By popular demand

Ha ha! So, last week I bought some BAC stock, and now, wait for it...25% gain in a week! BOOM! Uh oh... Husband says I shouldn't blog about what stocks we buy because it's inappropriate and private. Is that true?

Perhaps I should also buy stock in World's Best Cat Litter, which actually may be the world's best cat litter. I thought I had found cat litter nirvana (if such a thing is possible) back when my friends introduced me to Feline Pine (can you imagine that scene?). Feline Pine really rocked my world because, as everyone knows, clay cat litter is v. bad for person and puss alike. That "crystal" litter is effing disgusting. Do not, under any circumstances, buy it. Feline Pine's made of pine and scoops. It smells quite nice, only, if you're a lazy bastard like I am, and you don't change the litter box as often as you should, it gets kind of gross. This World's Best stuff is made of corn, somehow. I think Kaya likes it. The nice thing about World's Best Litter is that, if you are a lazy bastard like I am, and don't clean the box as often as you should, it doesn't really get that gross. AND! You can flush it in the toilet, so, if you're really lazy, like I am, you don't even have to drag in a bag and throw it out. Fancy, right?

Conveyances

I've started riding my bike to work, which has been both exhilarating and mildly terrifying, just on accounta I broke my arm a few years ago after I wandered into some bad karma and I'm desperate not to do that again. Did you know that the invention of the bicycle played an important part in the role of women's liberation? I think that's very interesting. Anywho, I feel quite liberated on my bike.
Lately I've seen this bizarre kind of skateboarding, only the skater in question has no board, just wheels under the shoes somehow. Like they sawed a skateboard in half. Has anyone else seen this? I've been trying to explain this phenomenon, but no one seems to believe me. But! I just looked up (online) proof (is that any kind of proof at all?) - turns out they're called freeline skates. To me it appears that the skater has neither increased speed nor increased coolness, so I can't really figure out what the advantage is. But, perhaps freeline skates will play an important role in something, who knows?

Weekend

Oh my goodness - the weekend has just flown by! Now that I'm workin' again the weekend is but precious time that slips through my fingers. The first few weeks at my new job were good - I think I'm going to like it there, long term. I was really exhausted because I got sick right away and was getting used to a new schedule and not wearing pajama bottoms all day, and that took a lot out of me. But, I think this week will be better.

Watched Michael Clayton and loved it - George Clooney just gets better and better, doesn't he? I thought the dialogue, and especially that opening monologue by Tom Wilkinson, was just amazing! It was like David Mamet wrote it! Aside from being a great story, I'm really interested in bio-engineered food and seeds, so I liked how that was the dirty underbelly. Another great source of info-tainment (I can't believe I just wrote that) about that stuff is Ruth Ozeki's book, All Over Creation.

We also installed a chandelier in our dining room - what a difference, huh?
Before - boring light one might see in one's grandmother's bathroom:
After, gorgeous light you want to host fabulous dinner parties beneath:I bought the light online - you can get them for much, MUCH cheaper than in a lighting store, and we also got one of those nifty ceiling medallions to give the room an extra architectural detail. Naturally, we used CFL bulbs - they're lately becoming available in dimmables.

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Update

I've started my new job and so far it's going really well. Wouldn't you know my second day I started to get an itch in my throat, yesterday I was really sick and today a little worse so I stayed home. Feel terrible about the bad timing, but what can you do? Anyway, aside from that, it's great, and I think I'm going to like it there. My boss is cool and into reducing and reusing like me, and told me about this nifty flash video called The Story of Stuff. Check it out!

Speaking of stuff - there was an article in yesterday's NYT about a study that indicates that money does buy happiness. I learned that back in the late 90s when I moved to San Francisco and started making a lot of money. It makes sense - people who have money most likely have well-paying jobs and therefore don't have to worry about stuff like rent and medical bills and various payments and food-on-the-table - things that make you insane when you don't have it. Of course, another thing I learned was that money buys stuff, and stuff, explicitly, does not buy happiness. Which (see how it all comes full circle?) is what that video gets to.

In other news, my parents are coming for a visit and a Cubs game this weekend and I hope to put them to work in our front garden, which is an absolute mess right now. Last week I practiced what I tagged Intuitive Gardening, where I just sort of followed my intuition with little to no actual gardening knowledge. We'll see what happens. I want to put more flowers in the garden this year, so I planted some seeds - I hope they come up.

UPDATE: I should mention, shoes don't count as stuff - they're simply marvelous things that have also been proven to buy happiness, just like money. (:

Bring your own bag

The best answer to "Paper or Plastic?" is "Here! I brought my own bags!" Plastic bags are particularly gross, they're made of a non-renewable resource, petroleum, and they cause all kinds of problems. San Francisco banned plastic bags recently, as well as Bangladesh (where plastic bags were causing flooding problems) and some areas in Alaska. In Ireland, you have to pay extra for a plastic bag, a move which lowered bag consumption by 90%.

