It’s no secret that insurance companies aren’t at the top of anyone’s list when it comes to popularity.  Most people I know, including myself, have had something negative to say about them at one time or another.  So, normally, I wouldn’t even have considered promoting anything that one of them was doing.

Wales Home Garden

The $1,000,000 Aviva Community Fund competition is different, it’s not some far away competition by an insurance company that nobody ever really sees the results of. I’ve seen firsthand what it can do and the impact it can have on a community.

During last year’s competition The Wales Home residence for seniors, not far from here, submitted an idea. They wanted to build a therapeutic garden for Alzheimer’s patients.  They submitted their proposal, which you can read here, to the Aviva Community Fund Contest. Since winning is based on the number of votes you receive, they actively encouraged everyone in the community to vote for them through the Aviva website and they won. Their garden was started last May and was completed over the summer.

If you have a great idea for your community but lack the funding then this just might be your chance to make a dream come true.  Ideas can be submitted to the Aviva Community Fund Competition until November 30^th 2011. Once you submit your proposal make sure to spread the word through friends, family, social media and even the press to get as many votes as you can.  You can also increase your chances of winning by gaining the support of an insurance broker.

Don’t have an idea of your own? Then why not check out the ones already submitted and cast your vote for the ones you think deserve to win.

To make it even easier this year supporters can like Aviva Community Fund on Facebook and submit their votes that way.  For every like they receive on Facebook $1 will be donated to Free the Children to support at-risk youth programs in Canada.  The Aviva Community Fund is also on Twitter Follow @avivacf. Winners will be announced January 25 2012.

There are several ways  for healing and soothing heat rash naturally:

1. Ice
Simple but effective, an icy compress can soothe and cool skin very effectively. Rather than rubbing the skin directly with ice, put ice cubes or an ice pack in a zip-top plastic bag and wrap it with a cloth before applying it to the skin.
2. Baking Soda (sodium bicarbonate)
A lukewarm bath (the cooler the better) in which 1/4 cup of baking soda has been dissolved, helps relieve heat rash. For children, use 2-3 teaspoons of baking soda since the bath will have less water. For babies, add only about a teaspoon to their bath. Remember to pat dry with a soft towel; don’t rub your skin vigorously or that will worsen the rash.
Another option is to apply baking soda to the rash in the form of a compress. On a wet cotton cloth, sprinkle baking soda liberally. Fold the cloth over so that the baking soda is on the inside, and lay the cool compress on the affected areas. You may need several compresses, and the applications will need to be repeated. Cool the compress in a cooler or refrigerator between applications, and/or re-dampen the cloth with cool water.
3. Peppermint Powder
You can make this cooling powder yourself. Mix 1 part baking soda with 3 parts cornstarch. Add 2-3 drops of peppermint essential oil per cup of the soda/cornstarch mixture. Shake vigorously to mix the oil in well. Pat this on to cool and soothe heat rash. It is especially effective as a heat rash preventative, and/or applied after a lukewarm shower or bath.
4. Peppermint Tea
All of the mints – wintergreen, spearmint, peppermint, etc. – have cooling properties. Add a cup or two of mint tea to a lukewarm-to-cool bath. You can also apply mint tea to your heat rash directly, like a lotion. Soaking a cloth in mint tea and applying it to the rash as a compress is also effective.
5. Witch Hazel
A cotton ball soaked in extract of witch hazel (available at drugstores, usually sold near the hydrogen peroxide and rubbing alcohol) can be patted on the skin to soothe heat rash.
6. Aloe
This ancient skin remedy is very effective at treating burns, and although heat rash is not a burn, it is a hot, prickly skin irritation that responds well to aloe vera gel. You can use the gel directly from the plant; just slit an aloe leaf lengthwise and press the split leaf onto the skin. Do not rub it in, as you don’t want to irritate the skin further.
7. Oatmeal
The anti-inflammatory properties of oatmeal are very soothing to skin irritations. It can be applied as a poultice using the method described in number 2 above; just replace the baking soda with finely ground oats or oatmeal. You can also add a cupful of oatmeal or oat flour to a lukewarm bath, but you will want to tie it into a muslin or cheesecloth bag so that it does not clog up your bath drain after you’re through.

The idea of greener vacations is becoming more and more possible these days and thanks to growing awareness and concern for the environment, it is also becoming very

popular. Hotel visits are one of the easier more obvious ways to “green” your vacation.

Here are several simple things you might want to consider to help make your hotel stay a little more earth friendly.

