EASY-KNIT BED SHAWL

A knitted bed shawl offers comfort & warmth.

Spring may be just around the corner but we will still have cool nights for quite some time. And while we like to read, knit or watch television in bed, it can be just too cold in the bedroom to sit up in bed for more than a few minutes. Also, when we are ready to sleep, it's not easy to keep the heavy bed covers pulled up all the way to the head. So, while it may be considered an old-fashioned clothing item, a warm bed shawl is a great thing to have.

Here’s a practical pattern for a bed shawl that can be made up in less than a week working only a couple of hours per day. The wrap is put on over the head and worn just draped over the shoulders with out the need for buttons or ties. It's a kind of a short poncho, worn with the diagonal points in the front and back.

You can make one for yourself. It will also make a great gift for a family member or friend. I’m planning to make several in the next few months to give as gifts. This kind of wrap also offers warmth and comfort to people who are in need of special support as they face illnesses or other serious problems in life.

The bed shawl shown in the photo is a vintage item that I found at a thrift shop. (I haven't finished making one for myself but I'll post a pic of it when it's ready.)

I’ve studied this particular shawl a bit to see how it’s made. It turns out to be a very simple pattern that can go together fast. Here are my instructions for making this kind of wrap.

Bed shawl instructions
As before mentioned, I tend to give only general ideas about how to go about these projects. They are not full instructions, but general guides, given to encourage you to knit or crochet simple garments and other useful things for the home. Besides, once you get motivated, you will find dozens of detailed patterns on the Internet for knitting and crocheting almost anything that you can think of.

Use size 8 straight needles and worsted weight yarn in 4 different colors or, perhaps, for a more updated look you might choose varying tones of the same color. This is good project to help use up yarn in your project leftovers bag. It can probably be done with a total of about 12 ounces of medium weight worsted yarn. You'll work with a single strand. You might also crochet the squares. If you opt for crochet, it might be better to use a light weight worsted yarn and the corresponding hook.

The bed shawl is made of four 11-inch squares crocheted together. That makes for a total of about 24 inches square plus fringe. You can knit your shawl a longer length, if you want, and use any combination of colors for the squares.

To knit one very much like the one shown, you might use a basket stitch. But, lacking patience, the basket stitch is too complicated for me. So, I expect I’ll make the squares in a simpler way. Here I’m thinking about using either the twisted stockinette or the seed stitch. Most any stitch, simple or complex, will work out fine. You’ll find instructions for making different kinds of knit stitches in books and on the Internet. 

Begin the shawl making the first square. Cast on 48 stitches (or the number of stitches that you need to make the length you want). Keep knitting these rows until the piece is square. Then bind off the stitches. Make all four squares. Then crochet the edges of the squares with a simple edging stitch using the same or contrasting yarn. Remember you should always crochet edges on the front side. Weave the shawl together with the same color yarn as the edges, leaving a four-inch opening on all adjacent squares for the neck opening.

Finally, add an outer decorative edge to keep the edges of the squares from rolling up. You can put a simple fringe on the edges or you can crochet a decorative edge. Your shawl will look better if you use a bold color for the fringe.  There are plenty of instructions for making fringes and decorative edges on the Web.

When the edging is finished, weave in any ends of yarn. Wash the bed shawl in warm water, towel dry it, and block it by pinning it to a towel laid out flat. As it dries, check it to make sure that it maintains its overall square shape.

CHOOSING TEA OVER COFFEE: ONE HUMBLE EXAMPLE OF VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY.

When, a few months ago, my husband and I began to discuss voluntary simplicity, we knew we had a lot of not-so-comfortable decisions to make. This adventure was one that I had been slowly making over the past few years and it was one that I, personally, wholly embraced.  So, when we recently decided to challenge ourselves in new simple ways, we should have known that it was to be a long, strung out adventure, loaded with starts and fits. Unlearning so many things and relearning others is not for the feint-hearted. And, as many posts in this blog attest to, I've had more than a few stumbling efforts toward a more simple life. Yet, yearning for less stress in our lives and more time to enjoy simple pleasures, we continue to travel the rocky road.

Tea gets us off to a good start in the morning.

Luckily, all is going well – so far - and we don’t, even a bit, regret our dedication to a more simple lifestyle. It's the road that allows us to celebrate the joys of gratefulness and appreciation for the NOW of life. So here’s an example of another one of those "everyday" simple choices: we parted from the commonly held belief that coffee is an essential part of a healthy/enjoyable breakfast. And, yes, we were ardent coffee drinkers in the a.m. On the other hand, we tended to drink tea later in the day. 

Beyond that, concern for our health was nudging us to buy better quality products and organic foods, whenever possible. But, what with high food costs, we didn’t have a budget large enough for both good coffee and good tea. As a result, we had been drinking very regular to poor quality tea and coffee. It finally dawned on us that drinking just one of those beverages and eliminating the other was the answer. A quick review of online reports helped us see that tea was the healthier product. We were also aware that tea was a more earth-friendly option as compared to coffee. For example, one source points out that a mug of coffee takes about four times more water in its production than does a mug of tea. (Of course, plain water is a very healthy choice and, by far, the greenest possible beverage. But water, for most of us, doesn't offer the pick-me-up power that coffee and tea do.) 

So, here I’m sharing what I consider to be some more advantages of tea over coffee and why it's our simple choice. 

First, of all, tea has high levels of potent antioxidants and is helpful in preventing heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and osteoporosis. Arguably, coffee has some of these benefits but studies conclude that it has much less than tea. And tea is more relaxing and useful in lowering stress levels while coffee tends to speed up the mind, often adding to stress.

Second, regular tea drinking helps reduce cholesterol levels, relaxing blood vessels and impeding the formation of blood clots. Studies show that drinking three or more cups of tea each day reduce the risk of stroke by more than 20%.

Furthermore, tea tends to be more hydrating to the body than coffee. And tea, relative to coffee, is better for your teeth. Coffee is notorious for discoloration in teeth, while tea is to a lesser extent. Tea even helps prevent of cavities as a result of its powerful antioxidants and serves to fight off many kinds of bacterial and fungal infections.

