meals. This led us to the inevitable conclusion that I would have to cook.

Despite the possible poisonings coursing through both our imaginations (nothing like a positive attitude), I chose to meet the new challenge with love, rather than anxiety. As a result, our stomachs are full with the yummy goodness of a homecooked meal.

So far, although I don't particularly enjoy cooking it has been a rewarding experience for both of us. It is somewhat of an artistic outlet for me. It keeps me busy. I am learning and every day is different. Jeremiah comes home from a hard day of work to an apartment full of delicious smells, and gets to eat a hot, tasty meal - cooked by the woman he loves, for the man she loves.

So, the most gratifying thing about cooking for Jeremiah is that it has brought the two of us closer together.

GLOBAL WARMING

It is probably one of the last things that people don't believe in, if they have looked at the facts. So I’ll assume that you do believe. Unfortunately, most of us don’t really know how to help. But I am sure that I don’t want to visit my family in Europe, once they have been plunged into another ice age.

And so help I must. Here is what I found out. An Inconvenient Truth is an excellent source of facts concerning climate change. Watch the movie. Read the website.

The US Environmental Protectin Agency also has a climate change website, full of useful information.

Stopglobalwarming.org has useful tips on how to calculate your energy efficiency and such.

If you don’t have time to navigate the web pages, I have cut and pasted the “take action” tips from the An Inconvenient Truth website.

TAKE ACTION
In the home

Replace a regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb (cfl)
CFLs use 60% less energy than a regular bulb. This simple switch will save about 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. If every family in the U.S. made the switch, we’d reduce carbon dioxide by more than 90 billion pounds! You can purchase CFLs online from the Energy Federation.

Move your thermostat down 2° in winter and up 2° in summer
Almost half of the energy we use in our homes goes to heating and cooling. You could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple adjustment. The American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy has more tips for saving energy on heating and cooling.

Clean or replace filters on your furnace and air conditioner
Cleaning a dirty air filter can save 350 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Install a programmable thermostat
Programmable thermostats will automatically lower the heat or air conditioning at night and raise them again in the morning. They can save you $100 a year on your energy bill.

Choose energy efficient appliances when making new purchases
Look for the Energy Star label on new appliances to choose the most efficient models. If each household in the U.S. replaced its existing appliances with the most efficient models available, we’d eliminate 175 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year!

Wrap your water heater in an insulation blanket
You’ll save 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year with this simple action. You can save another 550 pounds per year by setting the thermostat no higher than 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

Use less hot water
It takes a lot of energy to heat water. You can use less hot water by installing a low flow showerhead (350 pounds of carbon dioxide saved per year) and washing your clothes in cold or warm water (500 pounds saved per year) instead of hot.

Use a clothesline instead of a dryer whenever possible
You can save 700 pounds of carbon dioxide when you air dry your clothes for 6 months out of the year.

Turn off electronic devices you’re not using
Simply turning off your television, DVD player, stereo, and computer when you’re not using them will save you thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

Unplug electronics from the wall when you’re not using them
Even when turned off, things like hairdryers, cell phone chargers and televisions use energy. In fact, the energy used to keep display clocks lit and memory chips working accounts for 5 percent of total domestic energy consumption and spews 18 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere every year!

Only run your dishwasher when there’s a full load and use the energy-saving setting
You can save 100 pounds of carbon dioxide per year.

Insulate and weatherize your home
Properly insulating your walls and ceilings can save 25% of your home heating bill and 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Caulking and weather-stripping can save another 1,700 pounds per year. The Consumer Federation of America has more information on how to better insulate your home.

Be sure you’re recycling at home
You can save 2,400 pounds of carbon dioxide a year by recycling half of the waste your household generates. Earth 911 can help you find recycling resources in your area.

Buy recycled paper products
It takes less 70 to 90% less energy to make recycled paper and it prevents the loss of forests worldwide.

Plant a tree
A single tree will absorb one ton of carbon dioxide over its lifetime. Shade provided by trees can also reduce your air conditioning bill by 10 to 15%. The Arbor Day Foundation has information on planting and provides trees you can plant with membership.

