Don't let empty beer bottles get you down!

Now that I am here in this big house that was obviously enjoyed by a great deal of our 24 year old son's friends, it's time to deal with the garbage they left behind. Now you might say why don't you make him do that? If he were twelve I would, but he's 24 with the responsibilities of a much older man running a construction company. I guess in some ways he has an old soul. Anyway, he's working on our row house getting it ready to rent and dealing with the mess we left in the garage, restaining all the decks, overseeing painting etc.

So, I am dealing with the barrels of garbage that is mixed in with beer bottles and cigarettes, tile, drywall etc. The garbage pickup was yesterday and I was so happy to see some of it go. My main thing is I want as much of it to be recycled as possible. So I picked out two containers worth of bottles and filled the giant recycling bin with cardboard and cans and away it went. Today I will go through more of it and I suspect that after a few weeks I will have gotten rid of it all and then I will change to a once a month pick up because I find that if I recycle and compost that's all the garbage we make. Tomorrow I need to scope out a good spot for a compost pile as well. I left my compost bin for the renters of our row house and I hope they'll use it.

So my message today is don't let the empty beer bottles get you down. We can always recycle them and rock on!

Minimalist Living: Fifteen Ways I Have Saved Energy

1. By turning off the lights! Sounds simple, but when I really became conscious of it, I realized we left lights on all over the place. Outdoor lights left on during the day were a big offender.

2. I connected surge protectors to both our TVs and now turn them off there. This cuts down on standby energy drain. I do keep my DVR cable box plugged into the wall though because I record only what I want to watch and then watch it when I'm in the mood. This has cut down on my TV watching as well.

3. I plugged in my make up mirror, flat iron and blow dryer into a surge protector. This helped me because I turn them all off at once on the surge protector and I never leave one of them on by mistake any more.

4. Every time a light bulb goes, I replace it with a compact fluorescent bulb. I like to get the longest lasting bulbs possible because that means I won't have to deal with it for a long time. Our house has some tall ceilings and stairwells!

5. I installed floor to ceiling thermal curtains in the hottest parts of our home. They keep it cool in summer and warm in winter.

6. In the winter time when it's cold, instead of cranking up the heat, I fire up the stove and do some batch cooking. It warms up the whole house!

7. I placed umbrella tables on my front and back decks in front of large windows to block some of the sun as a tree would. They also provide shade for my cat and dog.

8. I set my Energy Star washer to the quickest setting - 35 minutes. Everything seems to come out just as clean as they do on a longer cycle.

9. I hang up a lot of the wash. I try to have a hang up load and then a dryer load. I don''t have a clothes line,  just a tension shower rod in my laundry room where I hang things on hangers. (It's mostly shirts and my fluffy skirts.)  Socks, towels and jeans always come out better tumbled I think. I also set throw rugs and comforters outside to dry.

10. The refrigerator is supposed to be the most energy thirsty appliance in a home. They run better when full, so I fill the freezer with bags of home made ice, bread and frozen homemade food. My husband does a pretty good job keeping the fridge filled up with beer! I also vacuum the coils regularly and try to have an awareness about not leaving it ajar!

11. We installed a programable thermostat and turn the air or heat off when we leave the house.

12. I alternate between sweeping and vacuuming the hardwood floors.

13. I bought a Voltair Solar Backpack and keep it on our super hot deck and charge our cell phones, iPods, and rechargable battery charger with solar energy.

14. I set our Energy Star dishwasher to the lowest setting - 35 minutes. The dishes still get clean and I don't have to wait around so long to put them away.

15. We moved into the city. This saves us gas because we walk a lot, and a lot of stove time because we hit every happy hour in our neighborhood!

The Story of An Artist

Many of my readers don't know that I am also an artist and have an artist notebook site but through this site, I have networked with many other artists on the web. One artist intrigued me because she makes wonderful art out of found items , (which you know I'm going to love because I think we are a wasteful society)! But there are two other reasons: one, she is a self taught artist like I am and two, she gave up all of her material possessions to go where ever life took her and it led her to be an artist.