So, to follow this up, I'll make a plea for organic tea over the non-organic type. It turns out that the huge tea plantations, common in Asia and elsewhere, are among the most environmentally devastating crops. That’s because the chemicals – industrial fertilizers and pesticides - applied to these farms damage the local ecosystem and run down the mountains and to pollute other farmland, rivers and finally to faraway oceans.

The choice of organic teas favors small farmers and small farms over agribusiness. Small farms, often have natural grasses and weeds as ground cover, work better in harmony with nature to manage various pests and usually do not grow tea as a monoculture. In the long-term, industrial fertilizers deplete the soil, making it more difficult for the tea plants to grow without stronger chemicals. This kind of chemical dependence becomes a vicious cycle that harms the tea plants, the farm workers, and the environment.

Finally, as you might imagine, organic tea is better for you because there are remnants of all those chemicals that stay in the leaf structure after processing. And those will be ingested - by you and your family - after the tea is boiled up for drinking.  Some of the negative side effects that people feel from drinking too much tea (such as jitters and sleeplessness) may not be a direct result of the caffeine in tea, but from the chemicals used in conventional tea production.

As you have probably read elsewhere, not all teas - - black, white, green, etc. - are created equal. My husband and I choose green tea, almost exclusively as our daily pick-up beverage. We’ve made the choice of green tea, rather than two or three different types of tea, because we believe it's healthier  - and, again, mostly for simplicity reasons. We also buy bulk tea, thus avoiding higher costs than the small individual envelops and, with less packaging, is the greener option. We enjoy a cup of coffee only when we go out. It tends to make coffee-drinking something special, a treat to be savored, rather than a regular habit. 

 

Here's a parting word to the wise - keep your tea drinking cool. Repeatedly drinking of very hot beverages increases the risk of esophageal cancer. So, let your tea cool off for several minutes before sipping.

And, now, all this midmorning writing is making me thirsty. So, I’m off to brew up a batch of the good stuff — and enjoy what, today, will make my third cup of tea.

COOKING OIL SPRAYS: ANOTHER THING TO THROW AWAY - FOR GOOD.

A lot of foodie-consumer-products are touted to be natural-like and more convenient for you. And some of them are supposed to help you cut calories. The reality is that most of that is just BIG-FOOD manufacturers' hype. Less costly natural ingredients are almost always more healthy and don't have to seriously add to food preparation time. The case in point, here, concerns commercial cooking sprays in aerosol cans. They contain oils, an emulsifier and a propellant to create a fine mist of oil onto a surface making it nonstick for cooking. The sprays are expensive relative to regular cooking oils. They also use many more natural resources - particularly, the aluminum cans.

This post urges you to toss out the oil spray can and get cooking in a healthier way. And, if you still need convincing, here is some more bad news about aerosol cooking sprays.

Unhealthy additives.
The aerosols in use in these sprays tend to be toxic chemicals and, even in tiny amounts, can't be good for your health. Just one glance at the ingredients and you'll know that it isn't pure or natural. Yeah. Ugly things like soy lecithin, mono and diglycerides, dimethylpolysiloxane, dimethyl silicone, and artificial flavors. The long-term effects of eating these chemicals on a regular basis are not well known but can't be good. As to lawful half-truths in advertising, some have simply listed a "propellant" as ingredient. Needless to say, they don't want to have to spell out what substances are in there. But word has it that the usual propellants are petroleum gas, propane, and butane. (Anyone in their right mind would want to avoid propellants.)

Genetically modified foods (GMO’s)
Most of the soy, corn, or rapeseed/canola commercialized in the US is GMO. (And that's as much as 90 percent according to some sources.) For years, scientific studies have shown that GMOs create health risks such as infertility, auto-immune disorders, diabetes, and changes in the gastrointestinal system. GMO foods also contain higher levels of pesticides than conventional crops.

Damage to the lungs
Because the aerosol particles are so tiny, you just can't stand back far enough to get away from them when you spray. So the cook - and any one else nearby in the kitchen - is always breathing in some part of the spray when they are in use. Over time, that kind of chemical exposure is a serious risk for respiratory disease.

Bad for the environment
Most cooking sprays contain propellants, all of which are greenhouse gases. That can't be good for the earth.  And the nitrous oxide, used in some, is particularly bad in that it doesn’t break down easily. That means they create environmental damage for many decades.

Unnecessary packaging
The manufacture of aluminum cans represents huge amounts of resources. Then, after use, most of the spray cans end up in landfills. Only a small fraction get recycled. But those also require a recycling, a process that involves a great deal of heat and electricity.

Help solve the oil spray can problem by not participating in it.
Don’t look to BIG-FOOD manufacturers to do you favors. Now that you know more about them, do you actually want to use cooking sprays? And the same can be said for many other foodie-consumer-products. Real food, in the form of fruits and veggies, lean proteins, whole grains, and good grade oils, bought as fresh as possible and prepared in the kitchen is what's best for you.

You can always do just what has been done for centuries by carefully using the right amount of oil for each type of food preparation. I remember that as a young girl, we used measuring spoons to add the oil. We also spread out the oil with our fingers onto the baking sheets. But, now-a-days, we tend to do our best to avoid such direct contact with the gooey oils. Fortunately, there are at least a couple of good ways to do spread out the oil without skin contact.

Solutions to the cooking spray can dilemma.
If you think you can't live without cooking sprays, there are some really good options to the commercial ones. And these alternative are less costly in the long run, more earth-friendly, and healthier.

First, you can always buy a hand-pump mister bottle at a big box store and fill it with your favorite cooking oil. But these misters tend to clog up and need a lot of unstopping. (I tried them a while back and decided it just wasn't worth all the fuss.) 

 

Second, you can do what I do now to avoid the use of commercial sprays. I dispense my regular cooking oils - sunflower, coconut and olive oil - with a drip pour spout. I drizzle a few drops of oil into the pan or skillet. If I need a more uniform way of spreading it out - like for baking tins - I use a small silicon spatula to baste the oil onto the cooking surface. I use two bottles - one for regular cooking oil and another for olive oil. The color-coded caps keep me from grabbing the wrong one in a rush.