Get a home energy audit
Many utilities offer free home energy audits to find where your home is poorly insulated or energy inefficient. You can save up to 30% off your energy bill and 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. Energy Star can help you find an energy specialist.


Switch to green power
In many areas, you can switch to energy generated by clean, renewable sources such as wind and solar. Ecotricity
is a good place to start to figure out what’s available in your area.

Buy locally grown and produced foods
The average meal in the United States travels 1,200 miles from the farm to your plate. Buying locally will save fuel and keep money in your community.

Buy fresh foods instead of frozen
Frozen food uses 10 times more energy to produce.

Seek out and support local farmers markets
They reduce the amount of energy required to grow and transport the food to you by one fifth. You can find a farmer’s market in your area at the USDA website.

Buy organic foods as much as possible
Organic soils capture and store carbon dioxide at much higher levels than soils from conventional farms. If we grew all of our corn and soybeans organically, we’d remove 580 billion pounds of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere!

Avoid heavily packaged products
You can save 1,200 pounds of carbon dioxide if you cut down your garbage by 10%.

Eat less meat
Methane is the second most significant greenhouse gas and cows are one of the greatest methane emitters. Their grassy diet and multiple stomachs cause them to produce methane, which they exhale with every breath. (Hah!! Eat wild game.)


On the Move

Reduce the number of miles you drive by walking, biking, carpooling or taking mass transit wherever possible
Avoiding just 10 miles of driving every week would eliminate about 500 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions a year! Click here to find transit options in your area.

Start a carpool with your coworkers or classmates
Sharing a ride with someone just 2 days a week will reduce your carbon dioxide emissions by 1,590 pounds a year. eRideShare.com runs a free national service connecting commuters and travelers.

Keep your car tuned up
Regular maintenance helps improve fuel efficiency and reduces emissions. When just 1% of car owners properly maintain their cars, nearly a billion pounds of carbon dioxide are kept out of the atmosphere.

Check your tires weekly to make sure they’re properly inflated
Proper inflation can improve gas mileage by more than 3%. Since every gallon of gasoline saved keeps 20 pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, every increase in fuel efficiency makes a difference!

When it is time for a new car, choose a more fuel efficient vehicle
You can save 3,000 pounds of carbon dioxide every year if your new car gets only 3 miles per gallon more than your current one. You can get up to 60 miles per gallon with a hybrid! You can find information on fuel efficiency here and here.

Try car sharing
Need a car but don’t want to buy one? Community car sharing organizations provide access to a car and your membership fee covers gas, maintenance and insurance. Many companies – such as Flexcar -- offer low emission or hybrid cars too!

Try telecommuting from home
Telecommuting can help you drastically reduce the number of miles you drive every week. For more information, check out the Telework Coalition.

Fly less
Air travel produces large amounts of emissions so reducing how much you fly by even one or two trips a year can reduce your emissions significantly. You can also offset your air travel by investing in renewable energy projects.

ECO FRIENDLY CLEANING

Living in the "service industry" there isn't a whole lot of opportunity to introduce eco-friendly measures once season is up and running. Once the crazy season is over and down-time winter sets in, we have time to think about such important issues. Two days ago, I cam across an earth friendly spring cleaning article that I had cut out and saved from a magazine. I noted down some of the ingredients that I needed for such product as all purpose cleaners and made the necessary purchases at the grocery store yesterday. I started out small, and will keep you updated as I make more and more products.

For an ALL PURPOSE CLEANER fill a bottle with one part white vinegar and three parts water. Alternatively, dissolve 4 tablespoons of baking soda in 1 quart of warm water.



For a TOILET BOWL CLEANER, sprinkle baking soda in the bowl and squirt with white vinegar.


For a DISINFECTANT mix 1/2 cup of Borax with 1 Gallon hot water. Add either fresh herbs or essential fragrant oils.

My favorite are Lavendar and Rosemary. I purchased these from the Co-op.

