Living in Harmony » meme

Green Meme #2

AttachedMama — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 16:00:28 +0000

I already did Green Bloggers #1, so I figured I would do #2 too even though I haven’t been tagged for it.

Guidelines:

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers. (use image if you like)
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.

1. Do you use baking soda toothpaste or baking soda shampoo? If not, would you consider it?

I use baking soda shampoo. My toothpaste is not homemade but does have baking soda in it and I would consider it a “green” toothpaste.

2. Do you make any home cleaning products?

Yep, pretty much all of my cleaners are homemade. Love them! And it’s so cheap.

3. What is your top green issue at the moment?

I really want to start composting but haven’t found a good composter for an affordable price. It’s something we’ll start this Spring though, even if it means having to buy one of the really expensive ones. I hate throwing away vegetable trimmings and food scraps that could be composted. I tend to freeze a lot of our veggie trimmings and either use them when I make stock, or bring them to the SPCA for the animals there.

4. Given unlimited cash, what is on your fantasy green wishlist?

An acreage I can homestead on. I’d love some chickens, a couple of goats, maybe a cow, and a lot of land to grow our own produce.

5. Have you implemented any new green act/behaviour/product this month?

We sold our car and chose not to buy another one. We’re going to try a car co-op instead.

Green Meme Blogger #1

AttachedMama — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 17:00:08 +0000

Annie tagged me for a green meme a few weeks ago but I’m just getting to it now. So here goes!

1) Name two motivations for being green?

I have always loved Canada and the fact that there is forest, mountains, ocean, etc. all around us. I want my children to grow up to appreciate nature as much as I do and I want it to be there for them to appreciate. So many people don’t realize what an impact we have on everything around us.

Also, I enjoy living simpler and trying to live in harmony with everything around us. It’s cheaper, often easier, cleaner, healthier… It just makes more sense to me!

2) Name 2 eco-UNfriendly items you refuse to give up?

My dryer. I’ve lived without one and it wasn’t the end of the world, but since I have one, I won’t not use it.

Our computers. We have three of them, one of which is never off (it’s our server) and the other two are on a lot during the day.

3) Are you at peace with or do you feel guilty about number 2?

I’m at peace with it. I have experimented with our dryer settings and we dry most things at low heat for a short amount of time. Diapers are often still a bit damp at the end and I hang them to dry them the rest of the way. Most of my clothes I hang to dry anyway because it’s better for the clothes. So it’s not like I’m setting everything on hot for the maximum length of time. One day maybe I’ll have an outside line, but right now I just don’t see that being realistic for us.

As for the computers, we actually tried to sell one of them and were going to live with just 2 (the server and one other), but it didn’t sell and I’m kind of glad. Sometimes when Meredith is sleeping/napping we each will go on one and it’s nice to have that option. I’d love to get a laptop instead of my desktop. We’ve been talking about getting rid of our server and hosting our websites on another server though.

4) What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?

I would love to start gardening more and growing our own produce. I am not a gardener though and my yard is tiny (I want there to be some left for Meredith to play in!). I feel like I don’t have the knowledge, skill, or time to actually make that happen.

5) Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average?

I’m not sure offhand, but I know it’s a lot smaller than the national average, especially since we just got rid of our car and don’t plan to buy another for at least a few months, if not longer. We turn off lights when we’re not in a room and turn off power bars on things that we’re not using.

6) What’s eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?

Fantastic:

I can think of a few things. We’re near a grocery store so can walk for groceries. The bus system is decent. This city has a great soft plastic recycling program. We live on a green belt and have tons of pathways and forested area to walk along. And the car co-op is way up there too of course.

Frustrating:

Our windows suck and I’m sure it means the heat is on a lot more than it really needs to be, even though we actually keep our place fairly cool and wear layers. I have the same beef about sidewalks as Annie does: there really aren’t enough of them here and it makes some places hard to walk to safely, especially with children.

7) Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow your own?

I would love to grow my own, but it hasn’t happened yet. We do try and eat local and organic as much as possible, and eat seasonally as well. One bad thing about not having a car is it’s going to be a lot harder to get to the local food co-ops and farmer’s markets.

What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?

