Reduce, Reuse, Recycle series: Part 3, Recycle

This is part 3 in a 3-part series on minimizing waste through the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle maxim.  Read part 1 here, and part 2 here.

I've been putting off doing this last post in the series for about a week six weeks now, but at the urging of my mom and sister, I'm finally blowing the dust off this draft.  Yeah, I've been busy, but isn't everyone?  The real reason it's been so long is because, frankly, recycling seems boring in comparison to reducing and reusing.  But regardless of glamour, it is an integral part of the process--the steps are presented in the best order to apply them: reducing first, reusing what you can't cut out or cut back on, and finally recycling items at the end of their useful life.  I recycle less than I reduce or reuse, mainly because if one has successfully applied the first two steps, there is little that one needs to recycle at all.  

As a side note, the line between reusing and recycling is sometimes a little blurry to me.  If I repurpose an old toothbrush to clean tile grout or scrub out laundry stains, that seems like a clear case of reuse--its basic function is still scrubbing, whether it's teeth or tile.  Similarly, returning a CRV bottle or can to be melted down and made into more bottles or cans (and getting your five cents back!) is the archetypical image of recycling.  My argument is that it's recycling if you change the basic nature or essential function of the item somehow.  It's also recycling if you destroy it in the process of making a new item out of its materials, while reusing relies on the item remaining pretty much the same thing it's always been and performing the similar functions to the ones it's always performed.    

Without further semantic fussing, here are a few ways I like to recycle.  [Warning: upon edit, further semantic fussing indeed remains ahead.]  Some of these recycling techniques are pretty Duh-worthy, and some are a little more unusual, as things often are around here.  

Let's start with the first way I ever recycled: returnable bottles and cans.  Growing up in Massachusetts and Maine, I learned that almost all beverage containers are returnable for a five cent bottle deposit refund.  In Maine, there is even a fifteen cent deposit on wine bottles--wowza!  My sister and I got to keep the recycling money if we were willing to feed the bottles and cans, one at a time, into the redemption machine (has sort of a religious ring to it, huh?)--a tedious but easy job, and a great way to make a quick buck.  In California, they do it by weight instead of count at most centers, but the principle is the same.   At my local recycling trailer, I can even give them non-CRV glass (like wine bottles--sadly, we're not in Maine anymore), and they give me the eensy-weensy sum of a quarter of a cent per pound.  I take my returnables about once a month, or whenever our bin is overflowing, and usually get a few bucks--Roomie contributes hers too, but she's happy to let me keep the money if I take them all to the center.  Yesterday I took the returnables from my place AND B's place, and got $5.67.  So not a lot, but that could be turned into an extra gallon and a half of gas, (best price around here right now is $3.59), a six pack of Trader Jose beer, or $5 for my savings account and the $0.76 for the spare change jar.  Swish.     

My hometown also had curbside recycling pickup for mixed paper, metal, glass, corrugated cardboard, and all plastics numbers 1-7.  When I visited my grandparents in Ohio, I was appalled to discover that their city did not offer curbside recycling, and there were no state bottle deposits, so EVERYTHING just went in the trash.  Some people will laugh about this, but that discovery at age 8 or so seriously slashed my list of states I'd consider living in long-term unless they change their ways.  My apartment complex does not have recycling dumpsters (a major WTF MAN WE LIVE IN CALIFORNIA, BOOOOOO! moment), but I'm serious enough about it that I'll stuff my mixed paper, styrofoam meat packages, steel cans, etc. in the back of my truck and dispose of it on a visit to B's, where they DO have recycling.

What about hard-to recycle items--ones that can technically be recycled but are hard to clean properly or find a facility that accepts them?  I hang on to those silly plastic bags I get when I've forgotten my reusable ones, and wait until I find a store that'll recycle those for me, since in Orange County (and I think a bunch of other places, too) they're not recyclable municipally.  Near me, there's a Target, a Best Buy, and an Albertsons that recycle them.  (I do keep a few for cat poop bags, though.)  I also rinse and recycle used aluminum foil, as it it perfectly recyclable as long as it's completely free of food waste.  Batteries can get dropped off at hardware stores, most Walgreens stores, and many electronics stores, such as Radio Shack.  Motor oil, if you change your own (I'm not that cool yet, but for those of you who are), can go to most auto parts stores, some of which filter and refine to be used again.  Also note that it's illegal to dump used motor oil on the ground, down the drain, or in the trash, even if it's in a sealed container, so please don't do that.  Many mailing and packaging stores will accept clean packing peanuts and bubble wrap for recycling.  Brita filters, plastic toothpaste tubes, take out containers, and more #5 plastics (usually hard to recycle, often rejected curbside--but not in MA since we rule!) are all accepted at Preserve's Gimme 5 program.  They have drop-off bins throughout the country, and if there isn't one near you, it's also possible to mail in your plastics.         

My countertop compost bucket

Moving away from Thank-you-Captain-Obvious territory, composting is one of my favorite ways to recycle.    Fun fact, which my mom can corroborate: I started composting BEFORE I cared about gardening or any other hippie thing, just because the idea of that much food waste going to the landfill bothered me.  Of course, I felt the opportune time to start this endeavor was while cleaning up after a dinner party with the guests still present.  (My thought process at 15: more waste, more compost!)  But all things considered, I wouldn't trade that strange beginning for anything--composting is what first lit a fire under my butt about organic farming.  The compost pile takes what was useless and transforms it into a medium for new plant life, and as a bonus provides increased sustainability and independence for the grower.  It doesn't matter what you grow; vegetables, fruits, flowers, moss, whatever.  If it's something you'd otherwise buy, you are becoming more independent from the vast industrial food network.  What else was I possibly going to do with coffee grounds, kale ribs, eggshells, moldy bread, banana peels, or veggie butts that aren't freezable for broth (ya know, tomatoes, zucchini, herb stems, eggplant--the kind that pretty much melt when you defrost them)?  Since I don't have pigs (yet--definitely working on it!), the answer is they'd go in the trash, or down the garbage disposal at best--not the most useful fate for these nitrogen-, phosphorous-, potassium- and carbon-rich items. Composting digests anything that was once alive and makes its nutrients available to plants in the soil.  Pretty rad payoff just for throwing one kind of trash together in its own heap.

Red wine vinegar in large dispenser (right),
white wine vinegar in quart jar (left)

Another weird-but-not-that-weird Hippie Thing™ that I do: I make wine vinegar out of leftover or spoiled wine.  You're probably thinking, "What is this mysterious leftover wine?  And how does it get left alone long enough to spoil?"  The answer is, it's mostly not me.  Roomie and her fiancé often open a bottle of red wine, drink about half of it with dinner, and then leave it corked on top of the fridge for storage.  (If you're wondering, this is not a great idea.  Red wine is not damaged by refrigeration, either before or after uncorking--it just needs time to warm up to about 55 and oxygenate before drinking, which many people assume means you should not keep an open bottle in the fridge.  That is only true if you plan to drink it in the next 12 hours or so.)  By the time Roomie and Fiancé remember it (often a week or two later), the wine has already begun its natural transformation into red wine vinegar by fermenting.  I made the initial contribution with about a cup of red wine and a few tablespoonfuls of Bragg's unfiltered apple cider vinegar (I chose Bragg's because it still has the mother), covered it loosely with a towel to keep bugs out but let air in, and that was it.  Thereafter I gave the developing vinegar a little bit off the top whenever I opened a bottle of wine.  Cut to five months later, and between many small per bottle contributions and Roomie's occasional over-the-fridge extras, I have about 3 quarts of red wine fermenting into DELICIOUS red wine vinegar at the moment.  #TheTastiestKindOfRecycling
  
