Anyway, just last night, my hubbie was talking about a discussion the “Green Committee” at work had last week regarding steps they can take to make their workplace a better, more eco-friendly place. Among other things, they wanted to find a biodegradable, organic, cost-effective hand wash for their bathrooms. Apparently there aren’t a lot of choices from their vendor for office supplies. Being the big fans of Dr Bronner soaps that we are, my husband recommended using Dr Bronner soaps in the bathrooms. His suggestion was dismissed because Dr Bronner’s is too concentrated to work well (and cost-effectively) as a hand soap.

Upon hearing the reason for Dr Bronner’s losing out in the bathroom soap race, I informed my husband that we’ve been using Dr Bronner’s soaps in our bathrooms for about the past year. I simply dilute the flavor of choice (usually lavender or citrus) and put it in a foaming bottle. Viola! Organic, biodegradable and cost-effective! Not to mention our hand soaps are nice smelling, easy, and very kid-friendly.

Here’s how I do it: use 1/3 Dr Bronner’s soap with 2/3 water. I use foaming Method hand soap containers I saved, though I’ve heard you can buy similar foaming bottles at Target. Of course you can play with the proportions, just be careful not to use too much soap as you won’t get good, foamy soap. Plus, you’ll have to go out and buy another bottle if you clog up the bottle’s foaming mechanism.

Try it. You’ll love it! One less thing to worry about – as long as you have some Dr Bronner’s on hand, you don’t have to worry about running out of hand soap.

The Enertia isn’t your regular, wimpy electric moped. It’s an honest-to-goodness motorcycle. Mind you, it’s no crotch rocket. It’s much better looking and waaayyyy cooler. Unfortunately, at $12,000 it’s  just as expensive as those over-powered boy toys. 

What does 12 grand buy?  Glad you asked. Though you’ll only go as fast as 50 mph, you won’t even notice because you’ll be busy gloating about the incredible 326 mpg and knowing you won’t need AAA if something happens.  This baby, and all future Best Buy-purchased PEVs, is going to be repaired and maintained by the Geek Squad.  Though, to be fair, there are two pretty important disclaimers I need to add at this point:

1. While the mpg is 326, actual range on a charge is 45 miles.
2. The Geek Squad is only going to do Level 1 repairs. Not clear what happens if you have a Level 2 or 3 issue. (At least you’ll look good standing next to your Enertia on the side of the road….)

I still haven’t seen the Enertia. They were supposed to appear in 5 Best Buys this month. Does anyone out there know which lucky 5 stores are offering my future boppin’-around-town wheels?

Despite all their marketing, planning, training and conniving, the Disney corporation doesn’t hold a candle to the honest-to-goodness, happiest place on earth: the Kingdom of Bhutan.

While I’ve known about Bhutan and it’s amazing culture since I did research on the country in the 80s, I was recently reminded of this magical place by Michael J Fox himself. Well, not in person, but on his TV special modeled after his book, “Always Looking Up: The Adventures of an Incurable Optimist“.

Michael’s segment (we’re on a first name basis, you know) on Bhutan was incredible. He personally went to Bhutan to investigate exactly why Bhutan is such a happy, lovely place and to determine what, exactly, the phrase Gross National Happiness means. Like I said, the segment was fantastic. But, I’m not going into detail on that right now.

What the segment really made me think about is how truly important happiness is. I think the importance of happiness in our lives, for our health, for our longevity is pretty much overlooked or ignored by “official” papers and reports focusing on our physical well being. Admittedly, the medicial establishment is coming around, but not very fast.

I think Buddhists have it right. It’s all about happiness. Happiness is why we are here, it’s what we work toward every day of our lives and with every fiber of our being. It’s really the only thing. We just sometimes lose sight of it’s importance when we get caught up in all the other stuff. So, I guess I owe Michael a “thank you” for reminding me to be happy.

I love the saying: Peace, Love and Happiness. But really, isn’t it redundant?

