Living on the Edge

Junk Mail Solutions

Here's my latest green discovery...how to get rid of junk mail!  We only have a mailbox at the post office and I really like it that way.  It's so easy to throw the junk mail away before I even leave the post office...that way it doesn't fill my garbage can!  And I have plenty of those catalogs as you may have seen back in November.

But I love the idea of not filling the box up so much.  So on my favorite Green website, www.Idealbite.com, I found a list of places that can help you get rid of the junk in your mailbox!

EcoLogical Mail Coalition - helps businesses stop mail addressed to former employees.

Native Forest Network's Guide - includes five easy steps to stop the junk mail coming to your house. 

Opt Out Prescreen - If you're tired of those endless pre-approved credit cards and insurance offers online or by phone: 1-888-5-OPTOUT.

DirectMail.com - free, quick way to get your name off commercial mailing lists.    

Catalog Choice - it'll get you on no-send lists and stops catalog spam. 

I hope this helps you to empty your mailbox as well as your garbage can!

Green or not Green

Did you read my post about our Christmas tree yesterday?  Did you see the picture of the tree?

I have to admit, it's not real. We went fake last year.  But it does look real--at least we think so.  It was a tough decision, not done in haste. We shopped around groping trees in all the stores till we found one that felt and looked life-like.

There were a number of reasons we went fake.

1. We have a wood stove and it's too hard to keep tree watered and 'living' from Thanksgiving till Christmas.  It's just so sad to watch the tree die before your eyes!
2. Since the trees dry out so quickly, the needles get EVERYWHERE!  You just can't vacuum them all up and they get tracked throughout the house.  By Christmas you end up with a Charlie Brown tree.
3. A dry tree is a wicked fire hazard.  We love our family too much to lose them in a fire.
4. We found that our allergies got bad during the time it was up in our living room each year.  Instead we burn a pine scented candle.
5. We feel bad being responsible for the death of a tree each year.
6. The trees are costing more each year!  So each year our tree was having to get shorter just to stay within the family budget.  Which meant fewer of our ornaments could fit on it!
7. Instead we spend the money each year on trees to plant on our two acres!  This year we planted to Spreading Poplars for about the same price as a Christmas tree!  (Plus that's two more oxygen producing trees!  Our part in reducing the carbon dioxide that we produce and to lowering the temperature in our backyard during the summer! Our part to fight global warming too!)

I was feeling really good about our decision until I read the article on MSN today: Is a fake Christmas tree the Green Choice?

This is one of the problems they explain with plastic trees:

"The problem with plastic

If you're thinking you're keeping a tree alive by hanging on to an artificial tree for nine or 10 years, don't pat yourself on the back just yet. Once you're sick of the plastic tree, Chastagner says, it'll live on in a landfill for centuries. Not eternal, perhaps, but from the American perspective, darned close.

Plastic trees also can cause more-immediate health problems. After just a week indoors, many artificial trees shed a dry dust containing lead, a powerful neurotoxin, the University of North Carolina's late environmental studies director, Richard Maas, found in his research

"It would still in many usage scenarios expose a young child to enough lead to knock a couple of IQ points off that child's intellectual ability," Maas told WSBTV in Atlanta in 2005."

I'm starting to believe that everything contains lead!  If that's the case of everything that comes from Asia, how come China is known for its overpopulation problems?  Are they immune to the lead or do they just send it all over to the U.S?  Are the Asian countries trying to dumb us down?

The article also says that most people don't go out to a forest and cut down their own tree.  The living trees come from tree farms and...

In fact, the market for Christmas trees means millions are planted each year, each "sequestering" by expert estimates, anywhere from 40 to 300 pounds of carbon dioxide a year.

So, by buying a real tree, you're saving the Earth, just a little, as well as sustaining what many would call the green heart and soul of Christmas. "They were originally put up to show life in the dead of winter," says Patrick Downey, a Christmas-tree grower in Sherbrooke, Quebec. "Putting up a plastic tree has no meaning whatsoever."

So now did we make a good decision?  Or are we compensating enough by planting trees each year.  We promise to use the tree till it falls apart!  And we're sure to sell it at a garage sale if we ever get rid of it!  You can count on that! 

Being green sure is difficult!

The Only Thing Green in November is the Money!

The first thing my husband said to me when he got home from work this morning is:  "You didn't have a new blog this morning".

Well I know I have one die-hard reader! Thanks honey!  I've been working, working, working, and sitting, sitting, sitting.  Makes for one sore bottom, I'll tell you.  This working at home thing is hard on ones backside!!

So last night, instead of typing up a few blog entries, I cleaned up around the house.  Last night I tackled the basket, rather I should say, the overflowing basket of magazines and catalogs!  They have been coming in droves.  I'm not sure, but I think one or two of the ladies at the post office are going to go out soon with back injuries from lifting the bags and bags of third class catalogs that they have to stuff in our teeny, tiny p.o. boxes!

So here is one pile, just the catalogs, that were duplicates or triplicates or quadruplicates (is that even a word?) that we've received in the past 6 weeks.  (I dumped catalogs at the end of September mind you!)

This stack is almost 7 inches tall.  I didn't bother counting them.  But I also got rid of about an equal sized pile of old magazines.  No one needs last January's Good Housekeeping anymore.  The clothes are probably out of style and the latest recipe fad is now the last recipe fad, with 3 new ones since then!

Well, when sorting out the catalogs, I came across this one sneaky culprit!

Sierra Trading Post has a real need for us to purchase something.  Count them...SIX catalogs!  Fall 2007, Late Fall 2007, Early Winter 2007, Winter 2007, and two different Holiday 2007. Just for spite, I didn't keep any of them.  I'm sure that I'll get another one next week....It will be titled:

Post Fall Late Winter Holiday 2007

So all over the TV and news and radio and newspapers and news magazines you are reading Green tips for living on our earth that is being ruined by our gas guzzling vehicles and wasteful ways!

Hey, we work hard to leave a smaller footprint on this planet.

We bought an older house instead of carving up the earth to build a new one.

We've spent plenty of money to plant trees on our two acres (and battled the animals to keep them alive and intact!)

I've been changing out all our light bulbs.  I wait patiently in the hall for the fluorescent bulb to warm up so it will be bright enough so I can see into the hall closet. 

I only wash loads of laundry when I can fill the machine. And I only use half the detergent the bottle asks for in a load. 

I stalk my children, making sure they turn off lights when they leave a room and set a timer in the bathroom so they don't use too much hot water. 

We have a timer on our heater's thermostat so that the heater goes off when the kids are at school and I bundle up in sweaters to work in my home office in the basement.

I wait and collect a bunch of errands so I have to only drive into town once or twice a week.   

There are other things we do...but the point is....what is Sierra Trading Post doing?  They are spending money and natural resources to send us SIX catalogs in SIX weeks.  That's a bit irresponsible.  If they want our attention badly enough...For heaven's sake, send a postcard on recycled paper!  I can look online if there is something I need!

OK, I'm done...I feel better now...well until I got into the car this morning and discovered a pile of magazines from the post office yesterday that I missed when cleaning! And guess what catalog was in the pile!?  Yeah, I don't have to tell you do I?