This morning my car was in for service so I had to drive Joe's truck. As I was driving into work I realized how high above the ground I was and how it made me feel like all the other cars were little ants that I could squash at any second. Then I started to feel bad. Not for wanting to squash the cars with my big man truck but because I wondered if people were judging me. If they were looking over at me and thinking that I don't care about the environment. I wanted to roll down the window and shout at every car I was passing 'IT'S REALLY GOOD ON GAS!!' 'IT IS BI-FUEL!!'

When I got to work I realized that I had forgotten my compost bin and of course I had lots to compost today. My solution is to start keeping a paper bag in my laptop bag. In a pinch I can use it for that days compost.

Tonight Joe picked up dinner from a local joint that has some of the best burgers and fries. The fries always come in styrofoam and it really bugs me. I keep a pile of old containers in the garage waiting to be taken to the recycling center because in our region they won't pick it up at the curb. I would love to eliminate the need to get these containers in the first place. Tonight I actually thought about what would happen if we just asked them to dump the fries into a big paper bag. Sure it would get greasy and wet but at least I could put it in the compost bin!

Tomorrow will be a better day. After all it is Saturday and that means Farmers Market!

Let's continue on the 'Jen isn't winning' theme shall we and talk about this vine that is growing on the side of our house. I have been fighting to get rid of it for months now and have now determined that the last test of pouring hot water on the roots did not get rid of it. In fact I think the hot water combined with the insanely hot temperatures has angered the vine and caused it grow faster and stronger.

I have been trying to avoid having to find and dig up all the root balls because the one that I can see is the size of my head. So this is my last ditch attempt to find a solution. What ideas do you have for me awesome readers?  Here are some ideas I am throwing around in my game attack plan.

- Vinegar (it does a million things so it has to kill vines too right?)

- Ninja moves

- Borax

- BB gun

- Salt

I want to win the war this summer with this thing so I do not have to do this again next year and so I can finally plant some flowers long that side of the house!

WTF is going on with lawns around here? They are crunchy, dry and brown....and not just our craptastic "lawn" either! It is everyone's grass that is being affected. It can't be the heat because it is no different than other summers. So that leaves the ants. I am blaming them because there are insane this year and I always seen them on or near the grass.

Anyone else have dead grass?  Does it make you wish you had clover or just nothing but a pool?

Last weekend we held our garage sale for our Weekend to End Women's Cancer walk. This was hands down the largest garage sale I have ever seen. We had a warehouse full of stuff that had been donated from friends and family!  We started to set up at 4:45 (AM!!) and had our first customers before 6. A lot of things found new homes and we raised money for a great cause. Anything that we didn't sell will be donated to a local charity.

Most thought provoking from an environmental perspective - Baby items can be a total waste of money and resources. Sometimes they don't use them at all or they use them for a few short months. Thankfully when we were pregnant with B we didn't buy a lot of stuff and even know we only buy what he needs. This has really helped us to cut down on the number of items we have to donate or sell and it has helped to reduce B's impact on the environment.

All day today I thought about the yummy meal cooking in the crock pot. As I walked into the house I was overcome by the smell of BBQ chicken and it made me smile. As I got closer to the crock pot my stomach growled and I started to get the rest of the meal ready. That is when I felt something crawling on my toes. I looked down to see at least 2 million ants all of the floor! Now imagine me trying to get dinner ready, entertain a 2 year old while trying to keep him out of Ant Fest 2011 and attempting to kill as many of them as possible. I need more arms and legs.

I washed the floor twice tonight and then went to put B down to bed. When I came back down I found that the ants were back. I don't know where they are coming from as it looks like they are emerging from under the baseboards.

I am so sick of the ants this year. It is impossible to keep them out of the house. I am seriously thisclose to just buying whatever death chemical I can get my hands on and nuking these fuckers. I know I shouldn't because it is horrible for the environment and toxic to Louie (our cat) and B. But I hate not winning and these ants are soooo winning this year.

