One of our goals for becoming more green was to change the cleaners and various products we use in our home - replacing standard, chemical-laden products with non-toxic, biodegradeable alternatives.

The first brand we tried was Mrs. Meyer’s and we immediately fell in love!

The Surface Scrub was the first MM product we actually bought - in the Lavender scent.  Lea really liked it, but she is a big fan of serious scrubbing - she cleans a mean shower, let me tell you!  Personally, while I liked the scent, I am really not a big fan of powder cleaners, so I just couldn’t get behind this product whole-heartedly.  I even left it behind in our bathroom closet when we moved out - but maybe it will inspire whoever buys our house (please oh please, someone buy our house) to try green cleaners, too! 

After the surface scrub, we tried the Counter Top Spray (again in Lavender scent) - and this product I absolutely LOVE!  I love the scent, which is clean and fresh but not overpowering.  Surprisingly even Lea likes it and normally she hates Lavender or anything even remotely flowery smelling!  More importantly, it cleans great and doesn’t leave behind any nasty chemical smells or residue.  I love knowing that the ingredients are natural and safe for the environment.  I used this stuff everywhere - kitchen, bathroom, random cleaning - and it always worked great. 

In fact, we used this so often that we ran out soon enough!  But rather than buy another bottle of the Counter Top Spray, this time we bought a big bottle of the All Purpose Cleaner.  This option is so cost-effective, we just refill our spray bottle using a little bit of the cleaner and water, and it works just as well as the spray.  The All Purpose Cleaner has instructions on the proportions to use, and this way we don’t have to buy multiple bottles (that we can’t recycle here in Alaska).  I wish all the products I buy for home and bath could be refillable this way!

There has been some concern in the past about MM and parabens but they haven’t used them in their products since January 2007 which is great news!

When we moved to Alaska, we were concerned about whether we would ever find our coveted cleaner again - but lo and behold we found it in several locations including our grocery stores as well as the local feed store (sells dogfood etc.). The feed store sells more MM products than we ever knew existed, so score one for Alaska! We may not have recycling but at least we can clean green.

So, as usual, carmen and I have been awful about posting since we moved to Alaska. I work on computers all day and don’t want to even think about anything more technological than my beloved tivo and carmen works from home on computers all day so the thought of pulling out her laptop to write something, other than on her ravelry page, is too much to bear. How’s that for excuses?

Since we moved to Alaska our lives have become more green in some ways and less green in others.

More Green

• Set up 3 green community blogs, carmen moderates one of them
• Joined a recycling project committee
• Joined a local e waste recycling group
• Volunteered at an e waste recycling event
• Maintain e waste group’s website
• Installed a programmable thermostat
• Hoarding cans to take to the only recycling outfit in town when we get around to it
• Use green cleaning products, soap, and detergent
• Grow our own tomatoes
• Work for a company that promotes sustainability
• Bought a timer for when I have to plug the car in and only let it run for 4 hours as opposed to 10+ hours

Less Green

• Drive 30 miles, round trip, per day to get to work
• NO RECYCLING of paper, plastic or glass (we want to, we just can’t)
• Use more energy to heat the house
• Grow our own tomatoes (it’s an indoor hydroponic garden)
• Use a space heater
• Get take-out that comes in styrofoam containers

Needless to say, things haven’t been perfect but we’re still trying and that was the purpose of this whole project, to try and be more green.

I’m hoping once carmen gets a local job that we’ll be able to spend some time each week blogging again like we used to. I’m still posting on the lea page and carmen has been pretty bad about updating hers, but if you’re on ravelry you can look her up!

1) Amazing sunrises.

This is the view I see out my window in my home office every morning.  Well, it’s not always this impressive, but it is almost always interesting and beautiful in some way.  Even blurry sun behind ice fog makes a great morning view and I love seeing what each new day will bring.

 2) Beautiful sunsets.

Wow.  Sometimes it’s so incredible that I have to get dressed up to go outside and capture a photo from a better vantage point in the back yard.  Of course, this was taken way back when it was MUCH warmer.  I probably wouldn’t be inspired to make this effort on a 50-below day no matter how pretty the sunset is!

Hope you enjoy the random pretty photos!  This weekend we are off to see the start of the Yukon Quest dog sled race and I am so excited to see all the fun and excitement!  Here’s hoping for things to warm up so that none of my extremities get frozen off in the process.  Happy weekend, everyone!

Living in Alaska is great.