I also like to donate or sell stuff that I'm no longer using--in college this was mainly textbooks from liberal arts classes that I didn't feel the need to keep, but since then it's expanded to recreational books (unfortunately I've picked up a few duds in my time--haven't we all?), outgrown or no-longer-my-style clothing, duplicate household items, and suchlike.  There's a Salvation Army a block from my apartment, and a Goodwill about 3 blocks away, so there's no shortage of convenient options.  Craigslist is also a good option for items that are worth more than you'd care to donate or are geared toward niche/collector types.  It's worth it to be careful with Cragislist, obviously, though I found both my truck and my former landlady through Craigslist and it worked out very well in both cases.  Especially the truck, as the seller was amazing--he provided a paper trail for all previous repairs (including routine maintenance such as oil changes), he was quite personable, and he was willing to drop his price to meet us and the market.  Even given my overwhelmingly positive experiences, I've certainly heard of people getting screwed online, so take any precautions you think are necessary.    

Revamping leftovers is one that might qualify as duh-worthy for many people, but it is new territory for me, since the one overarching kitchen prejudice of mine that I've noticed is a preference for one-dish meals--pasta, pizza, soup, stir-fry, latkes, this really easy Vietnamese chicken bake, or this rice vermicelli salad with nuoc cham.  Usually my leftovers are pretty tough to repurpose, since they're already their own fairly characteristic thing.  However, sometimes I can still make it work.  Recently, B and I went out to dinner with his family, and his sister couldn't finish her roast chicken (it was a 24 oz portion, FWIW--huge!) but they were staying at a hotel with no fridge.  Still, she didn't want to waste it, so they gave it to me and B, knowing we could use it somehow.  It got shredded and turned into chicken pad thai, but could just as easily have become chicken tacos or chicken tortilla soup or any number of other dinners.  On the occasions when B and I do a classic protein/veggie/starch meal plan, it's very easy to reuse.  Mashed potatoes can top shepherd's pie later that week, steamed broccoli can get tossed into a stir-fry or pasta, baked sweet potatoes can be fried up as part of Sunday brunch, almost any leftover veggie can get chopped and hidden in quiche or marinara sauce for a nutritional boost with little noticeable weirdness (I've gotten away with spinach, kale, carrots, chard, eggplant, zucchini, and broccoli so far).  You get the idea.  Rather than just zapping it, if it's still got some creative potential, use it!  Transforming leftovers is a sneaky way to shake things up in the kitchen even (especially) if you're on a tight budget or have waaaaaaaay too much of [insert seasonal vegetable] from your garden or the farmers' market.  

Like both other parts of the maxim, there are a few things I would like to but don't do yet, for various reasons.  These ideas include: 
Using wood scraps for kindling (my parents do this) and using fallen deadwood for at least a portion of one winter's firewood--though that's not much of a concern in Orange County, especially in my fireplace-less apartment. 
A bottle tree--tough to do with neither tree nor backyard, but I'm still saving my brightly colored bottles for such an occasion. 
Making my own artsy recycled paper--still not sure I could sacrifice a functional blender to that cause, though.  
Freecycle, along the lines of donation and selling--haven't gotten around to it yet, in classic procrastinating fashion.  
A cool project I saw where you cut up old rubber or plastic foam flip flops into strips, then string them all together to make a doormat.  Since I've started wearing Rainbows, I might not get a lot of these in the future, but I do have two old foam pairs waiting patiently in the wings.      

A closing note: through this series, the thought I've kept coming back to is the need for environmental evangelism.  I remain hopeful I can convince others that the drop in the bucket from any single act of reducing, reusing, or recycling is worth it.  I encourage you NOT to buy into the illusion that nothing you do counts--I bought into that for too long, and it left me miserable, not to mention an ineffective citizen.  Small, single acts are the only way I've found so far to deal with my own moral paralysis.  When I get to thinking about world hunger, or pollution in our atmosphere and waterways, or how many people still don't have access to clean water, very quickly my thoughts become less about how I can help with those massive problems and more about how guilty I feel for living the way I do.  

This is not productive.  My guilt, no matter how expansive it is or how miserable it makes me, won't change a single damn thing.  In fact, if it keeps me from doing anything other than feeling crappy, it's worse than unproductive, it's actively sabotaging any real progress.  When that happens, I've learned to step back from that feeling and think instead about what I can do today.  (Much like I've heard about AA--you're not committing to forever, just today.)  I'm worried about world hunger?  Today, even if it's only today, I can waste less food by buying only what I need (hands up if you could live off the stuff in your kitchen right now for a few weeks), I can reuse scraps and leftovers, and I can compost the rest.  Concerned about pollution?  Today I can choose to support environmentally friendly businesses, avoid factory farmed meat, grow some of my own food without pesticides or shipping, and consume less fossil fuel in the form of gasoline or household electricity.  

My hallway reminder 

These are real, tangible things that DO improve things at least a little bit. If tiny amounts were worthless, hedge funds would be out of business.  Yet it's entirely too easy to get stuck in the mindset that while little things matter when you can directly experience the result (saving spare change = more money, switching to CFL lightbulbs or HE appliances = lower electric bill, etc.), individual choices can't possibly matter on a global scale.  Those choices might not be traceable to you, but if billions of people suddenly decided that nothing they do matters, it would lead to widespread environmental destruction.  Intentional living today is the equivalent of spare change--it really can add up, slowly and steadily, if we don't get discouraged by small amounts.  Even (maybe especially?) as an idealist, I'm prone to disillusionment.  I get grumpy when cities and towns make it difficult to recycle.  I shake my head when I see returnables or barely-eaten food in the trash.  I grumble about corporate waste when I see high-rise office buildings lit up like Christmas trees late at night.  I usually think something uncharitable, like The problem is everyone else.  If people would just do it MY way, we'd be better off.  Apart from being embarrassingly simplistic, the big catch is that I can't change everyone else's behavior, just mine.  What can I do today?  That's the point of intentional living.  So I'm challenging myself to complain less about the way things are, and instead to remember the words of Mr. Gandhi: "In a gentle way, you can shake the world."      

On projections and compassion for others

Leaving Whole Foods after work today, I was approached by a young man wearing a Greenpeace shirt, who wanted to talk to me about water pollution and making a donation.  Usually I just don't engage with any street campaigners to whom I don't plan to make a pledge that day so I don't waste their time, but I got stuck because I was carrying some groceries and I was slow.  I told him upfront that I would not be able to make a donation at the moment, including some line about being a "broke student," only half of which is true at this point, but I was going for concise and understandable rather than perfectly accurate.  He said compared to many other countries in the world, we're actually pretty rich.  He said he's seen people talking to him holding the keys to a Mercedes and claiming they're broke.  (Only in Orange County...)  He said he'd first gotten involved with Greenpeace as a student himself, and that even though things were tight, he knew $5 or $10 per month wouldn't break the bank.  Gentle reader, if you know anything about my finances and the likeliness of bank-breakage over a misspent $5, you can only imagine the exasperated sigh going on in my head at that point.  It was something like this:

Uuuuuunnnnnnnnnnggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh [rolls mind's eye]

But that still doesn't really do it justice.  I thought this was about to be one of those TV moments when someone gets righteously and thoroughly told off, à la Betty Draper on Mad Men.  I thought, There's so much I can tell him to PROVE I cannot afford to donate now and that he should lay off because HE DOESN'T KNOW ME AND DOESN'T UNDERSTAND AGHAGHUGHGRRRRR [foams at the mouth in rage a little bit].  

