How many of you grow squashes? Last year, I grew about six different squashes. Little pumpkins. Acorn Squash. Sweet Potato Squash. And some other funny sounding name squashes. My neighbor grew them too and complained of the dreaded squash bug. She even showed me one while I was visiting her. They are gray and to be kind to bugs, they are not too attractive. Ms America bug, um, not this one.
Fortunately, I did not see any of my own squash bugs, but then again they could have been there under the straw mulch. I just did not notice.
The other day, I received my second unwanted fax from a broadcast advertiser. In my post, “How to Stop Unwanted Faxes,” I gave you the keys on how to stop these faxes from showing up in your fax tray. But as I thought about it more and more, was faxing just plain bad for the environment?
This thought about the environmental impact of faxing did not just come out of the blue. (Although many of my thoughts do.) The unwanted fax that I received had a unsubscribe address, National Do Not Fax (also know as “Stop Junk Faxes”) which promoted e-faxing in the name of the environment. Of course, it was linked to an e-fax website, MyFax, with starting costs at $10 a month/$110 per year for 100 sending faxes and 200 receiving faxes. (Prices varied based upon the amount of faxes sent and received. )
The other night the phone rang at 3 am in the morning! It scared the H out of me. As I rolled over to pick up the phone, I noticed it was my fax line that was ringing. Who in the heck was faxing me in the middle of the night?
Readers, has this happened to you?
The next day I checked the National Do not Call service to see if I entered my fax number as a “do not call” for marketers. Well, there was the number plain as day in their registry. I figured this fax was a fluke and in the event I received another one, I would file a complaint.
Well, this Sunday I received another one. As I stared at the fax, I noticed the following sentence on the bottom:
Hmm. Was this a hoax? Gingerly and being skeptical, I entered the url name into my search engine. (By the way the web address above is re-directed to www.stopjunkfax.org.) With a gulp, I entered my fax line. Hopefully this will be the end of the marketing faxes and my late night calls.
I prayed that I did not open up a can of worms, …I mean, faxes to be delivered at all hours of the night and day. There is nothing about this site good or bad on the internet, and there does not seem to be any other “do not fax” sites. Readers, a little help please. [click to continue…]
Did you ever wonder if what we bring into our homes could be increasing our risk of cancer, developmental issues in our children, or asthma? How could a lovely PVC shower curtain or new stain resistant couch cause any problems? Or perhaps that new shade of yellow paint that smelled for a couple of days after you painted the wall?
Unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way, through my children. When you have children that have learning disabilities, ADD, asthma, eczema, and JV Diabetes, you start to examine your own life and ask what have you done wrong. I started to question as they grew older, if any of the products that I used in our home caused any of their problems? [click to continue…]
How many of you watch the Capital One commercials , especially the maroders or hooligans ones? At the end of the commercial, they ask, “what’s in your wallet?” Well, I am asking you the same thing about your pantry or medicine cabinet. Well, the Capital One gang visited my house this year. They pillaged, destroyed, and wretched my pantry. They threw duplicates of the same products that I had on the shelves. Then they mixed up everything in the pantry, so I can’t find anything. And finally to make matters worse, they even put expired food on the shelves. I heard them laughing as they ran off , and yelled at me, “what’s in your pantry?”
I was screwed.
Yah, I only wish that I could blame them instead of me. It is so much easier to blame than take responsibility for my ridiculous out of control pantry. In, my article, “Confessions of a Green Food Waster,” I stood up and said that this green person (me) was a shameless food waster and would be methane creator had I not owned a composter. But worse then the stale food, was the expired food that I found. Did you know some of your food has expiration dates? [click to continue…]
A green food waster. What an oxymoron. I am not proud of what I am going to confess. As green as I think I have become, my family and I are food wasters. Our habits are hurting the Earth. How so?
Every couple of months I can’t stand the clutter or dirty drawers in my house. A year ago, I challenged Green Talk readers to clean up the clutter in their own house as I tackled my overcrowded pantry. What I found last year was a ton of empty boxes just left in the pantry. My kids can’t throw out recycle an empty box to save their lives.
Another year went by and lo and behold the pantry reverted back to its sinister overcrowded, messy, can’t find anything self. It is odd that a pantry would take on the same personality of my children. No matter how I try, duplicates triplicates of the same product show up. I swear something biological has been injected into my pantry causing duplicates and triplicates of the product to show up. Cloning at its best. Either that, a zealous husband who thinks we need a particular item or something was on “Great” sale. [click to continue…]
I really enjoy podcasting but it is alot of work to put it up on the site and then write my usual articles about a product or company. I wish that people would just listen to the podcast so I could skip writing. I took an informal poll of my Green Carnival Moms and majority said they don’t listen to podcasts. So, I thought I would throw this question out to my readers and see your response.
Would you listen to a podcast and if so, what length of time would be just right? [click to continue…]
Beth Terry is my hero. I have been following Beth and Fake Plastic Fish, the blog she pens for over two years. Beth has inspired others including yours truly on how to live a plastic free life. She makes her readers think about their own consumption with a healthy dose of plastic free alternatives to make the journey easier.
I wrote about Beth when I visited her blog for the first time. Until that point in time, I never looked at my own plastic consumption since I recycled as much as I could. A good beginning but I was not really looking at what my consumption was doing to the Earth. Each plastic straw, container, and bowl was depleting our Earth’s natural resources of petroleum. [click to continue…]
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