Choose Your Hotel Wisely

There are certain features to look for in a hotel to see if it is really green. Shop around and check with various hotels about the following features:

- Saving water is challenging for hotels that do so much washing and have so many showering guests. Look for hotels that have low-flow faucets and other        eco-friendly equipment, including their washing machines and toilets.

- Cleaning supplies used in a green hotel should be environmentally friendly.

- LED lamps are more energy-efficient and due to their longer bulb life, LEDs reduce waste. Some hotels have installed LED lamps in place of regular lighting, or are in the process of doing so.

- Look into the hotel’s overall business practices and see if they really mean what they say about going green.

Reduce Waste during Your Hotel Stay

You can reduce your personal waste during your hotel stay in lots of different ways. Here are some ideas:

-Request that towels and sheets not be washed and changed daily (this saves water and energy).

- Bring your own toiletries, and ask room service not to stock your room with wasteful samples of shampoo, soap, etc. If you do request the travel-sized bottles, ask for only one set and inform room service that you won’t be needing any more samples unless you request them. Otherwise, the hotel staff will throw out partly-used bottles of shampoo and conditioner and replace them with unopened ones daily.

- Carry your own stainless steel water bottle instead of visiting the drink machines down the hall.

- Recycle, just as you would at home. Take the time to find out where the hotel’s recycling bins are and make use of them as much as possible.

- Shorten your showers to save water, just as you would if you were at home.

- Go easy on the heating and cooling unit in your room. Don’t run it constantly and open windows whenever you can if it’s hot, or run the unit on fan only.

Hopefully, these tips will help you travel a little greener. You can relax and enjoy your trip knowing you have done all you can to reduce your carbon footprint.

p.s. If you’re looking for a “Green” hotel for your vacation this summer I just discovered that Choice Hotels International marks all eco-friendly hotels with a little green leaf making them easy to find.

The film got me thinking about what we can do at our house to lower the amount of water we use/waste. Living in the country and having to depend on our own little surface well, we are a little more conscious of the amount of water we use than most city dwellers who don’t worry about their well drying up. We learned the hard way, within the first week of making the move from city to country, that yes, wells do run dry sometimes.

Still we do waste water more often than I would like to admit. Every time I catch myself letting the water run a little longer than necessary to rinse something out or letting it run a minute or so to warm up, I find myself thinking  about the children in Africa who don’t get to use that much water in a month or that a family there would have to give up their entire monthly income for less than half of the water that I just let run down the drain.

We all know the basic tricks for saving water; turning off the tap when you brush your teeth, taking shorter showers, dual flush toilets, using rain barrels to recycle water. All of these water saving ideas are great but then spring comes and suddenly water conservation gets tossed aside by the desire to have perfect green lawns and beautiful flower beds.  If you’re recycling grey water to water your lawn and flowers then that’s fine but if you’re using fresh water then you might want to rethink your approach.

Many gardeners are switching to low-water or drought-resistant plants. These are plants that have adapted to surviving on very little water. They have the ability to store water in their leaves, or have narrow leaves that reduce the loss of water.

Choosing Low-Water and Drought Resistant Plants

In general, plants with hairy, succulent, or narrow leaves tend to need less water.

Some evergreens such as junipers and hemlocks can survive with a smaller amount of water.

If you live in a drought-prone area, you will find native plants to be a good choice. They have already adapted to the low-moisture conditions.

Specific Plants to Use in Low-Water Gardens.

(Consider your location when you look at this list, and see if there are any species that are native to your region. Also make sure that none of these are listed as invasive plants for your area.)
-Serviceberry (Amelanchier alnifolia)

-Thyme(Thymus vulgaris)

-Rocky Mountain Juniper (Juniperus scopulorum)

-Hen-and-chicks (Sempervivum tectorum)

-Fairy Duster (Calliandra eriophylla)

-Purple Coneflower (Echinacea pallida) (other Echinacea species are also low water-use)

- Dianthus

- Compass plant (Silphium laciniatum)

- Aromatic sumac (Rhus aromatica)

- Tall blazing star (Liatris aspera)

- Aromatic aster (Aster oblongifolius) (Most species of aster are low water-use)

-Aloe(Aloe vera)

-Lavender(Lavandula angustifolia)

Additional Benefits to Planting a Drought Resistant Garden

- Native plants are generally considered best for low-water landscaping. Planting natives is much better for the environment, supporting the local ecosystem and habitat and not introducing potentially invasive species. Native drought-resistant plants are less prone to pests and diseases which cuts down on the uses of fungicides and pesticides.

- Many weeds require moist soil. Your drier garden soil will not be as attractive to weeds, cutting back on chemical weed-killers and gas-powered mowers and trimmers.

