Melissa | Growing Green Nutrition – Page 5

Losing the lawn

Well, we finally have the huge, sunny yard we’ve been wanting . . . and it’s covered with zoysia grass. Zoysia is a drought-hardy, warm season grass, which means you can’t just kill it by letting it dry up. It will also readily invade our garden beds (which will be most of the yard) if we just till and try to work around it, so it’s got to go.

This resource from the University of California lists several methods for removing warm season grasses. Any of the effective methods will involve noticeable time and money for a yard our size.

Our plan is to use solarization, which basically bakes the grass to death by trapping the sun’s heat underneath a sheet of thin plastic (you know, the good ol’ greenhouse effect). This means that we have to buy a lot of plastic, and stay off of the yard for several weeks.

We will likely use sheet mulching in a couple of areas, primarily to create some walkways through the plastic-covered portion of the lawn. This may, in some ways, be the “greenest” option, especially if we obtained enough old cardboard, but at 4 layers of cardboard over the entire yard, that’s a LOT of cardboard (and mulch, which you need to cover the cardboard).

All of the plastic for solarizing is far from the greenest thing ever — not sure how to weigh that against multiple rounds of Round-Up — but in the end, we’ll be on our way to having a space that is growing food, not lawn (so ready to be done with the mower!).

Solarization has additional benefits, according to the U of C guide: “This method not only kills grass but can also improve soil structure, increase nitrogen availability and reduce some species of nematodes and soil borne disease.” Sounds good to me!

If all goes well (i.e,. we can afford to buy All. The. Plastic. and the solarization works), we will be laying out our garden beds, perhaps in time for some fall planting. Once the grass is gone, we’ll bring in some compost as well as any indicated soil amendments (Matthew took soil samples for testing waaaaayyy back in December), and get our garden on!

We’d love to hear from others that have successfully used solarization (or other methods) to get rid of warm season grasses!

Floors fume dilemma

Who gets one coat into having three coats of polyurethane on their floors and has serious second thoughts? We do!

Here’s the thing — we did a LOT of research, and we never intended to use a polyurethane finish in the first place. One of the first flooring guys who gave us an estimate suggested we look at Rubio Monocoat, which is a hardwax oil, and I quite liked the idea of a no- or very low-VOC finish that could be touched up easily.

I found a great resource on hardwax oil finishes in the Tadas Wood Flooring blog. They tested and reviewed four brands of hardwax oil, including Rubio, and another product, Pallmann’s Magic Oil. It seems like the tide is slowly turning away from the standard polyurethane finishes to these healthier, more environmentally friendly options.

In the end, they declared a tie between the Rubio product and the Pallmann product. After reading through all of their results, I decided that the Pallmann’s Magic Oil might be a little more forgiving on our imperfect floors.

A bit more on our floors — while all the floors in the house are oak, our flooring guy said we essentially have FOUR different floors because of what floors in different rooms have had on them in the past:

Bedrooms: at some point these likely had some kind of polyurethane finish. Most recently, they were carpeted. The wood in both bedrooms has fairly extensive urine stains.
Hallways: had vinyl flooring adhered to the wood with a water-based adhesive; water staining from one of the closets being turned into a main floor laundry.
Kitchen: had linoleum adhered to the wood with an oil-based adhesive (tar paper — yuck!). Once all of the gunk was scraped and sanded off, this floor looked the best of all of them.
Living room: Not sure if this had ever been finished — maybe some kind of wax or oil finish at some point? Most recently had carpet. Some staining in this room as well (likely urine), but not nearly as bad as the bedrooms.

Anyhow, the guy we chose to do the floors had used Pallmann’s Magic Oil before, but was concerned that our wood floors would not be good candidates, based on all of the issues outlined above. He was concerned that the oil would not penetrate well and/or would have weird chemical reactions with previous compounds that had penetrated the wood (i.e., urine, adhesives, etc.), but he said he would try to bleach the urine stains (he did) and that he was willing to do a test patch of the Pallmann’s Magic Oil (he didn’t).

