GreenCouple.com

A new commute

Up until we moved, I had the perfect commute. I’d get up in the morning (to be honest, sometimes in the afternoon) and wander next door to see if my business partners had anything to discuss.

Now that I live two miles away from them, it’s a bit harder. We only have to be in the same room twice a week for status meetings, so I’ve been working exclusively from home most days. On the other days, I’ve been exploring different ways to get to and from work. Eventually, I’ll bike, but I want to make sure that I don’t miss anything along the way until I have my route picked. I also needed a helmet that wasn’t a decade old, but I got that today.

So far, I’ve walked to and fro three times, once for each main route. The part closest to work doesn’t change, because there’s only one road nearby. In the order I walked them, here they are.

The scenic route follows a former railway turned into a small path (that mostly parallels the main rail-to-trail that the city is currently working on). It’s a small path, but very pleasant. Unfortunately, I have to go past the house and then back along a road, so it takes about 45 minutes to walk.

The short route is similar to the scenic route except that it exists along parallel roads. This avoids the switchback required by the scenic route. Although most of the walk is through pleasant neighborhoods, there are some places that aren’t as nice. It’s only slightly faster too, at 40 minutes.

The shopping route is the longest and least pleasant of all. Almost all of it is along the busiest street around so there’s no shade. It also goes even further past the house than the scenic route. It took almost an hour for me to walk this one. The advantage of this route is that there are shops all along it. They’re mostly restaurants and car dealerships, but there are other things as well.

Starting next week, I’ll try biking the scenic route. Once winter gets here, snow and ice will probably make it hard going, so I’ll switch to the short route. If even that gets too much, I’ll walk the long way around and stop someplace warm for lunch.

In a car everything disappears too fast for me to get a handle on it. Now that I have a real bicycle commute, I’m looking forward to exploring it!

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If you were going to teach a couple of classes on how to live more sustainably, where would you start?  What of subjects seem most important and what subjects seem most appealing to the public?  Is it better to teach a subject you’ve already mastered or to invite your class to learn with you?

I’m thinking about teaching a class or two for People’s University this winter and I need to get my proposal in by September 15th.  It’s a very cool program run by Bloomington Parks and Recreation.  Anyone in the community can sign up to offer a class in… well, pretty much anything.  Most of the classes are either informative lectures on a topic (”Listening to the Beatles with New Ears”) or some sort of how-to class (Waltzing, Knitting, Glass Blowing, Sauteeing).  Some classes are just one session while others meet multiple times over several weeks.

Will and I actually met at a People’s University class - “Introduction to Massage” back in early 2006. This year we’re taking a class together called “This Whole House” to learn about home maintenance and repair.  I also signed up for the “Grow Organic Educator Series,” which I’ve been thinking about for a long time.  It’s eleven classes, two-hours each, so it was a big commitment but I’m really excited to learn more about organic gardening.

I taught a lecture in 2007 about ecovillages that was lots of fun but that didn’t come out as smoothly as I’d anticipated.  (I should have planned a little more.)  Now I’m thinking it’s time to try again but I can’t quite pick a subject.  It’s also hard to think about something that won’t happen until January or February but they like to get the course catalog figured well in advance.

Will and I could teach a class in soda-making, which we’ve talked about in the past.  I could do some research and do a talk on composting toilets and other humanure alternatives, a subject that intrigues me greatly but I’m not super knowledgeable about.  We could do a short intro on green living (as presented by greencouple.com).

What kind of class would YOU sign up for?

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Maggie had her bridal shower this weekend, but I had some excitement myself. After two weeks of abortive starts and dangling wires, I finally managed to install a ceiling fan in my new home office. It’s a good candidate for a ceiling fan because it’s in a corner, which means there’s not much airflow. Unfortunately, the ceilings are relatively low (7.5 feet), which made it hard to find a short enough ceiling fan.

It seemed like every ceiling hugger fan had a huge light fixture and vice versa. But, after searching for several days, I found a fan with a total height of less than a foot. Even better, it was less than $20! All I had to do was take it back, remove the old light, and put the fan in.