The little bottles with drip spouts are recycled soy sauce containers. I bought the spatula at a big box store. They work well and clean up perfectly with warm water and regular dish washing suds.
 

JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD: TOWELS FOR EXAMPLE.

Only yesterday I had proof that my husband doesn’t follow all my blog posts. Or if he reads them, he sometimes glosses over them or misses the message. Just something less than two years ago, I wrote about the need to downsize on bathroom towels. At the time, I gave a lot of - what I thought were - good reasons for doing it. You can read it (link below) and decide for yourself just how good the reasons were. And they still are good reasons as far as I’m concerned.

But, back to my first comment, it all happened when my husband came home for lunch and saw me crocheting the edge of a towel. You’ve undoubtedly seen those towels. They are rather small and made of thin cotton. That’s just the point. Since my decision two years ago to downsize on towels, I’ve had to purchase a couple of thin towels for myself. I found them at the dollar store. My husband continues to use the old “regular” ones that we bought ten years ago and, by some miracle, continue to tolerate frequent machine washing. He wouldn’t let me get rid of his plush treasures when I did my first post on towel downsizing. So, I’m the one who uses thin ones.

On seeing me crochet yesterday, he asked what I was doing. I said: “ I’m crocheting an edge on these cheap, dollar store towels because if I don’t, they ravel out and look terrible. With this edging, they hold up just fine.”

Dollar store towels look pretty good with crocheted edging.

His reply was: “ We can afford to buy good bath towels.” Roughly translated, I suppose he meant that I was AGAIN wasting my time on a rather useless project. I answered him, saying: “I like these towels and do this to keep them serviceable for a long time.” That was enough to quiet him, especially since I got up right then and got busy serving lunch.

But some hours later, I thought that - maybe - I should post more about my decision to use thin, cotton towels rather than the usual fluffy ones. Like my husband, maybe my readers missed that post – so far back in time. Or perhaps I didn’t explain myself as well as I should have. So, here I am with another post the subject of bath towels.  The theme for this one is: JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN (afford to buy fluffy towels), DOESN’T MEAN YOU SHOULD (buy them).

It has everything to do with the harmful effects of the cotton industry

Cotton is a natural product. “Natural” sounds like, maybe, ecological. Unfortunately, cotton growing is not earth-friendly. Being “natural” doesn’t mean that it’s something sustainable.

The sad truth is this.  Cotton growing involves the most intensive pesticides use of any agricultural product in the world. The annual cotton crop accounts for 22.5 percent of all insecticides, herbicides and defoliants used at the global level. And all those toxins end up harming wildlife and contaminating other foods that we eat.

Water use is another concern. Growing enough cotton for one T-shirt requires 257 gallons of water. Think about how much water goes into producing the plush towel that seems like such an good buy for $6 to $10. The polluted wastewater emissions from cotton fields and textile industry also weigh heavy on the environment. What’s more, due to the intensity of cotton farming, cotton in many poor countries makes up for a large percentage of agricultural land - so much so that the local population can’t even cultivate their own food.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s the question of genetically modified cotton. GM cotton hasn’t got much world attention because cotton is falsely considered to be a non-food crop. But food is also an issue here. Cottonseed oil is used for cooking and in animal feed. 
 

We all can make better choices.

So, that’s why I choose thin towels over plush ones and the reason that I want my towels to last for a very long time. And besides all that, the shell-crocheted edge makes my simple towels more attractive – something that I like. After all, it takes me only about three relaxing hours to finish crocheting the edges of a towel, and the cotton yarn I'm using is left over from an earlier project.
 

Fluffy bath towels are among the things you can easily acquire but that, most likely, you shouldn’t (now that you know some of the problems involved.) But, of course, the same can be said of a huge number of other “convenient” consumer products that - thinking more clearly about it – seem to be motivated more by personal vanity than by need. Other examples (and even bigger ones) that come to mind are brand new cars, wide-screen TVs, smart phones, all-round sound systems, etc. But those are subjects of future posts, if I ever get around to them.

Earlier posts

THINGS TO DOWNSIZE RIGHT AWAY: CASE #1 – LARGE, FLUFFY BATH TOWELS
HOW CONSUMERISM (STILL) TRIES TO FOOL US

  

FOUR EASY THINGS TO DO TO MAKE YOUR WASH DAY MORE EARTH-FRIENDLY

You can lower your wash day energy use and your carbon footprint, beginning today, by doing these four Earth-friendly things. And, the best part is that  you won't have to face any big struggle. I've done all this for months and years with great results. And I'm sure my laundry chores don't take much longer or more sweat than those of other people who follow the philosophy: “ I'm doing-what's-easiest-for me.” 

Stop using small to medium-sized plastic detergent bottles

One of the worst things that we've done to ourselves is to embrace the plastic age as if it were some miracle. It's not a miracle. It's a world-wide nightmare producing destruction of wildlife habitats and slowly poisoning everyone of us. The situation is really grave. Some studies show that there’s more plastic than plankton in parts of our oceans. So, reduction of our use of all kinds of plastic is an absolute necessity for both health and the ecology. And one of the worst plastic items that you can buy for home use is the detergent bottle.

Many people are buying small and medium plastic laundry soap containers several times a month. If plastic bags are a bad idea – which they are, those heavier plastic bottles are even worse. What's more, the liquid detergent in those bottles doesn't wash any better than the dry products and takes up a more space, on a wash-by-wash basis. Changing out from plastic detergent bottles to cardboard boxes or large plastic containers is a good place to start. You'll be doing Mother Nature, your own family, and generations-to-come a favor by refusing to buy small, plastic laundry bottles and keeping those items out of the trash, once and for all. And, if you want to, you can buy good laundry detergents in small or medium cardboard boxes. But, if you do industrial-sized laundry during the month, go ahead and buy the largest container - cardboard boxed or plastic - that you can find at the big box store. 

The plastic detergent bottles that you have right now can be easily recycled at home or given away to someone who'll use them. Recycle those huge plastic buckets  for use as a storage container for non-food items like for garden or barbecue tools. If you have some regular-sized plastic detergent bottles, recycle them as clothes pin holders or put small amounts of dry detergent in them so you won't have to carry about or dip into those larger detergent containers for every wash.

