Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 4

Woohoo! We've made it to the final discussion post of Vanessa Farquharson's book, Sleeping Naked Is Green. Once again, for those who are unfamiliar, Vanessa is the writer of the green blog, Green as a Thistle and the book summarizes the 366 green changes she made over the course of a year. In this installment we'll be covering the winter and final chapters. So, grab yourself some local wine (or not-so-local coffee if it's morning) and join me.

December: During December, Vanessa stops shaving her legs, quits downhill skiing, drinks only fair-trade tea, goes cold turkey with her vacuum, stops using paper towels and makes her own cosmetics and beauty products.

Although this chapter was somewhat light on the green changes, I found it an interesting statistic that one toilet flush on an airplane equates to over fourteen pounds of carbon dioxide, which is enough to power an average-size car for six miles. Now I have one more reason to avoid the airplane bathroom besides my fear of getting sucked out.

Vanessa also describes her meeting with Colin of No Impact Man fame, her rival at a year-long green challenge. She tries to sneak out of him more details about his toileting habits (which lack any TP), but he remains elusive on the subject. Apparently, he switched back to toilet paper after his challenge ended. Vanessa, to her benefit, still uses cloth wipes. Go Vanessa!

January: The new year brings with it no new plastic, switching to organic cotton produce bags, taking a butchering class to confront her meat-eating and switching to Bullfrog Power, which uses alternative energy sources.

Vanessa also buys a used mattress for her new place and ends up buying it from the guy working at the U-Haul rather than from the person she intended to on Craigslist. The reason for the used mattress was to avoid off-gassing. In the end, she only paid $120 for the mattress, boxspring, love seat and transportation. I'd say she also got away with her life. Really, Vanessa, taking up some guy named Fred's offer to test out a used mattress in the back of a U-Haul office sounds rather sketchy.

February: In February, Vanessa installs a dual-flush toilet (I'm jealous!), sets up a rain barrel to collect water for the garden, stops using makeup, restricts food to only that grown in the Ontario region and provides for an eco-friendly funeral in her will. In addition, she also switches over to eco-logs in the fireplace.

Epilogue: The epilogue contains a follow-up of the number of changes that she's stuck with. She doesn't go through which ones have worked out and which ones haven't per se, but she does mention a few and calculated that about 74 percent of the green changes she continues to do.

She also had Zero-footprint run the calculations (as best they could) on what kind of impact the changes made. They were able to do so on about 26 percent of her total changes (some things like consumer consumption are difficult to translate into carbon) and it resulted in approximately 11.02 tons of CO2 saved. Not bad for a cynic, eh?

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Random discussion questions:

If you are female, would you be willing to stop shaving your legs and/or armpits in the name of environmentalism? Have you stopped wearing makeup?

Do you avoid anything made or packaged in plastic? Would you be willing to forgo products that were?

Would you be willing to butcher your own meat to learn more about the process?

Do you use rain barrels?

Do you burn wood or eco-logs in your fireplace (if you have one and use it)?

What would you have liked Vanessa to have done during her challenge or have done differently? Were there things in particular that you would have liked a more thorough follow-up on?

Related posts:
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 1 (Spring)
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 2 (Summer)
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 3 (Fall)

Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 3

Welcome to the third discussion post of Vanessa Farquharson's book, Sleeping Naked Is Green. For those of you who are just joining us, we are smack dab in the middle of the book. Vanessa is the writer of the green blog, Green as a Thistle and the book summarizes the 366 green changes she made over the course of a year. In this installment we'll be covering the fall chapters.

September: During September, Vanessa stops using toilet paper for #1, stops buying DVDs and rents them instead, switches to eating ethically raised fish, switches to cloth menstrual pads instead of disposable ones and exterminates bugs with eco-friendly solutions. Finally, that slut uses a natural lubricant instead of K-Y and stops using birth control pills.

I see now that she switched to cloth wipes for #1 during my first Cloth Wipe Challenge. I can't remember all the participants that first year since that was the same time my husband was diagnosed and I immediately ended up in a fog for a few months (some might say years).

Anyway, this month Vanessa realizes her relationship with Mark isn't really going anywhere and punts him back to Oregon. This is immediately remediated by a funny interview with hottie, Jake Gyllenhaal, where soul searching questions revolving around pets and cilantro ensue. Life could be a whole lot rougher.

October: In October, our heroine starts working from home twice a week, lowers the temperature on her water heater, starts air-drying all her laundry and switches over a menstrual cup. I totally loved her description of the rotting mass collecting in her now-turned-off freezer. But she never said what she ended up doing with the infestation.

Vanessa had a few issues when first using the DivaCup. Apparently, she has a black hole for a vagina and couldn't retrieve it after first inserting it. But, Vanessa managed to overcome the escape velocity issue and, with a little counseling, she figured it out. Or, rather, got it out, and she was officially a happy convert.

November: November is a little bit light as far as changes go, but she still manages to eek out learning how to sew and mend clothes, knit her own scarves and mittens, ask for only green gifts and make soup broth from scratch.

There were a lot of homey, craft oriented changes this month, which makes sense given the holidays and season. Oh yeah, and given the fact that she bought a house and just about had a nervous breakdown. But, those are minor details, really.

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Random discussion questions:

Would you be brave enough to stop using toilet paper for pee? If so, sign up for this year's Cloth Wipe Challenge (insert shameless plug here).

Do you use an eco-friendly form of birth control?

Do you air dry all or part of your laundry? Even if you live in a small place?

Do you use a menstrual cup, like the Diva Cup (ladies only)?

Do you know how to sew your own clothes and mend them? Or do you tend to just throw them out or donate them?