Of course, that’s where the trouble started. Removing the old light was no problem, but it revealed a plastic fixture. Since the ceiling fan instructions said in big letters DO NOT INSTALL IN A PLASTIC FIXTURE, that was something of a problem. Even worse was that we couldn’t tell how the fixture was connected.

So we just left the wires dangling from the fixture while we figured out what to do. I moved a floor lamp into my office so that I could actually work and that’s where things stood for a week. Once we’d gotten some more important projects done, including using the old light to replace the hanging chandelier in the dining room (it was way too tall and included too many incandescent bulbs), we revisited the project by buying two of the three types of fan fixtures that Lowe’s had. The first just bolts directly to a joist. The other, more stable one, has extending arms that bolt to the two nearest joists. The one we didn’t get bolts underneath a joist, but our joists are right up against the ceiling, so we figured it couldn’t be that.

Armed with a new ladder (and a broom to measure distance), Maggie crawled into the attic and dug through the blown insulation for the top of the fixture. I stood below, ready to catch her and yelling up directions as I heard her moving around. She found and cleared it only to discover that it matched none of the three fixtures.

Instead, it wrapped up the sides of the joist and bolted into both sides. This left the fixture pretty shallow, but made it sturdy. And, of course, to install one of the metal fixtures, we’d have to cut a new hole.

Luckily, while checking the plastic fixture on Saturday, I scraped it clean enough that I could read the lettering which said that it was rated for ceiling fans! I immediately pulled the ceiling fan pieces out and started assembling only to be thwarted at the beginning by my lack of two washers.

Sunday, I grabbed my friend Ian and took off for the hardware store to return the metal fixtures and get my two washers. We returned triumphant and, two hours later, I had a ceiling fan in my office… just in time for the weather to cool down.

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My toenails are purple and sparkly.  This is somewhat unusual for me since I’m not much of a girly girl and I’m pretty dangerous with fingernail polish but this weekend my aunt Mary threw me a spa-themed wedding shower so I thought I’d go for a little glitz.  She did a great job emphasizing eco-friendly naturally beauty tips so we started our relaxation with an oatmeal face mask (complete with free range organic eggs) and homegrown organic cucumber slices on our eyes.  Then all my aunts brought out their home foot bath kits and assorted back massagers and we rotated through them all.

The fingernail polish wasn’t super organic but I must confess, it’s fun to play around with the stuff every now and then and I managed not to make a mess.  (Yay me!)  We drank mimosas and munched on an assortment of tasty snack foods.  Mary only had one shower game planned, which was just right.  We each got five clothespins and then the game was to try to get as many clothespins as possible by demanding them from anyone who crossed their legs.  My friend Maggie came in late and she said even before the game was explained, she noted that people were standing in rather wide-legged stances.

Lisa won the game handily and then everyone gathered around to watch me open gifts.  I must confess, I was a little overwhelmed at being the center of attention.  I don’t think I’ve opened gifts with an attentive audience gathered round since my 12th birthday.  But everyone had a good time and all the gifts were super sweet.  Maggie commented later that she thought it was great how everyone honored my lifestyle choices and plyed me with organic bamboo towels and fancy gardening tools.  I was especially touched by the gift of cloth napkins that were my grandmother’s before she passed away.  She was a practical woman and would probably tease me a little for being sentimental about a few pieces of cloth but she’d also be happy to know I’ll be putting them to good use.

And yes, there was one gift that made me blush.  Will didn’t blush when I showed him but that was in the privacy of our own home without a crowd of aunties and good friends watching closely so it’s not quite the same.  But hey, ya gotta have at least one.

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My dreams of a new bed have finally been fulfilled.  We were a bit overwhelmed by the array of bed choices out there, not to mention the price tags.  I must confess, I ruled out all the ultra-natural beds immediately because they are super expensive and there’s no place to try them out in town.  I feel a little bad about that decision but… only a little.  I’ve been dreaming of a super comfortable bed for months and some how all those descriptions of natural wool stuffing or organic rubber foam just don’t sound as nice as a standard bouncy mattress and boxspring set.