So last week, his crew had an unexpected opening, and they came in and sanded the floors and worked on bleaching the stains. In order to best hide what remained of the stains, he suggested we use a stain that was darker than what we planned. He had a test patch of this darker flooring stain (“chestnut”) for us to look at.

When I went over to check the color, I was a bit taken aback. I wasn’t comfortable making this relatively big decision for our future home without Matthew seeing it in person as well, especially since he was more hesitant to go dark than I was.

But in the end, the color wasn’t the biggest issue. Once our floor guy saw the sanded floors and the results of the bleaching, he did a one-eighty on the Pallmann’s Magic Oil, basically saying our floors were not a good candidate for that finish, and we’d be unhappy with the results unless we went with a standard oil-based polyurethane. He also pushed us to make a “decision” quickly, as he didn’t want to leave the floors with nothing on them in the high humidity.

And so we okayed both the darker stain and the standard 3-coat oil-based polyurethane finish. I should add that this is the finish that we’ve lived with in both of our apartments for the last eight years. It looks shiny and pretty and is fairly durable. But with an oil-based poly, you’re essentially walking around on a plastic floor, not a wood floor.

On Thursday night, the day after the first coat of poly was applied, we got a sneak peek at the result. The floors look really great (we’re both happy with the color) . . .

. . . but after just a few minutes inside, my eyes and throat were burning. The fumes were horrible!

Now I’m having serious regrets about going with the poly. The thing is, other than vaguely knowing that oil-based polys are bad in the VOC / indoor air quality realm, we didn’t do all that much specific research, because we weren’t planning to use a poly finish! I feel like the flooring guy railroaded us into it, without ever even testing the Pallmann’s Magic Oil (we were too overwhelmed to really process that at the time).

So here we are, one coat into a three coat process with the poly. Realistically, the worst (or at least most obvious) of the fumes will have off-gassed by the time we move in in mid-June. And we’ve been living with poly floors for the past eight years (I believe the floors in both apartments were refinished not too long before we moved in, but I don’t really remember detecting a smell in either).

But I’m feeling kind of sick about this, especially with a little one in the equation (children are usually more sensitive to respiratory irritants because of higher respiration rates, and there’s just so much still developing in their little bodies — I would prefer G not be inhaling high levels of formaldehyde, benzene, etc.). I feel like we were talked into perfect-looking floors at the expense of a healthy finish, and really, I would prefer the latter. We’re not in this for resale value, and it’s not going to be a “perfect” house.

I’m not sure we have a lot of options at this point. If there is another finish left in the floors, we could have them sanded again and insist on using the Pallmann’s. If the flooring guy is to be believed, there is some risk in this, as in, it just might not work. But after regretting falling for his hard sell on the poly, I’m less inclined to trust. If there is not another sanding left, we’d be looking at tearing out and replacing All. Of. The. Floors., which has is own environmental costs. Not to mention the $$ cost, which we probably cannot afford.

So we’re probably stuck with the poly. And it will probably be okay. But the whole thing stinks!

UPDATE (5/5/16): The floors do have a sanding left in them, but we decided to stay the course with the poly (and keep that sanding for a future refinish). The final coat was applied on Tuesday, more than 6 weeks in advance of our move-in date, so it will have quite a bit of time to off-gas before we are living there. Not our first choice for floor finish, but we’re embracing good enough.

Steroids and shortcuts

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned having problems with what I thought were reflux issues — a feeling of a lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away. I spent a week eating very small meals very slowly; avoiding chocolate, raw garlic, and wine; and recommitting to daily mindfulness practice to deal with All. The. Stress.

The mindfulness was nice, but the eating changes? Not so much. I was hungry and missing my chocolate, and the feeling in the back of my throat (which made the eating I was doing unpleasant) wasn’t going away, so I changed my self-diagnosis from reflux to allergies, and started treating it as such.

First, I bummed G’s Claritin and tried taking a stronger antihistamine before bed for a few days. It seemed to help a little, but the oral antihistamines alone weren’t doing the trick, so I sterilized G’s bottle of Flonase and started inhaling steriods.

