Sitting in the Urban Grind Coffeehouse talking about natural building with Lydia Doleman, owner of the Portland-based natural building company Flyer Hammer Productions, I could feel my jealousy of her job coalescing. I had just completed her class An Introduction to Carpentry for Women, which I’d taken through The Rebuilding Center, and was ready to trade in my computer – my current primary tool – for a table saw. Inspired and empowered by the possibilities that my new skill presented, I was compelled to find out what it’s like to be a woman in a (stereo)typically male profession and to understand the spin that natural building puts on the construction trade.

  More...

Love doesn’t always last forever, and neither do sex toys. Whether your relationship with your sex toy has just gotten old, the toy has lost its steam, or you’ve found someone else, at some point you and your sex toy will have to part ways. So where do sex toys go when they die? More...

Let’s talk about sex…”green” sex. More specifically, let’s talk about the birds of an artificial feather and the bees with a battery-operated buzz. That’s right – sex toys, lubes, goos and whatever else we use to enhance our adventures in the bedroom, with or without a playmate. These toys, however, don’t come with the warning labels and regulations that children’s toys normally come with. So, unless you’ve done you research, we women don’t really know what we’re putting in our…well, you know.

 More...

I’ve been in denial long enough – I’m an adult now, and I have to think about adult things, like…retirement. Although I’m still watering the sprout that is my career, I’m told that I have to make sure there will eventually be enough fruit on the branches come retirement’s “harvest.” So I am currently exploring my options for opening my first IRA. But I don’t want to throw my money into just any pot that promises economic viability. I want to throw it into one that also promises ecological and social viability. I want the triple bottom line: people, planet and profit. Fortunately, this option exists.

 More...

A couple of years ago, when I was just getting my feet wet in the green movement, a friend of mine introduced me to the unofficial online manual for the “light green” consumer – Ideal Bite. Reading their daily tips quickly became a daily ritual. Using the convenience of email and the attraction of sharp wit, the website serves to help those with busy lives (but really, who isn’t busy in America?) adopt greener purchasing and living habits. Subscribers to Ideal Bite’s daily tips can wake up each morning with a new green living tip warm in their inbox that will reveal to them how easy it really is to be green.

  More...

Who’s greener, men or women? Is sustainability feminine or masculine? Using the voices of real women who are change agents and thought leaders of the sustainability movement, Kira Gould and Lance Hosey attempt to answer these questions in their recent book Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design, published by Ecotone Publishing. Through interviews with women from a medley of professions, Gould and Hosey demonstrate how women have shaped and continue to shape the sustainability movement and the lens through which the possibility for positive change is seen. More...

This holiday season, green gift guides are seemingly everywhere (thankfully!). Thus, I’m sad to say, my idea for this blog is unoriginal. Really, I should be promoting a consumerism-free holiday season, which is perhaps the greenest kind of holiday; but I fear that idea is not going to catch on any time soon in this country. So, just in case you’re still looking for ideas for your mom, sister, daughter, grandmother, partner, best friend, mentor, or whoever else has touched your life, give her a gift even Mother Earth would appreciate. Here are some of my favorite finds (many of which I wouldn’t mind finding under the tree):

 More...

It all began with the need for a wallet. But just buying one would not do for Rebecca Pearcy; she’s the type of person that if she needs something, she’ll make it. So, with a few pieces of vinyl, make a new wallet she did. And thus the seed for Queen Bee Creations was planted. From that one wallet, she has built a bustling hive of a small business. More...

Nestled on the corner of NE Killingsworth and Williams (8 NE Killingsworth St) is an inconspicuous bookstore that, upon entrance, welcomes you with a conspicuous cause. In Other Words is more than a bookstore – it’s a resource center for women (and curious men), offering a diversity of products and services to nourish the feminist mind and heart. It’s a space that fosters creativity, self and world exploration, and a sense of community.

Founded in 1993 by a group of PSU women who wanted to fill the void left by the closing of a previously existing bookstore called The Woman’s Place, In Other Words remains the only surviving non-profit feminist bookstore in the United States. As part of the Women’s Community Education Project, the store serves to showcase women’s writing and leadership. More...