We already have several of the plants listed above in our garden and many more that aren’t. Our flower gardens never get watered, plants have to be tough to survive here (just ask my mother.) The only things that do get watered are the vegetables and the few flowers we have in planters. I’m ashamed to say that yes we do water them with tap water, something I’m working to remedy with a rain barrel outside and a bucket in all of our showers.

Blue Gold: World Water Wars is available at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Unfortunately, while the pictures are beautifully done and the instructions are very detailed and easy to follow, the projects seem to be pretty useless. All of the projects created are meant to be used as some kind of journal but none of them are big enough to hold more than a couple of items and none of them are very practical. You would have to make an awful lot of them to be able to store anywhere near the amount of keepsakes that most people have and even then you would be able to store only the smallest ones.

Yes the book is very creative and artistic but I would consider the projects more miniature works of art than actual journals. I was expecting the book to use more practical everyday “cast aside” items instead of items that most people do not necessarily have laying around. The only things that are used that would be fairly easy to find are the natural items such as tree bark, twigs etc and these are things that I wouldn’t really consider “cast aside”.

In the end it was probably my own expectations of the book that let me down. I was hoping for some ideas for recycling everyday things into useful items and while this book does have some interesting ideas, I found the projects in it far from useful.

Disclaimer: I was provided a copy of this book by Booksneeze.com. All opinions are my own.

1- Washing – Wash your bedding in hot water each week. We all know that hanging clothes out to dry is more energy efficient but if you are allergic to dust mites you should run your pillow case through the dryer on a hot setting.
Wash your pillow itself every month or so (if it is washable – check the tag) using hot water and the dryer as well.

2- Freeze your pillow – Place your pillow in a plastic bag and put it in the freezer for 24 hours. This will kill dust mites. If you have a deep freeze or case freezer, all the better (the temperatures are colder). Do this every week or so.

3- Have more than one – Rotate your pillows so that you are not using the same one all the time. Dust mites feed on microscopic flakes of human skin, so using the same one over and over never gives the cycle a chance to break. Also, you’ll need something to sleep on while your pillow in the freezer.  When you store your extra pillow, make sure it is in a sealed plastic bag and not accumulating dust on your closet shelf or elsewhere.

4- Allergy-proof covers – There are allergy-proof pillow cases that you can place over your pillow. They usually have a zipper. Your regular pillow case then goes on over it. These covers are made from a material that dust mites cannot penetrate.

5- Lemon spray – Dust mites, like most arachnids, do not like the scent of lemon. Add some lemon juice to the rinse cycle when you are washing your pillow or pillow case. You can also put 1/4 cup of lemon juice in a quart of water and spray that lightly over your pillow first thing in the morning and before going to bed at night.

6- Replace your pillow - Every three years or so, you should replace your pillow. You may be able to go longer than that if you are already rotating several pillows. As for your old pillows, you can always cover them and use them as a bed for your dog or cat or, do like I do, cover them in outdoor material to use as an armrest on my swing and outdoor seating.

Now I can have  a peaceful night’s sleep, knowing that the only living creature using my pillow is me.

You can find organic bedding and allergy proof pillow protectors at the following online retailers:

Gaiam.com

Our Green House

The Ultimate Green Store

One of the issues we’ve faced over the past few months is that of which cleaning products to use. I’m all for making my own cleaning products but unfortunately my husband doesn’t feel like things are clean unless he’s taken a few chemical cleaners to them. This has been an ongoing battle for us but I won the paper towel war and there was no way I was going to give in on this one especially considering that it is also a health issue. Most commercial cleaners have some very nasty, very unhealthy chemicals in them.

Our battle took a turn for the better when Green Works offered me a chance to try some of their products for free. So despite the fact that my husband regularly turns up his nose at all supposedly non-toxic cleaners he was willing to try these, his big incentive being that they wouldn’t cost him anything, of course.

With all the greenwashing that’s been going on it’s sometimes hard to believe all the claims that products make so I decided to do a little research using a website called the Good Guide  to find out how they were rated. I wasn’t disappointed, it turns out they have excellent ratings for all of their products including a 10/10 in the health category.  I love that these products are rated so highly and actually work. I especially like that they are healthy enough that I don’t have to worry about my daughter wanting to help me clean, she really really loves those wipes!

 The Giveaway

Green Works has generously offered me three sets of  full-size cleaning products to giveaway to three lucky winners just in time for spring cleaning.

To Enter:

1-    Leave a comment below telling us which room you start your spring cleaning in.

2-   Follow us on Twitter 

3-   Follow Green Works on Facebook (Canada) or (U.S) for the chance to win prizes - leave a comment below 

4-   Tweet about the contest and leave a comment (can be done daily)      

Contest ends Sunday April 10th at midnight EST. Open to residents of Canada and the U.S.

