Week 2 Challenge: Happy EcoWeen!

Mimi Cukier and a group of kids had a great time making eco-friendly Halloween decorations at Studio Breathe last weekend.

• Recycled/2nd Hand costume. Check
• Cardboard & burlap decorations.  Reusable ceramic led haunted house. Check
• Organic hors d’oeuvres & organic wine for adults. Check
• Fair trade chocolate & treats. check.
• Donation box for Sainte Justine Hospital. Check.
• Locally grown pumpkin, to be cooked tomorrow into a delicious soup with roasted pumpkin seeds. Check.

My little Zebra is ready to celebrate his first Halloween with his friends and their parents. It may not be perfect, but we are feeling pretty good about our first big celebration!

Have a safe and happy halloween everyone!

Challenge Day 7: Still Cooking!

 

A simple breakfast with friends featuring organic eggs florantine and questionable orange juice (read below for more....).

I know that organic food is the ultimate choice.  But it’s not always the convenient choice.  Sourcing specific ingredients can be difficult, and it can be more expensive (unless you grow your own of course). 

This weekend I dropped into eCollegey in NDG, a wonderful ‘strictly organic’ grocer and picked up two giant bags of groceries to see us through the weekend and beyond.   They are a small grocer, but I was amazed at the selection of products available.  I found almost everything I needed, with a few exceptions, at rather reasonable prices.  We’ve been eating, I am estimating, a 75% organic diet this weekend.  From organic ravioli with homemade tomato sauce (made from tomatoes grown in our organic container garden); to homemade gourmet pizzas -3 kinds (I have to especially call out the gorgeous organic salami from Charlevoix that we put on one of the pizzas); and breakfast Sunday with friends –Eggs Florentine with fruit. 

The Warm Up is Over! Week 2 Eco Challenges

 

 How is everyone doing?  Over 70 people have signed up and are collecting gold stars at the Studio!  Share your experiences here!! 

Day 8 – Monday, October 26:  Look for ways to reduce your water consumption.  Take shorter showers, turn off water when brushing teeth, put a container of water in your refrigerator to keep it cold instead of running your tap to cool it down.

Challenge Day 6: What I Do For Beauty!

  

Today my challenge was to try an all natural, organic facial and/or convert to organic skin care products.  My original intention was to try to make my own facial using standard household products as the ingredients.  But I just have no interest in this.  It not only takes time, I already wear enough food that my son throws at me (and I don’t enjoy that so much).  Besides, there are already many gorgeous products on the market just waiting for me to try. 

I love beauty products and I certainly support my fair share of the industry.  However, I have never really consciously thought about seeking out organic, or all natural, products.  Somehow I thought that these lines I might be compromising on benefits or overall effectiveness.  By luck, for the past four years I have used a variety of Dr. Hauschka daily facial moisturizers.  But I just used them because they were recommended to me by a skin care expert, and I loved them.  I hadn’t fully thought through the natural or organic factor.  Having a greater understanding of this is key to convincing me to convert more of my products. 

Challenge Day 4: The End of Junk Mail

 

It’s amazing the number of silly videos you can find on any topic! 

Just say no to junk mail. 

If you don’t have one already I have left a small stack of ‘No Flyers’ stickers at the Studio Breathe front desk.  Make sure you pick one up.  Or, make your own… there are lots of printable images on Google.

You can also get a sticker, free of charge, from any Eco Center.   We picked these ones up from:

Eco-Quartier Pointe St-Charles

255 Avenue Ash
Montreal, QC H3K 2R1
(514) 935-4711        

 

  and 

Éco-quartier Peter-McGill 

 1414 Rue Pierce
Montréal (Québec) H3H 2K2
(Metro Guy-Concordia)

 

 

Challenge Day 3: Everyone Needs a Jennifer

 

“Come on Liseanne, get it together.  You’re the one writing the green blog!”

These are the words that rang out from my colleague Jennifer yesterday after I inadvertently placed a cardboard box in our shared garbage can.   

