Earth Day - Is Your Glass Half Empty or Half Full?

Earth Day. Wow what a long strange trip it’s been since that first grassroots college teach in day in 1969. 40 years later and Earth Day is celebrated and talked about world wide. I guess I could be like others and point to my city’s low recycling rates and get curmudgeonly and say, “See? Things are just as bad or worse, as they were 40 years ago on that first Earth Day!”

But are they?

Really?

I don’t think so.

As a person who studies way too much history – for fun mind you! – I see a lot of big scary environmental problems found and fixed since that very first Earth Day in 1969. For example:

• We have gotten on the ball, and cleaned up environmental problems and put laws into place to prevent harmful materials to be included into our products. You can’t buy lead paint anymore. Its sale was prohibited in 1978. In 1994 federal law restricted toilet tanks to 1.6 gallons per flush to save water although some states regulated this earlier. You might already have a low flow toilet in your home and not even realize it! 
• No more river fires and the dumping of toxic chemicals is illegal. Growing up on Lake Erie, I heard about the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire. A spark from a road bridge set the sludge and waste factories dumped into the Cuyahoga River on fire. Because of this Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, started the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA.) We now have regulations on what we can and cannot do with industrial waste products and the sale and use of many hazardous products are illegal. Whether these regulations are followed, loop holed, or enforced to the letter of the law is another story and may need work. 
• No more smoggy foggy skies. How many references to Victorian London talked about fog enveloping Good Old London Town? It wasn’t fog – it was smog from factory chimneys. Los Angeles was famous for its smog too. Now I rarely if ever hear jokes about smoggy days from late night comedians located in Beautiful Downtown Burbank. 
• Items like recycling, reusable shopping bags, reusable water bottles, and green cleaners and more! Are commonly talked about and used. Many cities have recycling programs built into their waste management programs. Where cities have fallen short, local, national, and nonprofit organizations and businesses that have stepped up to recycle items such as eyeglasses, ewaste, cell phones, makeup tubes, batteries and hard plastic bottle caps. Even people who may not agree with recycling or going green are still aware enough of all these things to make fun of them by name :)
• There is a wider array of environmentally friendlier products available to mainstream shoppers and small town America. Some people may think it’s the end of days now that more mainstream companies are offering environmentally friendlier versions of their products, purchasing smaller green companies as subsidiaries, or at the very least redesigning their packaging to use less material or contain recycled content. Not me. I like that companies that once upon a time thought of green consumers as some crazy hippie niche are trying to serve us because we as consumers are voting with our dollars when a company takes steps in a greener direction. And we as consumers are also willing to stop buying products from those companies that think natural ingredients don’t work as well or are as good as petrochemical mixes.

For the most part, our big environmental worries have been noted and we’ve made steps to fix or prevent them from happening. For example, when was the last time you heard about factory waste causing acid rain?

Are there environmental hazards still out there? Well, of course there are. The thing is, our science has gotten better and with it we are able to find and fight more environmental bad guys, like questionable ingredients in our cosmetics or health and beauty products. Of course, politics plays a role this too. One country can't really march on over to another and make them to stop doing something without incident. Diplomacy is key in solving this matters althought it may sometimes takes more time than we like.

Sometimes we are are own worst enimies. Part of the problem is hat the term “green” is unregulated. Green means something different to almost everyone. While we care passionately about protecting our homes, families, and all that surround them we can get hung up on the minutiae of if something is or is not green. Do petrochemical ingredients in a 100% recycled content container count? What if it's 100% organic ingredients in a plastic container? Or possibily 99% organic ingredients and 1% of synthetic ingredients but created in a factory powered by renewable resources?

You get the idea. The list of parsing components out goes on and on and more time can be spent on aruging that then actually formulating a plan and doing something.

But I’m hopeful. I see it every day. I see kids from a family who’d rather trash toys than donate them get excited when I mention I’m gathering stuff from our event to take home and put in my recycling bin. I see it when even places like Aldi, Big Lots, and Dollar General have reusable shopping bags for sale next to the cash registers and not my just Hippie Mart. I was happily surprised when I went to a blogging event with a group of lifestyle bloggers and one of the women started a conversation about watching Food Inc. and everyone knew what she was talking about or had already seen the movie. I should also mention that I was the only green blogger at the event. And someone else brought up the movie as well as Food Rules.

So yes, I’m hopeful. There’s a growing awareness and people willing to campaign, and blog, and do what they can on a personal level to make their little parts of the world a better place.

So what about you? Is your Earth Day glass half full or half empty?

Updated 4/22/10:Correction. Sorry folks I got my dates mixed up. Food Inc. played on PBS April 21, 2010.Sorry about the mix up. Check if your library has a copy to see it for free.


 Disclosure: This post contains affliate links. If you chose to make a purchase using the link in this post, I earn a small commission (really small) which will help me with my goal of making Condo Blues a self hosted blog at no additional cost to you. Although I encourage you to check your local library for the items mentiond in this post first.

Six Ways to Use Leftover Shampoo

As part of my Spring cleaning I decided to use all those little sample and travel bottles of toiletries that have been cluttering up my linen closet. Now I’m only stuck with a couple of bottles of shampoo that are full of parabins. I don’t want to donate these items to a shelter because I think it’s hypocritical to pawn it off on someone else if I don’t think it’s not such a great thing to use on myself - whether they care about avoiding parabens in their products or not.