Yes, I was carrying a grocery bag out of Whole Foods a little after 2 PM on a Tuesday and was wearing clothes that were not ripped and not [too] stained, and since I was there, I [presumably] could afford to live in Orange County.  What he doesn't know is that grocery trip is my first time shopping at Whole Foods in over a month, since fabulous employee discount or no, sometimes buying ANYTHING just isn't in the budget.  I'm not shopping at 2 PM because I'm in the leisure class, it's because my shift started at 6 and I'm already off work.  He doesn't know that I comparison shopped the crap out of it to get a good deal, only bought necessities I'd carefully selected ahead of time, and you bet I used my price book to know what to wait until later to buy.  For all he knows, I could've bought everything that I did with food stamps (I currently make too much for that by about $60 per month).  He doesn't know it's been a month with a lot of one-time expenses for me (a Costco membership and $500 pet deposit are the big ones) and that consequently I've got about $3 as a cushion until payday, which, mercifully, is Friday.  Doesn't leave much, even for the whales.    

He doesn't know that for me, "affording" living in Orange county means 75-80% of my take-home pay goes to rent and utilities (no fancy cable included in that--only gas, electric, and the cheapest possible internet package.  Our complex pays water).  I split the other 20-25% of my income among food for me and Oscar the cat, gas, and in the near future car insurance as well.  Entertainment?  Nah.  Happy hour?  I wish, but no--B knows this and often volunteers to pay for us both, to get me to come with him.  Clothes?  Snort.  Yeah right, not since I started budgeting in December.  Home stuff?  Not unless we're truly OUT of toilet paper.  I'm lucky to still be on my parents' health insurance, a family phone plan, and family car insurance for the moment, but those last two are more than I really feel comfortable accepting.  I'm at this fun stage where I just hope nothing breaks or wears out--for example, I had an out-of-the-blue $200 car repair in January which would be totally impossible to pay for now.  I'm paid fairly for my position, including good benefits, but unemployment ate up all my savings and not being full-time (or having an opportunity to become so in the next few months) is keeping me treading water instead of rebuilding.        

I geared up to yell all this at the guy from Greenpeace, including a piece about how I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO JUSTIFY MY PERSONAL FINANCE TO STRANGERS, but then it hit me.  This guy?  He has no clue that this is my situation.  Not only that, there's no possible way he could be expected to know.  What kind of jerk yells at a stranger for not knowing something literally impossible for them to know?  What sort of a response is that, to think yelling will somehow improve the situation or make me feel better?  Besides, Greenpeace is an organization whose mission I support, and most of the stuff he was saying I understand and agree with in the abstract--I only take umbrage when it's making me uncomfortable, of course.  I do know I'm still ridiculously well off compared to a woman living in Mali, whose worries are famine, ebola, dying in childbirth, and civil war.  I know that I have so much to be grateful for--a job that pays me fairly, a roof over my head, a family who loves me, financial independence (however tenuous), basic freedoms, good health.  Money stress comes and goes, but getting so miserable about it that you take it out on strangers is a looooooong way from who I want to be.  So I pulled back from the edge and decided not to be that person today.

The same way I want him to have compassion for me, to not badger me and to understand that I care deeply about the environment even though I can't give today, I need to have compassion for him as someone just trying to get money from strangers for a worthy cause, and dealing with a wall of excuses for inaction and apathy.  As part of my religious studies minor in college, I took a class called Compassion, and one of the main topics of discussion was how to avoid projecting our own assumptions, prejudices, biases, and motives onto other people.  Defensiveness over nothing is one of the key symptoms that you're having a problem with projection--looks like I could use a brush-up.  "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle," a wonderful quote attributed to pretty much every great figure in compassion, seems appropriate.  I'm going to try to think that more often this week, and try to recreate that habit of just not projecting.  It's so simple, but has the potential to be so powerful.  As I ride out this particular storm (a small one, in the grand scheme of things), I'm going to strive to be less angry, judgmental, and scared, and more loving, understanding, and at peace.  This too, like all things, shall pass.  

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle series: Part 2, Reuse

This is Part 2, Reuse, in a three-part series on minimizing waste through the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle maxim.  Read Part 1, Reduce, here.

"Reuse" is probably my favorite concept of the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle triumvirate.  I feel that it's the one with the greatest number of possibilities for creativity, especially since there's only so much reducing one can do.  This is also arguably the most radical of the three, since the Standard American Lifestyle is very much centered around convenience, and all too often that means disposable or single-use items when a reusable, much less wasteful option exists (think paper and plastic shopping bags, sugar packets, cardboard coffee cups, and plastic straws).  Opting to reuse an item generally seen as disposable or choosing a different item altogether is a radical act in our single-use, consumption-heavy and trash-heavy society.  It's a form of civil disobedience against the culture of convenience, and it's a way to support the common good one baby step at a time.

Some of these are very easy, and some are more challenging or time-consuming.  I started with reusable shopping bags as my very first step, and gradually built up to the bigger projects like a rag rug, pallet bookshelf, and collecting greywater.  A few of these ideas, including the greywater, are closer to "recapture" what would otherwise be wasted than "reuse" or repurpose an already used or owned item, but I think the spirit is closer to reusing than reducing or recycling, so they're included here as well.    

It's important to note here that just because these work for me does NOT mean they'll necessarily work for everyone.  I encourage people to adopt as many eco-friendly habits as they feel they reasonably can, and happily acknowledge that every little bit counts. This disclaimer applies to my previous post on this topic as well.  Many of these are practical for me because I have more time than money right now, and for someone with very little time, I certainly see the appeal of convenience.  If that's you, I urge you to adopt just a few habits that you feel you can take on--say, reusable bags, keeping and reusing containers from packaged foods, and keeping a spare change jar, which are probably the three least time-consuming items on this list--and don't feel like any contribution is too small to make a difference.  It makes a difference somewhere, even if it's not visibly apparent.  (If you feel the need, you can always add in more later.  No need to do everything at once, as I often have to remind myself.)

Here's the list, in no particular order:

Reusable shopping bags are an easy and painless way to get into reusing.  I've gotten quite a collection (at right) of all kinds of bags over the years, from thrifting or raiding my parents' attic or hand-me-downs from relatives, and all of them are useful.  Most grocery stores sell them now--one of my favorites is a large canvas bag from Trader Joe's.  I also have a fold-up one that I keep in my purse, and several mesh produce bags so I don't have to use those plastic ones which, in my area, are usually non-recyclable.  (The green mesh bag, in a previous life, held "All Blue" seed potatoes fromSeed Savers Exchange, one of my all-time favorite non-profits--check them out if you like heirloom seeds, organic seeds, great stories, or biodiversity.)  As a bonus, many stores give you a $0.05 or $0.10 (yay Whole Foods!) rebate per bag.  It's not a lot, but when I think of it being equivalent to finding a dime on every time I shop, it suddenly seems like a lot more.  At one 2-bag trip per week, that's $0.20/week, which is $10.40/year!  Not bad for not having to do a single thing except remember to bring the darn bags into the store! 

