Japanese Garden in Washington Park

While in the Portland area, we were able to see the Japanese Garden in Washington Park. The garden is beautifully arranged in a logical and aesthetically pleasing manner. With a map and guide in one hand and a camera in another, we made our way down the winding path. Here are a few pictures we took.

A view of the city from the garden

If you look closely in the background you'll see that isn't a cloud. It's Mt. Hood covered in snow.

This is a garden of rocks made to look like the ocean. This picture demonstrates the ripples and waves.

And this one looks like a seal or sea lion.

Pretty Japanese trees.

A good example of what most of the garden looked like.

As I said, recycling takes place all over Oregon. This was at the gift shop. The park also encourages patrons to recycle their brochures on the way out to be used by other visitors. We kept ours for our scrapbook.

Powell's City of Books

Our first stop after picking up our rental car in Oregon was Powell's City of Books in Portland. We had heard a lot of good things about Powell's but none of it did this place justice. It's like a little world of books. Everything you could possible ever want to read is here. There was an entire aisle of wedding planning books, multiple aisles of cookbooks and endless books on global warming, conservation and green living. Patrick was especially impressed with the birds section.

Before leaving we decided to have a cup of tea in the cafe. Not only can you ask for a reusable mug if you're not leaving the store but they recycle everything including the plastic disposable cups. YEAH!

You can visit Powell's even if you aren't planning a trip to Oregon any time soon. Just click here and shop away or browse for fun.

PS- Powell's has an entire separate store dedicated to technical books.

Get Fresh (and recycle) with Sara Snow

Many thanks to Patrick and his coworker, Lily, for bringing my attention to the young green goddess, Sara Snow. Snow is just 31 and has already lived a lifetime of being green. She was brought into the world by parents who ran an organic grocery out of their apartment and who taught her that living organically and locally is the only way to live.

On her Discovery Network program, Get Fresh with Sara Snow, Sara brings us insight on recycling, eating local and organic food, saving energy and more. The first thing she said on the episode I caught yesterday was, "It still surprises me when people just choose not to recycle". My reaction to that was, "EXACTLY!!!". Why is that? Snow also goes on to say that maybe those people don't realize what a difference it makes. Maybe they need to see a picture of our dumps and landfills in order to understand what our impact is.

Do you know people who don't recycle? What do you do to help them understand that recycling is critically important?

In the meantime, try to catch Get Fresh with Sara Snow on Discovery Home and/or Discovery Health for great insight and tips in living ecologically sound.

As Seen On Oprah's Green Episode

Oprah aired a terrific show on being green earlier last year. It was repeated the other day. Here are many of the tips and facts that were shared by guests and experts on that program.


Things to Keep in Mind When Grocery Shopping:
- Look for minimal packaging. You don't need fancy wrapping. It doesn't make the food any better.

- Instead of buying plastic or paper plates, use reusable dishes

- When and if you absolutely must buy plastic, look for 100% recycled/recyclable plasticware

- When and if you absolutely must buy paper, look for 100% recycled products

- Use 100% recycled aluminum foil. It requires 1/20 of the energy to produce traditional foil

- Recycle your foil!

- Organic produce = no pesticides = less energy to harvest and healthier for you and the planet

- Bring your own bags - including produce bags



Things You Should Know About Drinking Water:
- It takes five liters of water energy to make one liter of bottled water - USE SIGG!

- If you must use a plastic water bottle (and you really shouldn't), please use a refillable one and make sure it has a number 2 on it so you know it's safe for drinking water. Also, if you need to throw it away for any reason, RECYCLE it!



Paper Waste:
- An estimated 100 million trees are chopped down each year and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce America's junk mail

- Check out http://www.greendimes.com/ for ways you can help

- We use an average of 2200 napkins per year, per person

- