Category Archives: Green Ideas

Review: American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture

I just finished reading American Idle: A Journey Through Our Sedentary Culture, which has been on my list since I heard author Mary Collins speak at the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference in September.  Reading a book about our sedentary lifestyles while sitting or lying on the couch struck me as a bit ironic, I must say.  Fortunately, at 168 pages, it’s a fairly short read, and I was not reading it in place of being physically active.

In researching the book, Collins traveled across the country, learning about various human movement patterns throughout history, and how it is that through the generations, we exchanged a very active lifestyle for a very sedentary lifestyle.

In addition to the obvious physical consequences of our sedentary lives (obesity and chronic disease), Collins explores the social, psychological, and cognitive consequences, as well as some not so obvious physical consequences (e.g., the loss of grace in our movements when we do move) of our inactivity.

Collins advocates for many of the things I hold dear: walkable/bikeable streets and community design that allows and encourages active transportation, which will only come about by collective will and government policies that recognize the dire need for these changes and make them a priority and a requirement in all sectors.

Like the Pro Walk/Pro Bike conference itself, reading American Idle stirred up a mixed batch of emotions for me.  On the one hand, I am working to promote active living, using many of the best practices outlined in the book.  On the other hand, in order to do this work, I significantly increased my sedentary behavior by trading a bikeable job for one that, for all intents and purposes, is accessible only by car.  I struggle with this contradiction on a daily basis, and the taste of warm weather and prime biking days only makes it harder.

Back to the book . . . . Recommended reading?  Yes.  I consider myself pretty knowledgeable in this area, yet Collins provided some new food for thought.

At my request, the Saint Louis Public Library now has a copy of American Idle, so if you’re local, you can check it out there 🙂

In which a crazy pregnant lady goes dumpster diving

It all started out innocently enough.  With the warmer temps, I spent some time cleaning our sun porch on Friday in preparation for being able to use it again soon.

In the process of breaking down a cardboard box for recycling, I pulled off the packing tape, and since I was already outside on my way to the recycling bin at that point, I decided to put the tape directly into the trash dumpster.  I opened the dumpster lid and saw a bunch of brand new looking books.

Unable to just close the lid and go on with my life knowing that some perfectly good books were headed for the landfill, I started pulling them out and piling them on top of the dumpster.

I found about 20 middle school teachers’ guide math texts that looked like they’d never been used.  In the dumpster!  I was tempted to just leave the books piled on top of or next to the dumpster and hope that someone would come along and rescue them, but, realistically, people only tend to pick up furniture and other large objects.

If I left them there, they would probably just sit and end up getting water damage from rain, and then they really would be trash. So I brought them inside in two huge armfuls, found a box in the basement as a temporary home, and posted them on ReUseItStLouis (formerly known as FreeCycle).

They had not generated much interest by Saturday, when I made the mistake of visiting the dumpster again (with another small trash item).  Guess what?  More books!  Same topic and condition as the books from Friday — clearly the same culprit.

My shoulders sagged in defeat.  I could (and did) pull out these books, but this is one dumpster, in one alley, in one city, and I’m one person.  Every day, all across our country, perfectly good and usable items, like these books, get sent to the landfill.

I understand that taking the time to find new homes for items we no longer want does require some effort and can be frustrating, we just went through it with our couch, but taking the time and effort is part of being a responsible consumer.

In this case, the books I rescued would be perfect for a math tutor or a family that home schools.  While this story is not finished yet, I received two emails about the books, including one from a person who seemed very interested.  If all goes well, the books may have a new home by the end of the day, which would turn my distressed expression in the photo into a smile.

Am I asking too much?

As I’ve mentioned in a couple of posts recently, our apartment hunting has been fraught with disappointment, and I feel pretty discouraged about the whole thing.  I admit that we have rather high standards and lengthy list of requirements and wist list items, many that reflect our preference for a greener lifestyle that includes active transportation, cooking healthy meals from locally grown food, and living in an energy-efficient space.

