Category Archives: Green Ideas

Moving my preggo booty

With the exception of Christmas weekend and my sick day last week, I’ve achieved my goal of getting to the Y three times a week since I rejoined in mid-December.  Part of my workout is getting to the gym.  It’s 3/4 of a mile from our apartment, which is a distance that I absolutely refuse to drive.  If the weather is so bad that I cannot walk there (which is very rare), I just don’t go that day.

Most days, I alternate walking and running on the trip there.  Other than the walk/run to and from the Y, my workouts mostly consist of weight lifting, though I’ve thrown a couple of Zumba classes into the mix.  The first class was a disaster, with my uncoordinated limbs all over the place, rarely in-sync with the instructor.  I went to my second class last night, and it went much better.

I’m not a complete Zumba newbie.  In fact, I bought the video tapes back in college, when Zumba was relatively new.  After my embarrassing debut at the Y class, I searched for the tapes so I could work on my moves in private, but they’re nowhere to be found.  Fortunately, Zumba is a great cardio workout, and it’s FUN — like one big dance party — so I’ll just keep going to the classes and work on my skills there.

Tiny Choices just posted on the environmental impact of gym exercise:

. . . there’s not much of a contest that exercising at the gym is probably not the greenest way you can exercise. . . . in general [a gym] is a large open space that is kept brightly lit and heated/ventilated at all times. That is a huge energy sink!

Fortunately, they did not conclude that gyms are a bad thing to be avoided at all costs, and they give some helpful suggestions for making your gym-going as green as possible.  For me, the fact that I am paying for a gym membership is definitely a motivating factor — I want to get my money’s worth!

Anyway, after the decidedly sedentary start to the beginning of my pregnancy, I’m very happy to be getting some regular physical activity.  I’m looking forward to continuing to use my bike for transportation on the weekends, but that’s a bit limited due to weather and road conditions this time of year, so for now, the Y is a great option.

Sprouting

It's that time of year again

Matthew planted seeds for cruciferous veg, as well as onions and leeks last Monday.  With a bit of assistance from our homemade, super-frugal heating boxes, the first seeds sprouted within a few days.

Our average apartment temperature (especially during the day when we’re at work) is below ideal seed-sprouting temperature (~75° F), so the heat box provides a little extra help in a relatively efficient way.  We’re hoping to put together a  little post about making the heating boxes, so stay tuned!

Already increasing my carbon footprint

I mean that in a very loving and motherly way, of course 🙂

The big changes won’t come for another six months or so, but for two to three weeks in November, my diet consisted almost entirely of the items pictured above.  Items with packaging.

Prior to November, we made it through several months without buying breakfast cereal (we made our own granola instead), and we very rarely buy packaged items like pretzels or anything other than basic crackers to have on hand.  And then the nausea hit, and I just wanted to feel better.

The most atrocious item is not pictured above — a plastic bag of individually plastic-wrapped hard ginger candies.  For better or worse, they weren’t all that helpful, so I won’t be buying more.

On the up side, I’ll be getting prenatal care at a place that’s less than two miles from us — a nice, easy bike ride.  All last week I was anxiously watching the roads, hoping the icy snow pack would melt in time for my first prenatal appointment on Saturday.  Melt it did, which is good, because I was very determined not to drive there!

Anyway, the first trimester nausea came with a general apathy toward many things, including blogging, which explains my scanty posting in November and December.  At this point, I’m pretty much back to posting regularly (if you disregard the last seven days), feeling semi-normal, and eating a healthy, non-packaged foods diet, though I still have a winter squash aversion, which is unfortunate, because we kind of have a lot of squash in the basement (see header photo).

New flavor

A couple of weeks ago, I made my inaugural visit to Penzeys Spices, a chain that happens to have a location here in St. Louis.  I prefer to buy most of my spices and herbs at Golden Grocer, a small, locally owned, natural foods store that sells a variety of spices and herbs in bulk.

