I love to eat out and trying new foods is so exciting for me that I often end up with leftovers because I order so much. But this leaves me with a pretty big energy-use dilemma. I can't waste the food, but I also don't want to contribute to the waste stream if I can help it. After all, recycling uses plenty of energy and so many restaurants still use Stryofoam (amazingly) that taking home the leftovers seems almost as bad as leaving food behind sometimes.

So what do I do with that left-over food?

One night, shortly after moving into my present apartment, a trick for finding answers I learned in Peru helped answer that question. While staying in Ollantaytambo, I repeated the town's name over and over in my head, like a mantra. I liked the sound of it and it's rhythm just matched the pace of life in that small, dirt poor town perched at the base of a magnificent Incan temple. It also brought me some clarity and let me find some answers I'd been needing. More...

Soon after I learned my application was accepted as a blogger for the Seattle ecometro.com site, I started subscribing to green enewsletters and daily green etips. I was hesitant at first—my inbox has enough traffic and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up. But I proceeded and tried to indulge my inbox with any and all green spam I could find.

Some green emails were already welcome in my inbox.  Washington Trails Association has a monthly trails enewsletter. I particularly enjoy their “hike of the month” trail recommendations. Their emails also include information on trail work parties, trail conditions, and always useful articles such as leaving no trace and the ten essentials. More...

So I’ve been giving quiet a bit of thought to Halloween of late. I just finished my two year olds costume and we managed to save a cute cat costume for her infant brother, so we are all set in the costume department. Now, it’s time to consider what we will give the ghosts and goblins— or rather Doras and Spidermen that ring our doorbell.  As I was pondering what we should dole out I came across some information on Green Halloween, a group in Seattle aimed at making Halloween an opportunity to make choices that are healthy for people and the Earth. More...

Take a look any book on preparing for your new baby and you will find a list a mile long of stuff you “have to” have. Baby R Us has a entire page of things to put on your registry, but do you really need 15 onesies and 4-8 flannel blankets, a baby swing, walker, crib, bassinet and the list goes on and on. More...

Seattle has introduced one successful sidewalk display of solar power this past year: the plastic card taking parking meter kiosks (ignoring for a moment that they are more profitable for the City at our expense and that they eliminated many bike parking spaces previously offered by the metal pole supported coin operated meters). I was surprised to find yet another solar powered upgrade on Third Avenue just outside Benaroya Hall a couple of weeks ago without having read any press—good or bad—about it. I had to take a picture and throw something inside it—what I later learned to be the most expensive street trashcan ever produced at more than $4,000. More...

I remember early rechargeable flashlight models that required constant charge in an available outlet until the disaster hit the home or office. Talk about a constant waste of energy for a limited, temporary period of darkness. And then what you do during the disaster when this battery needs to be recharged? More...

It was a pretty typical Sunday morning.

Although, not technically morning anymore since he got up so late today…. More...

“Time for a family meeting.” These are the five most dreaded words uttered at my house, occupied by a husband, two teenagers, two cats, and a dog … all highly skilled at avoidance tactics. But the word certain to elicit groans and sudden recall of urgent needs to be elsewhere … is “sustainability,” dubbed the “S” word.

Recently I went for broke and declared the S word the topic of a family chat. A bumper sticker that could describe the response is: “Better living through denial.” Yeah, better for them. Denial is no longer an option for me.

I should disclose upfront that I work for PCC Natural Markets, a Seattle-based natural foods cooperative. Five years ago — pre-PCC — sustainability was not in my vocabulary. A junk food mom who could barely define organic, I joined PCC and, since I do the household buying, so did my family. After a few weeks at PCC I started introducing lots of new terms at the dinner table … genetically modified, irradiation, trans fat … the result of working with people who are genuinely passionate about all things natural.

I’ve transitioned gradually from the dark side — one organic- shade-grown-and-fairly-traded cup of coffee at a time — and I’ve discovered that incorporating sustainable choices in my life isn’t as hard as I’d feared. I’ve not yet tried hemp milk in my coffee, I don’t drive a hybrid, and I don’t pee in the dark to save electricity, but I do recycle all my Diet Coke cans, bring my own bags for groceries, and try to get my family to embrace the S word.

Back to the meeting. I quoted a bumper sticker I saw on a truck during a farm tour I took last year: “Compost. A rind is a terrible thing to waste.” It’s no surprise that composting is not a natural impulse for teenagers just beginning to venture out into the world, far from the warm, familiar source of comfort and possibilities (the TV, not their “parental units,” as we’re described to their friends). After all, composting may be a fine idea for people who actually like to do stuff like that, but the garbage disposal is a lot handier and if it clogs from too much sticky rice forced down the drain, dad knows how to fix it.

I was tenacious and declared a composting campaign, promising we’d have even more fun than our last family fire drill. (Well, fun for them; I had to be sedated after finding two smoke alarms had been disabled by my son because low batteries made them beep and woke him up.) We downloaded some composting information (great stuff at seattletilth.org and cedar-grove.com and seattle.gov/util) and will begin our adventure in composting this weekend.

Next up is a “green” household audit covering all the ways we can conserve energy, reduce waste, and still keep peace in the house. I already have a bumper sticker in mind for that. Stay tuned. More...

This weekend was a great reminder that once winter starts to blow in, the city's denizens (famously polite but distant at times) start reaching out again. In the nether-season between summer and snowfall, my friends are no longer escaping town at every opportunity. The rain is driving us to trivia night, do-gooder benefits, dinner parties and brunches.