Eco-cartoon for kids!

My daughter discovered a great show on Netflix: Fishtronaut, about a fish, a young girl and a monkey who solve environmental mysteries in a nature preserve in Brazil. It's actually very intelligent and informative, teaching kids about everything from the habitats and lifestyles of different animals, to recycling, to hydroelectric power. And due to my love for all things Brazilian, the show's Brazilian setting is just the icing on the cake. (Note: the show airs on Discovery Kids in the U.S., in English).

Perfect pancakes

Have you heard the joke about the woman who cut the end off her pot roast before placing it in the pan every time? When her husband questioned her about it, she couldn't explain the reason, other than that her mother used to do it. So she called her mom to ask the purpose of cutting off the end of the roast. Her mom didn't know either, except that her mother used to do it.

So the woman called her grandmother, and her grandmother explained, "I never owned a pan that was big enough to fit the whole roast."

I have a similar tale. My dad made pancakes every weekend when we were kids. At some point we started to help him, and one of the things I loved most was waiting until the pan heated up enough for a drop of water to roll around the skillet. Dad never explained why this step was necessary, however, so in my young brain I concluded that he did it because it was fun.

I followed the same technique until early in my marriage. That's when my husband freaked out about me turning on the stove beneath a skillet with nothing in it. "You should never, ever do that!" he insisted. And since I had no conscious rationale for doing so (other than the fun of watching a rolling drop of water), I stopped.

And that wasn't really a problem as long as I made pancakes in Teflon pans. When I got rid of Teflon, however, pancake-making became hit or miss for me. Sometimes I made perfect pancakes; on other occasions, they stuck to the stainless steel pan or completely burned. After more than two decades of making perfect pancakes, somehow I had become a failure at this task!

Finally, I decided that accepting my pancake failure was ridiculous, and I Googled "Pancake making in stainless steel" for help.

It turns out, my dad knew what he was doing! When you cook anything in stainless steel skillets (unless you're boiling or simmering the food in water or a sauce), you need to make sure the skillet is hot enough before you add anything (even oil) to the pan. How hot? Well, hotter than when a drop of water simply sizzles in the pan and disappears. Hot enough, in fact, for a drop of water to roll around the pan!

Only then do you add oil (if using it), and then let the oil heat a little as well (30 seconds to a minute) before adding your food. Now I am once more making perfect pancakes*, and cleanup is a cinch! And of course, since my daughter helps me now, I am trying to make sure she knows the reason for this trick.

*This works for scrambled eggs, too.

So my daughter planted a potato...

About ten days ago, my daughter was helping me peel potatoes for dinner. She noticed eyes growing on a few of them and asked me what they were. I told her that if you buried a potato, roots would grow out of the eyes and become a new potato plant.

So what did she do? She took a potato with eyes, placed it in a small container, covered it with potting soil, and watered it. Within a week, we had a plant growing that was about 4 inches tall!

Knowing this plant would soon outgrow its little pot, I called the U. Washington Master Gardeners' Program to ask them what to do with it. The woman I spoke with assured me that the hardy potato plant can definitely be transfered outdoors at this time of year. (She was delighted by my story, btw, and said she will have her granddaughter try the same thing!)

My daughter and I replanted the potato plant in a large pot on our balcony, and added additional soil around it (something the Master Gardener recommended we continue to do, because that helps potatoes grow). Last summer, we were only able to successfully grow basil and mint on our shrouded-by-large-trees (hence no sunlight) balcony. But the potato's magic happens underground. So let's see what we grow this summer! (And thank you, little one, for trying something new!)

Future vs. present tense

My blogging has dropped off tremendously... partly due to the busyness of life, but also partly due to my increased attention to current politics. I still do most of the same green things I've been doing (or have begun doing) since starting this blog, from making or buying natural health, beauty and cleaning products (except toothpaste!); to using reusables as much as possible (cloth napkins and towels, reusable menstrual products, water bottles, straws, sandwich bags, etc); to buying second-hand; to keeping the heat turned down, conserving water, and so on. But I haven't done much to seek out new or better ways to live green.

I have thought about why, and one big issue is that current political issues seem so pressing (folks are questioning whether insurance should cover birth control? Really?!), that environmental issues seem less important, or at least less urgent. Of course, that's nonsense: climate change and other environmental issues have global consequences that could potentially overshadow all other concerns.