Hang some clothes on a line

Line-dried clothes smell better 

There's a big problem with tumble dryers that use electricity to generate heat. They require a lot of electricity and create a huge carbon footprint. How big are we talking about? More than you would imagine. One source says a tumble-dried load produces more than 5 pounds of CO 2 emissions when washed at 40°C. (That, of course, includes the major part that happened at the electric plant.) And, while gas dryers produce somewhat less carbon, the very best thing that can be done is line drying. And line-drying is doable most anywhere on a line or clothes rack. Not ready to hang up all the laundry? Then, start hanging up some part of it. It is super easy to hang up the towels and bed linen on a clothes line. Just doing this faithfully will eliminate several rounds of machine drying and save a lot on energy bills.

And, of course, with the mild to hot weather these days, the very best place is outdoors where the summer sun will dry them fast and leave them with a heavenly meadow-fresh odor. I hang up just about everything in the summer months, eliminating a lot of energy costs and enjoying the sweet smells of of line-dried laundry. Maybe, for some reason, you can't leave clothes hanging outside now or at other times of the year. Even so, you can hang up some lines, in the basement, in the garage or a breezeway and make good use of them. With a little ingenuity, even apartment dwellers can find space to line dry a part of their laundry.

Years ago, when we were kids and the family lived in an apartment, my Mom hung up the linens and towels all winter long in the kitchen to dry overnight. She had Dad hang the lines in such a way that we could walk around the clothes, if necessary. The small items were hung on a wood dowel drying rack near the gas stove in the living room. Most of the time, the laundry did dry by breakfast time. If not, she left them a few more hours. Slightly damp towels could be rehung in the bathroom, awaiting use there. 

While, these days, I don't need to follow closely the steps my Mom took to dry our laundry, I still swear by line drying. Thankfully, now, I have a nice outdoor area where I can hang up clothes and good drying weather almost year-round.

Wash the clothes with cold water

As you can imagine, the higher the water temperature of the wash, the more electricity you'll use. And, hot water wash is not good for clothes or for the ecology. The U.S. Department of Energy says that, in a conventional washer, more than 80% of the energy used for laundry  goes to heat up the water. So, save yourself some money and lower your carbon emission footprint at the same time. It turns out that cold water works great for regular loads. When you have oily or other stubborn stains, try a pre-soak with stronger detergent or stain remover and then use warm water wash.

There are plenty of special, cold water laundry detergents available that can wash your clothes beautifully without hot water. And most modern detergents, including the cheaper ones, work equally well on regular laundry – even if they don't say they're cold water products.

Run the washing machine to its full capacity

You'll get higher wash day efficiency if you load the machine to capacity rather than with just a few clothes. Fill your machine to its limits. For regular loads, you can use your eye to judge when the machine is full. Heavier weight stuff might need to be weighed – to know for sure. Remember, just one large load takes a lot less energy than washing two loads on a lower setting. If you need socks or underwear or a particular shirt for the next morning, wash it out by hand and hang it up somewhere where the air will get to it. It doesn't take long to do.

When I was a child, it was considered “good hygiene” to wash out your own underwear, socks, and handkerchief in the bathroom sink when you prepared for bed. I routinely did this and left the hand wrung-out clothes on a hanger on the back of my bedroom door. They could stay there as long as necessary to finish drying. Our towels were also hung on a towel bar on the back of our doors. Back then, it was considered unsightly to hang a lot of stuff around in the bath room. Although I don't do all of that, today, with just my husband and me at home, I think those habits were more than justified. When I visit in the homes of other people, I continue to do these simple things. And, if my hosts haven't put up hooks on the bedroom door, I hang up my towel and washed out underwear in the closet space that they've left for me. It keeps down on bathroom clutter and helps save on washing machine loads.

STOP USING THROWAWAY PRODUCTS, RIGHT NOW.

There are some things that we do without thinking because they've become a habit - at home, in the car, in schools, at our work places, even as part of our social life. They are so common that we don’t see them for what they are. We've even been made to believe that throwaway items are part of our "rights" to have an easier life and reduce unwelcome work. Well, think again. Those “disposable” products that you use almost daily have a rather small cost to you - or, at least, it appears at the time. But they have a huge cost for the environment and most will never be recycled, ending up at dumps where they take up space for years or centuries or getting incinerated where they poison the skies over our cities and farms. And some of them, especially the soft plastics, are a real danger to your health.

Say "no" to food-related plastics.*

Plastics are made from toxic substances that contaminate earth, air and water, both in their manufacturing and in their disposal as trash. Once created, plastics are non-biodegradable, and while they can be transformed, but they don’t go away. Only about 5% of plastics ever get recycled. Burning and putting them in landfills only removes them from our immediate vicinity, but their toxic waste will make it back into the environment. The presence of plastic trash around us, or anywhere they get to, continues to poison our air, water systems, rivers, and oceans. For everyone, plastics in the environment mean added risks of cancer and birth defects. For many species of animals and fish, it has already created much illness and is accelerating their extinction.

You'll want to have the least contact with soft plastics as possible. When people use plastic packages for foods, the chemicals tend to filter from the packaging to the foods they contain. It’s worse yet when plastic containers are heated in microwave ovens because that accelerates the migration of toxic substances.

The only way to reduce the damage that is done by plastics is to cut back on their use, and thereby, overtime, slowing their industrial production. You can do your part to overcome this problem by refusing to buy plastic products. That means trying to extend the lifetime of the useful existing plastic items that you already have and refusing to buy new ones, even if that creates some personal inconvenience. Start by saying "no" to throwaway products. You’ll save money, be healthier for it, and do good for the earth -- all at the same time.

- Tell the sales person that you want paper instead of plastic cups at the fast-food window. Stop going to places that only have plastic throwaway cups.

- Buy fresh food products, whenever possible, and carry your own paper or cloth bags to the markets. Ask the man behind the counter that you want your meat or cheese wrapped in paper instead of plastic.

- When you buy processed foods, search for those that come in glass bottles or metal cans. Buy larger-sized products so that the containers can be reused; recycle them when you're finished.

- Make sure your using as few cleaning products as possible. Look for large-size packages or containers for these products. That way you won’t have to buy so much plastic on a regular basis. Reuse or recycle all these containers.

