Author Archives: Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition

How green is that movie rental?

My M.O. with movies, as with books, is borrow rather than buy.  My reading far outpaces my movie watching, in part because I also watch very little TV, so I’m rarely exposed to movie previews.  My one-movie-theatre-visit-a-year also limits my preview exposure.

Anyway, we’ve had decent luck getting some movies from the public library, but their collection is limited and, when they do have a movie, the DVD is often in such bad shape that it’s unwatchable.

After slowly working our way through Matthew’s sci-fi television show collection over the past four years, we’ve recently found ourselves wanting to rent a movie or two.

We quickly discovered that actual movie rental places are becoming obsolete.  All of the within-easy-biking-distance video stores were out of business, and I was not about to hop in the car.  Enter Netflix.Continue reading “How green is that movie rental?”

Dose of cute

We saw the legendary band of wild donkeys in the mountains outside of Ft. Davis, TX.  Of course, the highlight was Baby Donkey.  Isn’t he just the cutest little guy?  I wanted to cuddle him, but, alas, he was too skittish.

Tunneling

My favorite gardener constructed this nifty little low tunnel to extend the growing season.  We should be able to harvest spinach almost all winter.

I’m not sure how this stacks up environmentally, since what you’re looking at there is a lot of plastic.  Sure, it’s heavy duty plastic that should last multiple growing seasons, but still.

It may be better than buying plastic bagged spinach shipped in from California, but the greenest option would be to just eat local spinach during the regular not-extended-with-tunnels growing season.  That said, it will be fun to get something out of the garden when fresh, local produce is scarce.

Plastic trash tally

As I mentioned here a few weeks ago, I took the “Show Your Plastic Challenge” on Fake Plastic Fish.

The trashy truth is now posted for the world to see.  Click here to see my Week 1 results and my thoughts on where I can cut back on plastic trash.

Anyone else out there ready to take the challenge?

Physical inactivity

Not even sure where to start with this one, but it basically goes something like this.  I went away to college and spent a few months not doing much in the way of exercise, other than walking all over the beautiful Notre Dame campus going to classes and such.

At some point not quite halfway through freshman year, I discovered the beautiful (and FREE) fitness center, where I spent significant time over the next 3.5 years (especially after I got a job there).  I enjoyed nice balanced workouts with cardio (I was the elliptical queen) and weight lifting.  Thanks to good weight training instruction in high school, I was not intimidated by the machines, free weights, or disproportionate number of males on the weights side of the fitness room.

Grad school also brought “free gym” perks and a small, but adequate, fitness facility right in the basement of the public health building.  After I graduated, I even ponied up for a staff membership, since I continued to work in the same building.  I think it came out to around $20/month, which I didn’t quite appreciate for the bargain it was.Continue reading “Physical inactivity”