I learned recently about the research of Dr. M. Keith Chen of Yale University. He has been examining the impact of language on cultural norms, and he has discovered something interesting: nations whose primary language has a future tense (such as English) do a poorer job of preparing for the future than nations whose primary language uses the same verb form to communicate present and future actions (such as Mandarin or German). People in countries with strong future-time-reference (FTR) languages, such as the U.S., are less likely to save for the future, eat healthily, or engage in a whole host of other behaviors that require delayed gratification in order to achieve a future payoff.

Of course, the caveat, "correlation does not equal causation" always applies. That said, the researcher is speculating about reasons for this trend. His idea is that when you use different words to communicate about the future, it's easier to see that future as separate from the present and therefore to put off future payoff actions in favor of what feels good now. Thus, when you say in English, "I will start my diet tomorrow," it's easier to put off the start of that diet than when you say in another language, "I start my diet." The latter feels more immediate, and you might thus be more likely to take action today.

I have been learning about affirmations, and the same concept applies. When you say an affirmation, you are supposed to say it in the present rather than future tense; for example, instead of saying, "I will become more patient with my child," you might say, "I am more and more patient with my child." The idea is that right now you are becoming that which you desire, even if you haven't fully arrived.

I wonder if this can apply to how we think about the environment? I have shared before that my green journey began when my daughter was a baby, because I wanted to ensure that the world would be a healthy place for her future. But maybe I should be thinking more about the here and now, and perhaps that will stimulate my urgency. In other words, today I am living in a way that makes the world a better, more healthy place right now.

What do you think?

Great kitchen finds from Goodwill

I remember reading about planned obsolescence many years ago in an American history textbook... I was stunned to realize that someone had the audacity (in the negative sense) to deliberately create products they knew wouldn't last, just to make more money.

So when I find second-hand items that I suspect may be years, if not decades, old that still work wonderfully, I'm thrilled.

Recently I found two at Goodwill. The first is a blender. Alas, my beloved Magic Bullet has stopped working. (While it's still under extended warranty, I'm not sure I can get it replaced. Hubby didn't screw the base on tightly enough once and liquid leaked into the gears). Since I love my smoothies, I knew I needed to find another blender quickly. I made the rounds to my favorite area thrift shops, finding several blenders that seemed cheaply made and upon testing, did not work very well. Then I found this one:


While Oster still makes blenders that look very similar, it's the kitchy yellow color that makes me suspect it dates back to the 1970's. And it works beautifully! The price: $7. Compare this to Oster's new blenders with glass rather than plastic jars (this one is glass), which run about $50.

The second item is a chopper. I've had two Ronco Chop-o-Matic choppers in my life, one that I owned before my marriage, and one that my husband purchased after we were married. Each of us had been convinced to by it by what seemed to be an amazing demonstration of the product's capability at a mall kiosk. In both cases, the product failed miserably. (Note that the average review on the Amazon link gives the product 1.5 stars! And most of the manual competitors listed on the page, except for the one by the always fabulous Kitchen Aid, fare little better in customer reviews).

So what did I find recently at Goodwill? This one:


This chopper is advertised around the web as a vintage product, with a glass jar, made in the USA by Gemco. The price at Goodwill: $4, compared to about $15 elsewhere. And again, it works amazingly well!

Reuse again... and again

I love second-hand shopping for numerous reasons, including the inexpensive prices, the ability to obtain higher quality goods that I could afford if they were new, and the fact that it's great for the environment.

For example, due to thrift shopping, my daughter received more gifts from her father and me than we could have privided her if we were buying new. We gave her a set of roller skates, a bigger bike, a boy Barbie, a dress, several cute tops and pants, and a Christmas teddy bear, all in excellent condition, for about $50 total.

Some object, however, that the second-hand market isn't practical for society at large since it always requires a first-hand market. That's true, but the complaint usually assumes a one-to-one relationship between the first-hand and second-hand market for each item. In other words, someone buys something new and donates or passes it on, then someone else gets it second-hand. Once the second person has finished with the item, that's the end of its life cycle.

Many items, however, can have multiple life cycles as long as they're still in good condition. Well-made, durable items like bikes and children's clothing (since kids tend to outgrow things quickly) can be passed on multiple times to multiple users before they're no longer in good condition.

Here's a good example: I purchased my daughter's old bike $8 from a thrift store two years ago. She has recently outgrown the bike and we found a larger one, in great condition, for $10 at Goodwill. It's very possible that either bike had multiple users (say, an older and younger sibling) before being donated and purchased by us.

One of my daughter's friends, two years older, also got a new bike for Christmas. Her mom and I planned at first to pass on both old bikes to younger children, but they were too big for the younger children we knew.