- Don’t buy plastic bags or plastic wrap. Wax paper and butcher paper are excellent products for your temporary food storage and lunch bag needs. If you want neater packaging, you can use a bit of tape to hold the paper together.

- Whenever possible, use paper bags for the kitchen trash. Of course, someone in your family will occasionally come home with plastic bags. When that happens, reuse them for trash or as lunch bags. All extra plastic bags should be carried to the supermarket for recycling. None, except the dirtiest one, should go into the household trash. If you are required to use a large plastic bag for trash removal day, line your largest trash can with it, and make sure that is the only plastic bag you use during the week.

- Don’t buy plastic throwaway drinks. Always carry your own metal drinking container and water when you leave the house. When you have to buy or carry an occasional drink outside the house, look for the aluminum cans. Serve drinks from bulk containers or provide canned drinks at gatherings. Cans have a much better chance of being efficiently recycled than plastics.

- Don’t heat or store fatty or acid foods in plastic containers. You’ll heat and store just as well and avoid risks, using the glass containers that you've recycled

Say: "No." to excess paper use, too.*
Just a few years ago, almost nobody thought about the use of paper products in the home and office. We used a lot and wasted even more. Paper was cheap, and if anyone mentioned all that wood being used for paper, the easy answer was that trees were totally "renewable" resources. We know that that planned re-growth was mostly a fantasy and that our wasting of paper is inexcusable if we hope to save more of our forests. Clearly, it isn’t possible, or reasonable, to eliminate all paper usage in the home – we definitely need some toilet paper and paper for print outs from the computer. On the other hand, with a bit of effort, we can get “greener” on this issue and reduce our paper consumption a lot. Here are some of ways that you can cut back on or recycle paper products.

- At home, use dishes for food and not paper plates. Take your own dishes and utensils to picnics and other large-scale events. (You don't have to ask permission on this, just show up with your own and use them. If others don't understand, explain it to them.)

- Use rags and kitchen towels instead of paper towels. They're free or very cheap and completely re-usable. Kitchen towels don't need to be expensive or you can easily make them at home. Old newspaper is great for cleaning up spills and for cleaning windows glass and mirrors.

- Use cloth napkins and forget about paper napkins. Make your own napkins out of an easily washable fabric or buy small white terry-cloth towels – the kind that can be bought in bulk at the hardware store.

- For computer printing, be sure to print on both sides of your paper. Cut the paper in half if you needed only a small piece of it printed. Use the rest for printing or as note paper.

- Carry home and use scrap paper from work (or any other place where you can get it).

- Pay bills on-line (or by phone). Use email instead of writing letter and notes and get your news from the Internet rather than newspapers or magazines.

- Use washcloths instead of face wipes and cloth handkerchiefs instead of tissues. These last for many years. At home, use cloth diapers and plastic over-wraps. Paper diapers are justifiable only when the child is taken out of the house for several hours at a time. You can carry an extra paper diaper for quick changes.

- Carefully, unwrap gifts and save gift-wrap paper for future reuse. Also save cardboard boxes for storage or shipping containers. When possible, ship in paper envelopes instead of cardboard boxes and recycle crumpled paper as padding for shipping or storing fragile items.

- Save greeting cards and calendar art for craft use by cutting out shapes or pictures. And send e-cards instead of paper cards.

**These sections were adapted from earlier posts to Grandma Susan's Almanac Calendar, Dec. 2010.)

THINGS TO DOWNSIZE RIGHT AWAY: CASE #1 – LARGE, FLUFFY BATH TOWELS

Even if you haven’t gone through some major economic emergency that has forced you to reduce your former household size, you probably have some kind of plan to downsize and/or take the clutter out of your house. You know - in your heart of hearts - that having all those possessions is getting to be a burden and your soul longs for a lighter material life.

Downsizing seems to be about people's stuff, but it's really about their attitudes and values. And nobody says the process is easy. In fact, many people report a lot of emotional baggage around letting go. We, understandably, tend to identify with our possessions, so downsizing, for any reason, means a confrontation with who we think we are – our very identity. For example, many people with shelves and shelves (and walls) of books say that all those books mean something to them. Can that possibly be true? Of course, not. But their own identity is tied up with trying to be that person who would read all that (and more). You have to let go of that fantasy self and find a new one who says: “I’m only going to live so many more years, and the chances I read or need to look up something in all of these books is close to zero."

It’s the person that has to change. And, beside books, here's a list of other "sticky" possessions that most people find it hard to part with:

Collections of photos, mementos, and family "treasures"

Antiques and favored furniture

Clothing and other “creature comforts”

Stuff they thought they’d use in the future

On the brighter side, and if I’m reading correctly a lot of blog posts, many people report both happiness and relief when they get rid of clutter and downsize. Here's the nitty-gritty  - we all know that it isn’t good to hold on so much to the past, and things are a lot of our past. Too much energy is involved in maintaining all that baggage. And, properly done, we can let go of what we no longer need and create a better future for ourselves. So, I'm challenging you to take that step and make a healthy commitment to look ahead – instead of behind.

At any rate, it isn’t necessary to begin downsizing and reducing clutter with our very most treasured possessions. We can begin elsewhere. There’s a lot to choose from. In this post, I propose just one change that you can do today to declutter and downsize. And it doesn’t have to affect your identity or your creature comfort.

Case # 1 - The Large, Fluffy Bath Towel

Here, I talk about a creature comfort – the bath towel – and how I changed my attitude toward it over the years.

When I was a child, we didn’t have “nice” towels in the bathroom at our house. Well, most of what we had to dry ourselves with after bathing were called bath towels but, clearly, they were leftover items from years of use. My Mom, true to her past in the Great Depression and WWI, was thrifty and didn’t throw towels away until they were literally rags. Then, she used them for rags.

Tending to be small – just big enough for the purpose that they were intended for - our towels were thoroughly wet when you got through drying. That was a fact of life, and, as far as I could tell, no one seemed to worry themselves about it.  The towel, one for each of us, was hung up in the bathroom and used for a week – drying out in the approximate 24 hours between baths. We didn’t have a shower back then. When hair was washed, a second towel, often the dirty one from the week before that was still in the hamper, was brought into action.