I wash plastic bags and reuse them until they break, start to leak, or something goes moldy inside them.  At that point, I compost the contents and toss the bag, since I'm not convinced I could get it sanitary after that given how thin/melty they can be.

Keeping plastic containers from packaged food, like cheese, yogurt, or sour cream, is an easy way to get free food storage containers.  I also like this because my apartment complex doesn't recycle (in California, of all places!?!?!), so it's one less thing to haul over to B's complex and throw in with their recycling.  

Aluminum foil is so easy to reuse.  I just rinse off any debris and then roll it out flat again, fold it up, and throw it back in the drawer.  When it does finally get too tired to reuse again, I recycle it, as it is just as recyclable as aluminum cans.  Just be sure to wash it first, since many recycling plants won't accept unclean foil.

Whenever I'm prepping food, I set aside the ends of vegetables, which I lovingly refer to as "veggie butts," for making stock.  They go into a gallon bag in the freezer, and when it gets full I make veggie stock, or I throw it in with some similarly saved chicken bones to make chicken stock--without having to buy anything extra.  Carrot butts and peels works just as well as the equivalent weight of whole carrots.  Besides carrots, I also include onions, shallots, garlic, broccoli stems, kale ribs, sweet potato peels, potato peels (I almost never peel potatoes, but when I do they go in here), and even zucchini butts if I'm going to make the stock in the next few days--I just keep those in the fridge, since they don't freeze too well.

Home "made" bread crumbs (really just collected from cutting boards, bread bags, and languishing bread heels) are another way to recapture something that would otherwise go to waste.  When the bag in the freezer fills up, it's time to make chicken or eggplant parm!

Bacon fat is far and away my favorite fat to cook with.  (Sorry, butter and coconut oil!  I do still love you, but...sigh.)  It's been tough to find good-quality lard made from happy animals in my area, but I recently found organic bacon for a fair price, and every time I fry some up, I throw the rendered fat in the fridge to use later, if I'm not using it immediately.  Every time a recipe instructs you to pour bacon fat down the drain, IGNORE THEM.  They know not what they do.

I'm glad I've gotten reasonably competent at sewing in the last few years, because with the clothes buying freeze mentioned in the last post in full swing, I'm not replacing any stained, worn, or torn items.  Instead I'm mending those clothes, patching, reattaching buttons, resewing seams, hemming, darning sock holes, etc.  

Sometimes there are clothes too ruined to mend--the fabric is completely worn through, there's an enormous grease stain I can't get out, or it's too small and I can't let it out (like in the shoulders).  In that case, they go into the scrap bag, to await a resurrection as something else.  Something like...

A rag rug!  (Seen at right with my parents' cat, Stella, modeling)  It's pretty easy but definitely time-consuming.  I braid small scraps of fabric together, sewing each new scrap to the old one so the braid doesn't fall apart, and then wind the braid in a circle and sew it to itself in a spiral.   This one is made almost entirely of old T-shirt scraps, and is currently almost 5 feet in diameter.  Not sure when I'll stop, but I'm nowhere near out of scraps yet!  Another great option with fabric scraps and old clothes is a scrap quilt, and starting one of those is actually on my summer to-do list.  

For the knitters, I also have a yarn stash that's going toward a scrap afghan.  I have way more leftover fabric than yarn, though, so it might take me a couple more decades to round up enough for an afghan.  

I just recently turned my spare change jar into cash via Coinstar, which is not exactly a revolutionary idea, but there is a little trick to it.  I take my jar the Coinstar, but rather than getting cash and a 10% service fee, I opt to get an Amazon gift card for no fee.  There are a LOT of different no-fee gift card options, including iTunes, Home Depot, Starbucks, and Southwest Airlines, but Amazon is my favorite because it feels more liquid--I can get almost anything I want, not just mp3s or coffee.  Most recently, I used it to buy saucers to go under my large pots for the porch. (The joys of adult life, huh?  Whatever, I was excited about it!)  

Where this reusing idea gets pretty weird for many people is menstrual supplies.  IF THIS SOUNDS GROSS TO YOU, SKIP TO WHERE IT SAYS "SKIP TO HERE."  THANK YOU.  Now then, for the intrepid souls--between the plastic packaging, plastic and cardboard tampon applicators, industrially bleached cotton and rayon, the peel-off papers for sticky pad backings, and plastic leak-proof linings for pads, it's pretty clear that these disposable items generate a lot of waste.  When I was about 14, it occurred to me that disposable wasn't always an option, and I wondered what on earth women did before the advent of good ol' polyethylene.  To my teenage horror, I discovered women mostly used rags or cloth pads and then washed and reused them (!!!!).  Earlier this year, looking to switch for an environmental reason, I re-examined that idea.  What I ultimately settled on were reusable sea sponge tampons and reusable cloth panty liners that I made myself.  They're saving me TONS of money--no more buying a $5-7 box of tampons (or maybe 2 boxes, if I need more than one absorbency/size) and a $3-5 box each of panty liners and overnight pads every month.  For $18, I got a 3-pack of the sponges which will last for 6 months to a year, though it's been 6 months already and they're still like new, so it could be much longer.  It cost about $10 in materials to make 5 panty liners that I don't imagine will ever wear out or need to be replaced.  So for the previous cost of 2 months' supplies, I'm now set for at least a year.  Score!   

[SKIP TO HERE] I have a lot of things I'll reuse in crafts: corks, lightbulbs (ornaments or sun catchers)  old CDs (various mirror bit projects), bottle caps (cover an old, cruddy table!), lace doilies.  So far my favorites are the doily shawl and the cork shoe mat.  Pinterest is chock full of ideas for these kinds of crafts!  

Cork shoe mat, shown with optional cat butt

Lace doily shawl

Some things I like to reuse around the house include toothbrushes, broken plates, and onion bags.  Toothbrushes past their useful days for tooth-scrubbing are great for scrubbing hard-to-reach places or, Lord have mercy, dirty grout between tiles.  Broken plates get put to use as spacers for the bottom of houseplant and garden pots, and someday if I end up with enough pieces (and also a yard) maybe I'll make a mosaic patio stone or something.  Onion bags are great for wadding unceremoniously together and making into housecleaning sponges.  Old and ratty towels get turned into cleaning rags, which in turn has helped me cut out paper towels.  I keep a few emergency paper towels around for stuff like cat barf, but mostly it's my trusty rags getting the cleaning jobs done.   

A few things don't even need to be repurposed at all to be reused, like wrapping paper, potting soil, and tea leaves.  Some people think this is weird, but I grew up in a family where we gently un-taped wrapping paper instead of shredding it, and then we folded it and saved it for later in a big stash in the basement.  Why throw it away only to buy more for the next gift-giving occasion?  Potting soil should be sterilized before reuse, either in the oven for a few hours (yum, dirt smell!) or under a dark-colored tarp in the sun for a few days, but then it's good to go.  Loose tea leaves, unlike coffee grounds or teabags, are actually meant to be reused.  If you want another pot a couple hours later, just throw the original ones back in.  Some people dry their leaves for reuse, but I confess I am too lazy to do this.  

