I Can’t Remember

I will be moving soon. Into a smaller house. You should see the expressions some people get on their face when I say this out loud. Some think I am crazy, others assume that they have misheard me and re-edit my statement in their own mind so that it conforms to their own world-view. These same people will no doubt lecture me about the trend towards smaller homes when it finally becomes commonplace in a couple of years.

Small is the new big. From predictions that Baby Boomers won’t be able to keep up with the upkeep on their McMansions as they age to rumors that Tiger Woods is tearing down his Jupiter Island castle and rebuilding smaller, average home square footage may be actually decreasing soon. Oprah Winfry has declared that “this is the year to declutter your life,” and with all those empty closets, people may soon realize that they do not need all those closets after all.

Small is trendy. There are so many new books out there about small homes, a reader barely knows where to start. Try Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live (2001), which is a great introduction to the topic. Pick up other books that appeal to your senses: many are visual feasts, chock full of pictures illustrating drool-worthy downsized homes, decadent in their simplicity. There’s even an organization for fans of the small home: the Small House Society, whose stated mission is “to support the research, development, and use of smaller living spaces that foster sustainable living for individuals, families, and communities worldwide.”

Why is everyone ditching their large homes for small ones? It almost seems counter-intuitive. If you’ll excuse the cliché, being big didn’t save the dinosaur. And speaking of dinosaurs, fossil fuels may be the greatest reason that the demand for smaller homes may have increased so much recently. Smaller homes cost less energy to run. But not just electrical energy: since they are so much easier to clean, people spend less time and energy cleaning their homes, and more time enjoying them. According to Fine Homebuilding’s website: “What goes up must come down, and even as the average size of American homes continues to soar, there’s interest in smartly designed and built homes that do more with less. Be it rising costs, energy-consumption restrictions, environmental laws, or matters of taste, homeowners are rethinking their space needs.”

Arrol Gellner, writing in the L A Times, compares today’s large homes with those of the Victorian era, and concludes that the modern mansions will soon be traded in for modern bungalows, as history tends to repeat itself. But what will become of our “White Elephants”? Sean Groom and Charles Miller, writing in Fine Homebuilding, describe the McMansion as the tear-down of tomorrow. (Sean Groom and Charles Miller, Fine Homebuilding #179, “The 25 Most Important Houses in America,” pp. 58-68.) Whatever happens, don’t wait for your neighbors to move out and leave their towering mansions behind: be a trend-setter and enjoy everything that a new house has to offer today.

The only problem right now is finding a well-built home with all the extras in a smaller house. “Luxury” and “small” don’t seem to go together in builder’s vocabularies just yet. But just wait and see.

(Also see Simplify Your Home.)

Technorati Tags: downsize, festival of frugality, home, not so big, simplify, small house, square footage, trend

Putting a live animal in your child’s Easter basket is a bad idea: instead, give one to charity.

Buying live animals for an Easter basket is cruel to the animals. Often, chicks, ducklings and even bunnies are dyed with colors that can irritate or damage their skin or eyes. And these animals are often abandoned after Easter. According to the Humane Society, “Every year, animal shelters receive a surge of unwanted Easter pets that are given up after the owners have lost interest or are unable to care for them. Unfortunately, many must be euthanized due to lack of available homes. Some animals given as gifts are released into the wild when people tire of them. However, the animals are unable to fend for themselves and usually die of starvation or exposure to the elements, or are preyed upon by other animals.”

There are also risks for humans associated with giving live chicks and ducklings. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported cases of Salmonella poisoning associated with live chicks. And though rabbits do not need vaccinations to be safely kept as pets, they do need lots of care.

There is a way to buy chicks, ducklings, and bunnies for Easter. Make a donation to Heifer International and they will provide these animals to poverty-stricken families around the world. Donate a Flock of Ducks for $20: they will provide eggs for a family to eat and sell, plus ducks eat bugs out of the fields and help the crops. Or for $20 you could also donate a Flock of Chicks: chickens can lay up to 200 eggs per year! A Trio of Rabbits ($60) will provide income for the family when they sell the bunnies (up to 40 per year.) Or you can actually get “baskets”: the $50 Basket of Hope which has rabbits and chickens, or the $85 Promise Basket which has chicks, ducks, rabbits, and geese.

Put a note in an Easter basket that you have made a donation in the child’s name to Heifer International along with a chocolate bunny and those Peeps-thingys. We think of Christmas as the season of giving, but charity is appropriate all year long.

(This article was posted on the front page of Helium!)

(On my previous post on Shutdown Day, I said I was going to do this…
and it actually wasn’t too bad.)

The morning started out great: my perfect children allowed me to “sleep in” until the sun was almost up. I stumbled into the office to check the weather online but was confronted by a Red Hat-branded post-it that stated: “No Computer!” stuck in the middle of my monitor screen. Then my husband’s PDA alarm sounded—he had set an alarm to remind himself that it was Shutdown Day. (Is that cheating?)

