Archive for October, 2009
« Previous EntriesEasy Peasy Tip: Mulch!
Saturday, October 31st, 2009It’s fall for many of us in the northern hemisphere, and in the northeast US the trees have nearly entirely lost their leaves. Guess that means it’s time for a good fall mulching! How about killing two birds with one stone (so to speak!): you’ve got a yard full of leaves, don’t worry about bagging [...]
Tiny Choices Survey: Marisa!
Friday, October 30th, 2009Vital statistics (name, age, location)? Marisa, 33, New York, NY How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)? Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain. Last year, my husband and I moved to a loft-like apartment in a building that used to be a parking garage downtown Manhattan because he has [...]
Coffee Ramblings
Thursday, October 29th, 2009So I seemed to have recently jumped back on the coffee bandwagon. After about 7 years as a dedicated tea drinker I’m again drinking the mud. Delicious delicious mud, how I missed you! I had given it up because I just knew, felt in my body and my mind, that it wasn’t any good for [...]
Tiny Choosing a new mug
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009Last month I posted about how my poor old tough travel mug was, well, in really bad (smelly!) shape. So I soaked my mug, and scrubbed it out, and when that didn’t work, I went out shopping and bought a couple of different replacement options. OK, so first let me say that I recognize that [...]
Tiny Choices Giveaway: IceBreaker Wool Shirt!
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009Team Tiny Choices is very happy to be hosting this giveaway, from Icebreaker wool clothing! It was an absolute coincidence that we both wrote our Icebreaker love-letter posts simultaneously (Jenn’s here and Karina’s here)– but it’s a good indicator of the depth of our respect for their products. Up for grabs is a Chase Zip [...]
Eco-insulation
Monday, October 26th, 2009It’s getting awfully cold up here in the northeast of the US, and my partner and I are facing a task we’ve been putting off for some time – insulating the attic. Yikes! The house had a horrible roof and window leak situation, so the prior owners ripped out all the old insulation and replaced [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Buy Shade-Grown Coffee
Saturday, October 24th, 2009While we’re all familiar with the “organic” food label, many folks are confused by (or have just never noticed) the “shade-grown” certification for coffee. So, what’s shade-grown mean, and why is it important? From the Audubon website: “In many tropical countries, coffee farming occupies much of the land, especially in the highland hills and valleys [...]
Sign Up: No Impact Weeks at HuffPo!
Friday, October 23rd, 2009Do you need a project to work through this fall? How about the No Impact Project? No Impact Man has developed a guided project to help you walk through evaluating your life and working towards a nonimpactful one. Now, we’re a tiny bit late with this – it launched October 18th! but check it out [...]
My New Flame: A Vintage Zippo Lighter
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009Ya’ll are the first to share in my excitement: I just won a vintage Zippo lighter on eBay! It’s kind of a funny thing for me to be excited about, seeing as how I don’t smoke… But I do have things in my home which occasionally need to be lit: candles, incense, the stovetop when [...]
Ending the Growing Season
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009This week we saw two big milestones up where I live – the first heavy frost, and the last week of our CSA. We’ve had 20 great weeks of CSAing, including piles and piles of corn that I begged for help with! I thought I could recap some of my successes and failures of the [...]
Reusable Cup Cozies
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009I visited friends in Philly this past weekend, and we went out for breakfast on Sunday morning at a B2, a cute little neighborhood coffeeshop. I really appreciated that they offer vegan versions of most items on their menu– smoothies can be had with soy yogurt, bagels can be eaten with tofu cream cheese, and [...]
Choosing Box Wine
Monday, October 19th, 2009Lately, and I admit to feeling funny about writing this post - but lately, I’ve been choosing box wine. OK, so it’s a silly thing to say! but you know, it turns out there are kind of significant environmental benefits. As much as I love wandering around the wine store choosing bottles based purely on [...]
Tiny Choices Weekly Roundup!
Sunday, October 18th, 2009Wherein we summarize all the fun and information from the previous week for your convenience! Last week on Tiny Choices: Monday: Karina asks how you gently point out to someone that sometimes environmentalism may not be “pretty.” Tuesday: Jenn shares her ultra popular birthday adventure concept. Wednesday: Karina wonders why bodily functions are so, well, [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Stretch It Out
Saturday, October 17th, 2009Think about ways to stretch things out, make them last longer and/or go further– this way you’ll conserve resources and save money! Adding a little water to the dishsoap or shampoo bottle makes it go further and rarely decreases its cleansing power. Espresso diluted with hot water uses less ground coffee than a regular cup [...]
Tiny Choices Survey: Stacey!
Friday, October 16th, 2009Vital statistics (name, age, location)? Stacey, 33, Madison, WI How do you reside (apartment or house, roommates)? Are your housing decisions dictated by choice or necessity? Please explain. I just moved into a 1 bedroom apartment that is larger than I need for just me. This was a combination of choice and necessity. While I [...]
Thrift Shop Shopping
Thursday, October 15th, 2009What with the recent weather change from warm to not-at-all-warm, I suddenly had the realization that I had nothing to wear. So today I went on a shopping spree– at my local thriftshop! This way I purchased items which already existed (thus no production pollution), which are nearly-new, and cost me a fraction of the [...]
Whyever are bodily functions so interesting?
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009I’m not sure why this is, but you have to agree with me that bodily functions are just fascinating. Take for example this article from Treehugger about a polite request from Nippon Airlines to pee before getting on board – according to Treehugger: The experiment, which runs just through October, will ask all passengers to [...]
Birthday Adventures
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009I’ve been taking my nieces and nephews on Birthday Adventures for the past three years or so, and it’s a become a ritual we all enjoy: instead of my buying them a physical ift for their birthday, they get to choose a full day of adventure together. It’s up to them to think about what [...]
When environmentalism may not be “pretty.”
Monday, October 12th, 2009I was out in Massachusetts this weekend spending a lovely weekend with my family at Jiminy Peak, home of the Zephyr! which is, probably, the unofficial wind turbine of Tiny Choices. And the turbines are EVERYWHERE, and you can see the line of turbine “stalks” being installed along the top of the mountain ridge moving [...]
Easy Peasy Tip: Stop & Think
Saturday, October 10th, 2009We live in a rushy-rushy world, and often don’t have much time to stop and think. But if we give ourselves just a moment or two to breathe and be conscious about our next move, often we’ll be able to make a more informed decision: Is there a better way to transport your sandwich/wrap than [...]
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