Last week we rented a cottage with some friends a few hours north of here. As we arrived we ran into the house scattering to look at the rooms just like we were the latest contestants on Big Brother. We saw the bunk beds, the huge windows in the family room, the pool table, the weird crouching naked lady statue and the black toilet. Do you know when a black toilet comes in handy? When you are trying to live up to the cottage motto of 'if it's yellow let it mellow'. I was glad that I was at least able to do one environmentally thing (on the down low) while we were there.  It is hard to sometimes be green when away at another home. There was no composting, different items are recycled than at home and the water pressure was enough to skin an elephant.

But at the end of the day it is nice to get away for a week to spend time with those that we love and to get back to basics and enjoy nature. Oh and also it is fun to burn stuff....like the Christmas tree the owners left on the fire pit (any guesses on whose idea it was to burn it).

There are a lot of different labels for "green" products. There are lots of logo's too and it can make things very confusing. Organic, vegan, FSC, recyclable, biodegradable, EPA certified, EcoLogo etc etc. Then there is the labels that are clearly green washing. In our supermarket they are really marketing Ontario corn fed beef and people are eating it up...literally. Some people see right through it but a lot of people do not realize that cows are not meant to eat corn and therefore do not digest it properly. So corn fed beef? Yah not a great thing.

What do you want in an Eco labeling program? I want to see where the product is made (ie: is it local to me), is it a low carbon product, is it organic, is it biodegradable, is it energy star. Is the product and packaging made from FSC materials, soy based inks, recycled materials. Obviously not all of these apply to every product but they are what come to mind when I think of what I am looking for.

We have clear labeling for hazardous materials so I really do not understand why the same principles can not be applied to green products.

Wow I have really slacked off on this eh? I have a garage sale coming up for this years Weekend to End Women's Cancers walk so I will be back at it again shortly.

This week I found 18 things to sell. There wasn't anything overally interesting this week. Just some baby clothes and shoes that B has outgrown.

I have had a few people ask me if I can notice a difference in having 1800 things out of the house. Well the answer is I don't have 1800 things out of the house, 977 have left the building. The remainder are waiting on this garage sale so once that is over I will have everything out and I think it will feel a bit liberating. There will be less clutter around here and someone else will get use out of things that we have loved and things that we don't need any more.

I wrote a few months ago about how I had noticed that our water bill was out of control. It made no sense since I knew we had not increased our consumption. Joe looked around and found that our garden hose was leaking like a mo fo. He shut off the water until it was spring and we could fix it. We also found that 2 of our toilets were leaking. He fixed those and we were just waiting for the next full bill to come to see how much of an impact these changes made.

I can not believe the amount of water being wasted by these 2 simple things. I just wish that I had caught it earlier.

Does anyone actually watch their consumption this closely monthly? If you don't do you think you might start?

I have been spending a lot of time trying this product because it does take awhile to figure out if the mo(u)ld will come back or not. I focused on 2 windows in our bedroom because when our blinds are down the moisture from our ensuite seems to get trapped in there leading to a black buildup. I don't know if it is mold or mildew but it is black and very hard to get rid of.

I first used Concrobium Mold Control on the windows in the fall. The windows remained closed over the winter and the blinds down. The black reappeared and while it was not nearly as bad as it was it still came back. I used the product again earlier this year and nothing has come back. The blinds are up more now but at the start of the year they were down just like they were last year. I did some research and read that sometimes if the area you applied the product gets really wet that it can essential eliminate the barrier of product that was there causing the mold/mildew to regrow. I believe this is what happened to us with the moisture coming from the ensuite and also from condensation with the blinds being closed and the sun shining right in the window. 

I think it is really important to follow the directions in order to have success. You have to spray and leave the product on the mold/mildew. Then when it is dry wipe the area down and reapply again. Doing this a second time will create that protective barrier.  

You can find the MSDS here where you can see that there are no toxic chemicals in it. In fact there is no bleach, VOC's or ammonia in the product. This makes it an excellent alternative to the more common products to get rid of mold (like bleach).

I love Canada Day and I love living in Canada for its beauty, diverse landscape and people. I hope that you are having a fantastic day and spending some of it enjoying what Canada has to offer.