L73: Laundry

This last Christmas Eve I spent the evening with my son. We went to the laundry together. We each had four or five loads because we decided to end the year with clean bedding, towels and all of our clothing fresh and organized. We had a good time strolling down memory lane. I reminded him how he was in charge of doing all of the laundry when he was a senior in high school and we lived in South Philadelphia. He hadn’t remembered that I insisted he do all the laundry all the time because his was the lion’s share of the loads.

My observation was that my kid used a towel and threw it in the laundry, wore a pair of jeans and threw it in the wash pile. My strategy was to make him responsible for it all. Now that doesn’t sound too onerous unless I mention that this was in Philadelphia where we had to schlep our laundry up and down stairs and walk blocks to the Laundromat. The thing is, it hadn’t really changed his heavy laundry loads.

And this is the first thing I want to say about laundry. I think Americans wash clothes more often than necessary. Clothes can be worn more than once unless one’s day is in a physically demanding, filthy place.

Next I want to jump in with the 2008 program I have been following. As I said in past post, air drying and appliances, I air dry my clothes and use the community coin washing machines at $1.25 a load. In that post I also said I’d like the Wonder Wash and I still do. The thing is I decided to buy a solar oven today (another post for another day). I was arguing with myself this afternoon because the cost right now is killing me. It is only $54 with shipping. That will pay for itself before the year is out. That helped me decide to go for it.

Lastly, the major change this year is with the cleaning products. I wrote about getting rid of household cleaners and replacing them with natural products like vinegar, soda, salt, etc. Well, I have also quit with the petrochemical detergent and gone with Soap Nuts.

I use Maggie’s Soap Nuts as these were recommended to me by a neighbor and I can get it from a store within walking distance. According to the website text:

Maggie’s Soap Nuts™ are the only laundry soap that grows on trees!
Truly effective, 100% natural and safe for your most sensitive skin.
Soap NutsTM are the dried fruit of the Chinese Soapberry tree.
They contain saponin, a natural cleaner used for thousands of
years to clean clothes, just like the plants used by Native Americans
for washing.

Simply put a few Soap Nuts into the included cotton sack and drop
it in your laundry. Your clothes come out clean, vibrant, and soft.
Replace your laboratory detergents and softeners with the soap
made from Nature by Nature. Your clothes, your skin, your family,
and your planet will thank you.

I couldn’t be happier with this product. It really is pleasant smelling. A part of me questions how this really works as the soap nuts bag stays in the machine during the rinse because the commercial front loader doesn’t allow me to open the door during the whole process.

When I get my Wonder Wash I will be able to remove the little bags prior to rinse.

Another justification besides cost will be no electricity, saving water and the soap’s better efficiency. I will confess to one more advantage. I will be able to launder my toilet wipes at home rather than dragging them to the community laundry. Ha! I am seldom this discreet, but it happens.

Kidding aside, these two consumer goods purchases represent major lifestyle changes towards sustainability. I realize that I am ready to take this on as a life change, not just a sustainability experiment. Yet, I am full cognizant that there will be those who read this and decide it is just off the charts impractical (for him or her). That's cool. For myself there is a growing impatience with half measures. The longer I pursue living simply the more attractive it becomes. It also gets more efficient as I practice. I wonder if it is even coincidental that chile, green bean and others are writing similar words? Somehow it is all connected.

laundromats by Patrick Q at flickr

A3: Arugula & Avocado

Sunday morning was a pleasant surprise for me. My son called and we decided to go over to the Farmer’s Market together. It is rare that he has a Sunday off, so when I made the suggestion he jumped. It had been raining for days so the landscape was moisture laden and the light was eerie in the fog here along the coast. But, oh how the green things thrive. My kid showed me his happy discovery when he’d put a dying holiday evergreen miniature outside and it came back with a vengeance.

Over the past week I have written about my desire to eat locally grown food. For me, this is Activism that goes beyond the political petitions, phoning, etc. Activism now means living my beliefs. I signed on to the 100 foot diet challenge at Path To Freedom. (Although I do admit I misread it as 100 mile diet challenge and thought of my Farmer’s Market.)

This New Year begins in a really baby step kind of way with my trip to Sunday’s Farmer’s Market. After several months of chips and dip, I don’t have my eating patterns back in sync yet. I decided that I would have some fun with it. So, I am going to eat locally – which translates to growing some of my own, eating seasonal vegetables and fruits too - AND I am especially going to eat foods beginning with the letter of the week.