So, I asked her if I could interview her for my blog about minimalism and what she wrote back was incredible! It's long though, so I'll spread it over a few posts.

The Minimalist: What made you think your life sucked?

The Self Taught Artist:

I was forty years old and had recently been asked to move out of the house I had rented

for twelve years because they were selling it. I had been a massage therapist for seventeen years and was burned out physically. I had moved into an apartment and had a hellish neighbor below me that tormented me with music all night. I had recently ended a 6+ year relationship and I had no clue what to do anymore. I knew the city (Phoenix) inside and out and nothing felt new or interesting. I had no skills or education for gainful employment. I was having horrible panic attacks.

The Minimalist:
How did you find the courage to restructure your life?

The Self Taught Artist:
I had a very wise woman suggest to me I just get rid of everything or put it in storage and leave. Get in my car and go. Go towards life. Keep moving and find my passion. Live somewhere awhile, work, and then move on. Just keep moving. It took everything I had to do but it took less than it would have taken had I stayed in the stagnant pool that I had been wading in. It quite literally felt like do or die. Change or die.

The Minimalist:
What kinds of things did you get rid of?

The Self Taught Artist:

I love this question. About five years prior to this I had a very close friend kill himself. Something in me changed overnight. I started burning all the journals I'd kept for almost twenty years. I got rid of most everything and started over. New furniture, new this, new that... I started collecting things that I thought would help me be more interesting and intellectual. Hundred of books, hundreds of records and CD's, art, and antique furniture. Very shallow, but a necessary thing to go through. Then when I had to move out of that house I rented, I had to downsize. I had already begun a pattern of collecting and ridding myself of things so when I decided I was going to just leave with whatever fit in my car, I was excited to finally just be free of the whole material possession thing.

I got rid of my personal stuff: pictures, high school yearbooks, letters from people, books, papers, clothes, knick knacks, etc. I donated what I couldn't sell to friends: furniture, kitchen accessories, bedding, the whole thing. I kept enough stuff to fill up a 5x10 storage unit. Mostly it was a five foot diameter, round chair I had bought that I didn't want to part with. That was the biggest reason for getting that storage unit, all for a $1500 chair! I pondered this to no end thinking if I kept NOTHING sure enough I would go out there, end up coming back sooner than I thought and be pissed I had to buy everything back to start over. And sure enough, which is what happened, if I kept things in storage I would end up staying away and that monthly rental fee along with having to deal with all that crap stuffed in storage would be the bane of my existence. I paid rent for four years and finally had friends go through it and just chuck it. My 'best' things were in that storage closet and I had them send me some of it this year. know what? I never felt happy getting it. It wasn't 'me' anymore. None of it. I got rid of it.

The Minimalist:
It makes you think doesn't it? I love that she said," It took everything I had to do but it took less than it would have taken had I stayed in the stagnant pool that I had been wading in."

Next part of the interview tomorrow.

Why do we keep stuff?

I am amazed when I see what some other people feel are their "treasures:" Little League baseball trophies, childhood games and toys, tools they never use, broken things they'll never fix, a breadbox? Anyone using a breadbox hasn't read my blog about how valuable counter space is!
I helped a friend move recently and he put as much stuff into the garage as he did the house!

I do have a few good ideas why people keep such things. I think they tie them to someone who gave them to them or someone they were with when they bought them somewhere in their past. Of course, many people hoard out of fear they'll have nothing one day, or they might need that useless thing one day. But the truth is: we need to get over this stuff! There's always more stuff in our future - the Good Will is full of other people's stuff they wasted their time, money, and our planet's resources on. You won't be young again, and your kids don't want your old toys. Oh, and your old girlfriend's not coming back, so make some room for a new one!

