Green Tips January 13, 2010
Recently, I wrote a post about “going green,” a phrase that frankly is losing its power as it grows in popularity. Let’s just say my family and I wish to take better care of our bodies and our world. What we eat, use, and throw away affects not only us but people all over the earth—now and in the future. Folks can debate the political and religious implications all day, but the truth remains. Where our food originates, how farmers nurture and harvest it, and how far it travels matters. What we buy, the way we handle the packaging materials, how much waste we create, and where it goes matters. I simply don’t understand how anyone can disagree with this.
Being better stewards isn’t necessarily easy because our society is set up to make life instant and convenient. Helpful steps like home-cooked meals with whole foods take a bit more time and planning than shoving a store-bought entree into the microwave. Rinsing and sorting various recyclable items takes more effort than simply tossing everything into the kitchen trash. Even so, I think many families can begin taking small, comfortable steps and work their way to a level that suits them. That’s what we’re doing.
Here are our recent steps on the road to more environmentally sound and physically beneficial ways of life.
1. We recycle aluminum, paper, glass, and plastics. We are fortunate to have a curbside pickup service for these. Some parts of our area aren’t serviced in this way, and it may require extra effort to get items to the local recycling center.
2. We buy more whole foods. This means I try not to purchase so many mixes or prepared items: no taco seasoning, store-bought bread, frozen hash browns, pre-made cookie dough, etc. Amazingly enough, this amateur cook who can’t even separate eggs has been making these things herself!
3. We strive to buy produce, dairy, and meats that are either organic or harvested in less harmful ways—less or no preservatives, pesticides, hormones, or other chemicals. These foods are more expensive, but I find that I actually use all of them rather than letting fruits and veggies go bad or leaving meat in the freezer for much too long. My friends and I have joined a group called Organics to You, which delivers local and/or organic produce and grassfed beef right to your doorstep each week. (We’re only in our first week, but we’re hopeful that this will work for us.)
4. We use washcloths instead of napkins and paper towels. I still buy napkins, but only for times when we have guests and I am embarrassed by my stained washcloths.
5. The girls and I are experimenting with more naturally sound toiletries. We use either Avalon Organics or Burt’s Bees shampoo and conditioner and Tom’s of Maine bar soap (all available at Wal-Mart). I purchase my homemade mineral makeup online from All Natural Face, and I am very satisfied with it, as the cost is comparable to or less than what I paid for Cover Girl, and it covers/accentuates well. I use Avalon Organics Vitamin C cleansing milk to wash my face. Lotion and deodorant are tricker. We need a strong lotion for Butterfly’s eczema. After checking Skin Deep, I found that our fragrance-free Curel ranks a 3 for hazards, so I’m okay with that. The Tom’s of Maine deodorant I tried made my skin burn and did not keep me dry, so for now I’ll stick with a fragrance-free, sensitive-skin product from Dove.
6. We use unbleached, unbromated flour from King Arthur for baking. Specifically, I’ve discovered a white whole wheat with the same nutrients as traditional whole wheat but a lighter flavor. It’s delicious in pancakes, waffles, cookies, and even brownies.
7. I actually bake our bread, finally using the bread machine we received as a wedding gift 8 1/2 years ago that, until recently, sat in the bottom of my pantry. Thanks, Heather, for showing me how easy it is to use! We haven’t bought bread from the store in more than a month.
8. We switched to pure butter rather than spreads* and to full-fat natural cheese rather than shredded and bagged low-fat cheese, which has pleased the King in particular.
9. I continue to strive to conserve water and power.
Every family is different, and we can all make small steps that suit us. I want to do more—get better with my cooking, perhaps even make my own yogurt (!), eventually move to safer dairy products. Maybe you, like us, can begin by taking one small step. Eventually, you may move forward to do even more.
* Ingredients in my tub of Country Crock: water, vegetable oil blend (including partially hydrogenated oil), tricalcium phosphate, salt, vegetable mono and diglycerides, lactic acid, potassium sorbate, calcium disodium edta, soy lecithin, polyglycerol, esters of fatty acids, zantham gum, vitamin E acetate, vitamin A palmitate, beta carotene for color, artificial flavor, cholecalciferol, whey. I don’t know what half of that stuff is.
Ingredients in my sticks of Land O Lakes unsalted butter: sweet cream, natural flavor. The taste is fabulous. Need I say more?