BTW – Wikipedia says Bhutan is only the eighth happiest place on earth. Different view, different reasons.

As if they could read my mind, my friends at TheDailyGreen came up with a handy-dandy list of the top 15 fruits and vegetables that it’s “okay” to buy non-organic. Not only do they provide the list, but they also provide us with the reasons these 15 fruits and veggies are safe in their non-organic form and they provide some yummy recipes.

The Clean 15, as they call them, are:

Onion, Avocado, Sweet Corn, Pineapple, Mango, Asparagus, Sweet Peas, Kiwi, Cabbage, Eggplant, Papaya, Watermelon, Broccoli, Tomato, and Sweet Potato.

On the flip side, TheDailyGreen also has the list of the Dirty Dozen - the top foods you need to buy organic. No big surprises here, but if you’re like me, I like being reminded and I particularly like lists.

The Dirty Dozen are:

Meat, Milk, Coffee, Peaches, Apples, Sweet Bell Peppers, Celery, Nectarines, Strawberries, Cherries, Kale, Leafy Greens, Grapes, Carrots, Pears, Potatoes, and Tomatoes.

OK. So that’s way more than 12 foods. I think they couldn’t find a snappy name for a list of 17 items, at least not a name as good as the Dirty Dozen.

Apparently they changed up the tour and intro a bit to talk more about the program there and the classes available, and less about the benefits of wheatgrass. That part was a bummer, but the tour and intro presentation were still interesting. And the raw, vegan dinner was surprisingly good and, even more suprising, FILLING.

Seems like a lovely place to go if you need some serious, hard-core detoxing. For now, I’m going to stick to my wheatgrass shots at People’s and my daily REVV.

With all the green talk these days, the pressure to DO something BIG on Earth Day is almost unbearable. While I agree with the urgency to get the message out there and to move beyond just talking about changing our ways, I don’t believe wringing the celebration and joy out of doing good or going green is helping anything. In fact, I believe that if you can find a way to celebrate Earth Day, no matter how minor your celebration, that actually brings a smile your face, you’re more likely to make that celebration an integral part of your regular routine instead of a one time deal that ends when Earth Day ends.

For me, I’m taking my first grader to OB Peoples Co-op to check out all their organic fare and explore their Earth Day specials. We’ve been talking about our “special trip” for several days now, and she’s as excited to go to the co-op as she was to go to the Earth Fair at Balboa Park the other day. (She’s been to the co-op several times, but there just seems to be something special about going on Earth Day.)

How will/did you commemorate our glorious home?

1. The website says the Skoys are supposed to do the cleaning of 15 rolls of paper towels, but is that enough to offset the fact that the Skoys are shipped from Europe? Which makes me think – where are my paper towels made?

2. What if I use paper towels made from recycled paper? Does that raise or lower the number of paper towels required to be the equivalent of one Skoy cloth?

3. The Skoys are supposed to decompose within 5 weeks in a landfill. Then how can they withstand being nuked for two minutes or sent through a dishwasher repeatedly? (For at least as long as it would take me to use 15 rolls of paper towels. See #1.)

In any case, I have to admit that I like my Skoys. They come in lovely colors, and the set I have right now has inspirational words written across the cloth. Perfect for when I’m cleaning up a mess. That’s when I need positive reinforcement the most!

Of course, once vertigo and nausea forced me to give up my morning over-indulgence, life became very difficult. Baby didn’t seem to care that I had to forego my morning boost. She continued to make sure I was waking up at least a couple of times a night. (Not sure what this Night Owl did with my Angel that could knock out a 12 hour sleep at 3 months, but if she didn’t have such a sweet smile, she surely would be looking for another bed in a room far from mine.)

Giving up the overly caffeinated lattes solved my vertigo and nausea issue, but now my energy level was so low I had trouble even concentrating by lunchtime.