 
As soon as I heard about the concept of reusing greywater, it made immediate sense, and I wondered why it's not more common, outside of using it to water landscaping next to the freeway here in SoCal.  That's pretty close to what I'm doing with it, only my plants are edible.  (My apartment is indeed close to the freeway.)  My apartment is not fitted for any kind of water reclamation, so I went for the low-tech approach of a 5-gallon bucket on the porch into which I pour hand-collected greywater.  I place a casserole dish in the bottom of the sink to catch rinse water from doing dishes, or the leftover water after cooking pasta.  When I change Oscar's water or find abandoned water glasses, that goes into the bucket.  When I shower, I take the bucket in with me to catch the water from the tap while I'm waiting for it to heat up, and any extra that's not hitting me.  (Since I don't use conventional shower products, I'm not worried about contamination with shampoo or shaving cream.)  I get to water my garden using almost exclusively water I would've wasted if not for this recapture.     

Here are a few ideas I'm still working on implementing, or would like to try in the future:

Fountain pens are the coolest.  They look rad, and they make everyone feel classy, and they don't have to be thrown away every time they run out of ink.  However, I'm still working off my backlog of pens I've found on the sidewalk, and I'll probably still want a few crappy ones for work and such, even if I switch.  Then again, I guess that's why we have pencils...  

I think cloth diapers are a super cool idea for if I ever have kids, not least because I'm already familiar with them from my family.  I was a cloth-diapered baby, and it seemed to work well for my parents.  After my sister and I were out of diapers, my mom designated them as cleaning rags.  Reusability in this case is both eco-friendly and cost-effective, so cloth diapers are filed away in a back drawer in my mind in case I'm ever in charge of what goes on a baby's butt. 

Family cloth is something I just heard about a few months ago.  For those of you not familiar, it's basically washable, reusable cloth toilet paper--much like cloth diapers, you wash them after every use, and supposedly it's not a big deal to throw in the wipes as well if you're already doing a load of diapers.  Some people only use them for #1, some use them for both #1 and #2.  I'm curious, but I think Roomie has put up with so much from me already that I'm going to wait on that little idea.  

There you have it--roughly umpteen (okay, just twenty) ways I reuse or recapture all kinds of little things in my daily life.  There are a bunch more that I haven't listed here, because then this list would TRULY go on forever.  I'm sure there are also a lot out there that I've never thought of--any ideas from the peanut gallery?  How do you reuse, repurpose, recapture, or upcycle things in your life? 

Up next, last in this series, various ways I recycle.  (I'll get a jump on it now by recycling some gin into a gin and tonic and sitting thoughtfully on my porch, contributing to the carbon cycle or something like that.)  Until then, have fun, be safe, and be kind.  Later, alligators! 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle series: Trash-free living ideas of a hippie and Part 1, Reduce

Sometime last March, I was bored in class and daydreaming (revelation: I'm kind of a fickle student, good grades notwithstanding), when this idea popped into my head: what if I could live trash-free?  I made up a list of lots of ways, big and small, that I could be doing to get there.  My list fell pretty easily into the familiar three categories of reduce, reuse, and recycle.  I was completely consumed.  For as long as I could (about a week), I didn't tell anyone else about my idea, because I was pretty sure it would be seen as a classic Sabina pie-in-the-sky unrealistic hippie idea.  At the lemonade springs where the bluebird sings, as the saying goes.  (And to be sure, some people did see it that way, but they tended to be people who didn't really share many of my environmentalist leanings anyway--no skin off my nose.)

In the intervening year and change, I've tried to put as many as possible of those little ideas into action.  They seem to be equal parts easy adjustment with few or no social consequences (maybe an occasional eye roll from a stranger or someone especially *ahem* prone to eye rolling), and changes that are seen as unusual, drastic, maybe even crazy.  However, I'm going to go out on a limb and share them with you, both the ones I've implemented and the ones I'm still working on.  Since it's a pretty long list, I'm splitting it into three parts, along the lines of the original list.  Here are some of the ways I reduce my consumption in general, and especially of trash- or waste-producing products and services.  I love that this started out purely as an environmental act on my part, and yet it also saves me money and reduces my exposure to harmful chemicals, in many instances.  Sweet intersections! 