Our co-dependent relationship over the recycling bin started earlier this fall after I returned to work from my extended maternity leave.  I arrived at the office to find a new face sitting at the desk beside mine.  Her name was Jennifer.  After a few days of niceties, I looked over to find her rooting through our shared set of recycling and garbage bins:  turns out I hadn’t been doing an acceptable job of sorting the recycling vs the garbage.  A few days later she pulled my collection of used Diet Coke cans out of the recycling bin to ensure that they actually went to her official ‘can’ bin.  The stories go on.

Jennifer showing off today’s very empty garbage and recycling bins thanks to no printing day and no take out food containers! She even took home her apple core to compost (although it was a no go when I offered her my banana peel!).

Challenge Day 2: Vegetarian Delights

  

A wonderful date, fig, and fall veggie couscous! Vegetarian night is not so bad!

OK, so far this 30 day eco challenge has been pretty easy:  Breathe fresh air, sign up for the nature challenge, and now… cook up a fantastic vegetarian meal.  Sure beats the killer kickboxing class last night!

So why is reducing our carnivorous instincts such an important part of the eco challenge?  I was certainly surprised at the many different reasons that I came across.  Apparently, after reducing the amount of traffic on our roads, reducing the amount of meat  that we consume can have the second most significant impact on the environment.

According to David Suzuki, it comes down to the amount of precious water used to produce various foods.  The production and processing of meat requires a disproportionate amount of water compared to any other form of food production.   Here is a comparison chart that really brought the issue home for me:

Challenge Day 1: The road to enlightenment does not have to include socks with Birkenstocks!

 

Ahh, day one of my 30 day commitment.  Feels good!  We had a fantastic fall weekend consisting of a wonderful walk (a hike for an 18 month old) and picnic on Mount Royal, dinner & visits with friends, and a wonderful walk through our neighborhood parks.  It feels good to breathe the crisp fresh air and Nicolas had those wonderful pink cheeks. 

This morning we got up and dressed warmly once again.  This time to go along the Lachine Canal.  I feel so lucky to have such a great green space right in my backyard.  Every morning that we can, Nicolas and I walk into Old Montreal:  he to his daycare and me to my office.  It’s been one of the greatest benefits of moving downtown and close to my office.  I find that this morning walk is better than a strong cup of java the morning and it lets me decompress at the end of the day.   

No car! Walking to work and daycare on a gorgeous October morning.

Get ready! Week 1 Challenges

 

Get ready… countdown is on… the 30-day challenge starts Monday.  Here are the Week 1 challenges.  These of course, are just a guideline to get started.  We have listed some alternative suggestions below — and feel free to come up with your own.  We’d love to hear from you on suggestions and how you are doing.

We will post the week 2 challenges next weekend.

Week 1 Challenges

Day 1 – Monday, October 19: Breathe Fresh Air. Get outside to kick start your eco challenge. Go for a power walk, excercise, take a yoga class (sign up for the 30 day yoga challenge), and just recommit to general wellness in your life. Other things to do: sign-up for the David Suzuki Nature Challenge (www.davidsuzuki.org); Calculate your Carbon Footprint (www.carbonzero.ca).

30 Day Eco Challenge Starts October 19!

Welcome to our 30-day eco challenge blog site.  30 changes in 30 days!  I somehow got myself into this, and I have to say I’m a little nervous.  It’s one thing to do the challenge quietly on my own, but I have volunteered to share my experiences online.   Am I crazy?  Probably.  I live in a world of designer shoes, computers, babies, travel, and anything convenient.  But it is finally time to step up and get serious.

My household consists of myself (Liseanne), my partner Paul, and our 18 month old son Nicolas.  In our house, we’ve been doing the green dance for a while… we buy green, organic, local –when it is convenient and not price prohibitive.  This year, we planted a roof-top container garden (with mixed results!).  [picture below].

Our son enjoying one of several harvests this fall from our container garden.

 

 We also got rid of bottled water and installed a simple water filter on our tap.  We switched most of our cleaning products to biodegradable/ eco friendly, and we even experimented with steam cleaning our hardwood floors –with the most eco friendly of all cleaners –tap water.   We even bought all eco friendly kids furniture for our forthcoming bundle of joy –but guess what, we bought the furniture because we loved it and thought the sustainability aspects were a nice touch.  We installed fancy new digital thermostats in our house:  but only after they were installed did we learn that we only went half way: it turns out that they were not programmable!