Amazing Cleaning Power of Club Soda

One of our mom's just did an awesome review on club soda on one of our sister sites.

Did you know club soda can get out almost any organic based stain? Head over to our Growing your Family Blog and read about all the amazing ways club soda can make your life a little easier.

Recycling your Water

The title might lead you to think I'm talking about recycling your water bottles, or maybe taking water you have and using it again. Well, the second thought is what I'm aiming for.

Here are a few simple ideas to help you find water you would otherwise pour down the drain.

• Boiling Eggs - after your done, let the water cool and use it to water your plants. It is full of  minerals from the eggs
• Have a little bit of coffee left in the pot, instead of dumping it, add water and use it to give your acidic plants a boost.
• Have an aquarium? Next time you pump out all that water, use it to water the garden. It has many fertilizer properties and costs you nothing.

Green Ideas for Your Bathroom

Bathrooms are often over looked when it comes to green ideas. Not because we do not want to save the planet, but because we think we need those harsh chemicals and we refuse to give up our comfortable shower. You may think that as long as your green every where else in your house, it doesn't matter. Howdini editors tell us that it's not that hard to make some simple changes to improve the air in our bathroom while also making a huge impact on our environment. Take a look at their video.

Is Working From Home A Greener Choice?

A constant debate is going on, is working from home a greener choice? Is it the right choice? Here are few positives and negatives. I'm afraid I don't have the answer, but I tend to see more positives for a competent, self motivated worker, being at home vs. the office.

Green reasons why you should telecommute.

1. A recent article posted in The Arlington Environment stated that when commuting to and from work each week, the U.S. white-collar workforce burns more than 583.3 million gallons of gasoline.  It further states that if one average employee teleworked, just one day per week, it would save the environment 1,680 pounds of CO2 emissions per year. 
2. The US Patent Office alone had 3,609 employees participating in some form of telework, and are boasting savings more than 613,000 gallons of gas, preventing 9,600 tons of emissions, and saving more than $1.8 million annually in fuel costs by allowing employees to work outside the office. 
3. It reduces your overall work related costs by as much as tens of thousands of dollars per year.
4. You can hold down pollution and waste by making your own decisions about disposable items, pencils, paper products and more.
5. Spending More Time With Your Family
   

Reasons Staying Home May Not Be Your Greenest Choice

1. You generally end up putting in more than 40 hours a week. Remember, not only will you be doing work for clients, but you’ll have to invoice, market and work on your own business as well. I’m pretty certain there are few, working a true 40 hour work week.
2. You have no time management skills, you end up taking more computer time, running late at night when all the lights need to be on and your ordering take out because you are not managing your time well. Not a green solution. 
3. The office may be able to offer greener solutions vs. 100 employees working in a non-green efficient home.
4. If an employee works at home all year, however, he or she pumps out 2.38 tons of carbon dioxide, whereas a typical office worker produces only 1.68 tons of carbon per year.
5. While home workers can save carbon emissions by not commuting, the extra heating and power they use during the winter months can outweigh the benefits.

Zip Car - The Green Way Around Town

Now you can get rid of your car and take the bus, walk or ride your bike. Of course that use to be all your options. None of which were a perfect solution. For example what happens when you need to make that grocery trip to stock up? You could pull a cart, invite some friends to walk with you or pull a granny cart. How about this innovative and cool idea? Have a bunch of hybrid cars sitting all over town that you can hope in, run a few errands and leave at the next drop off. Pretty nice if I do say so.
How does 180 miles, gas and insurance included per $7.00 an hour sound? Now it's looking even better.

Check out your local town and see if they have an up and coming Zip Car to your place. It might just make you re-think your nice hefty car loan.

Environmentally Friendly Deer Repellent

While looking for a better way to keep those pesky, cute deer out of my garden I stumbled across this easy environmentally safe way to keep those critters from entering my garden.
Some have suggested keeping rotten eggs around, but really the thought of that makes me want to leave my garden alone too. I think I have come across a simple solution. Deer do not like the smell of deodorant soap. You can collect scraps of soap, however fresh soap is recommended. One bar of soap can protect up to 9 square feet. Do not use soaps with floral scents.

Here is how it's done.

Several scraps of deodorant bath soap or one fresh bar per 9 square feet.
Long nail, drill or old socks.
String

Remove soap from the wrapper and make a hole at one end of the bar with a nail or drill. Run some string through the hole. If your using soap scraps drop them into an old sock and tie the open end shut.

Tie soap(or soap filled sock) to the branch of a shrub or tree. If your bush can not hold the weight of the soap, you can put a stake into the garden bed. Replace with a fresh bar after these bars have been diminished by rain or watering.

Building a Compost Bin and Rain Barrel System for your Garden

We found this excellent video by Chris Moss on how to build a rain barrel system to water your garden and compost heap. He has some great ideas for green gardening that are affordable for anyone.

Green Ways to Clean up that Oil Spill

It's no secret, that oil spill off the coast of Louisiana is going to go down as one of the worst man made disasters in history. The thought that this massive oil leakage could continue until August has me worried. After all, what will the effects really be on our coast line, fish habitats and health? Rumor of gas prices soaring over $5.00 to possibly $10.00 a gallon will cause this recession to drive deeper into our economy. With all this gloom and doom news, is there any good news on the horizon.

Well, from a green stand point there are some ideas out there that could work. Would we be able to produce quickly the amount of product needed to contain this massive oil spill? Not likely, but shouldn't we at least try.
Yuka Yoneda wrote a wonderful and informative article called 5 Innovative Solutions That Clean Up Oil Spills  on the Inhabitat website. Many of her ideas are surprising to me and yet, they could just work. What is your take on all this? Do you think we could find a way to mop up this oil spill using hair? Would using a oil eating bacteria really work? What would the consequences be? Brit Liggett covers some of these ideas in her article. 
What would you like to see happen? Is there something we have that can even deal with an oil spill this big? What happens if it continues pouring out of this underground well? 
Seems like today, I'm filled with more questions then I am with answers. It gives us something to chew on that is for sure.