So I came up with an even better plan for passing on the two bikes. I had a meeting in Olympia today and had to pass through Lacey, where Alaffia, my favorite natural body care company, is based. Alaffia has a project, Bicycles for Education, in which they collect bikes from Washington residents to ship to Alaffia's founder's home country of Togo. These bikes make transportation to and from distant schools possible for many rural children who wouldn't otherwise be able to attend.

I dropped off both bikes at Alaffia's headquarters today and was able to have a follow-up conversation with them about hosting a bike drive at Marlene's Natural Market in Tacoma (which will take place in June). So you see, many items can be used not once, not twice, but again and again and again, for older children, younger children, and children across the world!

When you're not the mom you want to be

I haven't done a lot of blogging in the last few months, mostly because I'm trying to figure out life.

I promised during the summer to write about what I was learning through a number of parenting and education books I had been reading. There were several thought-provoking ones among them, such as Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman's Nurture Shock and Ron Clark's The Excellent 11.

But the book that affected me the most was one I discovered by accident while reading a mystery novel (Lisa Gardner's Live to Tell). The novel tells the story of a group of children in a residential treatment center for kids with emotional and behavioral issues, whose families are being murdered. In the author's acknowledgements, she describes being drawn to write the story because of the experiences of a friend with such a child. She also cites Dr. Ross W. Greene's book, The Explosive Child and his "collaborative problem-solving approach," for shaping her thinking about kids with behavioral challenges and what can help them.

I found Dr. Greene's book in the library and decided to read it out of curiosity, not thinking it was really relevant to my life. My daughter's behavior isn't explosive (characterized by fits of rage, extreme tantrums and even violence). And yet, almost immediately upon starting it I knew that the book was extremely relevant to both my daughter and me.

The book establishes a key premise: that explosive children do not behave that way intentionally, because children do as well as they can. Instead, explosive children tend to lack certain skills that make less extreme emotional reactions possible. These include such things as the ability to tolerate frustration, disappointment and sudden changes; the ability to positively express and regulate one's emotions; perspective-taking and empathy; and others. When they encounter life's difficulties, they don't know how to handle it other than to explode.

The author describes his concept of collaborative problem-solving as a method in which invite your child to work through problems together, while you model and guide for your child ways to develop the personal and interpersonal skills they might be lacking.

As I read this, I knew exactly how it applied to my child and me. She doesn't explode when she's frustrated, disappointed, or struggling with her emotions; instead, she sulks and withdraws. It's not a more constructive method of handling problems, simply less destructive than exploding.

But I also realized this: I am not really equipped at this point to guide and model a different way for her, because I do the exact same thing. When I am frustrated, angry, overwhelmed or hurt, I sulk and I withdraw.

Reacting this way has had many negative effects on my family relationships, friendships, and career. I am trying to learn how to deal with it for my own sake and so that I can in turn help my daughter.

I met recently with our minister and talked through some of this. She pinpointed something about me: isolation has been a theme of my life. She's right. I have often heard that people's greatest fears are public speaking and death. I have never particularly feared either of those, but I have always feared being alone. Yet I have often felt alone, despite this fear. I am not shy, but I am reserved, and it is difficult for me to move past the acquaintance stage into true friendship with people--one of the reasons why our move to Washington State has been so difficult for me. (That is one area in which my daughter and I differ. She, like her father, is very outgoing).

It wasn't difficult for me to pinpoint the start of my isolation: something pretty awful happened to me when I was six (for a variety of reasons, I don't want to go into it online). But it seared into my psyche that I couldn't trust people to care about my needs or pain, and that it was dangerous to be vulnerable.

And that lesson took hold quickly. A year later, when I was 7, I was in a work group of four students in my class at school, and one of the other girls in the group began taunting me for reasons I don't remember. She was relentless to the point of leaving me in tears. But they were silent tears, so as not to attract the attention of our teacher. Another girl in the group went up to the teacher to ask for tissue for me. I assume the same girl later told the teacher what happened. The next morning, my teacher pulled me aside and asked, "Why didn't you tell me what was going on?"

I shrugged and didn't answer, but I was thinking, "Because you wouldn't have done anything about it." Already in second grade, I was that cynical.

I'm meeting with my minister again next week to discuss this further. But I know it's the root of my tendency to withdraw from others and myself when I'm facing problems, and my daughter is learning that from me. I want to be able to show her, and help her, discover a more positive way of dealing with difficulties.