Minimalist's Angst: Not Clutter Again!

I don't know how or why it happens but clutter just seems to happen. Somehow yesterday I looked at my kitchen and thought, wow, we're slipping. The thing is I have zero tolerance for clutter. I have never understood how some people can sit happily with a neighbor sipping tea in their kitchens with piles of paperwork that needs to be dealt with, dirty dishes in the sink, random items that should be put away in other rooms and perhaps even a basket of laundry that needs folding. It makes me feel like Monica from Friends! I just want to start cleaning!

So to my horror, I looked at my own kitchen realized it had lost it's sparkle and needed to be decluttered. So what was wrong with it? All of my systems were in place and functioning, no appliances on the counters, no dirty dishes in the sink but some odd items were creeping in where they don't belong. First of all, my table has six chairs which seems like a great place to drop my purse, jackets, and dog leash. No, this is not where the go and I have an easy place to hang these things in the entryway closet but alas they were there. A pile of checks and misc. papers had accumulated on the table as well as some keys. Under the sink my recycling system had exploded, there were two cutting boards on my counter, a fruit bowl with one apple and two tomatoes in it, and a watering can that belongs outside. This may not sound like a lot, but in my tiny row house kitchen it is.

So I took action. First I got my iRobot vacuum going and took out all of the recycling to the garage. ( Green note: I recycle and compost 90% of my garbage so we only have garbage pick up once a month.) Next I put all of the items away that didn't belong there. Then it was time to pare down. I put the watering can on the back deck, put the random fruit in the fridge, washed out the fruit bowl and put it away, and put one of the cutting boards away. I decided to lose the table runner and put a new candle in the center of the table and wash the throw rug by the door. I had a huge bamboo bowl filled with pine cones that spilled over in what can only be described as "Northwest Chique" that seemed to be screaming winter, so they had to go. I bagged them up, put them into storage in the garage, washed the bowl and put it away. Next all of the surfaces were sprayed with bleach and water which then sat for one minute and then I wiped them all down. That kills most of the germs and bad bacteria in your kitchen. I of course washed the floor then picked some flowers in the back yard and put them where the pine cones had been. This may not seem like a lot but the room now feels bigger and more comfortable and inviting.

I hope this post will inspire you to hit your own kitchen and if you want to check out how my kitchen systems work, read some of my past posts on reducing kitchen appliances, reducing the amount of junk mail you get, and composting.

16 Ways to 'Green Up' the Kitchen

Green up your kitchen and it will be less cluttered, cleaner, and prettier too!

I started this site not just to help people unclutter their lives , but also to help show that reducing our consumption of things we don't use much (like kitchen gadgets) or didn't even ask for (like junk mail), can really help our planet. I hope some of these ideas take some of the stress out of your everyday living as they have for me. Thanks, The Minimalist

1. Donate your Coffee Maker and instead use a French Press ...read more
2. Replace your old dishwasher with an Energy Star model that uses less water read more
3. Replace your old fridge fro an Energy Star model that dispenses filtered water...read more
4. Donate your microwave to a school and try living without it....read why
5. Use washable bar rags and a bit of bleach mixed with water in a spray bottle to disinfect your kitchen.... here's why
6. Limit your kitchen gadgets that will eventually end up in landfills......here's how
7. Buy your last set of good quality pots and pans .... read more
8. Store things properly so food doesn't go to waste .... here's how
9. Stop buying food in cans.... here's why
10. Support your local farmer's market... here's an easy way
11. Cook from scratch, it's not that big a deal...... here's some help
12. Reduce your junk mail and get it off your kitchen table ......here's how
13 Stop catalogs from piling up...here's how
14 Contact companies and request that they change to earth friendly packaging.....like this
15. Compost your kitchen scraps .... here's how
16. Reduce your use of all plastics, recycle numbers 1-6 containers at your local transfer station, and bring your own bags to the store .....read more

Minimalist's Tips:Gdiapers and Other Good Things

New products are popping up all the time to help ease the volume in the world's landfills. If you've got a baby, you owe it to yourself to check out Gdiapers. My friend Missus.Mint has been trying them out and has written about her experience on her blog. They are flushable! I know I would have loved that when I had a baby! Click on Missus.Mint to reach the article.