I love going to the movies. Before I choose a film to watch on the big screen, I check reviews. Yes, I’m one of those annoying people who says, “That got terrible reviews. The critics hated it!” or “The reviews were good. Most of the critics seemed to like it.” Then I’ll go a step further and shell out my hard-earned bucks ($8.00 a ticket!) for the ones the “professional movie watchers” like. Recently, though, I’ve only gone to the theater for movies I know I’ll enjoy, at least a little. Here are my thoughts on the last three I saw on the big screen:
Butterfly looks forward to our nightly book reading. Of course, we read at other times of the day too, but without fail, we close each evening by reading three books together. Over the past few months, our selections at the library have grown wordier. The King opened one of Butterfly’s choices last night, gasped at the pages and pages of words, and promptly informed her that it was a “daytime” book. I’ve done the same thing, but it is meaningful to me that my little girl loves reading as much as I do. I can only hope that her taste for books increases as she learns to decipher the letters for herself. Oh, what worlds that gift can reveal!

Growing up, I lived in a small town in which there were three public schools: Smalltown Elementary, Smalltown Middle, and Smalltown High. I attended all three of them, and many of the kids who started with me at one of the few church-affiliated preschools journeyed through the next twelve years and sat with me at graduation. We weren’t all friends, of course, and kids left and new kids came, but we knew each other. We’d seen each other through the early years of runny noses and potty training, all the way through body hair and other major changes. Girlfriends, boyfriends, ridiculous fights, entertaining parties. We knew each other.
Yesterday, we celebrated our sweet Ladybug’s 2nd birthday again. I say “again” because her big party took place last Saturday, complete with Thomas the Train decorations, an amazing train cake made by my friend Heather, and many of the people we love all under one roof. Yesterday was no less exciting, as we, the grandparents, and aunt watched big sister dance at the Cherry Blossom Festival (she did well!) and then enjoyed the frisbee dogs and a few rides at the park. Oh, and the cotton candy, which we devoured in a matter of minutes. Last night, we ordered BBQ and sang happy birthday once more over an angel food cake iced with Cool Whip and fresh strawberries. We figured we’d had enough of delectable buttercream icing and heavy cake for a while.
Front and center was the chubby, soft-skinned, blond-haired little girl who entered our lives two years ago. She fills our days with the sound of her singing—and her screaming. She entertains us with her cute sayings, like the time she glanced out the window at the sleeping dog and said, in that adorable tiny voice, “Poor Pippin. He’s so tired.” She loves us with hugs and kisses and slaps at us when she doesn’t get her way. She enjoys reading books together and playing in the sandbox. Swings thrill her and baths excite her. She wants so badly to do what Butterfly does, and yet is fiercely independent in the next moment. We love and treasure her deeply. Happy birthday, precious Ladybug!
Ask Butterfly what the world looks like on Christmas morning, and she’ll tell you it’s covered with snow. Her vision fits well with the dozens of Christmas stories we’ve enjoyed together that depict children playing in the snow—woolen hats, mittens, and all. We talked about snow angels and snowpeople and footprints in the snow. She imagined how snowflakes might feel as they fell on her skin. Along with Ladybug, we even duplicated a preschool art project and made several of our own snowpeople to decorate the kitchen wall. Of course, we got no snow on Christmas. It was even warm enough for
short sleeves.
I found the King and Butterfly happily enjoying the snowfall. Butterfly leapt around in the bed of the old truck, scooping up handfuls of white fluffiness and tossing them at her daddy, while the King kept rubbing his hands together. Both were red-nosed and pink-cheeked. Ladybug was more hesitant to join the fun, but soon I followed her as she trekked across the front yard, amazed at the tracks the created.
It muffles the rest of the world in a magical way. Covering the mud from the previous day’s rains, decorating the tree branches with a white fur coat, smoothing out the pitted yard, it made our neighborhood look like a dream. Thrilled beyond expression that my girls finally got to see this wonder of nature, I encouraged them to soak it in—build a (albeit teeny) snowman! throw snowballs! make tracks! form a snow angel (though Daddy doesn’t want you to get wet)! taste the snow!
The girls gladly obliged, twirling in the falling flakes, hitting me with a few well-packed and not completely comfortable snowballs,
constructing a mini snowperson (and promptly squashing it), stomping their shoeprints into the slush, and generally echoing my own glee with the unexpected delights of a southern snowfall.
below 30 that afternoon. Of course, hard ice later replaced the soft snow, then melted into an unpleasant mush. Of course, by Monday, little was left for play. Of course, they girls may not see snow again in these parts for several more years.