Greening our home, however temporary it may be...

So, my gf and I are still in our apartment, which both of us are definitely sick of. We're SO anxious to get a house and to make it ours, it's kind of hard to bear. Once we do have our place, we'll both be trying to save money, big time, and I believe that we'll also be doing a lot of things to save energy, which often go hand-in-hand.

I've been making a conscious effort, which is quickly becoming more and more unconscious, to use more "green," earth-friendly products, to spend my money more wisely on things that I hope will make a tiny impact on how much strain I add to the earth, while improving my own well-being. Once I got that baby gift together for my friend a couple months ago, that was really an inspiration to how much these things matter and how easily they can be done. Even just little steps.

So far, I've been buying as much organic food as possible, within my budget constraints. I'm buying only recycled napkins and TP, usually from Marcal Small Steps. Their napkins and TP are great! Very high quality, good strength and softness, 100% recycled, and not chlorine-bleached. They are sold at the chain grocery store near my work, and they're just about as cheap as the stuff made from virgin forests!

I've been printing coupons online, for organic brands, because they are rarely in the coupon books that come in the newspaper. I set up a gmail account to subscribe to the newsletters of all sorts of organic and eco-conscious brands, so that they wouldn't clog up my regular email and so they'd be all in one place!

Since researching all that baby stuff on the Cosmetics Database, I've switched some of my cosmetics to organic brands. My shampoo and conditioner are EO, and my body wash is Dr. Bronner's soap. I tell you, that shit cleans everything!! My skin feels great, and I've used the other scents to clean our grimy front stairs, and all over our house. I've ordered the Baby Mild kind, and I plan to use that exclusively in the shower, and keep the tingly Peppermint for cleaning the house! I also bought Seventh Generation's all-purpose spray cleaner, so that when my gf goes on her cleaning binges on Saturday mornings, she can use something not-scary!

My latest step, today, was starting to switch us over to compact fluorescent light bulbs. I had 4 bulbs, purchased from Big Lots and from Target, using a coupon for GE's Energy Smart bulbs. Today the forecast was for 90 degrees and humid. Time to turn our AC units on. And I figured, if these bulbs can help us save a little bit of money and energy, hopefully that will help us offset some of what we're using with our air conditioners! So I put them in the lights that we use most, and honestly, the light is really nice. Not gross and green-looking like I thought it might be. So as soon as I can, I plan to get more of these to replace even more in our home! And once we get a house, I want us to only use these bulbs. Sure they're more pricey at the beginning, but they're not terrible! And the Energy Smart bulbs are supposed to last for 8 years! Quite a smart investment, in my opinion.

I'm hoping that we'll see only a slight increase in next month's electric bills, despite having the AC turned on here and there. Here's hoping!

Shows I've been watching for inspiration:
Sundance Channel's:
Eco Trip: The Real Cost of Living
Big Ideas for a Small Planet
The Lazy Environmentalist

Everyone needs to see this movie:
Food, Inc. (It's available to stream on Netflix!)

A Basket of Safe Things To Welcome Baby

One of my dear friends will be having a baby in a month or so. Her shower was a few days ago, and I was so excited to give her the present I put together for her! Now, really, this is so nerdy, you're going to think I must have all the time in the world. Well, that's not true. I just thought about it well in advance, so I had the time to do researching (and also to spread out the cost)!

My friend is a lot like me, and I thought, "What would I want for my baby shower?" I quickly realized that articles I've read about toxic ingredients in food, BPA in baby bottles, pesticides being found in breast milk, etc.-- all that stuff had stayed filed away in my brain. I realized I would want the gifts my friend's give me to enable me to take good care of my baby, and to do that in as safe a way as possible. I just feel like babies and kids nowadays are exposed to a lot more dangerous chemicals than I was as a child, and a lot more early!

What tripped the whole machine in motion, was seeing a gorgeous, wooden baby rattle on etsy.com. Handmade, dyed with fruit juices, and treated with beeswax and flax seed oil. Incredible. I would feel safe letting my teething baby chomp on this!

And so, off I went, to research products for this big gift project. My main reference site was Skin Deep's Cosmetics Database, which rates commercial products on a scale of 0 to 9, with 9 being the worst for you, by looking at whether or not it contains harmful ingredients (i.e. ingredients which are known to be cancer-causing, or cause neurological and/or reproductive damage), and if so, in what concentration. My goal was to put together a basket of baby products that all scored 0 or 1, to give the mamma-to-be another option besides the normal Baby Magic that we all grew up with (which, btw, scores a 6 in the database!)

Some of the products with the best scores were harder to find. I was glad I had the time to deal with orders that were canceled due to no stock. I also had time to shop around for price. And, even though these particular products were obviously not rated by Skin Deep, I was able to find homemade products on etsy which contained the same ingredients as some of the best-scoring items on Skin Deep.

Here is the result:
Here is what the basket contained:

Aveeno Baby Soothing Bath Treatments (available at Target and lots of places)
Dr. Bronner's Castile Liquid Soap - Baby Mild
Poofy Organics Baby Poof Baby Lotion score: 0 And it actually has an expiration date! (UPDATE: Now that the baby is here, mama swears by this lotion to soothe her brand-new baby's peely skin.)
All Natural Creations Baby Bottom Salve score: 0 And cheap! I ordered two. ;)
Baby Powder from Rainwater Botanicals Talcum powder is really bad for baby's developing lungs!
Kiddopotamous Organic Cotton Swaddler (from Target)
Organic Cotton Crib Sheets (from Amazon)
Organic Cotton Receiving Blanket from Lovely Lou Organics
Pacifier Clips (3) from Bare Bebe (Gorgeous! And packaged so prettily!)
Book: "Organic Baby: Simple Steps For Healthy Living" (I found it, randomly, at Tuesday Morning! Bought one for myself, too.)

For the house:
Dr. Bronner's Sal Suds Liquid Soap
Seventh Generation All-Purpose Cleaner, Free & Clear
All Free detergent (there was a definite consensus among the natural mommy blogs that this detergent was by far the best!)

For Mama:
Earth Mama Angel Baby Bottom Balm (I thought I was buying the kind for baby! Oops! Oh, well.)
Pregnancy Tea and Sitz Bath from Flying Bird Botanicals (UPDATE: The mama was amazed at the pregnancy tea. It had ALL of the herbs that her doula had recommended to her to help with the pregnancy.) (UPDATE: Now that the baby is here, mama told me that the sitz bath was just the thing to soothe her new baby and her own body, in the bath together.)

And the wood rattle, of course. :)