Kitchen Pantry Body Scrub

I’ve made body scrubs before using brown sugar and light vegetable oil, but I was never really satisfied with the results. The scrub was sticky and would clump up when I tried to rub it on my skin. Then I found a recipe in Janice Cox’s book, Natural Beauty All Seasons, which intrigued me. The recipe called for milk along with the usual sugar and oil combination. Here it is:

¼ cup sugar
2 tblsp light vegetable oil (I used grapeseed oil)
2 tblsp fresh milk

Combine the ingredients. Before you bathe, rub on skin to slough off dry, flaky skin and improve circulation. Rinse off.

I tried the scrub out last weekend and loved it. My skin felt smooth and moisturized after using it. According to Cox’s book, the protein, calcium and vitamins in dairy products make them good cleansers. They also contain lactose, an alpha hydroxy acid that gently sloughs off dead cells.
Plus, the scrub appeals to my eco side because I'm not washing harmful chemical preservatives, which are found in many commercially made products, down the drain into our water system.
So during these dry winter months, whip up this simple, eco-friendly body scrub to keep your skin smooth and soft.

Receiving--And Giving--My Favorite Things

Last Saturday I received an unexpected treat. A scarf, hand knit in mohair by the lovely Hokgardner, arrived in the mail. I won the scarf in a giveaway she did a month ago. It snowed eight inches in Denver this weekend, so I got to try it out right away. The scarf is my new favorite thing—it felt like a layer of down as I trudged through snow to get Ethan to school this morning.
Now I’ve got a giveaway for you, consisting of another of my favorite things—sushi. I constantly crave sushi, probably because my kids would never step foot in a sushi restaurant. Plus, I’m hesitant to buy sushi at grocery store since these packages do not list whether the Sake is made from wild Alaskan salmon (good) or farmed salmon (bad).
I’m starting to think maybe I should satisfy my sushi cravings by making it myself—that way I can feel good that the fish I’m eating, such as wild Alaskan salmon or Albacore tuna found off U.S. Canadian shores, isn’t overfished or high in mercury or PCBs.

If you, too, are so inclined, enter my giveaway for a sushi deluxe set, courtesy of CSN Stores. From counter stools to luggage, this online retailer of home and office goods has more than 200 different online stores to meet your shopping needs.
The sushi set consists of:

• one bamboo sushi rolling mat;
• one bamboo sushi rice paddle;
• one three-step sushi maker;
• two dipping sauce dishes;
• and two chopstick rests.

To enter, leave a comment on this post stating your favorite sushi restaurant—mine is Kotobuki in Chicago—by Saturday, November 21, midnight mountain standard time. The contest is open to U.S. residents only. I will announce the winner on my blog Monday, November 23. Good luck!

Make Your Own Apple Juice Skin Toner

If you’ve got an apple tree in your yard, you should try this recipe from Janice Cox for an astringent made from apple juice. Apples contain pectin, which is soothing to skin. Here is the recipe:

¼ cup pure apple juice
4 tablespoons witch hazel

Mix all of the ingredients together. Bottle in an airtight container.

To make my own apple juice, I took three small apples and cut them into pieces. Then I pureed them with a stick blender. I scooped the puree into a coffee filter and gently squeezed it into a cup until I got ¼ of a cup of juice.

This toner is light, refreshing and smells great. So if you’re tired of making apple sauce with all your home-grown apples, switch things up with this toner recipe.

Make Your Own Cologne

My garden is full of lemon balm, mint, roses and lavender. I like to cook with the mint—the other plants I admire for their beauty. But I didn’t know I could make cologne out of them until I saw this recipe in Janice Cox’s book, Natural Beauty at Home. The recipe is so simple to make that I had to try it:

2 tbsp rose petals
1 tsp fresh or ½ tsp dried citrus peel
2 tbsp fresh lemon balm leaves
2 tbsp fresh lavender petals
1 tbsp fresh mint leaves
1 cup distilled water
1/2 cup vodka or witch hazel

Put leaves and petals in a saucepan and pour water over them. Cook until boiling and remove from heat. Let cool and pour into a clean jar. Add vodka or witch hazel. Let the mixture sit for two weeks. Strain liquid through a coffee filter into a clean container.

