“Congratulations! Thank you for taking our conservation quiz and for using this bag to help protect the environment.” This was the information on a flat package I received from Earthbound Farm Organic. I was one of 80,000 people who won a reusable grocery bag from them. Since I’m in the process of building up my supply of reusable bags, this was much welcomed. Then I opened the package and pulled out the bag. Purple! My favorite color. That definitely provided me with a smile. But my goodies didn’t stop with the bag.
They included a couple nice coupons and a guide to which conventional fruits and vegetables are the most likely to carry multiple pesticide residues. Many of us are not able to afford a total switch to organics all at once. This guide provides a very good starting place. Choose organic for the following items, especially for infants and children:
apples
bell peppers
celery
cherries
imported grapes
lettuce
nectarines
peaches
pears
potatoes
spinach
strawberries
Choosing organic not only protects our bodies, it also protects us by keeping potentially dangerous chemicals out of the environment. Organic is also nutritious as well as delicious. Many organic foods contain higher levels of antioxidants than non-organic foods.
Let’s meet at the produce counter and celebrate a healthier lifestyle.
I’ve been spending my time today trying to catch up on my reading around the net. I’ll share links to some of the more interesting items I’ve read. Grab a comfortable chair and a good cup of tea, relax and read a little.
Microsoft is upset because so many don’t like it’s Windows Vista operating system. TechCult has a tongue in cheek article about this and about how a new report by Forrester Research compares Vista to the New Coke. ‘Nuff said. People don’t seem to like it.
Over the last two year period, our county solid waste operation made $55.7 million profit. This money came from tipping fees, electricity sales and recycling. For the first time sales of scrap metal and other recyclables, including paper and plastics began to generate a small profit. Right now the county is using most of the profit to pay for a major overhaul of our waste-to-energy facility, but there is still some cash to go around. Enough that in 2009, the county is considering picking up the tab of an estimated $10 million for curbside recycling in all 24 municipalities and in the unincorporated county.
Right now there are only three cities here who do not provide curbside recycling. I live in one of them. I’m hoping that my city will be included in this bonanza. If not, I’ll continue to drop mine off. There are 64 drop off sites here in the county. I’ve chosen one of the larger sites where I can drop off aluminum cans, appliances/mixed metal, corrugated cardboard, glass, mixed paper/magazines, newspapers, plastic bottles and yard waste.
We also have special sites for electronics & chemicals. motor oil and business waste. The household electronics and chemical collection center not only accepts chemicals and electronics, but also offers free usable household products including paint, cleaners and gardening products.
I’m going to have to make another run to drop off my recyclables next week. I think I’m going to dress down, take a container or two and a shovel so that I can pick up some mulch for my flower beds. For expending just a little energy, I will get in some exercise, soak up some vitamin D from the sun and bring home some free high quality landscaping mulch. The weed seeds, pest insects and plant diseases are eliminated by a natural heating and decomposition process prescribed by the University of Florida.
Emmm, that’s sounding like a bit of work there. Maybe I’d better go early so that I can stop by the beach and relax for awhile before I have to go home and unload it all.
Raise your hand. How many of you actually know what happens to the stuff you have carted off in the garbage pick up? What happens to it if you toss it in a recycling bin? My county’s system is more cutting edge than I realized. I’m still learning about the subject, but we seem to have a class act going here. We have a 25 year old waste-to-energy facility that came with a hefty price tag of $500 million. Most garbage here gets burned in an incinerator and then converted to energy for household usage. This facility operates 24/7. That’s a heck of a lot of trash.
First, the garbage trucks dump their contents into a holding pit. Then a giant claw (think about those machines with a claw that you crank and pick up the stuffed animals and other toys) snatches up a bunch of yuck and dumps it into one of three hoppers. This mass of disgusting debris heads down to a boiler where it is burned at 1,800 degrees. The resulting ash is water cooled and placed on a conveyor belt. The metal bits are removed by magnets and sold as scrap. The remaining ash goes to the landfill to cover construction and demolition debris and household garbage overflow which couldn’t be handled by the facility.
The gases that result from the process are piped through a scrubber and fabric filter which is like a giant vacuum bag that collects the airborne ash. This removes hazardous chemicals. Heat from the burning garbage turns water in the boilers into steam. This steam operates a turbine to generate electricity for up to 45,000 households daily. That means my computer is powered by garbage. How many of you all out there are running on garbage?
I’ve just found a site with an incredible list of 500 links to free knitting patterns for using up those small bits of leftover yarn. It looks like so much fun. Go over to Simple Knits and plan to spend lots of time there. Vicki’s set up doesn’t allow comments except by Google people. I tried. I did want to compliment and thank her for all her hard work. While you’re there, please thank her for me and tell her I sent you.
Knit A Little More has posted a cute item from YouTube titled Never Not Knitting. Check it out for a chuckle. I wonder how many of us can identify with that.