Back in those days, regular people - those who weren’t "rich" - made no effort to put out matching towels and wash cloths. Maybe, in the living room or the bedroom, but the idea of bathroom décor just wasn’t heard of.

So, as a child and teenager, I had made comparisons and felt somewhat left out, seeing that our better-off relatives and friends had newer looking and comfier towels. Later, I saw sets of large towels with matching wash cloths in magazines and on the TV. They were ever so large and fluffy. That spelled out luxury to me.  I vowed that, someday, I would have sets of plush  towels and wash cloths that would grace my (dreamed of) large linen closet. And that they would be the heavy, fluffy type. I guess I bought in, big-time, to the media hype of having the "boutique hotel experience."

So, what happened over the years? Well, my husband and I finally got good paying jobs and the cost of cotton items got cheaper, due to foreign trade. Yes, and, for a long time, I prided myself on buying and using large, fluffy bath towels.

Years, later, came a life-changing set of crises – children then on their own, thankfully. At the end of all that, my husband and I were forced to move across country and downsize our living quarters. In the condo that we gave up – the one that I thought would be our retirement home for the rest of our lives - there was a sizeable linen closet and nice bath. So, bathroom decor, including nice towels, was, if not a priority, at least a possibility.

But, from there, my husband and I went to live in just one room in the house of a friend - along with a shared bathroom. So, a lot of downsizing went on. No furniture was taken with us, and only clothing and some personal items made it that far. Of course, I hadn't gotten rid of all of my beloved “creature comforts.” Yes, I had traveled cross-country with four of my largest and most plush bath towels along with matching wash cloths.

Also, at about that time, I began to adopt greener alternatives and started blogging about Earth-friendliness. So, a lot of things came under scrutiny. Those included washing procedures – energy-related things - like always filling up the machine to capacity, using cold water, choosing less harmful detergents, etc. I also found out that cotton, although the products are available to us fairly cheap, have a huge impact on water use and that the people who collect cotton and make the towels do so under terrible working conditions with wages that don’t even feed them well.

That’s about the time I began to look at my fluffy bath towels differently. They took up a lot of space in the closet. They took up too much room in the washer. They didn’t dry as fast as other clothes in the dryer. Also, I had, over the years, lost a lot of my former interest in matching towel sets. Bathroom décor no longer was a priority in my life.

That’s when I decided to change out my old bath towels for smaller, light-weight ones and give my old ones to a local charity. I found a couple of "downsized" towels at the thrift store and purchased another two - half the length and one-quarter the the weight of the older ones. To my surprise the new ones worked fine, and I’m happy enough using them - no regrets. So, now, I’ve solved one volume–related, material problem surrounding bath towels use. And, oh, I'm still working on some of the social and ecological ones.

By the way, I’ve yet to convince my husband. He still has his old towels. Anyway, he’s not likely to buy himself any new towels, and so eventually his towels will be lighter by wear, if not by intent. My pledge is that I’m not buying any larger, fluffy towels for me or for him.

So, this is my take on bath towels. You can get along very well without all those large, fluffy towels. Get rid of them and buy smaller, lighter versions. If you balk at buying more stuff when you already have towels, here’s an idea. Cut those big towels in half and make a pretty crochet edging around the “new” towels. I’ve wanted to that with my husbands’ towels and made my intentions known.  So far, he hasn’t let me do that.

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THINGS TO DO WITH LEFTOVER CANDLE WAX

Earth-friendly folk, like most of us aspire to be, are always looking for recycling projects. We know that  there's a lot of waste in our homes and that, with a little imagination, we can find new uses for things that, previously, we threw out.

A tin can can be a candle holder.

So, here’s another reuse wonder – making useful things with leftover candle wax. If you burn candles frequently, like I do, you’ve seen how candlewicks tend to be used up first, leaving a lot of extra wax at the bottom. What 's left of the candle is not trash.  It’s a potential treasure.  So start collecting that extra wax that remains in the container. It can be easily made into several recyclable projects for your home. 

Recycled candles

Save extra candle wax, sorted by colors or by scents. Use these leftovers as candle supplies to make new candles. Make sure you have good, clean wax leftovers in a quantity that makes it worth your while. If you have too little wax in the container or if it has got too much soot and other ugly stuff, it’s best to toss it.

(I buy only white or cream colored candles with very little scent, that way I can use all my extra wax without bothering to sort it.)

- Heat the wax in a double boiler until it liquefies. Use a pan that will only be used for this purpose in the future (and never again for cooking). Having the wax over boiling water is a safety measure. Wax can change color and smoke at a temperature of about 250 degrees, and hotter than that and it can catch fire.

- Use your rinsed-out tin cans as the molds. The small vegetable cans are just the right size for votive candles. (Taller cans can be given a fancier look when holes are punctured around the top, according to some design.

- For the wicks, buy braided wick or pre-dip twine or heavy cotton string in the melted wax. Place your wicks on a flat surface so they remain straight.

- Make 2 small cardboard circles for each can, one slightly smaller than the bottom, and another a bit larger than the top; punch a hole in the middle of each circle. Grease the cans so that you can take out the bottom cardboard circles before burning the candles and, that way, the same cans are reusable over and over.

- Insert the wick in the bottom circle, with an inch or so below, and hold the wick up while you fill up the can with melted wax up to 1 or 2 inches from the top.

- Place the top circle on top of the melted wax with the wick pulled through the middle hole. Let the wick hang over the side of the can.

- The candle will set quickly in the air at room temperature or it can be placed in refrigerator to speed up the process.

- When the wax has set, trim the wick to a length of 3/4 inch, and your candle is ready for burning.


Wax ornaments

You can use leftover melted candles to make decorations that can be hung on a Christmas tree or elsewhere in the home.

Begin by melting the leftover wax. Add a candle scent if you like. Then, pour the wax into molds (the kind with both a top and a bottom). Before the wax hardens, cut off pieces of satin ribbon and attach loops in the tops of each ornament. When the wax is completely dry, pop the ornaments out of the molds. A set of these ornaments make nice gifts.