So we checked out a few different bed stores, lying on each bed for five minutes as recommended by Consumer Reports.  We found a very nice Serta mattress set at Comfort Solutions but the $950 price tag was just too much to swallow.  In the end, we purchased a less fancy Serta bed from Sam’s Club, scoring low points for both environmental friendliness and social responsibility.  Sorry, folks.  I haven’t shopped at a Walmart in almost ten years but we do go to Sam’s Club from time to time and the bed seemed like the best option out there.  We plan to sleep on this bed for years to come so I feel the overall time-lapse impact is fairly minimal.

It’s really hard to furnish a home in an eco-friendly way.  As Andy lamented, it seems like the choice is between ultra-expensive natural home furnishings or ultra-cheap crap from box stores.  We have had a fair amount of luck with used furniture.  Our couches and endtables came from the local furniture rental store American Rental.  Our kitchen cart and a couple of lamps came from Goodwill.  Our previous bed was a dumpster dive find.

But most of our furniture is hand-me-downs from friends and family.  Two dressers, a credenza, a kitchen table, a night stand, five bookshelves, a rug, and I’m sure a few other things have made their way into our homes from the homes of our support network.  It’s a little hard to plan for their appearance but it is comforting to me to walk around the house and have each piece of furniture tell me a story and remind me of an old friend.

The trick to our style of home furnishing is to be flexible and patient.  Sure, we’ll go out and buy something new from the local box store if we really need it, but most of the time we stick with the objects that drift into our life at the right time and enjoy the hunt of checking out Goodwill and garage sales and listings on Craigslist.  So far, so good and if it’s not truly eco-chic, at least we’re keeping usable items out of the local landfill.

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I’ve got some real topics to write about (a new bed and my new commute primarily), but I just got an email from Amazon saying that they have a new green section. I don’t agree with a lot of their criteria (is a computer really green just because it’s EnergyStar-compliant?) but I’d rather have people making semi-green choices than non-green choices. It’s also heartening that there are enough people who are doing things about the environment for Amazon create a category for them.

Apart from the word “Green” which seems to appear before every noun on the page, it looks pretty similar to a normal Amazon page. That includes the big top 10 list on the right. In this case, it’s the ten greenest items Amazon sells (as voted on by customers).

From best to worst, here’s the list as I checked this morning. See if you can tell which item doesn’t belong…

1. Reusable bags
2. CFL - 60-Watt equivalent
3. CFL - 100-Watt equivalent
4. Reel mower
5. Seventh Generation toilet paper (although the picture sure looks like paper towels)
6. Commuter bike
7. Spinning composter
8. Stainless steel water bottle
9. Amazon’s Kindle
10. Solar panels

Overall, the list is pretty good. I’m glad the top few are cheap and make a big impact. Reusable bags, CFLs, and a reusable water bottle (although further down) all replace lots of resources. More expensive, and requiring more dedication, are the bike, composter, and solar panels. The reel mower is good, although I don’t know how likely it is that people will replace a powered mower with one of those. And it’s not sexy, but recycled toilet paper is good if you haven’t gone the cloth route.

But the Kindle? How did that make it into the top 10? E-book readers are very cool and I’d be tempted if e-ink weren’t so expensive, but they don’t seem very green. Perhaps it’s just that I get most of my books from the library, so the environmental impact is pretty low, but it seems like producing and powering a Kindle would create more waste than reading normal books and magazines.

Or maybe I just have trouble reconciling the other items on the list, which seem very granola, with a high tech device like the Kindle. In which case, I apologize to all of the composting, reel mowing, biking hippies who use their solar panels to power their Kindle and a couple of CFLs to read by!

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I rode the bus today for the first time from our new house.  It’s funny how something as simple as riding the bus can feel like an adventure.  The bus stop is about half a block from our house and as usual I was running late so I stood there anxiously, convinced I had missed it.  Of course, as it turns out the bus was also running a little late so I got on with no trouble, handed over my crisp $1 bill, and rode the 15-minute trip into town.