I favor this option because 1) bulk containers mean I can bring my own bags (plastic, yes, but I’m reusing them) and then fill my glass spice jars at home; 2) I can buy a 2-3 month supply and avoid buying a too-large amount of some obscure seasoning that turn to sawdust long before I use it; and 3) I haven’t done any official price comparisons, but I’m pretty sure I come out ahead financially with this option compared to buying prepackaged jars in a regular store.

Anyway, over the past couple of years, we’ve heard good things about,  and seen some interesting recipes featuring, smoked paprika (which Golden Grocer does not carry).  When we found ourselves in the neighborhood of Penzeys after a visit to the Maplewood Winter Market, we walked on over to investigate.  We came out with smoked paprika, szechuan peppercorns, and one other item that I don’t remember right now.

Sadly, Penzeys does not have bulk containers that you can use to fill your own bags, so we left with some unnecessary packaging.  We asked the cashier if they had ever considered offering bulk jars, and she acted like it would be nigh unto impossible.  Sigh.

Anyhow, we put the Szechuan pepper to use as soon as we got home, incorporating it into our lunch stir-fry.  We were enjoying the flavor, until, a few bites into our meal, we noticed that we couldn’t really feel our tongues.  It wasn’t that it was spicy hot, it just had this disconcerting effect.  Apparently this is a “normal” effect of this pepper.  We ended up picking out most of the peppercorns because the tingly numbness was just weird and made the dish less enjoyable.  I’m not sure what we’ll end up doing with the remaining 4 oz. of the pepper.

Later that same week, I experimented with the smoked paprika.  I made a super simple smoked paprika cream sauce as a topping for polenta with sauteed mushrooms and asparagus.

To make the cream sauce, I toasted the smoked paprika (~2 t.) in a bit of olive oil on the stove top — about 5 minutes on low heat.  Then I whisked in a half cup of cream and left it on the heat until just warmed.  I added salt to taste.

The result?  Delicious!  I resisted the temptation to eat the smoked paprika cream sauce by the spoonful (well, mostly resisted), because it went fabulously with the mushrooms and polenta.  This sauce would taste good on a variety of things — pasta, scrambled eggs, other veggies — let the experimenting begin!

The photo evidence of my creation suffered from poor light conditions — I’m sharing anyway, but be forewarned, the photo does NOT do justice to the deliciousness.


In with the new

By the time we dropped off the old couch at it’s new home, the precipitation was turning icy.  We drove across town to pick up the new couch and slid down part of the road near our destination, somehow managing to keep the pickup on the road and avoid running into any parked cars.

We carefully covered the new couch under our giant tarp and loaded it in the truck bed.  We faced driving back up the hill we slid down.

Now, I must admit that both Matthew and I get a certain pleasure out of seeing peoples’ large four wheel drive vehicles that they thought were invincible in positions that prove them wrong.  Four wheel drive does not make everything better, and it does not mean that you can go out in any kind of road and weather condition and drive like you do on any given day.

That said, as we sat in the pickup, contemplating the icy ascent, we noticed a little switch on the dash — the control for the optional four wheel drive.  I’m not sure what would have happened if we hadn’t switched to 4WD, but with it, things were good.  We really only needed it to climb the hill.  After that, we switched back to 2WD and took a nice easy pace back home.

After a bit more fun negotiating a tight staircase with a large piece of furniture (this couch was actually much easier to move than the old one), we were in business!

Ironically, our “new” couch is older than the “old” couch.  However, it’s in great condition.  The new couch is long enough for Matthew to lie on it stretched out, and it’s more comfortable for sitting.  We need to center the picture above the couch (we may actually be printing a new picture for that spot), and it looks like it could use some pillows.

Couch upholstery close-up

Now that all the craziness of moving couches is over, I’m quite happy with the decision, especially when I’m cuddled up in a nest of blankets with a good book 🙂