Makes 4 ounces.

You can use dried herbs and flowers—just use half the amount that you would of fresh ones.

My mixture is steeping now. So far it smells pretty good—sweet and citrusy—and I’m looking forward to trying it out.

Make Your Own Inexpensive Lotion

When I get out of the shower, I don’t feel right unless I slather myself with lotion.
But now that I’m more aware of harmful chemicals in most commercial lotions, such as parabens and phlalates, not just any lotion will do. I decided to try to make my own lotion, so that not only I could control what ingredients go in it, but also control how much the lotion would cost by picking inexpensive ingredients.
I turned to Janice Cox’s book, Natural Beauty At Home, and made grape seed oil lotion because these ingredients are inexpensive and readily available at a natural food market, such as Whole Foods or Vitamin Cottage. Here is the recipe:

½ cup grape seed oil
1 tablespoon grated beeswax
½ cup water
1/8 teaspoon borax powder

Mix together the grape seed oil and beeswax and heat gently until the beeswax is melted. In a separate container, mix together the water and borax powder and heat until very hot but do not boil. You may use the stove top or microwave to do that. Pour the oil mixture into a blender and start stirring slowly; add the water solution and the mix on high until a thick lotion is formed. At this point, you can add an essential oil, such as peppermint or lavender, to scent the lotion. Pour the lotion into a cool container and allow to cool completely. This recipe will make 6 ounces of lotion.
It is crucial to not boil the water/borax mixture, or the lotion will be runny. Also, keep shaking the container while the lotion is cooling so that oil/water mixture emulsifies.
I’ve made two batches of this lotion and like it. Although it feels a little greasy when first applied, it sinks in and keeps your skin moisturized.
So, save some money and give lotion making a try. If you can emulsify a salad dressing, you can make lotion.

Wipe Away Spills With Tube Socks

A few months ago, I wrote about how I cut up old, stained t-shirts for rags to mop the floor or wipe off the kitchen counters. Since then, I’ve found a clothing item that works even better for that purpose—tube socks. The wrong side of the sock has a rough surface like a towel, making it great for scrubbing off dried spills off surfaces.
So the next time you come across a holy tube sock, don’t throw it away. Save a tree and reuse the sock to clean up messes around the house.

New Uses For Wine Corks

It’s commonplace to recycle glass, aluminum cans and certain plastics. But that still leaves a lot of other materials that end up in the trash. Thankfully, there are companies like Trenton, NJ-based Terracycle Inc. that find a new life for materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. It has partnered with Zebulon, N.C.-based Nomacorc, a manufacturer of plastic wine corks, to create products out of the company’s used corks. Nomacorc, in turn, has signed on Spec's Wines, Spirits and Finer Foods, a leading independent liquor retailer in South Texas, to be the first retail participant in the TerraCycle program to collect post-consumer-use wine corks that will be used to make wine cork boards. The 18x18-inch cork boards will be sold by OfficeMax stores nationwide, as well as Spec's stores. They are also available on Terracycle’s Web site for $19.99.

TerraCycle also has 1,000 "brigades" across the United States that collect post-use wine corks. The brigades are made up of nonprofit organizations including churches and charities. In return for collecting and shipping closures to TerraCycle for processing, the organizations receive money to support their activities and programs.
As TerraCycle's wine closure manufacturer partner, Nomacorc is leading the effort to find additional retail and winery sponsors for the cork recycling program. To date, Nomacorc has donated more than 2 million wine closures for turning into cork boards.
If you don’t live near a Spec’s Wines, Spirits and Finer Foods, you still can be part of the wine cork recycling effort by mailing your corks to:

TerraCycle Cork Brigade
121 New York Ave.
Trenton, NJ 08638

Up to 10 corks use two stamps per envelope; up to 30 corks use four stamps.
So before you toss that wine cork in the trash, consider spending up to $1.68 in postage to send them to Terracycle, which will give them another life.

