chenoameg's Profile

Wow.

I love the fact that I looked at that picture, thought "wow, that's pretty" and then remembered "hey, that's my home!"

Unfortunately I had to pause at week 5 to work on a significant home repair project, but I'm looking forward to finishing the second half of the cure before Christmas. Thanks for providing a great space to work on it!

I've been conscious about my environmental impact since high school when I helped run our environmental club. We spent hours collecting paper barrels and driving them to a recycling center since the school wouldn't support recycling. We needed to remove all of the staples by hand.

It started for me with a love of the outdoors, and has expanded as I realize how much of environmentalism is about protecting people. I seek organic produce not because I'm worried about my ingestion of pesticides on something like a banana, but because of all the people that will have to be exposed to those pesticides.

When making the green choice lines up with my yankee frugality, I find environmentalism easy (composting instead of buying fertilizer, reusing rags instead of buying lots of paper towels, fixing things instead of replacing them, conserving energy, buying a gas efficient vehicle).

I have to make much more of a conscious effort to do the environmental thing when it's more expensive. I've started by consciously trying to increase my food expenditure, so I got a farm share (CSA) for veggies. I've also started buying local milk, and tomorrow I pick up my first farmshare of meat! Little steps.

My outbox has been very busy. I have given away a lot of things to friends, to freecycle, and multiple trips to Goodwill. I have removed many many bags of recycled paper from the house, and broken my attachment to old magazines and catalogs. I have accustomed my husband to going through the outbox with me regularly.
I was surprised at how some of the walls of my house feel (and at how dusty the walls of the stairs were).
I've taken my kitchen faucet apart and put it back together again. (Miraculously this by itself stopped the leak, although by now the part I ordered to repair it has arrived.)
I have cleaned my front stairs and waxed them.
I have shown off my apartment to my parents, and been told "you have a cool house" by a 3 and a half year old girl. I have had 27 people over for dinner and games one evening (this is a normal monthly occurance for me) and six toddlers with parents one day.
I've figured out that my style is something traditional (colonial revival?)
I spent four hours scrubbing my kitchen floor (don't ask) and then sealed it with an acrylic to help it stay clean.
I have thought a lot about color, although I need to practice looking more before I make any significant color decisions.
Most importantly I have started to look at my house, not just live in it. I've been taking pictures of things I'm proud of. I look at how my house appears, not just what it is. This is new for me.

Hi, I asked these questions on Monday but I guess you missed them, as you were busy vacuuming and mopping your apartments :-)

Two questions as I start the tasks from Week One:

- What environmentally sane wood floor waxes do you like? Our old varnished wood floors require wax and the only product I've found so far is noxious stuff (wax dissolved in petroleum naptha). I understand that Murphy's works great as a floor cleaner, but the varnish on our floors is thin enough that it needs the additional protection of wax.

- I like having fresh flowers, but we frequently have guests with allergies, so I avoid keeping them around the house. Does anyone know which cut flowers are the least allergenic? What substitutes for cut flowers do you recommend to work on Heart?

Oh, yeah, I'm a warm person. That bit was obvious as soon as I read this descriptions. But I don't know much about my style. Luckily I figure that I'll be so busy cleaning and decluttering this week that can come in the future.

Two questions as I start the tasks from Week One:

- What environmentally wood floor waxes do you like? Our old varnished wood floors require wax and the only product I've found so far is noxious stuff (wax dissolved in petroleum naptha). I understand that Murphy's works great as a floor cleaner, but the varnish on our floors is thin enough that it needs the additional protection of wax.

- I like having fresh flowers, but we frequently have guests with allergies, so I avoid keeping them around the house. Does anyone know which cut flowers are the least allergenic? What substitutes for cut flowers do you recommend to work on Heart?