Now, I was a Flonase junkie back in high school, taking it regularly for a couple of years to ward off sinus congestion and related headaches. At some point in college, I realized I didn’t need it anymore, and it’s been over 14 years since I’ve used it.

Lo and behold, just as Flonase was the game changer for G’s never-ending cough, it also saved the day for me. While I like to avoid taking drugs as a rule, I’m thankful to have found some relief. It’s nice to be able to enjoy eating again!

Speaking of food, if you’ve been following my Instagram feed, you’ll know that despite the current roller coaster of life, we are still cooking. Even in busy times, we have to eat, and cooking and eating more or less as normal provides some semblance of balance.

That said, I am making some allowances for this particularly busy time. In past busy times, I’ve unsuccessfully tried to convince myself to indulge in some of Trader Joe’s prepared frozen food items. But every time I go to the store and actually pick up the packages and read the labels, I can’t go through with it. I feel like the options are either not all that healthy, or they’re decent, but half of what you’re paying for is the cooked, frozen grain, which I can make at home, thankyouverymuch.

A couple weeks ago, I made a TJ’s run, vowing to try at least a few things, but I came out with next to nothing in the way of processed foods. After looking over the options, my compromise was buying lots of frozen vegetables to cut down on prep time. (Their vegetable pakoras somehow passed my screening, and there are two boxes in my freezer, awaiting a trial.)

Anyhow, the compromise decision has worked well (though I need another TJ’s run to stock up again!). I’m combining the frozen store-bought veggies with grains and beans cooked from scratch, often rounding things out with some fresh store-bought vegetables, fresh garden produce (asparagus!), and/or frozen home-grown veggies.

On the left, kale (ours from freezer), garden asparagus, and frozen artichoke hearts over whole wheat linguine. On the right, frozen stir-fry veg medley plus onion and garden asparagus over black beans and rice.

We’re making other food compromises including buying bread, as my baker quite understandably has not had time. I’m hoping there might be one last round of bread baking in this apartment — with 6 loaves per batch, it would likely see us through to the move!

With all the craziness at the house, it’s very nice to have an intact kitchen and [relatively] clean space to come home to at our apartment. Taking the time to cook these days, even with some shortcuts, sometimes feels like an extravagance, but it’s worth it when we sit down and enjoy a tasty meal together.

Circus life

No, I’m not talking about aerial arts, though we have, somehow, continued to make space for aerial silks here and there. Rather, life feels like a many-ringed circus these days: house purchase, house remodel, buying a [new-to-us] car, selling our car, my school work, and figuring out where G will go to school in the fall — just to name the big things!

The House
While the house has “good bones” — basically every contractor who comes in to give us an estimate mentions this, “Oh, this place has great bones,” which is nice, good bones are important, but if I hear it one more time, I might scream, because right now I’m ready for a house that’s liveable — it needs a number of updates.

Many of these we planned on and figured into the up front cost of the house, but it’s still a lot of work and a lot of decisions, figuring out who to call, getting multiple bids, getting providers to follow-up with us (because, spring! the most popular time for construction work, and evidently everyone is swamped). The biggest project is the kitchen, and there is a certain order of operations for that work, so while our cabinets should arrive in a week, we are not nearly ready to install them.

Matthew and I are putting every ounce of our [public health] project management skills into coordinating all of these moving pieces. If we don’t get a few key commitments this week, we may push back our move date a bit.

We are getting lots of wonderful support, in various forms, from our parents, for which I am so grateful. My dad made the trip from Iowa to spend a couple of intense days working on the house, and Matthew’s dad has put in untold hours on various projects.

The Car(s)
Just in case we needed something else on our plates, we had the limited-time opportunity to upgrade our automobile by purchasing my MIL’s “old” car (a 2011 Camry, making it brand-spanking-new next to our 2002 Corolla). While the timing is FAR from ideal, the alternative, not doing this now, when we have the chance, seems somewhat foolish.