What’s a Parabin and Why Avoid Parabens?


Parbins are basically a type of preservative. They are used in cosmetics and personal care products to keep fungus and bacteria from growing in the product. There are several types of parabens, the most common are methylparaben, probylparaben and butylparaben. Isobutylparaben, isopropylparaben, benzylparaben and their sodium salts are also parabens but they aren’t as commonly used as the first set.

You may want to avoid parabens because while studying the effects of estrogen hormone replacement therapy (HRT) in women, researchers established a connection between estrogen and breast cancer. They found that parabins can act like the hormone estrogen. This is what they mean when they call parabens an endocrine disruptor - because they can interfere with the body’s natural hormone production of estrogen.

To be fair there are quite a few studies that say parbins are safe to use because the estrogen activity in parabins is weak compared to levels of estrogen used in hormone replacement therapy.  Even more so if the paraben is in a product where you apply it and then rinse the product off of the body, like a shampoo or conditioner.

Still after experiencing this

40, 000 people participated in the 2009 Komen Columbus Race for the Cure - including us

and knowing several women who have fought, and some who have sadly lost, the battle with breast cancer parabins are something I want to avoid when and were I can. And no, I’m not going to shove the paraben filled shampoo off on Husband because men can get breast cancer too.

I don’t want to use my parabin filled shampoo, I don’t want to give it way, but pouring it down the sink would be a waste. What do to? I put on a pair of rubber gloves and found six ways to reuse old shampoo.

1. To wash delicates. I’ve always used shampoo to hand wash nylons and lingerie that’s too delicate for the washing machine. 
2. For cleaning. Use it to scrub the tub, shower, or toilet. Add some baking soda to it if you need a little more oomph to tackle a bathtub ring. 
3.  As a laundry stain fighter. Shampoos are designed to remove the oil and dirt from your hair and are the perfect stain fighter, espically perspiration or ring around the collar stains. Pour a little on the stain and scrub with an old toothbrush before popping it in the wash. 
4. To wash makeup brushes. Especially if they are brushes made with natural bristles. 
5. To wash wool. Shampoo works just as well or better than Woolite when hand washing wool sweaters.
6. To wash combs and brushes. Soaking combs and brushes in a mixture of water and shampoo removes built up product. Be sure to rinse the items thoroughly when finished.

Warming: Do NOT use people shampoo on dogs or cats. The ph of pet skin and fur is different than humans. Human shampoo strips their fur of their essential oils and can dry out pet skin. If you have any questions please check with your vet.

Do you have any ways to use leftover shampoo? Help me out here; I used up my few little bottles of travel shampoo but I have a half a big bottle of nonparabin tea tree oil shampoo I can’t use because it makes my scalp break out into a rash. I could use some more ideas. Thanks!


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This post is part of the Get the Junk Out! Carnival where the topic is parabens hosted by Mindful Momma.

Porch Table Revamp

My revamped chairs look great on my front porch.

Festive!

The table sitting next to them did not.

Beat up and boring

10 Ways Kids Can Go Green for Earth Day

I did one of my informal polls of the neighborhood kids. I asked them for ideas on kids how kids can go green for Earth Day. I got some interesting answers.

“You should get solar panels!”

Um, no. I’ll stick to my solar garden lights. Solar panels aren’t a good year round return on investment in central Ohio.

“You should get a hybrid car!”

Why is it that all of these suggestions are things I can do that would benefit a kid living in my house?

“Recycle!”

Well that’s a little closer to what I was looking for but recycling still depends upon an adult setting up or overseeing the program at home.

“Those are good ideas,” I said, “But what can YOU do as a kid, without a grown up’s help, do to go green?”

Silence

Blank stare

*Blink*

After a little prodding, we started brainstorming. We came up with a list of green things kids can do to go green for Earth Day without a grownup’s help.

1. Clean your plate - It takes a lot of energy to grow and cook food. Eating all you take reduces waste. Don’t worry about leaving stuff behind to feed your home compost bin, I’m sure Mom or Dad will have more than enough food scraps from peeling and preparing vegetables for dinner to take care of that. 
2. Turn the water off while brushing your teeth - Not wasting water is really important, especially if you live in an area that has a drought. By the way, forgoing brushing your teeth or bathing is not a good way to save water – don’t even think about it. 
3. Turn off the lights when you leave a room – It takes a lot of energy to make electricity. Turning off the lights when you leave the room saves electricity and helps lower your parents’ electric bills. Don’t believe me? Turning off the lights to unused rooms helped me lower my electric use by 32%.
4. Take care of your toys, clothes, and belongings – When you throwing a broken toy away it go right into the landfill. That’s not cool. If you take care of your toys, clothes, and other belongings you can give them to kids who don’t have any and nothing is thrown away.
5. Take off your shoes when you enter the house – Shoes protect your feet from stepping in yucky stuff. If you take off your shoes at the door of your house, you’re not tracking that yucky stuff all over the house. Your parents may be able to vacuum less often and trust me, for that your parents will thank you. 
6. Dress for the weather. Shorts in the summer, sweaters during the winter. That way mom and dad can set the thermostat a few degrees lower in winter and higher during the summer and save energy. 
7. Use a cloth napkin at dinner and lunch. Instead of using disposable paper napkins try asking your parents to switch to cloth napkins for dinner or ask them to put a cloth napkin in your lunch box. Don’t have any? Try winning a set of Fabkins children’s cloth napkins! 
8. Bring home your reusable containers, lunch box, water bottle home from school or activities – There’s a reason your parents harp on you to bring your lunchbox, water bottle, and stuff home from school each day - so you can reuse them! Step it up, take responsibility and keep track of your stuff. 
9. Unplug the video game console after you save and shut down your game – See that little that stays on the video game console after you’ve closed the game and turned off the machine? That little light means the box is sucking a little bit of electricity from the socket just to light that little light. We call that vampire power and it’s wasteful. By unplugging my Wii when I’m done playing was another way we reduced our electricity use by 32%.
10. Join The Great TV Rebellion -  Sign the pledge to turn off your television and turn on nature during Earth Week.