I’ve been trying to figure out how laundry multiplies. There doesn’t seem to be much logic to it. I did two, sometimes three loads weekly prior to Consumer Man moving back in. That has turned into five or six loads a week now. I would think that the most that would happen would be a doubling of the laundry. Some things like sheets and dish towels don’t double. It doesn’t stop at laundry, either.
Utility bills get interesting. Water has more than doubled. He hasn’t mastered short showers. Or even medium length showers. But he has long showers down pat. I could take three showers, including a shampoo, in the length of time he takes one. I would get totally bored trying to figure out what to do in the shower for that long. I don’t nag. He does pay part of the bills, but I am going to try to find one of those waterproof clocks to put in the shower to help him realize just how much time he spends in there. 30 minutes can really shoot up the water bill. Also, I now run the dishwasher every day or two instead of one or two times a week.
Naturally, these start the power bill on it’s way skyward. Add in the television. I wish I could not add in the television. I get so tired of that noise. The only time Consumer Man is home and it’s not turned on is when he’s asleep. That’s if he hasn’t fallen asleep in front of it. Then I can quietly turn it off. He even reads with it running in the background. I can go to my office/sewing room and close the door or go outside to escape. But sometimes I get tired of escaping. I would like to be able to sit down in the kitchen and read or even write out my grocery list. This past month I’ve had my little set turned on three times – twice to watch a DVD and once to watch a program that was mentioned in one of my charity groups. Consumer Man is getting better about turning off the lights.. The A/C is my doing. I set the programmable thermostat and he usually doesn’t bother it.
And then there’s cable. I could live without it, but we now have all the bells and whistles except for the premium channels like Showtime and HBO. That doubled our cable bill as my thing is high-speed Internet. My frugal mindset won’t let go of that. I have given up a lot of things for the sake of becoming debt free, but this isn’t going to be one of them. He also has Netflix which wasn’t unreasonable until he decided to up it to 2 DVDs at a time instead of one. That’s another thing that isn’t logical. If we get two instead of one, why is the price three times the original price? We’ve just had a Red Box come to town. Maybe a $1.00 DVD rental will be appealing to him. It appeals to me. The only thing better is the public library. Again, laundry mathematics.
Laundry mathematics even follows me to the grocery. Why does that triple instead of double. Has anyone else experienced the illogical equation of one plus one equals three or four?
I didn’t really crawl there. That just sounded like a cool title. A lot of cruise ships stop at St. Thomas, USVI, but as much as I liked St. Thomas, St. Croix had more of a draw for me. I guess maybe that was because it didn’t have as much of a tourist feel. I loved St. Croix. Most of the time I was in port I just walked around the town, but once I rented a car and drove all the way around the island. What a beautiful drive that is. I would encourage you to do the same if you happen to be there for a day or two. When you get to Point Udall, the easternmost point of St. Croix, you’ve gone as far east as you can go and still be in the United States.
There are three things that make me think of St. Croix. One is the Caribbean Hook Bracelet. This first became popular on St. Croix as a way to celebrate love and good fortune. If you wear the hook facing towards your heart, your heart is taken and good fortune will come your way. If you wear the hook away from your heart, you are available and sharing your good fortune. A good friend gave me my hook bracelet. We both have one in the traditional horseshoe design. I have to admit that there are days when Consumer Man makes me want to wear my bracelet with the hook out.
The second thing that makes me smile and think of St. Croix is my slice of the ocean. It’s actually a slab of Larimar, but I bought it because it’s like holding the ocean and it’s waves in my hand. Larimar is an unusual gemstone mined from a remote mountain in the Dominican Republic. The name Larimar was given to the stone by a Dominican, Miguel Méndez, who combined his daughter’s name LARIssa, with MAR, the Spanish word for sea. I didn’t realize I was purchasing one of the world’s rarest gemstones when this piece of Larimar became mine. All I knew was that I felt as if I were holding the sea and it’s beauty in my hand. It had to come home with me.
And what, you ask, is the third thing that brings back the memory of St. Croix? It’s roti. Actually, what I ate was a dish of stewed or curried ingredients stuffed in a roti skin. The actual roti part is more of a flat Indian bread. St Croix is the only place I’ve eaten that dish. I’ve had the roti just as a bread here in the States. I guess I’ll have to learn how to make my own. Recipes, any one?
I’ve discovered a very educational site at How Can I Recycle This? This place seems to have the answer to how to use all kinds of things. One of the things that I hate to throw away, but have no earthly idea what to do with it is the bread bag clip. You know, that little colored square of plastic that holds (or at least is supposed to) the bag closed. Over there I found a bunch of uses for this little thing. Go on over and see if you can stump them. I’ll hazard a guess that just about anything you come up with will have a post about how to reuse it.