It is clear that this is the ‘A” week at the make-a-(green) plan blog, right? I decided to start with Arugula and Avocado. Did you know that in the pagan rituals ‘Air’ represents mental activity, thoughts, reason and intellect, memory, knowledge, persuasion, birth and friendship, freedom, clarification and expression? I didn’t either until I stumbled on it. But it reminds me that I could make a game – a knowledgeable, convincing game - of my menu planning.

My first thought was simply to think of both the arugula and avocado for good salad makings. But, I came across a great arugula pesto recipe, an idea I found Googling to a site named In My Kitchen Garden.

Farmgirl's Arugula Pesto

1/3 cup of your favorite olive oil
1 ounce garlic (about 6 cloves), peeled and sliced
6 ounces arugula, preferably very young leaves
3 ounces freshly grated pecorino romano or other hard cheese (about 1 cup)
1 cup canned garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed (about 5-1/2 ounces)
[Snip]
Combine all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Add salt to taste and more oil if desired. Will keep for at least a week in the refrigerator. Cover with a thin layer of olive oil if you are the type of person who gets upset when the top of your food turns a different color.

The reason this recipe appeals to me is I am about to do a major U-turn with my eating patterns.

Full disclosure, I am out of sorts with my past months of impulse eating and the last week of cold and food cravings. One week into the year begins with me having a refrigerator full of half eaten food gone off. I need to toss old cooked broccoli, the last of the middle-eastern food, two egg cartons full of used shells, 2 bowls of homemade hummus, a carton of French onion dip mixed with yogurt and a container full of romaine lettuce. The reason I haven’t dealt with this is I wanted to have a composter ready. That may not happen because I failed to plan this. It is a whole other story for another post.

Being a firm believer in making it easier to do the right thing (make-a-plan), I don’t think I can screw up with a delicious dip on hand. I suspect that giving myself a really nutritious, dark green, locally-grown, seasonal dip I can eat at every meal with cut up vegetables is bound to make eating better pretty easy. My variations this week can be using avocado in a dip, and making more yogurt cheese (my contribution to our holiday meal). Dips are a really good way for me to eat vegetables mindlessly and not take on the cooking, heating commitment.

For more than a year I ate hummus with cut up vegetables every day for an afternoon snack. I love it with a passion and it is a tasty way for a vegetarian wannabe to get protein, and a potable food when there is no refrigeration around (hikes, errands, etc.) I also have black beans and rice on hand without needing to go to the store for anything more. This arugula pesto and the avocado are both good green compliments to these comfort foods. A black bean with rice meal is another favorite menu item (twice weekly) for me.

I am glad I found In My Kitchen Garden because there were so many ideas for arugula pesto alone. I know I will visit again.

But for sheer inspiration you can’t beat this family from Pasadena, California. I introduced this video in November and I will embed it again, as I said I’d do at the onset. It is worth watching more than once.
Avocado photo

Major Breakthrough - Major purchase

I finally did it. I have been researching Japanese websites and the internet in general for two years. This invention was made for a tiny space like my 278 square feet. At last I found what I wanted and then have waited months and months. I finally decided that it was silly to wait any longer. I am heading towards a year of no purchases and of a dramatic reduction in my carbon footprint. This lovely invention will assist me. It should arrive soon. I am one happy woman. I had a video of it and I will look for it to place on the blog.

Credit where credit is due, let me direct any other interested parties to the Path to Freedom folk's and their Peddler's Wagon where I purchased this for less than $100 including shipping.

The beauty of this design is that it uses the fresh water that usually is simply flushed down the toilet to wash hands before draining into the toilet's flush reservoir. It is one of those 'duh' inventions that make us scratch our heads and say, "What took so long?"

Update: I received an email this morning that the software at the Peddler's Wagon didn't automatically add the $12 shipping. I had to add that to my purchase price. So, for the record $108 and change. Still a bargain.

Call to Arms

There have been four primary resources for my new commitment to change my lifestyle, to make my own green plan and to challenge myself and others to do more with less. Today I am thrilled to share the following video of really inspirational bioneers, the Path to Freedom website. Today they featured their story via this incredibly motivational video.



I intend to refer back to this video frequently in the upcoming year.