 What do you think kids can do to go green?

5 Sugar Free Ways to Sweeten Coffee and Tea

I was a confirmed tea drinker during college. I always studied with a giant mug of tea in front of me. I drank so much tea that my roommate joked that I’d fail all of my classes if my hot water maker broke.

I didn’t learn about the joys of drinking coffee until I moved to Miami for an internship with a TV production company. Long days, early morning calls, and late nights led me to try the dark luscious liquid that is Café Cubano - an espresso shot sweetened with white sugar as it is being brewed. I preferred and usually drank Cafe con Leche (Cuban Coffee with Milk) at 10 and at 2, as is the Cuban custom.

I soon realized that I didn’t hate coffee – I just didn’t like cheap beans or weak coffee. Fortunately the stuff I feel for more often than not is Fair Trade coffee (even with its problems and issues I try to drink Fair Trade coffee when I can.) For me a great cup of coffee soon became an essential. It was all about the beans - the darker roast the better. Whenever I drank regular coffee I drank it with sugar and milk.

Unfortunately, there were times particularly in the morning when I drank coffee and it didn’t sit the right way. I got an upset stomach and made me feel sluggish and blah all day long.

My dad’s gynecologist* had the answer – drink my coffee black.

Once I stopped putting refined white sugar in my coffee my stomach problems, which were later diagnosed as heart burn, disappeared and I didn’t need medication for my stomach issues. Hurray!

That’s not to say that I don’t have sweet or flavored coffee or tea now and again. I learned how to sweeten my coffee and tea without white refined sugar. Husband and I use a combination of the following:

• Honey – Mostly for tea and especially when I’m sick. Hot tea with honey and a dash of lemon juice feels great going down a sore throat. 
• Molasses – This is Husband’s coffee sweetener of choice. In fact, we have almost come to blows when I want to use what little bit of molasses we have left for baking 
• Stevia – I have this on hand for diabetic guests. I’d rather keep stevia on hand for them than an artificial sweetener. I honestly haven’t used it much if at all. I plan on experimenting with it in baking in the future. If you have any tips or favorite recipes let me know! 
• Raw sugar — is unrefined sugar made from sugar cane. Sugar in the Raw is one brand you often see in coffee shops. This one still give me stomach issues. Husband will use it when we're in a coffee shop.
• Brown sugar - is typically white refined sugar with molasses added to it so it’s not much different nutritionally than refined white sugar. Oh, and it has a few more calories in it than refined white sugar too. I avoid it in my coffee due to my stomach woes. Husband will use it in a pinch if we’re out of molasses. For the most part, he sticks to molasses at home.

The sugary flavored coffee syrups added to my stomach woes. Now if I want to flavor my coffee, I sprinkle spices on the coffee grounds before I brew the coffee. I’d had luck with:

• Cinnamon 
• Pumpkin spices 
• Nutmeg 
• Cardamom – expensive but worth it!

Once I gave up refined white sugar in my morning coffee my stomach aches and heart burn went away. So did the 3 O’clock Slump. Bonus!

Refined white sugar – yeah or neigh? How do you avoid sugar overload in your diet?


* OK, really he’s a friend of my dad’s who happens to be a gynecologist. My dad refers to him as his gynecologist just to get a reaction. I couldn’t resist doing the same because my Dad and I share the same warped sense of humor because we're related.

This post is part of the Spring Clean Get The Junk Out Carnival hosted by Donielle at Naturally Knocked Up where the topic is refined sugar.

Telephone Book Wreath

I have a bunch of telephone books lying around the house. I don’t know how this happens - we don’t have a land line! We’re a cell phone as home phone family.

I figure I could do one of two things with those phone books.

1. Complain about them – which isn’t very productive and not really worth the energy.
2. Find a way to use them - beyond the obvious because that's why Al Gore invented Internet - so we could use it to look up telephone numbers :)

I wanted a new wreath for the door to celebrate spring. I had a wreath form from a failed project. "What if I married my telephone books and my wreath form it would be the perfect project to enter in Dollar Store Crafts April Stash Bust Challenge?" says I. Not to mention it's an ultra cheap - and green! - way to get a new door decoration because I’m using what I already have on hand.

*Enter the Condo Blues Whammy*

I opened the wreath storage bag and found this.

Once upon a time this was all in one piece.

Nuts.

Looks like I lost of the Stash Bust Challenge even before I started. *Sad face*

I decided to try to piece the form back together. If I got something workable I’d move on from there. If not, I’d ditch it and hop on down to the store and buy a new wreath form.

I removed the Christmas balls with a pair of needle nose pliers and put them aside for another day.