With a little luck, we might have the car circus wrapped up by the end of the week, though adding a trailer hitch to the Camry has created an additional plot twist. Said car went in to U-Haul for the hitch installation with cruise control working, and emerged with cruise control mysteriously NOT working. Grrr!

School
I can see the light at the end-of-semester tunnel! Just a few more weeks, and I’ll have another semester under my belt. I am taking one online class over the summer, but it doesn’t start until July 11, so I’ll have some ~~down time~~ time to pack! and paint! and move!

Of course, the house purchase and subsequent money we’re funneling into the house is making me question the wisdom of being in school (another big expense) vs. working right now. When I went back to school in August, the chances of us finding a house to buy anytime soon seemed rather slim. In fact, I’d rather started to think that we would have to relocate to find (and afford) the house we wanted, and that my pursuing a career in dietetics and nutrition might make it easier to find a job elsewhere, thus facilitating that future relocation.

With the house purchase, our future is very much here in StL. I will not change my current path without some serious reflection, but the idea of a paycheck, a real paycheck, and not just the ≤8 hours/week that I’m pulling now, plus not incurring additional school debt, is rather attractive with the expenses piling up.

Anyhow, I have more calls to make and class work to do before two house appointments this afternoon, squeezed in before my class. Circus, indeed!

P.S. My recent posts have been more words and less images, but there are photos if you hop over to Instagram. I hope to share some house photos there soon, but everything looks yucky right now!

A house at last!

It took almost exactly SEVEN years, but we finally bought a house! This purchase has been in the works since last August, when I happened to take a different route to school and saw the “For Sale” sign just in the nick of time. That’s a long time for me to not write a thing about something so big!

At first it all seemed so tenuous, and while we told family members, and then a few close friends, we chose not to spread the news far and wide. It became more of a certainty in November, but there were still lots of t’s to cross and i’s to dot (and months hoping that either the house had been winterized or the heat was still on, so we didn’t find an expensive mess once we finally had access).

Once it became more of a certainty, we decided to wait to share the news in completely public forums until it was 100% official and we had notified our landlord. Check, and check!

The property meets (or will meet) A LOT of our criteria. It is, in many ways, the needle in the haystack we’ve been hunting for for all these years. That said, I will not share a lot of the specific details here due to privacy concerns given the uniqueness of the property.

While the house, was, at a glance, technically (maybe?) liveable, it needed some updates in the flooring and kitchen departments. We’ve spent the past two weeks making the house look horrible — tearing out the grungy old carpeting, worn linoleum flooring, and kitchen cabinets — and scrambling to meet with contractors and finalize decisions.

We gave our landlord two months notice, and we’re hoping for all of the work, or at least all of the big, messy, disruptive work, to be finished by the time we move in.

Costing various options has been eye-opening and sobering. We had hoped to use Mwanzi/Greenhaus for our kitchen cabinets, but that plan was quickly scrapped when we found out that just buying the cabinets from them would use our entire kitchen budget. Gulp! We’ve run into similar roadblocks on other sourcing decisions, and we’ve had to make lots of compromises on what our ideal would be (socially and environmentally) and what we can actually afford.

Sadly, it seems that certain “green” options, from cabinetry to geothermal heating, are really only attainable for those at the higher end of the socioeconomic scale. So that’s been a bit of a reality check for our idealist selves. (We are planning to install solar panels next year — the payoff on those seems quite good.)

Anyhow, we’ve finalized our kitchen cabinetry and appliance decisions, and we have three rooms and the hallway almost ready for the floor refinishers (still more staples to pull — always more staples!). The kitchen floor, however, is a hot mess of linoleum, a nasty adhesive, and the. worst. staples. EVER!

I’m half wishing we’d never started tear-out on that floor, and just put something over the existing flooring, but it’s probably good in the end because we’ve already pulled up moldy under-layment, and keeping that around would not have been good for air quality!

My renewed mindfulness practice, which had been going strong since January, got off-track right around when we closed on the house, which, combined with all of the big decisions, took a toll on my mental and physical health. I’m re-committing to the mindfulness and trying to get some reflux issues (something that’s never been an issue for me) under control.

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