The best part about riding the bus is the change in perspective.  I was able to stare out the window at the scenery without worrying about trying to drive or give directions.  Walking to the bus stop gave me a chance to check out my neighbor’s houses in detail and wave to the ones who were out working on their lawns or cars or gardens.  I was able to listen to cicadas and feel the light afternoon breeze.

Riding the bus also renewed my appreciation for all the good things in my life.  Most of my fellow bus passengers appeared to be dealing with many challenges, ranging from poor health to limited education to drug and alcohol addictions.  I felt a little out of place but also very humble.  My money worries suddenly seemed very insignificant; I don’t have to worry about where I’ll be sleeping tonight or how I will feed my family.

I’m looking forward to becoming a regular rider although I also hope to do more bicycling.  There’s something about getting out of my car that immediately makes me feel more connected with the world, more involved in the community, and more alive.  Thank you, city bus.

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When you hear about sustainable living, you tend to get a focus on global impact. How much CO₂ are you contributing to global warming? How many Earths would your lifestyle require? Those are important questions but my concept of living sustainably starts at home.

To me, “sustainable living” is a pretty simple concept. If you can maintain (sustain) your lifestyle (how you’re living) for the foreseeable future, then you’re living sustainably. The global component, the one we all hear about, is how we’re going to maintain our culture and civilization over time. As it is now, we’re only able to maintain our lifestyle because someone else is going without or because we’re using resources in a profligate waste (or both). In this case, the right thing to do is to figure out what we can do without. For most people, the answer seems to be “allow other people to have my standard of living.” Obviously, that’s not sustainable. People aren’t willing to give up their comforts so that I can live a better life. Instead, I’m trying to figure out what I can get rid of to try and meet these people halfway.

Part of that is encouraging others to reduce their usage (of land, natural resources, air quality, etc). In a selfish sense, if other people use less, there will be more for me! If I reduce my consumption as well, it might be possible to find a middle ground where people in the global sense are living sustainably. That is, the average person will be using up fewer resources than are naturally produced.

That’s pretty long-term pie-in-the-sky thinking, though. I lump it in with things like setting up Mars colonies or creating a technologica singularity. They’re neat to think about and might even be laudable goals, but I personally just can’t live my life working towards them.

I prefer to focus on making my local life sustainable. Some of these items carry over from the global view. Eating local food keeps me healthier, which means I’ll be able to keep doing what I’m doing. Driving as little as possible has similar benefits.

That’s still pretty abstract, though. My general day-to-day focus is on making sure that my life is sustainable. Primarily, that means focusing on money, which is something I don’t see much about in the green community.

The best way to weather future changes (that is, to make sure that your current lifestyle is sustainable) is to live within your means (reduce your lifestyle) and to save as much money as possible (to extend your lifestyle if it becomes more costly). Right now, I save 30-40% of my income (small though it is). That means that if I suddenly have a paycut, my lifestyle isn’t affected at all. It also means that lots of little things become easier because I don’t have to wait for a new paycheck in order to do things. I also feel like my income is less likely to disappear than other people’s because instead of having one boss, I’ve got multiple clients. Even if I lose one of them, I’ll still be making something.

Buying a house and getting it set up have definitely eaten into those cash reserves, so I don’t have as much saved now as I’d like. However, I feel like owning a house is an important step in my never-ending quest to make sure my life is sustainable. My monthly rent is now much less variable over time and eventually will become much less. I’m also now free to do whatever I want to the place, which means I should be able to maximize my happiness better. If a gazebo would make me happy, I can put one up. Or if honey would bring a smile to my face, I can get bee hives.

If you take anything away from this post, I hope you’ll remember to look at things locally and not just globally when you’re making choices. Thinking globally, it makes sense not to drive, to live on a farm in the middle of nowhere, to avoid having children. Locally, that might not make sense at all. Perhaps a job that you love requires a certain amount of travel. Or maybe you get hives whenever you get too close to cows.

Sustainability is local too. If you can’t maintain a lifestyle because it would make you miserable, that’s just as unsustainable as a lifestyle that uses up too many resources. The key, as with most things, is to get rid of unnecessary junk and to continually find ways to improve.