Can this wreath be saved?

I snapped the tops off of some plastic forks that have been wallowing in the utility closet so long they are practically family heirlooms. I used them as supports to hot glue the form back together.

Trash or treasure to be?

I cut a piece of leftover cardboard from I don’t-know-what to the size of the frame to stabilize it. I attached the cardboard to the chewed up side of the Styrofoam with hot glue and floral tape. I think the floral tape might be from when I did the flowers for Christina from A Mommy’s Story’s wedding. I hot glued the floral tape into place because it wasn’t sticky anymore. I also made a note to use more of this stuff up because the floral tape has to be a least 6 years old – older than Christina’s kids.

The Power Cutter came in handy when cutting the cardboard. I stand corrected on it's usefulness.

I ripped the white pages from the telephone book into approximately one inch strips. I used the business white pages because I wanted black and white paper. I tried to rip down the telephone number columns of the page for privacy’s sake.

 I shredded the leftover paper scraps and put them in my compost bin.

I used by very good friend Modge Podge to attach the paper strips to the wreath form and let it dry over night. The Modge Podge will also protect the paper from the elements. The Modge Podge is leftover from my books as wallpaper bathroom remodel. Is it just me or is this post playing out like an episode of Horders? Yipe!

Modge Podge rules!

I painted an empty toilet paper tube orange as an homage to How about orange… and let it dry overnight too.

Orange you going to say it's pretty?

The next morning, I smashed the toilet paper roll tube flat and cut it with scissors.

 I eyeballed the cuts 'cuz I'm a rebel.

I hot glued the leaf shaped rings to the wreath form and added some scrap ribbon to the back as a hanger upper thingie.

The finished wreath!

TA DA! My telephone book and paper tube wreath idea actually worked! Yay me!

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How to Grow Sprouts

Spring fever has kicked in. Husband and I want to grow something NOW. We don’t want to wait until after Mother’s Day, our traditional end of season frost date.

Husband suggested growing sprouts. Sprouts don’t like full sunlight because it can cause the seeds to overheat or dry out. This describes our kitchen window to a T. Perfect!

Alfalfa spouty goodness

The equipment and directions were simple. The most difficult part was finding and buying alfalfa spout seeds. Which really wasn’t that hard, we bought our seeds at the Home and Garden show.

How to Grow Sprouts in a Mason Jar

Planters that Double as Garden Art

Husband and I went to the Central Ohio Home and Garden Show to get some ideas about what to do with our front yard. This year’s theme was Art in Bloom. Let’s take a look at what we found.

This garden took the theme quite literally and featured painter’s palettes and planted succulents in a variety of boots and shoes.

A very cute idea. Now where have I seen this before? Oh, yeah at my own house where I turned an old pair of Doc Martins boots into a planter.

I’m not the biggest fan of succulents because I think they are sparse. After seeing them planted in this bowl I could change my mind. It reminds me of a big salad.

Hand blown glass garden ornaments - so shiney! I want to buy the whole display and put it my yard as is.

One of the landscaping companies usually makes a water feature out of an old car or truck. While it works in this bee themed garden, I think my neighbors would say, “ Fountain? Yeah, right when pigs fly. It’s a truck up on blocks!”

Don't speak too soon, here’s a whole flock of flying pigs!

I love this pergola. It was in a Miami Beach Deco District themed garden. Lots of deep blue, turquoise and white in the structures. The corrugated tin roof and white billowy drapes reminds me of sipping Cuban coffee with friends at the News Café on Miami Beach.

The people who created the garden were too cool to talk to us - just like Miami Beach!

However if it were me I would have painted the coffee table and bench white and changed the color of the bench cushion from tan to turquoise to match the rest of the design. It’s too jarring as it is and looks like an afterthought.

These silver garden balls would go perfectly in the Miami Beach garden display. Again, I’d buy and display them as is. I like the sleek metal of the ball against the worn metal of the basket. It’s that perfect blend of modern and retro that I love.

ave you started planning your summer garden? Where do you get your ideas?

Why Use Cast Iron Griddle?

Husband and I had a Teflon coated griddle an old roommate left behind after moving out. Of course using what you have, especially if it is second hand, is green and saves money. However, neither of us were too crazy about the nonstick coating on the griddle. Especially now that the coating is starting to flake off.

April’s One Small Green Change is replacing the last of our Teflon coated pans with a round cast iron griddle. I’m pretty happy with the shape because it fits on the stove burners better than the old square griddle – no cold spots on the cooking surface anymore. My cast iron griddle came preseasoned and started life with nonstick qualities, cast iron retains heat more evenly, and even though it's Calaphon, it wasn’t very expensive at all. In fact, I bought our new cast iron griddle at Target. The more I use it, the more I fall in love with cast iron.

The only drawback is that I can’t put the cast iron griddle in the dishwasher. Since the rest of our pots and pans are stainless steel and can go in the dishwasher, I can live with cleaning cast iron by hand  even though I hate hand washing dishes.

The thing makes a darn fine pumpkin pancake too.

Why Not Use Teflon?

Modern with a Vintage Touch Bathroom Remodel

My half bathroom was white, builder bland and boring. I wanted to do something old timey to honor the porcelain pieces that my Grandmother painted and a place put some old family photographs but with a bit of a modern twist because I'm not completely an old fashioned girl. The trapeze mirror, shelf, toilet paper holder, and towel ring are all Umbra that I got on sale and each a different store. It’s like the universe wanted this bathroom design to come together!