Um, the rest of the world? It’s hard sometimes to be green when companies are packaging everything in plastic, greener options are often more expensive (especially if you don’t know about things like how easy it is to make your own cleaners), and there’s still not a lot of support or understanding in a lot of the general population. The world is getting better, but being green is almost becoming a fad now, which has good and bad points. Companies are trying to profit off of it and I think people don’t realize that many things that seem like good, green ideas actually aren’t so much when you take into account things like production or shipping.

9) Do you have a green confession?

While I do believe humans have an impact on the environment and the world around us, I don’t really believe in anthropogenic global warming as such and I think Al Gore is a hypocrit and definitely someone who has cashed in on the green fad.

10) Do you have the support of family and/or friends?

I think so. Some of my family thinks we’re odd/strange for some of the things we do (like making our own cleaners), but none of them try and change our minds or anything. Most of my friends have very similar values to us about things like that too, so they are supportive.

The Guidelines:

1. Link to Green Meme Bloggers

2.Link to whoever tagged you

3.Include meme number

4.Include these guidelines in your post

5.Answer questions (erm – that bit’s quite important)

6.Tag 3 other green bloggers.

I tag:

Alice

Sarah

Amanda (whose blog I just started reading but am enjoying it so far!)

6 Random Things

AttachedMama — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 16:14:24 +0000

I’ve had company (my lovely sister and my mom) here for the last week and we were in Vancouver before that, so I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and write. I have several ideas for posts now though (courtesy of watching my mom with Meredith, let’s just say she is not the kind of parent I aspire to be). We’ll see when or even if I get those written though.

For now, I was tagged by two people (Alice and Annie) in one day for a meme, and since I haven’t come on here in a while I thought that’d be a good way to get started blogging again. The meme was very slightly different (the wording), but it’s basically the same thing.

1. Link to the person that tagged you
2. Post the rules on your blog
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website
6. Let your tagger know when your entry is up

1. I used to wrestle in school. (How’s that for random? ha!) Wrestling was a mandatory unit in gym class, and the wrestling coach was my gym teacher and asked me to come out for the team. I actually found it really fun and not to brag, but I was good at it. I won every single match I ever did, and got the gold medal in the city championships. I also was on the running team and ran 5km every other day with my dog and my best friend. Oh to be in that good of shape again…

2. I am a science nerd. I absolutely adore biology and microbiology and used to read college bio textbooks for fun. I still love to read all things science. (Which reminds me, I need to find some interesting science blogs.) This comes in handy when reading studies about things like cosleeping and vaccines, because I know how to look at the results, as well as how easy it is for two different people to interpret the exact same results differently. My very favorite part was genetics, though I haven’t really kept up on that and don’t remember a lot of it now. In high school, I had ambitions for a while of becoming a geneticist.

3. I’m ambidextrous. I don’t actually write with my left hand, but I can (just not well). I think if I were to practice, I’d actually be able to write just fine left handed though. But I can pretty much do anything else both hands. This comes in handy sometimes, especially in sports. Table in the way of the cue during pool? Try the other hand! Bad angle for putting in mini golf? Switch sides!

4. I love music. I play piano, flute, and piccolo well. In the past, I have taught myself in various levels of quite a few other instruments. I played in an orchestra here for two years, and as a teenager was in several different bands/orchestras in and out of school. Kris and I actually met in a marching band.

5. I don’t wear make up, and never did as a teenager either. I think it was my way of rebelling against rebellion, (or something?). Like, the cool kids were doing it and I was not a cool kid. I’ve also never really seen the point, though I think I’ve always had relatively high self-confidence. But I felt like if I had to plaster a mask on myself for people to like me, I didn’t need those people as friends anyway. (No offence to anyone who wears make up, I’m talking specifically about the kids in school when I was a teenager who put way more than necessary on.) And I am not the type of person who wants to have to spend that much time on myself before leaving the house.

6. I’ve never been drunk or high/stoned. I’ve never been a partier, though I have been to parties in the past where most of my friends were drinking or smoking pot. It’s not that I don’t approve or anything like that. I’ve just never been interested. I’m usually the designated driver (quite happily). I think it stems (like all things, right? ) from my childhood. I grew up watching my mom drink and turn into someone not herself and I never wanted to be her.

I’m foregoing tagging people. First, because the people I would tag have likely already been tagged anyway, and second because Meredith just stopped nursing and is taking off, probably to go upstairs. But, I know I have more readers than commenters (though I do love comments btw, hint hint ), so if you read this blog and have a blog of your own and want to do it, consider yourself tagged.