Knitting: It's Controversially Boring

Ethan isn’t the only kid whom thinks knitting is boring. The other day, I got to sit in the lobby of the Taekwondo studio because my husband was home to watch James. Once Ethan’s class started, I hauled out my knitting and got to work. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dimpled hand pointing to the sweater.
“What are you doing?” asked a wide-eyed 3-year-old boy in a karate uniform.
“I’m knitting,” I said.
“What’s that?” he said.
“It’s when you take yarn and make stuff with it, like sweaters,” I said. I didn’t think my explanation sufficed, but soon the boy got interested in a teenage couple necking and left me to ask his mom what they were doing.
Later, my ears pricked up to hear one of Ethan’s classmates ask him what I was doing.
“She’s, um, knitting,” Ethan said. “She does it all the time.”
I guess to a 7 year old, 2 ½ hours a week constitutes all the time.





Did you know your old cell phone could help save the lives of people living in rural Africa? It can, thanks to an innovative new program called Hopephones.org, which was started by Josh Nesbit, a student at Stanford University. Hope Phones is a nationwide mobile phone collection campaign that makes use of old cell phones in the U.S. to provide phones for clinics and healthcare workers in the developing world. According to the organization’s Web site, the program has helped a hospital in rural Malawi give 150 patients emergency care. In addition, community health workers saved 1,000 hours of travel time, which they used to visit more patients, the number of people being treated for Tuberculosis doubled, and the hospital saved $3,500 worth of fuel, which was used to purchase medication.
So my Thrifty Green Thursday tip of the week is put your old cell phone to good use by donating it to Hopephones.org. To see more tips, click here.

Reusing Broken Pens and Crayons

Last year, I wrote about how guilty I felt buying pack after pack of Color Wonder markers for my sons, knowing that they’d eventually end up sitting in a landfill for 100 years. But thanks to blogging I found the Pen Guy—a man whom takes dried up pens and makes art work out of them. So I last weekend, I sorted through all my pens and made up a box of the unusable ones to ship to him. You can send your unwanted pens to:

The Pen Guy
2425 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa, CA 95403

But wait, there’s more.
A few weeks ago, I came across a company called Crazy Crayons, based in Pelican Lake, Wis. It takes broken, stubby crayons and melts them into hand-crafted, multi-colored crayons. The company claims that it has stopped more than 43,000 pounds of unwanted crayons from going into landfills with its crayon recycling program. So, while I was at it, I sorted through Ethan and James’ crayon bin and made up a box for this company as well. You can send crayon donations to:

Crayon Recycling Program

721 Village Road, Pelican Lake, Wisconsin 54463

I’m so impressed with these folks’ efforts to keep unwanted stuff out of landfills, I don’t mind paying for shipping. Click here for more Thrifty Green Thursday tips.

Indestructible

Here's proof of plastic's sturdiness: I've had this comb since high school, which makes it, ahem, 20+ years old. I use it every day.

Click on the "Seven Clown Circus" button in the sidebar to see more Wordful Wednesday photos.

Shopping For Fish

These days, you can’t just toss any package of Chilean sea bass or salmon fillets in your grocery cart. By buying the sea bass, for example, you’re supporting an industry that is overfishing that species to devastating proportions. And you need to look carefully at the package of salmon to see if the fish were caught in the wild or “farmed,” because some salmon farms use large-scale, densely stocked netpens that pollute surrounding waters with waste and chemicals. In addition, testing has shown that these salmon have elevated levels of PCB chemicals in them.
Fortunately, the Environmental Defense Fund has taken out the guesswork in shopping for seafood with its comprehensive Web site that lists the pros and cons of eating most fish available in today’s markets. Plus, it has two downloadable pocket guides to buying seafood and sushi that print can carry in your wallet.
So my Thrifty Green Thursday tip is learn which fish is safe for yourself and the environment via this great Web site. Click here for more tips.