Seeing my blood-shot eyes and barely-functioning body one afternoon, my friend reminded me about REVV. And he was right. REVV was what I needed, without being too much. The fact that I can easily and simply control the amount of the boost of energy I need is fantastic. Starting with two wafers, I can chew an extra wafer or two depending on how comtatose I’m feeling.

Best thing about REVV? It’s totally organic and good for you. The main ingredient is wheatgrass. Brilliant solution for me, actually. I’ve been trying to talk myself into liking wheatgrass for years because of it’s reputation for unsurpassed health benefits, but I’ve just never been able to become a fan. REVV‘s unique mint chocolate flavoring makes the tablets surprisingly edible. They’ll never put Godiva out of business, but the flavoring definitely makes the tablets easy to eat. (Note to REVV, if anyone from the company happens to be reading, please develop a couple other flavor choices. Ironically, I think a cappuchino flavor would work nicely, as well as a fruit or fruit mix.)

Additionally, if your looking for a healthier alternative to some of the over-caffeinated, high-sugar energy drinks, go “get REVVed“!

Yeah, I said it. I LOVE my hemp washcloth. May sound like a bold statement for such a minor player in the overall scheme of life-enhancing goodies, much less bathtime basics. But for today, I’m in love.

As someone that’s always searching for a better way of transporting bath gels/soaps/liquids from the bottle to my skin, I spend way too much time pondering and testing all the options available to the general public. I’m a bit like The Princess with the Pea issues when it comes to selecting what to lather up with. Pretty much everything I’ve tried in the past is too hard, too scratchy, too gross (didn’t dry sufficiently between uses), too bulky, too soft, too difficult to handle, etc., etc. Or does this make me Goldie Locks?

In any case, I don’t have any of these issues with my very simple, yet brilliant hemp washcloth. It’s long enough that I can get all spots on my back with no outside assistance, thin enough that I can fold or ball it up in one hand to use like one of those ubiquitous plastic poof-balls, loosely woven so that it completely dries in about an hour, and of course it’s hemp, so it comes from a eco-friendly, renewable source. When I finally wear it out, tire of it or just decide to move on to my next-greatest bathtime love, it’ll biodegrade faster than I can come up for an excuse for using something plastic with my Dr Bronner’s.

As I’ve stated in past blogs, I love all things eco and green. Unfortunately, I’m a bit of a hypocrite. I don’t always live totally eco and green. I try, but it’s hard. Really, no one can honestly tell me that they can’t taste the difference between tempeh bacon and good ole polluting, green-house-gas-emitting real pig bacon. Fried fat from another living creature is disgusting, but oh sooooooo good when the cravings hit you.

Really, my weakness for things like bacon is the whole reason I can’t be a vegetarian. That, plus the fact that everything vegetarian from my formative years tasted like cardboard and I can’t seem to get past that bias even though there are fabulously delicious and, yes, decadent vegetarian dishes being dreamed up by chefs far more creative and daring than me these days.

Best example of something totally creative and wildly delicious that I could have never come up with on my own… Chocolate Mousse made from avocados. I’ve only had this crazy sounding dish at one place, but I’m willing to say that this place makes THE BEST, THE RICHEST, THE MOST TO-DIE-FOR healthy chocolate mousse in the whole world. What’s the name of this mystery place you ask? Let me tell you…

ROOTS in the Ocean Beach neighborhood of San Diego. Even their motto makes you want to be nicer to the earth and everyone on it – “Kind Food for Kind Folks”. For everyone planning a trip to SD to visit the zoo, Sea World, or Convention Center, the short trip to Ocean Beach is absolutely worth the extra effort. Especially for those of you coming from places where vegan delicacies are harder to find.

Apparently, chocolate mousse made with avocados is no secret. There are plenty of recipes for it if you google it, but it sure was a surprise to me! A lovely surprise.

While you’re at Roots, you should go ahead and plan on having some non-dessert food as well. They have incredible wraps and salads (with edible flowers!). For the wraps, my favorite is the Thai Peanut Wrap. And yes, you can get the stereotypical bowl of granola as well.