As seen in The Green Living Journal, Summer 2018 The Simple Choice Okay, I know that making choices isn’t always so simple. For one thing, we often operate on auto-pilot, just repeating the same patterns and habits over and over,...
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Home
(As seen in the Green Living Journal Winter 2016) “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” Thoreau The theme of this issue is Healthy Home. Gosh, how to narrow...
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Reduce – the first “R”
(as seen in the Green Living Journal, Fall 2015) Reduce: the first R Let’s talk about reducing your consumption of one of life’s necessities – water. If you think back to a basic science class, remember how the teacher said that...
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Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
Back in 2002, our refrigerator died. No big deal, right? Just get a new one and have it delivered. Which we did. It happens that our house sits above street level. The only way to get the new fridge into...
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Your choices do matter
Last year I presented my class at Northwest Natural Gas over four lunch hours. At the first session, one of the participants said “I just don’t know if what I do matters.” I blurted out “You’ll feel differently at...
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No free lunch?
I recently attended a luncheon held to honor employees who had worked for a particular employer for five, ten, fifteen, twenty and twenty-five years. It was a lovely event – the food was good, the acknowledgements were heart-felt, and one...
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How to get your chores done while having fun!
For ten years, we were part of a work party. We met once a month at one of the participant’s home, worked for three hours doing whatever the homeowner needed us to do, then had a potluck. We brought along...
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What’s in your garbage?
Yes, that’s kind of a personal question, isn’t it? However, in order to get a handle on what you’re sending to the landfill, do one thing – look at what is in your garbage can. It can be pretty eye-opening,...
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How did we get here?
People always ask “how do you do that?” when they hear about our one can of garbage a year. While one of our friends did accomplish one can a year in just one year, for us it is a longer...
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Do One Thing
We catch water. What does that mean? We have a tankless water heater so while we’re waiting for our water to get hot for washing dishes or for showering, we use a bucket to catch the water that would go...