Now here's my idea for the day: I love those Emrgen-C vitamin fizzy drinks but they come in a foil and plastic package. If they were in paper packet like a tea bag or in a paper tube like a Pixie Stick, I could just drop them into my compost bin. So, I'm going to write to the company, but before I do, I want to know what my friends think. So leave a comment and vote for either:

Tea bag like packet or Pixie Stick like tube. Then I'll let the company know the results when I write to them.

Minimalist’s Composting: Why it’s worth it.

You may have heard that composting is a good thing because food waste that rots in our landfills and creates methane gas that adds to the greenhouse effect, but that’s a lot to take in even for a minimalist. I mean, I’m not a scientist. But, here are some other reasons why I started composting my food waste.

First of all, I cook a fair amount so I create a lot of vegetable scraps. What do I do with them? I can either put them into my garbage disposal and risk clogging it up, (what a pain!), or I can throw them into my kitchen trash bin where they will make everything else in there wet. This means I will eventually have to wash out the bin (work) or I can walk a few steps to my deck and put them into my scrap collector. It’s actually nothing more than a plastic pickle container with a top that I got for free from a pub in our neighborhood. It’s a five gallon bucket like the kind one would paint out of, so it takes a few weeks to fill it up.

Sound easy so far right? What about when it is full?

Well, we have some big wooden containers left over from when we planted some pine trees in our yard in the fall so I dump the scraps in there. Then I mix them with the leaves I raked up in the fall and whatever potting soil I have around. We have had a really cold, wet spring this year here in Portland, but it is slowly breaking down into compost.

Some people say they have trouble with wild critters getting into this stuff and I’m sure I have had a few masked bandits, (city raccoons) , help themselves. But Ox the Boxer makes her presence pretty well known in the backyard which keeps a handle on it.

Banning Plastic Bags - Let's Get Started!

I am starting to do some research about how to think globally and act locally in regard to banning plastic bags. I have emailed our local Office of City Commissioner Sam Adams.

I have also done some more research and have found that there is a global movement to ban plastic bags. It's not just a "Portland Hippy Thing." So please join me and contact your local city officials. These movements seem to start there. iKea has all but stopped using them. They started charging a nominal fee for the bags and reduced plastic bag use by 90%. Details are here:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/3701

This is significant as iKea is a global retailer. Hats off to them! I will continue to inform my readers about what we can do to force this change in our own cities. Until then, you can at least reduce your consumption by using cloth bags to shop, reuse bags for produce, and use biodegradable dog and cat waste bags, available at Urban Lease and Treat.

The Minimalist’s Issues with Traveling Garbage

I met my sister and niece in Las Vegas to watch her in a cheer leading competition. We had a great time but I was distracted by all the garbage we created! I guess I really am obsessed with garbage because I think I generated more garbage in one week end than I would in a month at home! It was disgusting!

Of course it was all packaging, the thing that is choking our planet. Here’s how it went: on the airplane I was given two snacks in foil packets and a drink in a plastic cup. I couldn’t recycle the newspaper I was reading either. I tried to leave it in the pouch in the seat in front of me and was scolded by the flight attendant. (Remember when they used to be young and cute and always said, “Have a nice Day?”)

Then there were the plastic cups in the hotel room.

We went to see Elton John’s Red Piano Show which was wonderful. Unfortunately, every time we got another glass of wine from the concession stand there was another plastic cup. We asked if we could reuse the same ones and were told no with a condescending look. My sister thought she might reuse the cups at her house in her hot tub since they said Caesar's on them and were kind of cute but the idea of carrying them around all night soon lost it’s appeal.