My impending return to the workforce in about six weeks has got me thinking about lunches. In my previous work life I was never really one to pack  a lunch, I would usually just grab a tea and a muffin on the run. That’s a bad habit that I really don’t want to go back to, so that means packing a lunch.
Like me, you may be concerned with all the waste that seems to go with the territory of packing lunches, whether for yourself or your kids. Paper bags, plastic utensils, juice boxes, and other disposables generate tons of waste on a daily basis when there is no need for it.

Here are some tips for packing a lunch bag with zero waste.

1. Whatever happened to the lunchbox?  Use some kind of reusable lunch container instead of single use paper bags. There are so many amazing lunch bags and boxes available now, for both adults and children, that just having the excuse to buy one of them could very possibly be all the incentive you need to pack an eco friendly lunch.
2. Reusable drink bottles help cut down on waste tremendously. From little water bottles to mini colas to juice boxes, drinks can be a very wasteful item in a lunch. Instead, invest in a stainless steel water bottle that can be used over and over.

3. Pack a Thermos. In these days where food can be heated instantly in a microwave, thermoses have become almost obsolete; but they are back as people try to cut back on their energy consumption and waste. A stainless steel thermos can be used many times over, and keeps foods hot or cold. Get several sizes for your family’s lunches.

4. Plastic flatware is out. Just pack a fork and spoon from your kitchen flatware drawer or invest in a set of bamboo reusable utensils.

5. No More paper napkins. Go for cloth napkins instead. Making cloth napkins is not hard, and buying them new or second-hand at antique stores is not much trouble.

6. Ditch the ziploc sandwich bags. We have grown so conditioned to use these types of bags for everything from cut-up carrots to ham sandwiches. But reusable sandwich wraps or lunch containers are easy to find and cheap to purchase, or you can simply use a flat food storage container for veggies, sandwiches, and other foods.

7. Make your own lunch. Buying pre-made, pre-packaged lunch foods is not only unhealthy; all the packaging that goes into such foods is very wasteful. Make up a batch of potato salad and pack it in a thermos; put salads in covered glass containers; peanut butter, cheese and crackers can go in a flat food storage container. If your child likes pre-packaged cakes for dessert, send along a homemade cookie or cupcake in a food storage container. You can make a batch of these ahead and freeze them. Pack them in the morning while they are frozen and they will be ready to eat by lunch.

If you need a little lunchtime inspiration check out the highly rated  The Just Bento Cookbook: Everyday Lunches To Go available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca

Lighter Greener Safer on Flickr



Of all the environmentally friendly changes we’ve implemented over the last year it never even ocurred to me that even  eyeglasses could be green. So when Essilor contacted me about doing a review of their eco friendly lenses I was pretty excited. I didn’t need new glasses but my husband was in desperate need of new lenses for his glasses. He does a lot of woodworking so his were in very bad shape. They were so scratched that he couldn’t see clearly through them anymore. It was an added bonus that the lenses they wanted me to try were the Essilor Airwear which are twelve times more impact resistant than regular ones. A bonus when you’re working in a woodshop with lots of flying debris.
Time will tell if they really are tougher than regular lenses but in the meantime my husband is totally enjoying how lightweight they are compared to his old ones and the fact that he can actually see the projects he’s working on. And I’m excited that they really are an environmentally friendly choice.

How Are Essilor Airwear Lenses Green?

-100% of the production waste from Airwear lenses is recycled, greatly reducing the environmental footprint put forth by the manufacturing process

-All Airwear lenses are manufactured using 100% recycled water, thus conserving millions of gallons of water annually

-100 percent recyclable cardboard made from 100 percent recyclable wooden fibers for Airwear lens packaging , helping to eliminate 460,000 pounds of plastic waste every year.

-Essilor supports Lions Club International’s Recycle for Sight, program which accepts old, usable glasses and donates them to those in need.

Additional Facts about Essilor Airwear Lenses

-Airwear lenses are tough and durable — so tough that NASA uses the same material to construct visors for astronauts

-Airwear lenses are 43% lighter and 25% thinner than regular lenses, and 12 times more impact-resistant than standard plastic lenses

-Airwear lenses offer safe, durable lenses for those who like to play sports and those who push their lenses to the limit

-12 to 15 million people annually develop blindness from cataracts –and about 20% of those cases may be caused or compounded by sun exposure. Airwear lenses provide 100% protection from harmful UVA and UVB rays

For More Information on the Essilor Airwear Lenses:  http://www.lightersafergreener.com/