My pretty privvy

The inspiration for the wallpaper came from a stack of books I was going to donate to charity. I flipped through the yellowed pages of a paperback reference book and thought it would be a great wall color. Being that the book was out of date, I doubted it would actually sell at the bookstore and thought, "Hey, why don't I use it as wallpaper instead?"

Even on bad hair days, I get a thumbs up whenever I look into the mirror

I went to the thrift store to get more books to use as wallpaper. I didn't want a story, just random interesting pages. I used watered down white glue as a DIY Modge Podge to paste the book pages to the wall. I used a combination of orphaned encyclopedia volume, a New York city travel guide, 2 almanacs (one from the year we were married, the other from the year we bought the house), a Portuguese soccer book, and a movie listings book, among others. After pasting the pages to the walls, I tea stained them with old tea bags and coffee grounds to age the pages from the newer books. A coat of clear glaze protects everything from moisture. It cost a grand total of $20 to do the walls because I had a gallon of white glue and glaze left over from another project.

Black fabric trim adds a little interest to the trimwork and might hide a few paint mishaps

The shelving is a wicker shelf from my old house painted black. The wall switches are the original white ones that came with the house and repainted black as well as the base boards. I got a deal on the paint because the can was dented and the put it on clearance.

I installed this myself! Black cording is used as molding where the wall meets the ceiling

There are CFLs in the new light fixture I installed. Husband admired a similar one in another store so when this little beauty was on sale at HomeGoods I snatched it up and installed it.

My first plumbing project!

I replaced the boring builder's sink and vanity with a vessel sink and black granite topped vanity. I did all of the work myself - this was my first plumbing project ever! I use a porcelain bowl my Grandmother painted as a soap dish. It holds a bar of homemade soap I bought at a craft show.

Stylish storage

All of my cleaning supplies are discretely tucked away in a trunk that held TV promotion information for a syndicated TV show. I got it when I worked in the promotion department of a local television station.

Method featured my bathroom on their blog and said “Lisa's a 2010 gal with a 1950’s soul.” I suppose it’s true. How did they know I’m pining for the next season of Mad Men to start?


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This is an entry for PartSelect’s $5000 GE Giveaway contest. 

Spring Cleaning Leads to Pampering on the Cheap!

I didn’t realize how many little bottles, tubes, and envelopes of travel and trial size shampoo, liquid soap, conditioner, and toothpaste, etc. I had until I pawed through the linen closet looking for the backup bottle of liquid castile soap for the shower. This was in addition to the stash of travel toiletries I keep with our suitcases for easy packing.

I grabbed most of this stuff from hotels when we travel. Some hotels donate unused toiletries or leave them in the room for the next guest. Other hotels toss out the unused stuff after guests leave so I make it a point to take it home with me. Check with the hotel if you are concerned.

In order to use up those toiletries during travel as I planned I’d have to take a multimonth transcontinental vacation. That doesn’t sound bad after the rough winter we’ve had but not very feasible due to that silly little thing called work. Do you realize that they actually want you to show up and work for weeks on end in order to get a paycheck? Wacky, no?

The unopened items I could easily donate to a women’s shelter but mine were mostly opened. The few items that weren’t open I wanted to try.

I had a crazy thought. What if I used these travel toiletries in my bathroom instead of letting them collect largely unused in my closet?

I can’t pamper myself with a multimonth vacation, but I can pamper myself by using a different shampoo or whatever every other day if I want at no extra cost. I can make every day spa day and I’m totally OK with that.

I’ll keep a few of the nicer bottles to refill with my own toiletries for our guest bathroom and for travel. The rest will go into my recycling bin. True, that in the short term I will have more items going my recycling bin than normal but it’s better than letting a bunch of clutter sit around unloved and unused. (Yes, I watch Horders. The show makes me so sad and a little grossed out that I’m on a clutter clearing rampage.)

I will turn in the hard plastic caps to Aveda for their plastic cap recycling program. If the store isn’t busy, they often give you a free cup of tea and a hand massage as a thank you for recycling your plastic bottle caps. I wish every recycling program gave free massages!

I’ll find a good reuse for any item with some not so friendly ingredients (or just make my hair go all wonky like those combination shampoo and conditioner products) I find in my stash. I’ll talk about those reuse ideas in a future post.

What about you? Do you pack rat sample and travel toiletries or do you use them up right away after you get them?

Updated 3/25/10 11:55 PM: I took Blitzkrieg outside for a potty and it's starting to hail. The weather guy said it's going to snow this weekend after having 60 degree days last week. I think I could use the pampering vacation after all. Somewhere warm. I'll bring my own toiletries. I promise.

A Bleach Free Way to Kill Bathroom Mold and Mildew

My new house came with a brand new shower and bathroom exhaust fan. Pristine white without any sign of mold, mildew, or ick in sight. Even after dutifully running the bathroom exhaust fan before, during, and after using the shower, mold and mildew began to form. Ew! Ick! Ick!

I didn’t want to use chlorine bleach to kill the mold and mildew as some folks recommended. I’m really not a fan because chlorine bleaches are hazardous if they are ingested or inhaled. Not to mention I have a curious little doggie running around the house; I don’t want him to get into that stuff either.