Carmen and I have been having  a great time up here so far despite the following:

• 40 below-zero temperatures
• forgetting to plug the car in on a 10 degree day and then wake up and it’s 30 below (cars don’t like starting when it’s that cold)
• feet of snow falling in one day, plowing, then getting more snow
• having a roof that needs to be shoveled - fortunately I pay someone to do this (he he)
• paying $200 a month for power (JUST power, not gas)
• paying $675 for 210 gallons of heating fuel each month until probably May

What’s that? $675 for heating fuel! Yep, that’s right, even though we make gas up here it is still very expensive and our house is not at all heat efficient. I am seriously thinking about getting us some of these or selling a kidney to pay for heating our house. I mean, I have another one right?

All in all though, life is good and we’ve been doing a lot of green things since we moved here, we just haven’t been posting about them but we will soon I promise. These green things include:

• joined a group to promote sustainability
• joined a group to start a recycling program where we live (currently there isn’t one)
• made reusable gift bags for christmas
• saving cans to take to the metal recycling company
• convincing my mom to save cans too

See! We’re still trying! We’re still just trying to get settled up here.

I can’t believe it!  We’ve now been in alaska for 2 months with no moose sightings for me, even though seeing them makes me so happy.  And now, lea just called me to say she was sitting in her car getting ready to leave work, and she was looking at a moose!  Just hanging out, eating trees.  I’m so jealous!  Oh well, at least there has finally been a sighting, even if it was by the person who grew up with them and I’m sure is way too cool to be thrilled by seeing them anymore!

 Maybe this is a sign that there will be more moose in the near future - lea’s mom told me that colder weather should bring them in closer to town, so hopefully they’ll be hanging out more often where we can see them.  Or maybe we just need to make an effort to get out of town more often and go for drives - but see below about the busy, busy busy!

Happy weekend, everyone!

 EDIT: here are the pictures lea took on her phone

1. we made it to Alaska safely and have been SUPER busy ever since we arrived in early October - hence the lack of posts.
2. lea drove the whole way, because she wanted to.
3. we are having a great time so far!
4. our dogs don’t hate us yet for forcing them to live in a cold cold climate - kasey still has her regular adventures in poo-land and tenga has his blanket so they’re happy.
5. we have have yet to see a moose since we moved here. lea, however has seen a fox and some suicidal hares during her early morning trek to work.
6. carmen is still knitting… A LOT, especially for lea’s family!
7. lea’s obsession with comics continues to grow…
8. lea got a green job! We can’t say where but if you want to know just send her an email.
9. carmen also has a job so we’re not poor.
10. the price of fuel is INSANE in Alaska even though it grows here!
11. in our spare time these days we watch Battlestar Galactica, hang with the family, and work on the house.
12. we bought cross country skis - hilarity will ensue.
13. we’re trying to be as green as possible despite the fact that where we live lacks a recycling program.
14. we hope to start posting more regularly soon!

PS - the killer wolf and moose thing may sound funny but it’s sadly true. Lots of people die from hitting moose up here and lea’s future brother in law’s dog got eaten by wolves, poor thing… It’s really wild here, people who don’t believe it should read the Fairbanks Daily News Miner sometime. But part of the reason we came here was for the wildness and the adventure. We’ll let you know in the future what it’s like to have to carry a hand gun to go skiing or hiking because of wild aMinals.

So, I have a confession to make. I am quickly becoming a comic book geek! It all started when Joss Whedon decided that it was time to write a Season 8 of my favorite TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in comic book form. How could I resist. Joss. Check. Buffy. Check. Comic Book. Check Check. Ever since comics have been my vice much like carmen’s unhealthy addiction to fiber products, mine come in the form of 24 +/- page comics and collections of comics printed in graphic novels.

At this point some of you may be asking, why the hell is lea writing about HER addiction on the main LT site instead of her own? Well, I’ll tell you. Comic books, for the most part, are sadly not green. They are usually made with non-recycled paper, and *wonderfully shiney* ink full of chemicals. Granted, most comic aficionados keep their comics and read them over and over again, comics aren’t like magazines and they’re not usually thrown away after one read, and they spend the rest of their glorious lives in little plastic sleeves. Oops, there’s hit number three- my comic books live in plastic *boo hiss* but, really, they need it!

Ok, so if you’re keeping points the score is as follows:
Non-Recycled Paper 1 point
*Glorious* Chemical Ink 1 point
Plastic Sleeves 1 point

So it’s green movement zero, kill the planet three. Sigh, I’m a bad greenie…

But here’s the thing, like almost everything else on the planet comic books can be green too!

Maxeem Konrady found a way to make comic books eco friendly whereas the process used to make the materials necessary to make a traditional comic are pretty painful.

Here are some facts from the article linked above:

Paper Production

• Consumes an enormous consumer of energy and resources
• Is the number one industrial process water user in the country
• Is the third-worst contributor of air emissions among all industries
• Is the fourth worst in discharges to streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans.
• Is the fourth-largest producer of carbon dioxide, contributing to global warming as it depletes the very trees that stave it off.