Back at our hotel room we opted for extra towels and no maid service to save on sheet washing, vacuuming, and human energy. We reused the same plastic cups all weekend too. I even painted watercolors with one. But Las Vegas is having a water issue right now so there were the water bottles we threw away. Again, where were we to recycle them in a hotel? At least we made sure we turned off the lights and unplugged the hair appliances when we weren’t in the room.

Of course, everything we bought came with a plastic bag.

When we went to the Orleans Arena. There were thousands of cheerleaders everywhere and they had strewn litter all over the place. ( Not our team!) That was really sad.

On the way home: more plastic cups, foil wrappers, and a newspaper, (not recycled.)

Although, we had a great time, I came home with a whole list of new concerns about garbage and the tourist industry. So bare with me, I’m going to have to rant about garbage for at least five more posts. At least, my beautiful niece saw all of the small things we adults tried to do to be green and I know she took it all in.

I hate plastic! I found a great blog on the subject. Check it out!
http://lifelessplastic.blogspot.com/
And this....
http://i28.tinypic.com/w8mgs7.jpg

Minimalistic Lifestyle: Influencing Others

The main reason I wanted to write this blog was to have some influence over others behavior. That is to say, I want people to reduce what they buy by buying quality items that last, recycle as much as they can, reuse what they can and just start thinking about a sustainable lifestyle.

If you think you can't influence others to help our planet, here's a great example:
Seeing as it is spring break, my neighbor Kembol, who teaches eighth grade math and I took our babies, (dogs) for a long walk along the beautiful Willamette River. As usual we talked about our life concerns, our husbands, children and yes, politics. As we talked about the different candidates and how they would each handle the economic problems our country faces, it led us to a larger concern that we both have, our planet. I remarked that packaging is one of the biggest contributors to our landfills and why can't the companies that sell things help to fix that problem.

Then, Kembol tells me about her math lesson plan for last week. First she says she gave her eighth graders three types of snack cakes, Ho Hos, Ding Dongs, and Little Debbies.

The kids had to calculate the surface area and then they could eat them. Okay, great, we've done that type of stuff before. The difference in this lesson was what she challenged them with next! She asked them to find a way for each prospective company to save on packaging and to calculate the difference. Apparently, each group was able to come up with different designs that would save packaging. One student even came up with a triangular package. I ask you, if eighth grade math students can redesign a product to save packaging, why can't the companies who sell it do it? Or why won't they?

My friend then told me she wasn't sure if she influenced the kids at all as they didn't seem very impressed. I had to remind her that eighth graders are seldom impressed and if they are they don't let their teachers know, ( yes, I taught eighth grade once.) I am sure she influenced her math students and why don't we have more great teachers like her? At any rate, she surely earned her spring break!

Minimalist Finances: Getting Rid of More Junk Mail

When looking at simplifying finances, it makes sense to eliminate as much junk mail as we can. Not only are we helping the environment, but it makes it less likely that we will miss something important. In addition to arranging for paperless billing one can opt out of many catalogs and credit card offers.

To stop unwanted catalogs go to the Catalog Choice site. It’s a free service. Simply sign up and choose the catalogs you don’t want to receive. What's great is that you can update it whenever you want. I update it whenever I receive a new catalog. I feel that I am actually doing the retailer a favor by saving them their advertising money, because after all, I’m not going to order anything anyway! If I do want to order something that would be in their catalogs, I just go on line.

Here is a great time saver! Opt out of credit card offers. These are a huge time waster because they have to be shredded. What’s worse if they are stolen from your mailbox it could result in identity theft. Opting out is free and easy and you can opt back in at any time. Just go to the Opt Out Prescreen web site. And if you’re worried about missing some great credit card offer that would be mailed only to you, don’t. You can always shop for the best credit card deals on the Lower My Bills site or check with your mortgage carrier or bank.