Anything good in here?

Two Bleach Free Mold and Mildew Cleaners

I tried to kill bathroom mold and mildew by scrubbing the grout with:

1. A squirt of straight vinegar and giving it a scrub with an old toothbrush.
2. Covering the stains with a paste of water and oxygen bleach (much safer because oxygen bleach is made with hydrogen peroxide), let it sit for awhile, and rinsed it away with water.

Both methods removed the bathroom mold and mildew but it came back quickly. The final straw was the day I dried my hands on the fresh hand towel I put in the bathroom the day before during another daily heavy duty cleaning session. It already smelled like a locker room. I threw my head and hands up in frustration and screamed, “Whyyyyyyy!”

Then I found the culprit.

Please ignore the dust on the fan. Thank you.

My bathroom exhaust vent fan.

Building codes require every bathroom to have some form of ventilation, either a window or an exhaust vent fan. As long as you have either one or both it meets the building code.

What the building code doesn’t stipulate is how well that window or an exhaust fan works to ventilate the room. And that my friends is my problem. My bathroom exhaust fan was too small the remove all of the moisture from the bathroom. The excess moisture and warm air was the perfect breeding ground for mold and mildew to grow in the bathroom.

How to Test a Bathroom Exhaust Fan

You can do a crude fan power test by turning on the bathroom exhaust fan, holding a tissue above your head, and letting go of the tissue. If the fan sucks the tissue to the fan – congratulations you have the correct size and strength fan exhaust vent fan for your bathroom! If not, it’s time to replace your fan with a more powerful model.

My fan didn’t suck.

Time to replace the ceiling fan.

How to Buy the Correct Size Bathroom Exhaust Vent Fan

To determine the size and power of the exhaust fan I needed for my master bathroom, I turned to my favorite DIY book. According to Home Improvement 1-2-3, I need to buy a bathroom exhaust vent fan that’s rated at least 5 CFM (cubic feet per minute ) higher than the square footage of my bathroom.

I also wanted a less noisy fan which is measured in SONEs.  The lower the SONE rating, on a scale of 1 to 7, the quieter the fan.

Husband and I hopped on down to store to buy a replacement bathroom exhaust fan. Being one who is obsessed with saving electricity, my first choice was to buy an Energy Star rated fan. I was more than disappointed because every Energy Star rated bathroom exhaust fan the store had came with a lot of extra bells and whistles I didn’t need like ceiling lights and heat lamps. I would have loved the heat lamp feature, I had one in an old apartment and it was heaven, but I didn’t want to run the extra circuit and switch it required (as I got into the project this turned out to be a very good thing because the wiring space I was working with was tiny!)

This makes me question whether that Energy Star rated fan would actually save me anything in electrical use. Sure, the exhaust vent fan might but the extra gizmos could encourage me to use as more electricity than the plain nonEnergy Star rated exhaust vent fan I eventually bought.

Prevent Mold and Mildew by Installing an Exhaust Vent Fan

On the way home from the store Husband quizzed me on whether I could install the new fan myself since his running injury prevented him from helping me like he wanted to. I said it should be pretty easy because I can climb into the attic and replace the old exhaust vent fan with the new fan from above the ceiling (the preferred one person method) instead of from underneath the ceiling (the doable but pain in the butt more than one person method)

When will I learn to never, EVER say “easy” “simple” “no problem” when talking about a home improvement project?

*Enter The Condo Blues Whammy*

I climbed up into the attic and realized that I couldn’t get to the area above the master bathroom because of roofline and pitched ceiling in the bedroom. *sigh* I had to install the fan from underneath the ceiling - the doable but pain in the butt more than one person method.

But on the bright side, I confirmed how much insulation we had in the attic – bonus!

I decided to call in reinforcements – Father in Law.

Everybody say hi to Father in Law!

And with Father in Law came his rotozip tool. It was so much easier to enlarge the hole in the ceiling with his electric rotozip than with my manual dry wall saw.

See all that drywall dust in the air? It was about this time when I realized that we should have worn dust masks.

Father in Law and I switched off tasks because my little hands came in handy when it came to reaching in from behind the fan and making some of the connections in the tight spaces. His big man hands came in handy when we had to coax (as in shove) the fan box into the hole in the ceiling. Thank goodness we both wore our glasses to help protect our eyes from tiny falling debris.

I got the honor of installing the fan cover after we made all of the connections.

Father in Law grabbed the camera and took a picture to commemorate the event. “You can put this on your blog!” he said excitedly.

So I did.

Husband and I donated the old bathroom exhaust fan to the Habitat Restore.


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This post is part of the Get the Junk Out! Carnival where the topic is antibacterial soap/bleach hosted by Kitchen Stewardship.

Make an Orthopedic Dog Crate Pad

One of Blitzkrieg’s dog beds is a crate. We leave the door open at all times and he can go in or out at his leisure. It’s his little doggie man cave. When he first came to live with us, I wanted to make sure that Blitzkrieg knew that his crate was his safe spot as part of his rehabilitation from his abusive past.

Like most dog crates, it didn’t come with a cushion or crate pad. The crate lives in our bedroom where our pack sleeps. His humans have a soft bed and my boy desired something soft and cushy to sleep on in his little condo within our condo.