Great fire starters

Any leftover wax - even the sooty kind with ugly bits - is reusable for this project.

Take a large cardboard egg carton and place sawdust or tiny bits of newspaper in the egg part of the carton. Fill it up about halfway.

Pour melted wax over the sawdust or bits of newspaper to the top and allow to set.

Cut the carton into individual egg parts, and use one egg part at a time to start a fire.

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REPURPOSE OLD & DAMAGED PLATES INTO DECORATIVE PLAQUES.

Of the three GREEN-Rs — REDUCE, REPURPOSE, AND RECYCLE, repurposing is more fun and brings the most satisfaction. And in my opinion, it’s also the greenest of the greens – because it requiresonly a tiny bit of energy for its reprocessing and eliminates the need to buy a new product. When an item can’t really be remodeled in any way so that it can be used for its original purpose, you can sometimes use your design skills to adapt it to another need. Thus the same product can serve us for more years in different uses or serve other people a long time before becoming recycled or - please not this- be tossed as another piece of trash into our already bulging landfills.

So what’s behind the repurposing fever? First, our society is running short of many costly resources and, second, the huge volume of products being disposed of everyday is no longer sustainable. And that’s exactly where design come in – finding new solutions by transforming an original item into something else, thus extending the products’ longevity. That’s the heart of the trash-to-treasure movement. You have an everyday item that no longer is useful in its first form, but with creativity and a bit of work, you find an attractive reuse that can be useful in your home or given as a gift to someone else.

When you transform an item into something with a new purpose, you reduce the environmental impact of the product’s industrial cost and postpone its moment of disposal as trash. This allows the “repurposer” to have the satisfaction of taking no longer used items and  thrift store-finds and transforming them into original artworks packed with both futurist vision and sentimental value.

That’s the trash-to-treasure principle that GrandmaS so happily spends time thinking about and, after some trial and error, shares with her readers. So, here goes one such project. Everybody has or comes across a beautiful plate that has a great color and design but now has a fairly visible chip or crack. Those plates don’t have to be thrown away and can easily be repurposed as decorative plaques.

How to convert an old plate into a decorative plaque.

Materials
A chipped or cracked plate with a charming design
Small mosaic tiles that coordinate (or contrast) with the colors in the plate
Tile nippers
A board cut to size as a plaque (with a cut-to-size circle if an entire plate is to be displayed.)
Mosaic tile adhesive
Premixed grout
Grout trowel
Tile and grout sealer
Safety goggles
Hammer
Work gloves

Instructions
You have choices. You can fix up the crack or chip with a bit of ceramic glue and/or acrylic paint color and keep the entire plate with a mosaic tile background. Or you can break the plate into smaller pieces with a hammer and not have to worry about any chips or cracks. The pieces don’t have to be all the same size, just be sure that most are about one-inch square or larger. (It's also possible to display the whole plate, as is, and not worry about trying to fix up small cracks or chips - giving your product more of a "shabby-chic" look.)

Be sure to protect yourself when you break the plate. Wear safety goggles or place some heavy fabric on the top before hammering. Also it’s a good idea to use some gloves when handling the sharp pieces of plate and for tile cutting.

Then take your plate or plate pieces and move them to the precut board. Create the design you like with plate pieces and tiles without applying glue. You will probably have to do some tile nipping to get the right fit. The plate or plate pieces will typically be in the middle with tiles around it, but you could also make a spiral, triangle, or some other geometric pattern. Use a notched trowel to apply tile adhesive to the board and rough up the adhesive with the trowel. This will help the pieces bond to the board.

Carefully set, not slide, the broken pieces and tiles into the adhesive using a slight twisting motion. Let the plaque dry according to the adhesive instructions.

After the adhesive has dried, fill the gaps between the broken pieces with grout. Remove excess grout with a damp sponge. Let the grout dry, then wipe off the surface again with the sponge. Make sure that the plaque is clean and dry, then apply the sealer.

Display your creation on a shelf or hang it on the wall. You’ll want to make more than one. These plaques make lovely holiday gifts.

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HERE’S TO YOUR GOOD HEALTH IN 2012 & BEYOND!

Well, as we all know, 2012 is just around the corner. So, whether you’re looking forward to it or have been frightened by vague rumblings about great changes - and maybe disasters, our next year on this planet is going to be 2012. So, whatever it may bring - for better or worse - it’s good to get ready. We can do this best by being healthy and helping others to stay well, too. And that advice is good for any year to come. Here’s my short list of things for you to think about as you prepare to stay well in 2012. All these activities are Earth-friendly and none rely on any sort of consumerism. The goal is for you and yours to be as healthy and useful to others as possible without putting any extra burden on our planet's resources.

Prayers and meditation do a body good
Whether our problems in 2012 are already well known or new to us, we need to be ready to deal with whatever comes. To do that, stress reduction techniques are essential. People who regularly meditate and pray have a brighter outlook and can better face stressful situations. So, plan for meditation and/or prayer to be a part of your daily life. Whether it’s meditation, prayer, reading the Bible, or reading some other inspirational book, just taking a few minutes of your day can clear your mind of a lot of external things. This, in turn, allows us to open our minds and trust in higher powers to bring us peace and guidance. Try to set aside some 15 minutes a day to get quiet, clear your mind of day-to-day worries, and ask for the help that you’re needing to overcome stress and lead a better life. Beyond that, be grateful for all the blessings received. Feel thankful for every single day. This feeling of gratitude benefits our health, increases our sense of connectedness and gives us the psychic energy we need to be friendly and kind to others.

A healthier diet will make a difference
Eating healthy means reducing the proportion of dietary sugar, fats, and meat and eating more fruits and vegetables, topped off with lots of water. You probably already know that eating plenty of produce - especially green vegetables, fruit, nuts, and beans - every day gives the body those necessary anti-oxidants to fight off disease and stop premature aging. Fresh produce also provides the fiber needed to regulate cholesterol and maintain proper bowel function. So, emphasize fruits and vegetables in your meals and snacks, and eat some green leafy vegetables every day.