After feeding my perfect children, I decided to take them to the Farmer’s Market, but I can never remember when the hours are, so went into the office…and turned around and decided to just climb in the car any way without checking the hours on the Internet. (Oh, right… “Shutdown Day!”) And you know—it worked out just fine! We went and it was open.

After coming home, I wandered by the office, intending on checking my email, and to see if my latest article had been accepted at Associated Content, and how many pennies I had made at Helium, and then I remembered: Oh, right… “Shutdown Day!” Hmmm…so I decided instead to get a little work done around the house.

We painted the Master bathroom. Fertilized the yard. Pruned the shrubbery. I read the second book in Asimov’s Foundation series. And a couple magazines. We went out for dinner. And ice cream afterwards. We came home at a reasonable hour, bathed the perfect children, and got them to bed on time. All thanks to Shutdown Day.

Since this experience with Shutdown Day, I wonder how much of the day we spend “saving time” by looking things up on the computer? I cannot believe all the things I got done in only one Saturday. And I might actually use the egg timer we set to limit the kids screen time for myself the next time I need to “quickly” look something up.

BTW, Shutdown Day’s official website, was going to list how many people actually committed to shutdown their computers, but their website said: “We enjoyed our day without our computers so much that we decided to take Sunday off too! We’ll be back online on Monday.” I actually did not get around to signing up, but did it anyway, so I guess I compensated for someone who could not stand to abstain.

On March 24th, over 53,000 people will shut off their computers-will you be one of them?
I will be, so look for my blog to be updated the day after tomorrow.

The idea behind Shutdown Day is to gage how addicted we are to our computers, and to measure the effect this shutdown will have on the Internet. As a side effect, Shutdown Day will also demonstrate how ubiquitous computers have become in modern daily life.

What would you do without access to your computer on Shutdown Day Saturday? That means no checking email, no checking the weather online to see what to wear, no looking up recipes or movie times or even local store hours. You would not be able to look up driving directions or phone numbers on your computer. There would be no printing anything, nor any blogging or personal journaling. No IM-ing, no downloading music, no… You get the gist here. The people at ShutdownDay.org suggest that computers and laptops be shut off, and if you use your PDA to access the Internet to turn that off also.

If you wanted to really get “technical,” you would not use anything with a computer in it during Shutdown Day: your phone, stereo, oven, stereo, television, or car included. But all that you would really have to do would be to be in compliance with this experiment would be to not touch a keyboard or mouse, or look at a computer screen. Pull the plug and cut the cord, as it were. Think of the environmental impact of everyone shutting off his or her computers for Shutdown Day. Think of all the electricity that would be saved!

Of course, the main goal for Shutdown Day, according to the people the official website, is to get people off the Internet and interacting with people in real life. To that end, they also suggest turning off your game consoles. This is a “global experiment.” Any environmental gains are just a happy side effect. And though some might read into this experiment a social commentary (a Ludite backlash against technology?), the founders of this idea claim no such aims.

If you want more information on this, or if you want to commit to turning off your computer for 24 hours, check out the official Shutdown Day website. The Shutdown Day website also has an amusing video showing “Alternative Uses For Your Laptop.”These are, of course, tongue in cheek, since most of us want to be able to use our laptop the next day. And do not forget to check their website on March 25! The official Shutdown Day website will post the final count of everyone who signed up, as well as a chart displaying Internet traffic for March 24.

Check out my simpler version of this post at Helium.

Having been deeply involved with both political parties at one time or another, I must say that there’s one problem with staying away from politics: accountability.
Someone once said that a truly honest man is honest when no one is looking. Have you met many politicians? A few are idealists (liberal, moderate, or conservative), there to do their civic duty. Most are NOT!
We have to vote, one way or the other, to let them know that someone is minding the store. Politics is distasteful, and no one wants to talk about it. But at least vote–yes, it interrupts your day and you have to stand in line in the cold, but it’s not every day, and it’s very important.

Technorati Tags: politics

Having products out with labels on them tends to make a home look cluttered. Whether you buy the most expensive product or the frugal store-brand is really no one else’s business. Hiding all products ensures that you and your guests concentrate on your home, not what you have brought into it on your most recent shopping trip.

In the Kitchen: Pantries overflow with items in their original packaging. That is appropriate; the problem is when they overflow onto the countertops and other visible surfaces. Foodstuffs and other supplies should be kept behind closed doors: then the kitchen looks cleaner, brighter, and less cluttered. If your pantry is not large enough, be creative. The top of your refrigerator, above your top cabinets, and the backs of the counters can all be used to store items, but everything will look neater if items are placed in decorative bins or containers. Keep your eye out at rummage sales and discount stores for beautiful containers that will match your kitchen décor.