• Turn off the lights whenever I leave a room--if I'm going to be gone for more than 30 seconds, off it goes.  30 seconds of electricity doesn't exactly cost a lot, but I've noticed if I leave it on intending to come back, I often get distracted, do something else, and then suddenly I've been lighting a room for an hour with nobody there.  
• In a similar vein, I try to use the A/C less or not at all.  This isn't always possible in July in SoCal, but I've previously shared some alternative ideas here. 
• Growing veggies on my apartment balcony cuts my grocery bill, is delicious, and is a little way to keep some remnant of organic farming in my life at the moment.  I'm lucky to have a relatively big, uncovered balcony that gets 6-8 hours of direct sun (we're on the northwest side of the building, so that's pretty good!), so I'm growing herbs (mint, basil, chives, rosemary, sage, parsley, oregano, and thyme), beets, bok choy, tomatoes, zucchini, string beans, potatoes (though only one plant made it...), radishes, and sweet potatoes.  I started VERY late, so the herbs are the only thing I'm eating from there right now, but the beets and bok choy have taken off in the last two weeks.
• Home preserving dovetails nicely with growing some of your own food, but even if you don't have a garden  it's still a great money saver to buy large quantities of fresh produce in season and freeze, can, dry, pickle, or ferment for use out of season.  This has really helped me cut down on groceries and buying expensive, out-of-season items--I already have it in my freezer or pantry!
• Homemade body care products are probably my favorite natural living decision of the year.  I love that they're free of harmful synthetic chemicals and they're non-polluting (reducing manufacturing waste counts, too!), I love how cheap and easy they are to make, and I love how well they work for me.  So far, I've made homemade deodorant, shaving cream, dry shampoo, and toothpaste.  I also use baking soda and vinegar to clean my hair.
• Homemade cleaning products are another great way to reduce your chemical exposure, reduce production of manufacturing byproducts and pollutants, and save a buck.  Hey, three of my four favorite things!  (The fourth is wine, of course...) I use vinegar, baking soda (though never with vinegar since they're not effective in combination), ammonia, hydrogen peroxide, castile soap, and Borax for all of my cleaning now, and don't have to shell out for aerosolized foamy bathtub cleaners and such.  Plus, when you go no 'poo, there's a lot less gunk to clean out of the bathtub!
• A freeze on clothes buying since January has really helped my budget--I'd been looking for things to cut, and holy smokes it's amazing how much I'd been spending on aimless shopping during my unemployment.  I was bored to death and waiting to hear back about applications, interviews, and offers, and channeled that into buying clothes and a bunch of less-than-useful junk.  It was pretty wasteful, especially since I already have so.many.clothes.  Nipping that in the bud made a lot of other, more prudent spending possible (ya know, exciting stuff like groceries and apartment deposits and such).  I have broken that rule twice since January, once to buy a pair of cruddy jeans at Salvation Army for work, and once to buy a cute lace top that I didn't technically need but it's SO CUTE and I think I'll keep forever.  I'm still working on self-discipline, clearly.
• Roomie and I decided not to get cable.  Nice way to save money on the monthly subscription fee, and we would've had to buy a TV as well, since neither of us had one already.  We decided against it, especially since most of what we'd want we can get on Netflix or HBOGo anyway. 
• I cut my own hair, and after the initial (tiny) investment of the hair scissors, it's free!  I imagine this'll be my practice for a while, as the hairdresser usually washes your hair with conventional shampoo before the cut.  I don't want that, because that would mean starting a new transition back to no 'poo.  Plus, I can compost the trimmings.  
• I wash my own truck, albeit not as often as it might like.  This saves water compared to an automated wash--I use about 1 1/2 gallons of water per wash--and it saves money, too.  
• When I'm feeling especially squeezed in the grocery budget (or I'm just feeling like a challenge!), I like to do a pantry challenge.  You may remember I did one in May, and despite not really blogging about it, it went pretty well.  This is a combination clean-out-the-pantry and save-some-money-on-groceries proposition, and I've found I actually like depressing adult stuff, like budgets or not spending anything until payday, if I can make them into a game.  Score one for the pantry challenge. 
• Homemade bread, yogurt, beer, and sauerkraut are all semi-staples in my home.  The bread is largely replacing store bought (but it's hard to give up that Ezekiel stuff!), homemade yogurt has entirely replaced its commercial counterpart, the beer is purely supplementary (but every little bit counts, deosn't it?), and I don't think I've ever bought sauerkraut from a store.  It's a small thing, but it cuts down on plastic packaging for sure, and I'm inclined to think it would also reduce emissions from preparing and shipping that food.  This is another that feels less like subsistence and more like a game or a science experiment.  A delicious science experiment, mmmmmmmmm...
• Say no to disposable straws.  If you have the option when you're eating out, ask your server not to give you a straw, or don't choose one for yourself (for example, at a fast food place).  The best bet is probably to bring a reusable water bottle or one of those trendy reusable cups with a straw if you're planning on getting a drink at a fast food restaurant.  I don't make fast food a habit, but I still keep a water bottle in my truck for the once per quarter I might find myself at Five Guys (ok, it's actually for all of my life that happens in BETWEEN those visits, but it's useful then, too).
• Bring a lunch (and utensils!) to work or on day trips.  If you have leftovers, just sling them into a bag with a fork and you're good to go.  This is a double whammy, because you're not only avoiding the food waste involved in eating lunch out every day (and potentially packaging waste too, if you pick up a sandwich or sushi to go from the grocery store or something), you're also avoiding wasting your own homemade food that's already a sunk cost.  
• Put food away after dinner instead of picking at it just to finish it.  This one is hard for me, since B and I eat dinner together almost every night, and our favorite thing to do is sit around and chat over/after dinner.  With the food sitting there looking yummy, I find myself grazing, which is silly--if I'm not hungry, it's wasted on fattening me up for winter rather than nourishing me.  I'm also robbing myself of my own leftovers for work the next day.  Best bet?  Ten second tidy to put the food away, and then linger over wine and chit-chat.  
• I don't own any plastic wrap.  I have a lot of tupperwares and approximately 98 million Ball jars for my leftovers, plus some plastic bags (which I wash and reuse--coming up in the next crazy episode!) and aluminum foil.  One thing I've seen that I think I could get behind is using shower caps to cover bowls or plates.  In my dream world, all my tupperware would be glass instead of plastic, but for now I'll go for the much cheaper store brand BPA-free plastic.
• Get your book fix from the library.  Buying books, even at the dollar bookstore, was another big and unnecessary drain on my budget.  I love to own books, but I love to read them even more, and if that's my choice, the to the library it is!  The library is more than just books, too--my sister and I borrowed every season of True Blood from our small town library, a great find since neither of us has HBO.   
• Make razors last by making sure they're always completely clean and dry after use, and sharpening them on a pair of jeans.  I've successfully used the same cartridge for 6 months this way.  
• Cover pots when bringing water (or anything else) to a boil--why pay to heat up the kitchen AND have it take longer to reach a boil?  I cannot believe it took me 22 1/2 years to figure that one out, but there you have it. 
• Only run the dishwasher when full.  This is sort of a no-brainer, but it can be especially important in apartment complexes with older, less efficient appliances that use a lot of water and electricity, like, ya know, my apartment.  
• Though I don't use a lot of it, I buy milk at least occasionally.  Mostly I keep it around for cooking and baking, rather than drinking.  I was getting very frustrated with my inability to use a half gallon before it went bad, and I refused to pay the even higher markup for a quart.  Then I learned YOU CAN FREEZE MILK.  It's still perfect for all of my recipes, though I haven't tried drinking it or making yogurt with the defrosted stuff.  This way I can buy a gallon at a great unit price (with my employee discount, even organic grass-fed milk is within reach at Whole Foods), and I no longer have to use it within the next week or two.  This is, no joke, revolutionizing my kitchen.   
• The last reducing idea is a little silly, but it's always worked for me.  I have never once in my life bought paper clips, and have only bought pens a few times.  That's because I'm always finding them on the ground!  I've long had a habit of looking for interesting things on the ground when I'm out and about--mostly you see trash, but sometimes it's change, earrings, notes, paper clips, pens, a couple times even a $5, $10, or $20 bill.  I suppose this might technically count as reusing, or at best foraging.  But still.  I've never bought paper clips.  I have a rainbow of colors and a wide variety of sizes, courtesy of the sidewalk. 

Whew, this has been long.  Thanks for sticking with me, Gentle Reader, and I'd love to hear your ideas for or stories of reducing, whatever that means in your life.       

All hail the price book!

I can be kind of socially clueless sometimes.  I get excited about something, and then before I know it I've bored somebody stiff by telling them EVERYTHING I KNOW on the subject.  For example.  I was talking to a friend last week, and happened to mention some tax credit I'd learned about that day (looking for tax information on my 401(k), since I've never had one before my current job), but rather than getting mildly excited about the prospect of saving fifty to a couple hundred bucks, like I was, she was bored to death.  Herer eyes totally glazed over, and I realized I should probably change the subject, before she went comatose with boredom.  Around this time is when B pointed out that actually, not a lot of people enjoy talking about saving money, and even fewer enjoy discussing the finer points of the tax code. 

Point taken, but this is for the few of you out there interested in such arcana.  Today's post is much simpler than tax law, though--it's how I save a boatload of money on groceries and household supplies by keeping a price book.  (Some might argue this is even more boring and less romantic than tax law, to which I say, hah!  Surely there's no such thing.)  Consider yourself warned.

My mom taught my sister and me to bargain hunt and compare prices when we went grocery shopping together, and I'm SO glad she did.  Comparing unit prices and seeing through packaging tricks is about 85% of the battle.  However, it was always in the context of our regular grocery store.  I discovered, being out on my own and on a pretty tight budget, that I can get better deals and stretch my food budget further if I'm willing to hit a few different stores to get specific items I know are priced better at store A than store B and vice versa.  Simply put, the convenience fee is something I can't afford right now, and given my work schedule, I have more free time to skip what's convenient in favor of the best deal.  (I do include cost-of-driving calculations here--my dad and I came up with a useful formula to figure out operating cost per mile, in the context of figuring out how far I could travel to save a certain number of cents per gallon on gas.  That may need its own post, in fact.)     