I hope to hear more about your experiments as you do so. I’m sure I’ll learn a lot that will help me live more sustainably as well.

This post brought to you by the letters APLS.

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They say the devil is in the details and if it’s true with anything, it’s true with home remodeling.  Our biggest challenge was dealing with trim - window trim, door trim, and baseboards.  We had to take it down to get the paneling off and we knew we would have to put it back up.  Unfortunately, we broke a few pieces while prying it off the wall so we also bought a few replacement pieces which had to be cut to size using a miter saw.  Miter saws are cool because they let you cut at an angle.  Picture two pieces of baseboard meeting at the corner of a room.  If they’re both cut square, like a normal piece of lumber, then they come together and make a little lump in the corner.  However, with a miter saw you can cut each one diagonally so they piece together and the baseboard is the same thickness all the way around the room.  At least in theory.  It turns out I’m a bit eager with the saw.  (And yes, I did use the safety glasses when I was actually cutting.)

All the salvageable trim had to have the nails removed, which was tedious but not very photogenic.  Painting the trim was a little more photogenic.  We used some of the old carpet padding as a drop cloth so we could be messy without ruining the floor of the garage.  (It’s also nice and squishy to walk on, especially compared with concrete.)

The final task was to nail all the trim into place.  Luckily, our friend Nathan is handy with a hammer and helped us put in the first round of trim, in the front bedroom.  We still need to cut a new windowsill and some wide pieces to put at the bottom of the window to cover where paneling once was but for tonight we’re calling it done and sleepable.  The bed is in place and I am very entertained by the fact that our wall color almost matches my favorite set of sheets.

Tomorrow is my 30th birthday so we’re headed to the lake for a day of boating and swimming.  I’ve never driven a giant boat with a slide; it should be exciting!  For tonight, I’ll enjoy my last evening in my 20’s in my new house.

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Remember that house we bought?  We took a break from posting about our remodeling because we were afraid of boring you with long drawn out posts about how we bought a miter saw so we could cut some new baseboard trim except when we opened the box, it turned out the saw was broken so we took it back to Lowes but they didn’t have any saws so then we borrowed one from a friend but it turned out that we had purchased the wrong size of baseboard so we took THAT back and bought the right kind and then we cut it and realized we cut it too short so we decided just to install it anyway and put a bookshelf in front of the funny-looking part.

But we thought you might enjoy a few remodeling photos.  That photo at the top is the “before” picture of the front bedroom.  That’s what it looked when the previous owners lived there.  We really like this bedroom because it has windows facing south and east and just generally has a nice sunny, open feel.  However, we weren’t too excited about the painted paneling and the boring-yet-ugly carpeting.  Luckily, we checked and found out that there were beautiful hardwood floors underneath the ugly carpeting!

So we pulled down the paneling, ripped up the carpeting, and painted the plaster walls with a blue-green-gray shade of Aura paint, a low-VOC paint manufactured by Benjamin Moore.  It seemed like a reasonably green option and we managed to donate the carpet to a friend who will use it to make weed-free paths through her garden.  (We’re still looking for someone who wants carpet padding and old paneling.)

We made similar changes in the front family room, although I don’t have pictures of the painted version yet.  Hopefully I’ll get a chance to take a few more tomorrow, and we might even have the trim up by then.  (Why is it that remodeling projects always take longer than expected?)

Tomorrow our housesitting duties end and we will spend our first night in the new house.  We’re excited to have it really feel like ours, although I suspect it will be awhile yet before it really feels like home.  There will undoubtedly be a few more weeks of living out of boxes and making regular trips to the hardware store.  But there’s something satisfying about painting your own home and getting paint in your hair and deciding not to worry about it because you’re moving straight on to mowing your lawn and then when you’re sweaty and grass-covered stepping into you shower and remembering that your water heater isn’t working all the great but thinking that it’s been a hot day of home remodeling so you’re sure an ice-cold shower will be fun and invigorating.  Just don’t expect to get the paint out of your hair.

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