Why wait for your government to ban or charge you for a plastic bag? Just stop using them. Canvas bags are really cheap, and you've probably got a few laying around your house anyway. It's also really easy to sew a fabric bag that you can use over and over again (I've been wanting to try this one.) Canvas shopping bags also make great gifts! They also hold a lot more groceries than plastic bags (thus reducing your trips back and forth between the car and the kitchen).

For me, the only hard part about using canvas bags is remembering to take them to the store - so I keep them right by the door, and a lot of times I take them out to the car and leave them in the back, so I've always got them.

Check out these facts from the Sierra Club:

Reusing a bag meant for just one use has a big impact. A sturdy, reusable bag needs only be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than using 11 disposable plastic bags.

In New York City alone, one less grocery bag per person per year would reduce waste by 109 tons and save $11,000 in disposal costs.

Well, that ends the official Green Week on Special K, but will certainly not be the end of my sanctimonious preaching about being green. The things I posted about this week are just my own initiatives for the year to decrease my footprint. It doesn't take much to make a big difference. I hope y'all are also doing your best to protect the planet - leave a comment about your own green moves if you like, or host a Green Week on your blog. Peace!

just do it

(comic by Natalie Dee)

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DIY Laundry Soap

Commercial laundry detergents don't list the ingredients (go ahead, check), and that makes me a little nervous. It's fairly certain they contain nasty things like sulficants and possibly phosphates, which is really bad for water supplies. I had been using Seventh Generation, which does list the ingredients, but it's gd expensive.

I made my own laundry soap (found on Modern Cottage). It was super-easy to make, really cheap, and works really well. Here's how to make it:
1 cup Borax
1 cup Washing Soda
2 cups grated soap (Ivory, or Fels Naptha)
and, if you want, some oxy clean (1/4 cup)
I found all this stuff at my local Jewel, also at Dominicks.
Grating the soap is really easy - even easier than cheese. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes to make

Guess how much you use? Only 1-2 tablespoons per load! But, I'm telling you, it really cleans the clothes. I put in a load of clothes I hate to TELL you how smelly, but it came out smelling like sunshine.

Oh, get this... use (what else?) VINEGAR for "fabric softener". I put in 1/4 cup in one of those Downey balls and throw it in. Rest assured, your clothes won't smell like vinegar! Turns out commercial fabric softeners, aside from being kind of useless, are really bad for the environment. Vinegar rinses right out, reduces static, is a brightener, and also if you have hard water, it helps keep your pipes squeaky clean.

Let me know if you make it! I think it's great!

Green Week

It's green week on Agoraphobia, and for no good reason (aside from, you know, like trying to make the world a better place) I'm gonna blog about green stuff all week. Lately I've been having some problems with cleaning products. Whenever I cleaned, I got a really scratchy throat and felt kind of sick from the fumes. So, I did some research and it turns out you can clean your entire house with vinegar. VINEGAR! You can get like a gallon for about 4 bucks (you want White Distilled), so it's a major savings. I just waited until my reg. cleaner ran out and filled it with half vinegar, half water. For those of you worried about killing germs - rest assured it gets the job done. Something about the acidity level.

Don't worry, it won't stink up your house with the smell of vinegar. Sure, it smells for a sec when you spray it on, but then it goes away. For sure it doesn't linger like nasty household cleaners you get off the shelf. It's also cool because now instead of having a bunch of different cleaners under the sink, I've just got a big jug of vinegar.

BTW, if you clean your windows and mirrors with vinegar (you certainly can!), the first time you'll need to clean them with a bit of soap and water because Windex leaves a residue on the surface that streaks, so you just have to clean it off the one time.

Ikea Hack

You know those gigantaloid bags you buy at Ikea for $.50? Quite a while ago, K told me about her friend, a fellow crafter over Knit or Get Off the Pot, who pointed out how easy it is to make two bags from one. I love what she did with the otherwise not-very-useful bags. Just made these myself:
Ah, but what is that button and hook for? you ask. Why, I'll show you.
foldfoldfold
Ta Da! Handy ICOE bagwithinabag!

Save a tree (lots of them!)

Ever since we've moved, our junk mail quotient has gone crazy - we're on the mailing list of every mortgage, insurance, lawn care, outdoor furniture, window "treatment", Dean and Deluca mailing list out there. For some reason, catalog companies are under the impression that we have money. We just bought a house! We're totally broke! I've been trying to cut down the mail down to the essentials, which, to me, is any bill I can't pay online and the occasional card from somebody who loves us.

How excited was I when I found this website, Catalog Choice, where they'll take care of canceling all your catalogs for you!?! Just canceling gd mailings from Comcast required half an hour on their website and two phone calls DURING business hours. With this Catalog Choice, all you have to do is create an account and check off all the catalogs you no longer want (it's helpful to save up a big pile and just do them all at once). And, obviously, they don't sell your info or use your address for nefarious purposes.