GETTING STARTED

It turns out that making life choices are hard. Especially when they involve a whole other human being (my husband) and their money. But, either I do it or I don’t right? So here is what I have come up with so far.

A few summers ago, I worked through a book called The Artists Way, by Julia Cameron. One of the tasks set for me was to write “Morning Pages” every morning for the duration of the eight weeks that I was working through the book. The basic idea of these pages was brain drain. Not to be a diary, but written in longhand, three full pages of whatever happens to pop into my head. Read the book to get the full explanation.

I decided that however I was going to make changes in my life it would be easier if I didn’t have a load of stuff on my mind, sapping my concentration while I needed to get it off my chest. So now, I have begun a new habit. Every morning, the very first thing that I do when I get up is I write my Morning Pages. For the rest of the day, I am free of thought.

The second habit that I have developed is Yoga. I am fairly new to Yoga and throughout the last summer have practiced intermittently whenever I felt the need. It got me through the horse wrangle: a very fast, very steep ride, which jarred my back the first time. After that, I did Yoga on Sundays and felt nothing in my back. But I have felt the need for a new habit to form, in order for me to continue on my practice of Yoga. Now, after my morning pages, I practice Yoga.

I have run into some snags. It turns out that there are sacrifices I have to make. Accomplishing both these tasks is difficult if I don’t allow myself time. I need to get up at least an hour earlier than I would normally. Otherwise, my mind is not on Yoga, it is on everything that I need to do for the day. So I sacrifice sleep. However, I can go to bed earlier, since my husband and I watch T.V. usually before we go to bed. T.V. is not important to me, so it is an easy sacrifice and I get to sleep earlier.

The third habit that I have formed is reading before I go to sleep. I used to believe that I could only read a book if I had time to get through it all in a few days. Otherwise, I would lose interest. This boiled down to me never reading. Now, instead of watching T.V. I lay on my husband’s lap while he watches it. I read. That way I get some reading time in before I go to bed, I can get a little more in when I get into bed, and then I am fully relaxed and ready to fall asleep when I turn the light out. Perfect.

I have it all thought out. Now I just have to keep it in practice. Develop the habit. I’ll let you know if it is still going………

THE COLOUR OF LIFE

My world is grey. My world is black and white. Life is full of contradictions, and mine isn’t short of any. It seems to be progressively more involved in the grey areas of existence: emotion, relationships, time. Though I find such situations increasingly vague, I am beginning to see them with a better clarity than ever before. I didn’t get around to doing the laundry today, in my grey world, translates to I didn’t do it, in plain black and white. I didn’t give my husband a back massage because I was so tired, translates to I didn’t do it. Even though we can’t afford it, I really felt that I needed a pair of boots to wear in town this winter; I bought them anyway.

Yes. Life is grey. But it is my life, according to me, that is. Not my life according to others. Not my life according to the dog, or my sister or my husband. Not life outside of me. My emotions, my feelings, my desires are all grey. Should I act on them? Maybe. But I should be aware that my actions are black and white. My actions decide the person that I am. Maybe I feel that I love my husband. Maybe I say that I adore him. If I don’t act loving or adoring towards him, if my love is only in my words then I am two things: not loving or adoring, and a liar. Plain and simple. Black and white.

So, out of my (newfound and possibly short-lived) wisdom, I have concluded, like many others before me: life is what I make it. It is what I choose through my actions. For the most part I have waited around for things to fall into my lap, and they have. I think my run of good luck is at an end and it is time for me to start taking action and taking control. I do not want to get to those pearly gates and have God ask me, “What did you do with your life” and for me to say, “Well, I was going to do such and such, but there was this really good movie on T.V. so I didn’t.” From now on, I am going to do it! Hah! While I am aware that this is going to be a habit that I must acquire: it is not going to happen overnight, I must also be aware that saying that I will try and do something, and actually doing it are two different things. So, this is the beginning of my diary charting my action-taking progress. I am not sure how it will go. Perhaps I need a plan of action. Long-term goals and short-term goals. I will let you know how it goes. Wish me luck……You can hold me accountable.