The idea of the price book is pretty much what it sounds like: write down prices of things you commonly buy across different brands and stores, so then you don't have to hold it all in your head to compare prices effectively.  As B, my local economist, would say, there's a market inefficiency here that we can exploit.  I started by making a list of things I typically buy (or would if I could find a good deal--I'm looking at you, organic berries) in a few different categories: produce, pantry staples and dry goods, dairy, and household items.  That's when I ran out of room in the little notebook I had, since each item gets either a page or a half-page in my book.  Ideally, I would've liked to include meat, fish and seafood, and alcohol (no shame admitting it, I drink a lot of wine y'all), but that just needs to be in another notebook I don't have yet.  (As a side note, I almost feel like I don't need to pay too much attention to price on wine given how many really yummy wines there are out there for, yes, under $5/bottle.  No, it's not Franzia or crappy Napa chardonnays, more like Two Buck Chuck, weird Italian imports, and odd lot remainders.)   

I carry my price book in my purse, and when I'm shopping, I'll write down what I need to know--store, date (to notice patterns in sales), whether it's on sale or I had a coupon or other discount, if it's organic or conventional, the product itself (it's on its own page, but this is if there's a specific brand, say, Muir Glen crushed tomatoes), unit or container size, price, and unit price.  This is a lot of information, but it's all really helpful, even for stores and products I did not anticipate would be a good deal.  That's the whole point of this!  For a month or two, I wrote down the information for everything I would conceivably buy from any store I visited, time permitting.  Ran down to Ralph's to get sour cream and scallions for taco night?  Get those, and maybe also catch the price on organic tomatoes and avocados.  I also write down price info that comes in the flyers in the mail--I'm looking for coupons, but if I find more stuff for my price book that's a bonus.  I was really surprised by what psychological pricing tricks and biases were costing me money, and by how far off my idea of a good price on something could be.  

My handwriting is terrible, so rather than a photo, I've typed out one of my pages as an example.  

STRAWBERRIES

• [Farm I can't remember the name of] at the Laguna Hills Farmers' Market, 3/14/14, organic, 3 lbs / $5, $1.67/lb
• Vons/Pavilions, 3/21/14, SALE, conventional, 3 lbs / $5, $1.67/lb 
• Ralphs, 3/20/14, conventional, 2 lbs / $5, $ 2.50/lb
• Smart & Final, 3/20/14, organic, 1 lb / $3.99, $3.99/lb
• Whole Foods, 5/31/14, SALE, organic, 3 lbs / $10, $3.33/lb (with my employee discount, it's 3 lbs / $8, $2.66/lb)

Since I know berries are consistently in the Dirty Dozen, I prefer to buy organic whenever possible.  I snatched up those farmers' market berries, and bought the 3 pack at Whole Foods when they were on sale, eating a few fresh, but mostly freezing them for later.  This information lets me set a "buy price," when even if it isn't on my list it may make sense to stock up and use, store, freeze, can, ferment, or dry it for later use. This varies by area and time of year, but I know for me, organic avocados under a dollar each are beating the average price, for example.  It also helps me make store-specific shopping lists--right now the best deal on organic potatoes is at Whole Foods (with my discount, they're about $0.68/lb), but organic all-purpose flour is cheapest at Target.  It also lets me keep track of what's actually a better deal in the bulk bins--it's important to read the labels and figure out if it really is a good deal (for some reason, organic quinoa is a better deal in the bulk bin at Mother's Market than packaged, but it's the opposite at Whole Foods--there's a 3.5 lb bag for $19.99, $5.71/lb or $0.356/oz BEFORE my 20% off discount!). 

This has trimmed a LOT of unnecessary spending off of my grocery bill.  An extra dollar per pound here or an extra thirty cents for a can of tomatoes may seem small in the moment, but they add up.  Whenever I don't take advantage of my system, I am donating my hard-earned dollars to stores for an identical (or similar) product I could get for cheaper but choose not to.  I get the same product, but just pay more for it?!?!  Why?  That's not my style, to say the least.  That same donation could go directly to Sabina's Rent Fund, or an oil change (it's been waaaaaaaaay too long), gas money, a night out with friends, or it could get socked away for a trip to see my parents and sister, or funneled into the (laughably tiny, at the moment) farm down payment savings.  

I guess that attitude is where I get my desire for frugality--that money could be doing more!   Don't let your money be lazy!  So while I LOVE LOVE LOVE eating good food and enjoy luxury as much as the next person (probably? I guess?  I mean, I like massages, so there's that.), I could have fancy things and live paycheck to paycheck forever, or I could scrimp and save for a few years and have my farm before I'm 30.  That's just my personal preference and not any kind of moral judgment or financial advice.  (I'm so unqualified to tell people what to do with their morals or their money--what business is it of mine?)  There's a balancing point where I am getting the best quality food for my money, and it still doesn't break the bank.  The price book helps me get there, and to me, cheaper food and the farm is way beyond an acceptable compromise.      

My top 7 ways to beat the heat (without breaking the bank)

It's May, and Orange County's second heat wave of the month is upon us.  As I write this, it is 101º outside, windy with gusts up to 23 mph (thanks, Santa Anas) and a fire weather warning in effect here, to say nothing of the nearly 1,600 acre Bernardo fire.  May in Orange County is already a lot hotter than I'm used to in Massachusetts--May, to me, is the season when you can have drinks on the porch without a fleece but with a sweater, when there are still pea shoots at the farmers' market, when a warm day is 68º but nights are still in the high 40s or 50s.  This is not a May I am familiar with.  This is more like Hades.  

I was thinking I wouldn't need to break out any of my stay-cool strategies until summer, but since it decided to show up early, I've been putting together a list of my favorite ways to stave off melting.  They need to be easy, natural living-friendly, and effective, and since I'm on an every-penny-pinched sort of budget, they need to be cost-effective as well.  Here are seven of my favorite methods: 

1. Cold-brew iced tea is my new vice, thanks to B who originally introduced me to it.  This is great, because I have trouble getting psyched up to drink plain water, and if I get dehydrated, I get cranky and headachy (and eventually barfy).  But iced tea almost always sounds good, especially if I have it on hand already.    

I grew up with a pitcher of lemonade or iced tea always in the fridge from May through October, typically from a store-bought mix.  As convenient as those are, they typically have more sugar than I want (my sweet tooth seems to have pretty much left in the last few years, with a few notable exceptions), and an organic or less sugary "natural" version can be pretty pricey.  Hot brewing tea just seems out of the question in this weather, and I've also had some issues [ahem blonde moments ahem] in the past with forgetting about the tea and over steeping it, leading to bitter, tannic tea. 

My super-complex cold brew apparatus

Enter cold brewing.  It does take some forethought, but it's very easy and cheap, plus the cold water doesn't draw out the tannins so it's never bitter.  To cold brew tea, I fill up a teapot with cold water (the Interblag informs me that most people use a pitcher or glass jug, but since I have neither it's the teapot for me),  add 3 tea bags since it's a small teapot (though you could use looseleaf tea if you have it!), cover it, and stick it in the fridge.  Done.  So easy!  Green tea is ready after 3-4 hours, and black tea is ready after about 8-10.  I think it's tasty by itself or with a little lemon, but you could sweeten it if you want.  I've been drinking a pot every day or two, and I'll usually make another around bedtime so it's ready the next morning.  And then I compost the tea bags, like the compost vulture I am.  Can I get an "Aaaaahhhhh"?  I love this stuff.        

2. Closing the blinds in the morning is the single thing that makes the biggest difference in our indoor air temperature without turning on the AC.  This one can be hard for me to stick to, since I love my natural light.  However, on days when I do this, it's about 15º cooler in the apartment than outside.  I grew up in a house without central air, which typically wasn't a big deal in Eastern Massachusetts--there might be about 3 days per summer when I wished we had it, but otherwise we got along just fine with fans.  During a trip to the south of France in 2008, we learned the traditional method of keeping the old farmhouses cool, and threw that into the bag of tricks as well. 