What Lies Beneath

On Tuesday I took a walk around a local lake. I enjoyed watching the sunlight glisten on the water and the ducks swimming along the shore. The park looked like a clean, healthy place for these animals to live.
But after watching Frontline’s show, “Poisoned Waters,” that evening, I realized this lake, along with all the streams, rivers and lakes in this country, is anything but clean. In the show, correspondent Hedrick Smith examines the rising hazards to human health and the ecosystem, and why it's so hard to keep our waters clean.

One reason our waters are so polluted are the number of toxins in household cleaning and beauty products, such as parabens, surfactants and chlorine, that get washed down our drains into streams and rivers. Here is what Vicki Blazer, a researcher for the U.S. Geological Survey, had to say about these chemicals:
“Part of the problem of trying to identify specific chemicals, or even groups of chemicals, is just that [the range] is so large, and so many of these things act at very low concentrations. And so even getting the methods to measure them in the water at those low concentrations is something that's just developing, which is why we refer to this as an emerging-contaminants issue. These are contaminants we're just beginning to recognize can have serious effects. ...”
Indeed, scientists are coming to the conclusion that the reason they are finding frogs with six limbs and male fish with eggs in their gonads is due to the chemicals found in these products as well as herbicides and pesticides.
While I can’t stop farmers and corporations from dumping toxins into our rivers, I can stop toxins from running down my house’s drain. For the past year, I’ve made my own all-natural beauty and cleaning products, and think they work just as well as chemical-based ones. You can get the recipes for these products on the right-hand sidebar, under "Tutorials."
And if you’re not inclined to make your own products, more stores offer eco-friendly ones than ever before. Costco, for example, now sells affordable bulk sizes of dish detergent, dishwasher detergent and laundry detergent made with plant-based cleaning agents instead of chemicals.
So my Thrifty Green Thursday tip is watch “Poison Waters," and check out all the great tips on its corresponding web site that tell how you can take care of our planet's most precious resource.
Click here for more tips.

New Uses For Nail Polish

Back when I worked full time, I would scoot over to the Walgreens across the street and buy a bottle of nail polish when I couldn’t stand staring at my computer screen anymore. Perusing the rainbow of shades to find the perfect red, pink or green polish (hey, it was the 90’s) was a great workday pick-me-up.
As you can see from the photo, I needed a lot of nail polish motivation in my career as an editor. But now that I’ve become more environmentally aware, I don’t want to use those bottles of nail polish on myself anymore. It turns out nail polish is full of harmful chemicals such as benzophenone-1 and dibutyl phthalate (DBP), which studies show cause hormone disruption. And most nail polish has formaldehyde, which is a known carcinogen.
In fact, nail polish is so bad for the environment, it must be disposed of along with other hazardous waste materials, such as latex paint. Check out Earth911.com, to find a hazardous waste recycling site near you.
But don’t get rid of all your bottles of nail polish. Here are some nifty uses for the stuff:

• Label things with old nail polish such as clothing, sporting gear, containers in the freezer and even plant markers for your garden. Dry nail polish is water proof and long lasting.



• Seal an envelope. If you are using an envelope that has been around for awhile the glue might not be as good as it once was, put a thin line of old nail polish on the inside of the flap before closing. Once dry the envelope will be permanently sealed.



• Waterproof with clear nail polish. A coat of clear polish over prescription bottle labels will keep them from smudging so dosage can be read. It is also great for waterproofing addresses on envelopes in case it rains while your mail is in transit.