Requirements and Ideal Features

  • Smoke-free BUILDING — not negotiable.  Potential landlords, if you say it’s smoke-free, and it’s not, we will know, trust me.
  • Two bedrooms — that’s kind of the point of moving
  • Second-floor unit
  • Hardwood floors — so much easier to clean than carpet, better for allergies, no vacuum required
  • Garage — I could care less about my car, but I’m tired of lugging Bub up and down the basement steps, and I imagine we’ll be adding some kind of bicycle trailer to the set-up in the near future
  • Functional kitchen — we spend a lot of time in this part of the house
  • Dishwasher — With all the cooking we do, having a clean-up shortcut is VERY helpful, plus using a dishwasher can use less resources than washing by hand
  • Good storage space — can be combination of closet space and storage space in basement, if the basement is clean and dry
  • Energy efficient furnace — I’m sick of seeing places where they say, “Oh, your apartment has a brand new furnace,” and we look at it, and it’s an 80% efficient model, which is pretty much the least efficient you can buy these days, when for just a bit more, they could have had a 95% efficient furnace (huge energy savings)
  • Insulation in the attic — we know from experience that it’s hard to get a landlord to add this once you sign a lease, so ideally it would be there from the get-go
  • A sunny yard to garden — perhaps one of our most negotiable points, given our competing desire for city living
  • Located within walking and/or biking distance of amenities such as grocery store, library, parks, etc.

So, what’s the verdict?  Are we asking for too much here?

I’m thinking about giving it a break for several weeks, and continuing the search in April when there might be more rental stock available.  I’m not sure I can take anymore right now.

Pre-Valentine’s cupcakes

We celebrated the great thaw by biking all around the town on Saturday morning.  We started at the farmers’ market, where our haul included spinach, Napa cabbage, green onions, arugula, and turnips.

My take on turnips: Turnips are one of the very few vegetables that we don’t like (in fact, I can’t think of any others off the top of my head).  We’ve tried them a few times, with various preparations including roasting.  However, they say you should try a new food ten times before deciding you don’t like it, so here we go again.  These were advertised as mild, sweet turnips.  Any favorite turnip recipes you want to share?

The streets still had some icy spots, but we carefully avoided them.  The fenders were essential with all the melting and run-off.  Matthew sported his “3 Feet Please” jersey, shown next to our icy bike lock-up.

After we dropped our produce off at home, we headed back out to the Orchid Show.  I really loved the ancient Maya civilization theme they used this year — if you’re in the St. Louis area, you should definitely check it out.

Our next stop was an apartment possibility that turned out to be not a possibility at all.  Despite my very clearly asking on the phone if the entire 4-family building was smoke-free, and being assured that it was, our noses don’t lie, but the landlord did — waste of our time!

We made a quick exit and headed to lunch at Sweet Art.  Of course, the highlight of lunch at Sweet Art is the cupcakes.  We ordered four, and shared half of each at the restaurant and took the other halves home for later enjoyment 🙂  (I brought containers so we didn’t need any disposable packaging.)

Refueled and renewed, we visited one more apartment before heading home.  Probably another no-go, though nothing blatantly atrocious, unlike the other.

Sunday brought more gorgeous weather, and I followed up on Saturday’s bike fun with a bit more biking on Sunday.  I usually don’t mind winter, but the almost constant covering of ice on the sidewalks and smaller streets was really getting to me — this thaw couldn’t come soon enough!

Mama-to-be’s reading list

It was over a year ago that I made this reading list, and a few of the books were on the, “I want to read eventually, but not relevant right now,” list.  Well, times have changed 😉

Your Best Birth, by Rikki Lake and Abby Epstein, was the first book I read post finding out that I was pregnant, and I highly recommend it to anyone and everyone.  Even if you are not pregnant, have no plans to become pregnant, and can’t see any way this subject applies to you, I encourage you to read it, because current maternity practice in our country does affect us all in some way, and you may know someone who will be making choices about childbirth and could directly benefit from the information in this book.

I just finished reading The Diaper-Free Baby by Christine Gross-Loh, and I’m totally intrigued by the idea of Elimination Communication (EC).  Loh’s book makes the concept very accessible and straightforward.  Whether you’re using cloth or disposable diapers, using fewer diapers will be greener!

I also enjoyed Labor of Love: A Midwife’s Memoir, by Cara Muhlhahn, and I’m currently reading HypnoBirthing — The Mongan Method.

So, what’s still on my list?

  • The Happiest Baby on the Block, by Harvey Karp
  • Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth, by Ina May Gaskin
  • Diaper Free!: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene, by Ingrid Bauer
  • The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, La Leche League

I think this represents a decent balance between total information overload and being completely unprepared, although I’m sure there will be many moments for which I feel completely unprepared.  Now, if someone could just tell us what you do with that little flap on the corner of receiving blankets  — we’re split among it being a spot for baby’s head, baby’s feet, or neither (just decorative) 😉