Water is fundamental to all life, and our bodies are made up of 60% water. People who drink more water during the day report fewer physical complaints and higher energy levels than others who say they drink less water (and usually more coffee and soft drinks). So, aim for drinking at least eight, 8oz. glasses of water a day, and, for health and lower energy use, no plastic bottles, please. Take plenty of filtered water with you in a stainless steel reusable bottle whenever you go out.

Get a move on early and late
A major part of staying healthy comes from daily exercise. Do stretching exercises for at least 20 minutes in the a.m. and take a half hour walk at midday or late afternoon.  Exercising right when you get up is ideal. Set the alarm and get up 30 minutes earlier and start a stretching routine. Stretching helps you maintain strong joints and keep a good posture. Whether it’s yoga, gi gong, or old-fashioned calisthenics, get a move on in the morning and feel better all day.

It's particularly good for you to exercise outdoors. By spending just a fraction of your time outside – walking, jogging, bicycling, etc., especially during the daytime hours, you promote both mental and physical health. So, grab your reusable water bottle and head outside to stay fit among the marvels of nature. Sunlight affects moods positively and stimulates the body produce melatonin, a substance that boost the immune system and helps achieve proper restful sleep.

Make a green-action plan
Take this opportunity to talk to your close family and friends about what you'll be doing next year to reduce your impact/carbon footprint on the Earth. Make a list of things that you could do. Categorize these activities in three columns - Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, and then, try to think of ways to add them to your lifestyle.

Your goal for next year should be to cut back both your overall energy use and your trash production by 50%. There are all kinds of library reading materials and Internet blogs that can show you how to save energy, reduce your trash output, and salt away a little money in the process.

Stay connected with others in important ways
As humans, we form families, raise our children, and identify ourselves as part of circles of friends, neighbors, religions, clubs and other groups. Connecting with other people and forming close bonds of trust nourish both our emotional and physical health. In the past several decades, many people have become increasingly cut off from others, leading them to feel depressed and isolated. While the Internet helps in some ways to connect people, it just isn’t enough. What really matters for mental health are opportunities for positive, day-to-day interactions with all the physical components of voice, touch, and face-to-face communication.

That brings me to a more specific recommendation for 2012. It’s my opinion that you would do well to learn an art or craft that you can perform on behalf of others. I’m talking about a service that you can do to benefit other people without the use of specialized equipment or dependence on outside energy sources. Call them domestic arts or survival skills or whatever, it’s important to know such things. For example: how to do simple carpentry without power tools, cut hair with only scissors and an ol’time straight razor, cook from scratch over a wood fire, cultivate a small garden, make or remake clothes from what’s on hand, etc. And, of course, I don’t mean that you should necessarily learn a whole set of skills; the point is that real connection among people involves constructive help, and helping means a lot more when it’s person-to-person, without the need for modern technological interventions. Now’s a good time to choose a skill that you like, study how to do it better, and put your talent to practice by helping others.

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BREAD PUDDING, AN APPALACHIAN AND SOUTHERN DESSERT THAT YOU'RE SURE TO ENJOY.

Like nearly everyone else, my husband and I sometimes crave a dessert. Of course, we feel that we should refuse to go along with that urge – at least most of the time. As we all know, excess sugar in the diet brings on problems like: weight gain, skin and hair problems, and even more serious conditions such as diabetes and lowered resistance to infections. But, from time-to-time, something a little sweet is next to irresistible. And since almost no one wants to totally abstain from desserts, what I recommend is a healthy change toward the not-so-sweet side of things. That's where bread pudding comes in.

Bread pudding is a tasty use for stale bread that has been in style for centuries. Along with bread pudding, cooks also used dry bread to make stuffing, thickeners and edible serving containers. Today, bread pudding may not be as common as it once was, but it’s never gone out of style in Appalachian and Southern states and also continues to be popular in Mexico, Great Britain, Belgium and France. For a lot of us, it's still one of our favorite comfort foods, helping us remember a time in the past when dessert was usually made from common kitchen ingredients and wastefulness was considered a terrible wrong.

In our home, we eat a lot of fruit, flavored yogurt, nuts, and granola, and that usually satisfies our dessert cravings. But when a dessert is definitely called for, usually for a holiday celebration or a special dinner with family or friends, I like to make something that's a fitting following to a good meal. Often that "something" is bread pudding. So, if you're also looking for  a dessert that's not too sweet, bread pudding is great dish that sure to please. Besides that, it gives you a use for stale bread, a situation that often occurs near the end of the week. (I usually just chop it up into coarse crumbs and freeze it. Later I make bread pudding or add it to my "almost- meatless meat-loaf". See related post below.)

The sweet alternative for leftover bread is to make old-fashioned bread pudding - not too sugary and plump with raisins with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg, served up cold or warm out of the oven. And it can be made from any type of bread (whole wheat, white, multigrain, etc.) Homemade bread usually goes fast, but if you have any leftover, it makes really great tasting bread pudding. And, your dessert will look particularly festive if you serve it up in glass custard cups with a bit of syrup or whipped cream and a sprinkling of cinnamon on top.

Whatever reason you have for making and serving bread pudding, you can be sure it's a truly satisfying and eco-friendly treat.

Old-fashion bread pudding recipe

Here's a version of old fashioned bread pudding that’s as close as I can get to what my mother used to make.

Ingredients

2 cups of heated milk
4 cups of dry bread, torn in pieces

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2-cup brown sugar or honey
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1/3 cup seeded raisins or chopped dates
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. cinnamon
Dash of nutmeg

Instructions

- Put bread and raisins in large bowl. Heat milk and 1/4 cup melted butter in a saucepan. Pour warm mixture over bread; let stand 10 minutes.

- Stir in all remaining pudding ingredients. Pour into a greased casserole pan.

- Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

Notes

Added to the basic recipe, you can include any of the following: fresh fruit cut up, minced nuts, a sweet liquor added in place of all or part of the milk, or a topping of honey, maple syrup, or confectioners sugar. If you’re going to put something sugary on top of your bread pudding, cut back some on the brown sugar in pudding.

If your bread pudding tends to dry out in the oven,  place a bowl of water on another shelf while the pudding bakes. This keeps delicate foods, like this bread pudding, from burning, drying out, or curdling. Check the water level during the baking time and add more hot water as necessary.

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