Green Comic Possibilities

• Vegetable-based inks
• 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper bleached with oxygen instead of chlorine

According to the article “the impact of using alternative materials is significant: using recycled paper not only saves trees, it also conserves energy and natural resources, using only 60 percent as much energy, reducing water pollution by 35 percent, and air pollution by 74 percent . Not to mention keeping paper products out of landfills, where they account for almost 40 percent of all municipal solid waste.” Very cool.

Why don’t comic publishers use green technology and recycled products? It costs them more, which in turn will raise the $3 price of a comic book which could decrease profits and potentially kill the comic industry.

What can we do? I want to do some more research and see what can be done. More to come on the ‘greening your hobbies’ series.

Yes, carmen and I are still alive - not that we’re getting many hits here nowadays - and we’re gearing up to make the long drive to Alaska here in a little less than a month eek!

Today though, I thought I would write about something I’ve been thinking about lately, magic beans green stocks.

It all started after I bought carmen a terrapass to help ease her mind after I convinced her that we needed to upgrade to a larger vehicle. In November we purchased a Hyundai Tucson but before you start booing and hissing and sending us hate mail let me make note of a few things of importance.

• We carpool just about every day to and from work and everywhere else, meaning we use the gas of one vehicle to get us almost anywhere and rarely do we need separate vehicles for anything.
• Our dogs are quite large - tenga weighs 85+ lbs and princess kasey weighs a dainty 65 lbs - needless to say a compact car is not for us. We tried for several years to pack everyone into a VW Golf but we ended up having so little room that the dogs couldn’t go on camping trips with us and, due to it’s compact nature, the Golf started to smell like dogs!
• We boutght a terrapass to offset the emissions the Tucson makes.
• We’re moving to a place where 4WD is almost mandatory of any vehicle and Hyundai’s have a very high safety rating which is good because I worry about carmen driving in the cold, dark, and snow that will soon be imminent.

That being said, I am very happy with the Tucson, carmen is probably still on the fence because of the gas mileage issue, but overall our finances have not suffered as a result of buying more gas. We have to fill the Tucson only as often as we usually had to fill the Golf and there’s only a 2 gallon difference in tank size.

Ok, long story short - I bought the terrapass but then began to think about investing in green projects I wanted to invest in, to play the stock market, maybe make some money, and start my own personal version of what terrapass is doing. The terrapass company is great, I think they do great things with the money they are given and they invest in lots of cool projects but there’s still overhead. I’m assuming some of the money from each pass is portioned off to pay company costs, the salaries of the employees etc. but what if I wanted to cut out the middle man and be able to invest more in green projects? Thus comes the idea of starting my own personal green stock portfolio which I will have some day…

Today I did some research into green stocks, probably sparked by my spontaneous visit to the wallstrip website where a girl I grew up with appears from time to time *Hi Lauren!* and I think green investing, if done responsibly and smartly could be pretty cool.

First, Sustainable Business has a really great list of green companies and their current stock situations.

Second, the worlds most sustainable stocks of 2007 published by Sustainable Business which is a very interesting list.

And Third, several of the most sustainable stocks of this year are also currently some of the best performers in wallstrip’s portfolio. Who knew a mexican food chain and a coffee roaster would be among some of the most progressive stocks around?

The full list for the top 20 this year, published here by Sustainable Business, are:

The SB20 List for 2007- Alphabetical Order

Best Water Technology (Vienna: BWT.VI) (Austria)
Canon (NYSE: CAJ) (Japan)
Comverge (Nasdaq: COMV) (USA)
Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) (USA)
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) (USA)
Fuel Tech (Nasdaq: FTEK) (USA)
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Nasdaq: GMCR) (USA)
Groupe Danone (DANO.PA) Netherlands
Herman Miller (Nasdaq: MLHR) (USA)
Interface (Nasdaq: IFSIA) (USA)
Land Securities (London: Land.L) Britain
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) (USA)
Novozymes (Copenhagen: NZYM.CO) Denmark
Ormat Technologies (NYSE: ORA) (USA)
Precious Woods (Geneva: SWX: PRWN) Swizerland
Renewable Energy Corp - REC (Oslo: REC.OL) Norway
Royal Philips Electronics NV (NYSE: PHG) Netherlands
Schmack Biogas AG (Germany: SB1B.DE) Germany
Vestas (Copenhagen: VWS.CO) Denmark
Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFMI) (USA)

Honorable Mention:
Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG)

Cameras? Shoes? Coffee? Fast food? Really??? Very cool but somewhat surprising all the same. It will be interesting to keep watching over time and see where the market goes - today solar and wind power look good but who knows what tomorrow will bring?

OK, so I’m looking at our list of posts here on LT and feeling quite shameful.  Clearly, lea is pulling her weight around here much more than I am, and I  decided it was time for me to contribute something so that we can keep this site going even - though things have been somewhat crazy for us these days.