• Rust proof the bottom of metal cans, such as shaving cream, before putting them into your shower or medicine cabinet. A coat of recycled nail polish on the bottom of the can will prevent them from leaving rust circles in your bathroom.

So if you’re like me, and have too many bottles of nail polish, save some for some household uses and get rid of the rest responsibly.
Click here for more Thrifty Green Thursday tips.

Homemade Bubble Bath

You may have seen this post, The Toxic Bubble Bath Debate, from the Nature Mom’s blog. In the post, the author describes her frustration at the fact that major corporations, including Johnson & Johnson, put known carcinogens, such as 1,4-dioxane and formaldehyde, in their baby products. She makes a great point:
“One bath product may only have trace amounts of these harmful chemicals but how many baths do kids take? How many other products that also contain these harmful ingredients do they also use… lotion, shampoo, etc? Companies and regulatory agencies are not required to anticipate a total exposure level so it is no wonder that these products get a ‘safe’ label when they are anything but safe, IMO.”
I agree—we really don’t know how safe these products are when used for long periods of time, which is why I’ve started making some of my own healthcare products. Here is a recipe I use for bubble bath, from Janice Cox’s Natural Beauty At Home:

Mix 2 cups castile soap (I use Dr. Bronner's lavender-scented soap) with 6 cups of water and ¾ cup of light corn syrup. Let the mixture sit at least 4 hours before use.

This bubble bath doesn’t suds up like the commercial products, but my sons don’t seem to mind. Maybe it’s the soap’s lavender scent that mellows them out.

Click here for more Thrifty Green Thursday Tips.

Gotta Have Friends

Yesterday I took some old electronics we don’t use to a recycling facility in Boulder. I pulled up to a drive-through window to pay the facility to recycle the electronics, which included a broken phone, an electronic address book (pre-pre-cursor PDA) and an actual PDA. I also had a Brother’s electronic label maker that doesn’t work.
The lady in the window pointed to the label maker and asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s a label maker,” I said. “Do you recycle them?”
“No,” she said, “but it’s awfully Seinfeld of you to do so.” I had no idea what she was talking until my husband reminded me of the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry re-gifts a label maker.
I guess she wasn’t exactly complimenting me, but that’s ok because later that day I got a compliment from Jen at Never A Dull Moment. She gave me the Friendship award:

“The Friendship Award is given to blogs that are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. The winners must choose at least 5 more blogs that embody the feeling of friendship, and include this cleverly written text into the body of their award.”

Thanks so much Jen! I’m so glad I found your blog. I lapped up your posts about going home to Chicago, my old stomping grounds, over Christmas. Not to mention the post about needing to find good summer camps for your sons to keep your sanity intact—let’s just say, ditto!
Now I’d like to recognize some blogs I enjoy reading every week:

The Days are JUST Packed
StaticVox
Confessions of a Quirky Mom
I’m a Pixiemama
Stimeyland
Katydid & Kid and
The Zen of Motherhood.

Your insights and kind words make days when I'm dissed by the recycling lady OK after all.

This Lame House

Thanks in part to President Obama’s tax rebate, we’re getting energy efficient windows installed in our house. Even though our home is relatively new (built in 1995), the builders installed the cheapest aluminum-frame windows imaginable. On cold days, the glass, coated with ice, bleeds out heat.
We figured that while we got new windows, we may as well replace our back door with a sliding glass door. I’ve wanted a sliding glass door since we moved into the house five years ago. As you can see from the photo, our current door is inches away from the breakfast bar. Because of this, the person sitting closest to the door must get up to let another person in or out of the house. It’s an inconvenience, to say the least.
So last week, two window guys arrived to take measurements for the sliding glass door. It was supposed to be a quick, 10-minute visit. But when one of the guys walked up to door, he noticed the vent on the floor. The 10-minute visit soon turned into an hour as he checked out every nook and cranny of our home, tape measure in hand. Meanwhile, I stood in the kitchen, nonchalantly scrubbing the same area of countertop. It looks to me like there plenty of wall space to cut in a sliding glass door—what’s up?
The window guy finally told me. “Putting in a sliding glass door would be difficult because you’ve got air ducts running up the middle of the wall to the top floor of the house,” he said. “We’d have to move the ducts over, which would have to be done by a HVAC guy, and that’s not in your initial quote.”
Oh. Five years of staring at a blank wall, wishing, wanting, hoping, went poof! in that instant. Well, almost. The window guy suggested moving the door over 14 inches to make room for a sidelight window. It wouldn’t be as convenient as a sliding glass door, but at least my husband and I can sit at the bar in peace while our kids run in and out of the back door.
I’ll take it.