Blitzkrieg required surgery to fix a hernia from being beaten and abused, I wanted to get him an orthopedic dog crate pad. I prices those suckers and ouch! $30 for a thin piece of egg crate foam covered in cheap fabric? Forget it. I’ll make my own for $5.00 and with much nicer fabric thankyouverymuch.

Decorative Terra Cotta Rain Barrels

I’ve been looking at rain barrels on and off for awhile.

There's a corner of the house where the soil is eroding from under one of our downspouts and at the next door neighbor’s house. We’ve been going round and round with the property manager of our Homeowner Association (HOA) on whose responsibility it is to fix the problem.

Legally the HOA is responsible because it involves compacted soil blocking the French drain buried in the soil between the two homes. However, it’s easier for our property manager to only quote half of any HOA rule that supports her position and say no. Because if she approves the change, she has to take 10 minutes out of her day to fill out a form and mail it to us and schedule someone to come out and make the repair. Grrrrr!

That’s the bad part about condo living. When I’m in these situations, I try to remind myself how my HOA plows our neighborhood streets when it snows because the city of Columbus doesn’t plow residential streets after snow storms. *sigh*

A rain barrel would be one way we can stop the soil from eroding from the underneath the downspout that doesn’t evolve us renting a backhoe and tearing up the yard or taking our fight up the food chain of the HOA and lots of drama.

Husband also likes that if we use a rain barrel to collect rain water from that wonky downspout we can use that free water from the sky to water our plants and lawn or to wash our cars.

That is, if I actually had plants in our front yard to water. Landscaping is on the this year’s DIY list. Pinky swear and everything!

According to Healthy landscapes

• “ Rain barrels conserve water and help lower costs (a rain barrel can save approximately 1,300 gallons of water during peak summer months).

• Rain barrels reduce water pollution by reducing storm water runoff, which can contain pollutants like sediment, oil, grease, bacteria and nutrients.”

Good reasons all the way around to consider getting a rain barrel.

If we go the rain barrel route, I think we’ll have a better chance of it getting approved by our HOA if we find something that’s a little more decorative. Husband and I saw this mosaic terra cotta rain barrel made from what looks like a piece of pipe at the home and garden show.

Nice. Different. And might survive being whacked with a lawn mower. The HOA lawn mowing crew is less than careful when they mow our lawns in the summer. Remember the private snow plow. Remember the private snow plow. Remember the private snow plow…*sigh*

What do you think? Rain barrels – love ‘em or hate ‘em? Decorative or functional? Discuss.


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What Do You Do with St Patrick’s Day Plastic Beads?

For St. Patrick’s Day Husband surprised me with a six pack of a traditional Irish drink – Guinness. Husband knows I like a beer that drinks like a meal.

There was a little green doodad in the six pack carton. It was a green Mardi Gras bead necklace Guinness put in as a St. Patrick’s Day gift with purchase.

His and His Embroidered Towels

One of our best couple friends bought a house. We have so much in common, love of good food, wine, travel, and Blitzkrieg. In fact, The Boys often invite Blitzkrieg over to their house for dinner. Sometimes they let Husband and I drive Blitzkrieg over to their house, because they are kind.

I wanted to give them something uniquely us as a housewarming gift

Think, think, thinkity, think.

I got it!

I purchased a set of plushy towels, grabbed a needle and embroidery floss and went to work.

I made them His and His towels!

They were the hit of the party.

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A New Way to Save on Name Brand Green Cleaners

How do you get around the budget vs. green clash?

One way is to use what I call the Sliding Budget. I buy an inexpensive green cleaner that I can use for a lot of cleaning chores like vinegar and put the difference towards buying another green cleaner that I can’t make, doesn’t go on sale, or offers a coupon.

 

At first I thought it was nuts, but cleaning with vinegar really works!

However, it would be nice to use a coupon or discount on those green products I like when I like. Seventh Generation is good about having printable coupons on their website. Sometimes Method does too but I’m not very good about remembering to look for printable coupons before I shop for cleaners, my bad.

I found another way to save on name brand cleaners that works for me. One day husband and I were in Bed, Bath, and Beyond to buy a steam floor cleaner. I dutifully grabbed a couple of the BB and B coupons I got in the mail to use for the purchase. I love their couponing frequency because Bed, Bath, and Beyond  sends out $5 and 20% off coupons so often it’s like feeding stray cats.

We get to the store and see that the steam cleaner I picked out on line wasn’t available in the store. We decide to browse around for the sake of browsing around. I notice that Bed,  Bath, and Beyond sells laundry detergent, and other household cleaners. We were almost out of the Vaska liquid nonchlorine bleach I ordered from Alice and I took a look to see what BB and B had.

Well lookie here! My Bed,Bath, and Beyond carries products from Method, Seventh Generation, and Mrs. Meyers among others. I only thought the big BB andB store in New York did that. Granted my store’s selection is much smaller, but there were green products sharing the same shelf space as the conventional cleaning products but I bypassed a thousand times before.

Duh moment.

I like and use products from Method and Seventh Generation. I’ve heard good things about Mrs. Meyers but when I compare the price to the other green cleaners on the store shelf, my internal Cheapo Meter goes off, and I end up buying a less expensive green cleaner or detergent, which more often than not isn’t all that less expensive.

In this case, I grabbed a bottle of Seventh Generation liquid nonchlorine bleach. I like how the liquid nonchlorine bleach works just as well with my homemade HE laundry detergent  as powdered oxygen bleach. However, the liquid gives me the option of using liquid HE laundry detergent in my machine if I want because I have to put the detergent and bleach in the same dispensing compartment.