Related posts:
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 1 (Spring)
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 2 (Summer)

Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 2

Welcome to the second discussion post of Vanessa Farquharson's book, Sleeping Naked Is Green. For those of you who are just joining us, Vanessa is the writer of the green blog, Green as a Thistle and the book summarizes the 366 green changes she made over the course of a year. In this installment we'll be covering the summer chapters.

June: During the month of June, Vanessa tackles making changes to her beauty routine by switching to a natural bar soap, using natural, mineral-based sunscreen, letting her hair air dry, not using nail polish, using natural hair dye, treating sunburns with pure aloe and using only one bar of soap for her face and body.

I believe when I read on her blog that she was using bar soap on her face, I also switched myself. I'm pretty sure I've been using Dr. Bronner's bar soap on my face since then, with much success. Another notable change she makes this month is sleeping naked (hence the title), although she laments that she has no one to share this nekkidness with except her cat.

However, the biggest change o' the month has to be selling her car. Instead of private vehicle transport she relies on her bike and public transportation and the occasional use of a Zipcar.

July: In July, Ms. Thistle attempts to build a compost bin, buy only locally and sustainably made clothes (good luck with that one!), use biodegradable garbage bags and quit social smoking. I'm sure her lungs are thanking her for it. As for the compost bin, Vanessa turns out to be construction challenged and wrangles her literary agent to come over and build it for her.

During this month of her project, she discovers how green her grandparents really are when she goes for a visit, strictly because they live according to a lifestyle they grew up with, having lived through the Depression and wartime. They grow much of their own food and her grandfather hunts and fishes. When it comes down to it, Vanessa realizes she has a lot less to complain about with her green changes since many people live or lived this way not as a matter of choice.

August: At the height of summer's heat, Vanessa skips A/C and chooses only a hand held fan, uses only cold water for her laundry, switches from paper napkins to cloth and makes her own jams and preserves. Apparently, my jam recipes convinced her to give canning a try and she successfully made some peach and plum vanilla jam without poisoning herself and others.

Unfortunately, her love life isn't as sweet and Vanessa resorts to giving GreenSingles.com a try. It sounds like she ran into some real winners there and ends up sticking to a romance with someone she already knows, albeit not exactly the right match for her. I mean, really, who doesn't know what a Mini is anyway? (You'll have to read the book to find out what I'm talking about here :)

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Random discussion questions:

Would you be willing to give up your car?

How about your A/C?

Do you use only cold water in your laundry?

Do you have a compost bin?

If you are single (or married, you naughty reader), have you looked into Greensingles.com?

Related posts:
Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 1

Sleeping Naked Is Green: Discussion 1

Vanessa Farquharson doesn't mince words in her book, Sleeping Naked Is Green, when she says that she's no stinky, granola-chomping hippy. So, reading through her book/diary about how she manages to make 366 green changes in her life makes for an entertaining read.

This is the first discussion post of the four I'll be doing on the book, each post covering a season, more or less. So, let's begin! Here comes spring...

March: In March, Vanessa starts off with a bang making some easy, palatable changes like switching to recycled paper towels and toilet paper to more hard-core changes like freezing her butt off when she turns down the thermostat and going car free on the weekends.

During this portion of her challenge, she is definitely concerned with whether or not she can keep up with a daily change and is worried about what her friends and family will think of her. In the early days, Vanessa manages to overcome her fear and regret and plunges ahead anyway. In order to mentally steel herself for the coming days, she allows herself to realize that she could always bail if things become too nuts. Little did she know what was coming.

My only issue with this chapter, and others to come, is that there are a lot of character generalizations that play on stereotypes. Since the book is geared toward a broader audience (rather than to environmentalists), I can see where she would want to distance herself from the "dirty hippy" stereotype. It makes for a funny read, but sometimes it comes off sounding somewhat mean-spirited.

April: In April, Vanessa steps it up by reducing the amount of meat she eats and making sure that it is sustainably raised. In addition, she makes a huge change and turns off her freezer. Well, maybe not so huge, since she didn't have much in it anyway, but nonetheless, she got past the mental hurdle of turning it off which is something most people don't cotton to.

I loved her interaction with the vegan about her opinion regarding beeswax toothfloss and it's ethical ramifications; the story about trying to buy paper towels at the Green Living Show; and the giddiness she has at the thought that Margaret Atwood might, possibly, look at her blog. Classic enthusiasm from Vanessa.

My only problem with this chapter is that when I reread it, it makes me think of Stephen Baldwin. Why, you ask? Because I read it on the plane home from NY and he happened to be sitting several rows in front of me in coach and was taking every opportunity to stand up and be noticed.

May: May's highlights include not using the oven and air-conditioner, switching to natural deodorant, buying carbon offsets for travel, unplugging the fridge and letting that yellow mellow.

It was nice to see that her friends and family were so supportive of her goals that, for her birthday, nobody seemed to give her gifts that would sabotage them. Although it sounds like she wouldn't have minded someone breaking the "rules", it's encouraging to hear that they didn't disregard her project and preferences like so many family and friends do.

When it came to letting her pee mellow, she quickly decided that every other flush or so was preferable to a steeping bowl of stinky pee that generally occurs unless you drink a ton of water, thereby cancelling out the amount being flushed. On the day that she unplugged her fridge, nothing exactly eventful occurred so there's not much reported. Yet. I suspect we'll hear more about it in later chapters.

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So far, this book has been highly entertaining and fun to read through. I only wish that there were follow-ups in each section that told us whether she stuck with the change long-term (after her challenge was over) or later found something better that replace the change.

What did you think of the first three chapters?