Miniature Greenhouse

Here's a great way to reuse plastic large juice bottles: cut the bottom off the bottle and place it over plants at night to keep the frost off of them. We're using the bottles to help our newly planted strawberry plants survive in Colorado's fickle spring weather.

Click here for more Thifty Green Thursday tips.

Also, today is World Autism Awareness Day. Click here to learn more about events taking place around the globe to provide awareness about this disorder.

Caught

Hot and cold collide.
White clouds unleash their fury
And we are shaken.

Here I go again, blathering on about Denver’s weather. But this is why I'm obsessed: Denver’s average seasonal snowfall is 61.7 inches (1971-2000 period). Yet, until yesterday's big dump of a more than a foot of snow, the city only had received 19.1 inches of the stuff this season. So to see the sky open up and pour down much-needed moisture gave me hope that my lawn isn't going to look like a bale of hay this summer.

Click here for more haikus.

Click here for more sky photos.

When Organic Produce Is A Must

The growing consensus among scientists is that small doses of pesticides found on conventionally grown produce is harmful to human health, especially during fetal development and early childhood. They recommend eating organic produce as much as possible.
But organic produce is expensive, which is why the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that uses the power of public information to protect public health and the environment, published the Shopper’s Guide To Pesticides, a list of which produce should always be bought organic, and which conventionally grown produce is safest to buy because it has low pesticide residues. According to the guide, for example, peaches, kale and carrots should always be bought organically, while onions, kiwis, and broccoli are low in pesticide residue. You can download this list, which is small enough to fit in your wallet, here.
Analysts at the Environmental Working Group developed the guide based on data from nearly 87,000 tests for pesticide residues in produce conducted between 2000 and 2007 and collected by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. You can learn more about the criteria EWG used to develop these rankings at its Web site.
My Thrifty Green Thursday tip is reduce your exposure to harmful pesticides by using the Shopper’s Guide To Pesticides. Click here for more tips.

Go Green--Shop Consignment

I first started shopping consignment stores and sales for my sons’ clothes out of necessity—I had quit my job to stay home with Ethan when he was 1 year old, and I needed to cut costs any way I could. But after shopping sales a few times, I began to appreciate the “green” benefits of buying used clothes as well. Instead of buying children’s clothes at the big box stores, which is all I could afford, I could buy name-brand clothes, like The Gap and Hannah Anderson, at a third of the price. Plus, I started to feel good about giving these clothes a new life, especially since toddlers outgrow their clothes before they wear them out.
Six years later, I’m still shopping consignment stores and sales for my sons’ clothes. Last week, my favorite consignment store—Childish Things in Boulder—had a sale. Like all things Boulder, this store’s goods are overpriced, which is why I wait to go until it has its $1 sale a few times a year. Then I can find some great deals—like this Tommy Hilfiger sweater vest for $1.

While shopping consignment shops is more tedious than hitting the mall, the thrill of getting a great deal makes up for it. This last trip, I hit the jackpot when I found this never-worn ski jacket on the 60% off rack--$35. Maybe this jacket will motivate Terry and I to get Ethan on the Colorado slopes next ski season.

My Thrifty Green Thursday Tip is to give consignment stores, or sales like JBF, a chance. Click here for more tips.