Now I use that endless stream of Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons to buy my green cleaning products. A small bottle of a green cleaning product that normally sells for $14.99 isn’t so much of a financial hit when I buy it with a $5.00 or 20% off coupon. Plus I can be as brand loyal or try out something new or discounted was much as I want.

Do you have any tips on how to buy the green products you love and save money doing it? Share you secrets!

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FTC pain in the rear disclosure notice: The companies in this post didn’t pay me to blog about them. However, they did cheerfully accept my money when I wanted to shop in at store or buy their products because they are businesses that like to sell things to the public.

Are Low VOC Paints Long Lasting?

My builder used the cheapest paint possible to paint the interior of my house. Based on the touch up paint they left for us, they most likely watered it down too. Whenever I try to clean a mark from the wall with nothing put a damp sponge paint and sometimes drywall end up on my sponge.

Ick.

Not all of my touch up paint is thin and runny. Some of it is so thick it looks like cottage cheese and broke the stir stick.

I have several rooms that desperately need priming and painting.

Now that low and no VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) paints are more readily available I did some research.

First, for the sake of arguemen, let's use Consumer Reports definition of VOCs:

“VOCs are solvents that get released into the air as the paint dries. (Other products emit solvents, including adhesives, cleaning supplies, and even some home furnishings.) VOCs can cause acute symptoms, including headaches and dizziness. The long-term effects are less certain, but according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, some VOCs are suspected carcinogens.”

In my experience, VOCs are also what make things like paint or wood glue stink.

Phew!

Since I get migraine headaches from time to time, using a low VOC paint may be in my best interest.

Several years ago I read an article in the New York Times Home and Garden section that reports that while most paint and home design professionals like that manufacturers are developing low VOC paints, in their experience, a low VOC paint job doesn’t last as long and their clients often demand a new paint job within a year or two because of signs of wear and tear.

Have you used low VOC paint? Is this true?

While I’m willing to invest more money in a quality paint that may not harm my friends and family who visit, I really don’t want to be in the same situation I’m currently in after spending up to $45 a gallon for low VOC paint to repaint my guest room, living room, kitchen, and hallway a year or two later.

If low VOC paint doesn’t live up to normal wear and tear, it doesn’t seem sustainable to me. I’d consider it expensive and wasteful since I’d have to buy new paint and supplies every couple of years.

Not to mention I don’t like to paint. Yes, I know it's the easiest and cheapest way to transform a room but that doesn't make the task any more likable. I’d like to do this job once and keep that way for several years to come. And by several, I mean more than two.

However, this article was written two years ago. With time comes change in techniques and technology. There are many more brands and types of low VOC paint to choose from now than when this article was written. Lack of durability might be a moot point by now.

Do you know? Have you ever used low VOC paint? Did you like it? More importantly, did your paint job last?

And if you are happy with the performance of low VOC paint, what brand was it?

Five Unusual Ways to Keep Warm in a Cold House

Welcome Weather Channel viewers! This morning I did another 58 Degree Challenge interview on The Weather Channel. I talked about how my family stays toasty warm in snowy Ohio with our daytime thermostat set at 58 degrees (F). Here are five ways we stay warm in a cold house.

1. Dress in layers. Sweaters are good but fleece layered over another long sleeved shirt is my favorite. I must have ice water running through my veins because I get cold more easily than Husband. I sometimes wear long underwear under my clothes too. Not only at home but sometimes in cold office buildings. Because like I said before, I get cold easily.

How to Frame a Tin Ceiling Tile the Easy Way

I framed two tin ceiling tiles from the 200 year old church where Husband and I were married. I gave them to Husband as a token of my love.

The frame ceiling tiles hang above the banister in our living room

The tiles were removed to repair a leak in the ceiling in the church parlor. Do you believe that a man on the repair crew wanted to throw these gems away?! Fortunately there was an antiquer among the volunteers working on the project who knew how valuable these sweet babies are and convinced them to not to toss them aside – whew!

I’ll take two please. Thank you.

I cleaned the tiles with a mild soap and water solution and removed the chips of paint before it had a chance to flake all over the carpet. I didn’t want to take any chances of Blitzkrieg sniffing out and possibly eating paint flakes. Bad, bad, bad.

Building the frame was simple. I went to an art supply store and bought canvas stretcher bars in the dimensions of the tin tiles. I assembled the frame, glued it together with wood glue instead of the stapling it together as you would if you stretched canvas over the bars in order to paint a picture. I filled the corner channels with wood filler for an even finish.

Once it was dry, I painted the frames red to play off of the red and white curtains that hang in the living room and in front of the kitchen patio door.

Some people buy t-shirts as souvenirs when they go on vacation. Husband and I buy curtains at Ikea.

I bent the rough edges of the tiles back on themselves with a pair of needle nose pliers. I drilled pilot holes in the tiles and screwed them to the wooden frame with leftover screws from my toolbox.

I screwed in two large eyes into the top of each frame so I could hang the tiles back to back in from hooks I screwed into a ceiling joist.

A discreet loop of wire keeps the tiles standing back to back standing at attention over the stairwell banister.

Husband loved his gift! It has extra special meaning because his parents were married in the same church. Awwww….


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