And what do I want to write about?  Why, what else but worm poop?

So, I was watching Live Earth last weekend (you all watched, right?), and I saw this great interview with the co-founders of Terracycle.  I have to say that I was MOST impressed by their ideas and what they are doing with their business.  Then I checked out their site and I am even more blown away. 

 So what’s this all about?  Well, here is what they do in a nutshell:

“At TerraCycle we manufacture affordable, potent, organic products that are not only made from waste, but are also packaged entirely in waste! TerraCycle Plant Food™ is made by feeding premium organic waste to millions of worms. The worm poop is then liquified into a powerful organic plant food and bottled directly in used soda bottles.”

(from www.terracycle.net)

Isn’t that amazing?  Not only great products for all your planting and gardening needs, but made completely from garbage with a negative ecological footprint!  They take garbage OUT of our landfills in order to create their plant foods and fertilizers!  In addition to recycling used soda bottles, the sprayers and lids for their bottles are leftovers from large companies that would otherwise go to waste. 

I don’t know why, but reading about what this company is doing just makes me so happy - it inspires me and brings me no end of delight.

I must admit, I don’t currently do as much gardening as I’d like to, so don’t use a lot of these types of products YET!  But I’m thrilled to know that they are carried by Home Depot and other large retailers, so we’ll be able to buy them when we move to Alaska.  I have big plans for gardening next spring/summer in the Land of the Midnight Sun - and you better believe that I will be using Worm Poop to help all my flowers and veggies survive the potentially deadly effects of my very brown thumb!

I’m also excited to read about their Bottle Brigade.  One of the hardest things for me to face about our upcoming move to Alaska (aside from the long, dark, cold winters and the potential for death by crashing my car into a moose) is the lack of recycling facilities near our future home.  It’s possible to recycle some things, but plastics recycling is one of the most difficult challenges for Alaska, which is currently not available up there.  But now that I know that I might be able to collect and donate at least one type of plastic bottle to this worthy company, I’m excited at the prospect of reducing some of that landfill waste - even if only on a small scale.  Hooray for innovation and recycling, all in one!

So - during this lovely growing season, think about reaching for a Terracycle product next time your leafy green things need a little help - rather than that other yellow-and-green product full of who knows what nasty chemicals!

happy worms + recycled bottles = happy plants + happy earth!

Ok, so carmen and I have been AWFUL about posting since our return from the great state of Alaska but, since the day we got back, our lives have taken a turn down a completely different road than we had ever expected. So, since our families have been adequately notiifed, here’s what’s going on. WE’RE MOVING. TO ALASKA! IN OCTOBER!!!

As such, we have been TERRIBLY busy lately. Preparing our house to sell, in a bad housing market ***but think happy thoughts***  has consumed almost every waking moment we have free. We’ve been packing up the house and trucking our crap to storage, we discovered the magical reuse center where lots of our belongings are being donated, cleaning, meeting with realtors, and NOW we’re doing repairs/painting around the house to prepare it to be on the market by the 4th of July EEK! Needless to say, we have been unfortunately distracted from our planetary saving and life changing tactics.

Alaska is an interesting place and unlike anywhere carmen has ever lived before - I’m from there so I know what to expect but to carmen everything will be new and uh, hopefully exciting! The thing about Alaska, especially where we’re moving, is that it is rural and there aren’t any city-wide recycling programs anywhere in the state. I have corresponded with a lot of Alaskan government officials including the Lt. Governor’s office, the mayors of the two cities we will live between, and many other people involved in the refuse community up there. I can’t legitimize anything but with very articulate explanations about why recycling currently won’t work for alaska (costs millions of dollars and requires trucking/shipping all recyclables to Washington state) it will be an interesting place to live. It was weird when we were there for 2 weeks and we were throwing away aluminum cans, soda cans, and plastic soda bottles. Knowing what I know now about recycling, thanks to carmen, it really bothered me. So one of our major projects when we move there is trying to recycle without a recycling program. There are places that take aluminum so we can just drive our metals over to them periodically but NO ONE takes plastic! It will be interesting to see what we do to minimize our use of plastics but how can some plastic use be avioded? It’ll definitely be a project to keep us busy during the long winter months that’s for sure…

So please readers (if there are any) don’t lose hope. We’re still here, we’re just super busy what with the moving and house selling plans AND trying to find jobs from 3,000 miles away! We’ll work hard to keep everyone posted of our progress and I’m sure we’ll have some wonderful stories to share once we move there. I mean really, who could not have stories after driving across canada with 2 big dogs and all our worldly posessions! And then there’s carmen, in nature! I’m sure she’ll be full of excitement about the moose and other wild animals she’s going to start seeing on a regular basis.