In the Bathroom: Ideally, we would all have a half-bath that only the guests used, but many homes do not come equipped with this (or if they do, they are immediately annexed by the teen living in the house.) The only items that belong on the countertop in the bath that the guests use are the hand soap and the hand towel. Everything else should be out of sight. The best way to accomplish this is to buy a deep medicine cabinet, or better yet, if you have room, two matching ones. Decorative boxes with lids will also work in the bath: small ones for the back of the toilet, and extra-large ones for the floor. Be sure that any containers you use can withstand high humidity. A cabinet or shelves over the toilet also create more storage: be sure these have doors, or equip the shelves with large bins.

Around the house: Do not leave out cleaning products. Hide them wherever is most convenient. Serve snacks in dishes: you will also limit the serving size if you do not just carry the bag of chips into the den. Hairstyling products and perfumes should be put away in the bedroom or bath. Home fragrances should be stored with the cleaners, or if you insist on wasting electricity with the “plug in” type, tuck them under a piece of furniture or behind a potted plant.

Storing products out of sight in your home makes your life easier. You know where they are, they do not get knocked over, and your house is neater and easier to keep clean. Do not be embarrassed by what you buy: be embarrassed if what you buy is the first thing your guests notice about your house.

“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle”—the three “R”s for a better environment. How do we know if we’re doing enough? Look at the trashcan—the more trash we have the less “R”s we’re using. But how do we fit these practices into our busy lives? With new earth friendly products and a little thought on our parts, there’s no need to choose between sacrificing convenience and sacrificing the environment.

The first step to protecting the environment is how and where you shop. When you buy products made at local stores there is less pollution from transportation. Small local businesses are more likely to carry these products. Specialty stores are more likely to have a wider variety of products, including earth-friendly options. For instance, large office supply stores carry paper supplies made from recycled paper, while groceries and marts do not.

While it may seem easier to shop at Target or Walmart, Target has been criticized in the past for discrimination and carrying goods produced using sweatshop labor, while Walmart has been sanctioned for environmental problems such as toxic emissions, and a whole catalogue of social violations including discrimination, use of sweatshop and child labor, health and safety concerns, workers’ rights violations, and union problems. (If you want to find out about a company, Responsibleshopper.org is a website that gives company profiles: which charities they support, and reports on their social/labor policies and environment impact.) By planning carefully and running all your errands at once, you won’t use that much more gas.

When you buy anything, look carefully at how it’s packaged—less packaging means less waste. Buying in bulk sometimes reduces packaging, but buy carefully—sometimes there’s more packaging in bulk items. Look also for earth-friendly biodegradable packaging. For example, Annie Chun’s Noodle Bowls are packed in a biodegradable, compostable bowls that are microwaveable. And make sure you either recycle those plastic grocery bags, or use paper, or bring your own cloth bags(which can be more convenient, since cloth is easier to carry.)

Don’t have a compost bin? Ask your favorite gardener about starting one, or call you local Ag or Master Gardener programme. Composting reduces what we throw away, and recycles it into plant food, which reduces the fertilizer we have to buy. You can even have a small bin on an apartment balcony, and use the finished compost in your houseplants. Food scraps should go in the compost bin or down the garbage disposal, not in the landfill.

Home offices produce lots of trash. Be sure you’re printing on recycled paper with recycled ink-cartridges. Consider printing on both sides, or using software that allows you to print more than one page per side. Always do a print preview to make sure you’re not wasting a whole sheet of paper for just one line of text. And please recycle all this paper—your local Elementary school should have recycling if you don’t have curbside recycling.

Diapers take up a large portion of our landfill. Parents can reduce this by using cloth, or using a system of a washable outer pant with a flushable, compostable inserts-these are available online through Eeenees (http://www.eenee.com) and G Diapers (http://www.gdiapers.com and also sold through http;//www.gaiam.com), and will be sold at Whole Foods locally next year. If you use disposables, manufacturers such as Tushies and Seventh Generation (found at places like Whole Foods and occasionally HEB) make disposables from recycled paper and plastic. Many of these eco-friendly disposables are chlorine-free, which is also an earth-friendly plus.

Have you ever noticed how “convenience” in the kitchen usually involves lots of plastic? The best way to reduce is, of course, to use permanent containers rather than disposable ones. Using waxed paper bags and wrap instead of plastic bags and cellophane is more environmentally sound. If you have to have “plastic”, this website: http://www.ecoproducts.com has biodegradable options, including trash bags, food containers, and disposable utensils. Look for paper plates, paper towels, facial tissues, and other paper goods made from recycled paper. If your local store doesn’t, ask them to start carrying recycled paper products.

When you support businesses that produce or sell eco-friendly products by shopping with them instead of a competitor, you give them the ability and encouragement to continue making responsible choices. Remember you vote with your money—give it to businesses that share your values and concerns.

Finally, don’t hermetically seal your reduced, recycled, biodegradable trash in a plastic bag. It will never biodegrade and will stay in the landfill forever! Reuse a paper grocery bag, or use a biodegradable “plastic” trash bag (usually made from corn gluten.) Every little bit we do helps, so help reduce, reuse, and recycle today!