In the morning, you close the heavy wooden shutters and slant the blades upward so no sunlight can get it.  It's stuffy in the house during the day, but if you have a fan to keep the air moving a little, it's not bad.  The real difference is at night.  When the sun goes down and the air outside becomes cooler than inside, you open everything up--all the shutters, all the doors with screens, everything.  The cool air floods in, and you leave everything open while you sleep.  Early the next morning, when you close everything up again, you've trapped some of the cool night air inside, and with no sunlight coming in, it can stay relatively cool (especially with the thick stone walls on some of those farmhouses).  Easy, effective, and cheap, check!   

3. Using fans instead of the AC has been a lifesaver as far as our electric bill goes.  Roomie and I decided that we'd rather suck it up for the few days this heat wave is expected to last, and stave off a huge electric bill.  While keeping fans running all the time can be less efficient temperature-wise than using the air conditioning intermittently, if you are okay with some temperature fluctuation fans can definitely work.  I like to leave them off during the day, except one ceiling fan in the kitchen, when Roomie and I are at work, and then turn them on in the afternoon when I get home.  When we open everything up for the night, I move the fans near the windows to draw in the cool air from outside.    

4. Putting long hair up--whether it's a French braid (or a "freedom braid"?  Anyone remember that?), a bun, or something else--is another easy way to make a little improvement.  I hate the feeling of sweaty hair sticking to the back of my neck, so this is the first thing I do when it gets hot.  Since I am hopelessly, impossibly bad at taking selfies, I found a picture on Pinterest of the sort of thing that I like to do.  That picture on the left is more or less my hair today, only dirty blonde and with a black headband.  It takes about 30 seconds, will stay in place all day, and gives me an excuse to wear some of my cute headbands.  Yay! 

5. My homemade deodorant is fantastic, even in this gross weather.  I made the switch from conventional lavender scented gel deodorant to Tom's of Maine about a year ago, since I didn't like the idea of putting so much aluminum on highly permeable skin on a daily basis.  But as much as I wanted to love it, I definitely smelled kind of crunchy granola by the time the day was over.  Especially in hot weather.  A few months ago, I found some recipes for homemade deodorant on a couple different blogs, smooshed them together, and made this wonderful stuff scented with essential oils (I can smell like lavender again!) that doesn't give up before they day is over.  No more smelling like an armpit curry fire, even when it's hot and gross.  I'll post the recipe soon.
   
6. Free pools are pretty great too.  My apartment complex has a few, and it's sooooo nice to be able to take a cooling dip whenever I want.  My days off are weekdays, so I can go in the morning before the after school rush.  Many towns' rec centers or YMCAs also have a free hour or two sometime during the day, especially if it's very hot--my hometown actually had a few days during a heat wave last year when it was all free, all day, because there was a forecast for a heat index over 100º F.  

7. Cold meals are just about the only thing I want to eat when it's this hot--less heating up the kitchen with cooking, and I just can't face a steaming plate of pasta when it's in the 90s indoors.  Breakfast is easy--cereal or yogurt or a fruit smoothie!  Some of my favorites for lunch and dinner are chilled noodle dishes like this vermicelli with chicken and nuoc cham or this noodle salad with peanut sauce, salade Niçoise, chicken salad in an avocado cup (made from leftovers of a bird roasted when it was less gross outside), a leftover rice or quinoa bowl with whatever I have on hand (one workday lunch this week featured kale, kalamata olives, feta cheese, walnuts, fresh oregano, and balsamic vinegar).  I'm also planning on trying spring rolls, since they were giving away rice rolling papers at work--maybe with shrimp, shredded carrots, Napa cabbage, and mint?  We'll see how it shakes out.  

That's about all the news that's fit to print.  Stay cool, everyone! 

My first cheesemaking adventure: homemade whole milk ricotta

I thought, until about an hour ago, that I wasn't super into ricotta cheese--I like it fine in things, like lasagna or gnocchi, but the thought of it on its own or spread on a cracker sort of squicked me out.  I'm not normally one for texture issues, either, so I chalked it up to just a quirk of my palate.  My friends, I'm converted.  I made ricotta at home this afternoon, and not only do I now love it, I don't think I'm going back to store-bought.  The texture is different, more like paneer (maybe I should do curry tonight?!?!), and the flavor is very delicate and fresh.  (The texture difference is due to ricotta traditionally being made from the whey leftover from making hard cheeses instead of whole milk, but it's hard to find that sort of whey available to consumers.)  I love it!  It's perfect for porch-sitting and snacking on a spring afternoon, in my opinion. 

The only reason I started this whole thing was I had a half-gallon of milk about to go bad, and since I already have enough homemade yogurt to feed a small village, I decided to try something new.  I'd seen a few recipes for homemade ricotta on Pinterest, and they piqued my interest because they all only called for milk, lemon juice, and salt--no rennet or any of the other typical accoutrement of cheese making.  It seemed like an easy place to start, and like something I could do even in the midst of the pantry challenge.  I dug some frozen lemon juice out of the freezer and got to work.  

Milk is foaming, getting close to temperature

Recipe (makes 2-2 1/2 cups cheese): 

1/2 gallon whole milk, NOT ultra-pasteurized (I used Trader Joe's organic cream-top, yum!)
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons lemon juice

special equipment: cheesecloth, heat-safe bowl, fine mesh strainer

1. Heat the milk with the salt to 180-190º F in a large, non-reactive pot--I used enameled cast iron, but stainless steel is fine, too.  Since I don't have I thermometer, I estimate by the look and smell of the heating milk.  When it's getting close, it'll start to make little foamy-looking bubbles, and it will smell like steamed milk on a latte--not cooked, but a distinctly different smell from refrigerated milk.  When it's steaming and the foamy bubble layer is thick but the milk is not yet boiling, that's about the right temperature.

2. When the milk is at temperature, take the pot off the heat and add the lemon juice, stirring to combine thoroughly.  I saw curds begin to appear almost immediately, but I'd guess it'll vary depending on your milk. 

Thirty seconds after adding lemon juice, milk begins curdling

3. Let the milk sit for five minutes to sufficiently curdle--this is when the curds that become the cheese separate from the whey, a yellowish not-very-tasty-on-its-own liquid.  As a side note, I had thought that since I would have some whey, I could use it to start some lacto-fermented veggies (saw a lacto-fermented salsa awhile back that I've been dying to try).  However, a little digging revealed that acid whey (the whey from cheeses curdled with an acid, such as lemon juice or vinegar) does not provide the necessary oomph to start lacto-fermentation.  Apparently plants like it, though, in a diluted form.  I've also heard you can substitute whey for some amount of dairy in baking or cooking--pancakes, cakes, muffins, bread.  So I'll still be using it up, just not in any salsa.  

It should look noticeably different at the end of the five minutes, like this:

4. Wet the cheesecloth and lay it over the mesh strainer, and set the strainer over a large, heat-proof bowl (I live in a bowl-deficient apartment, so I used the 5-quart bowl from my stand mixer).  Ladle the curds and whey into the strainer, and let the cheese drain for at least an hour.     

Congratulations, you have now made a delicious, healthy, homemade cheese!  Yay!  Go do a victory lap!  Or, you know, grab a spoon.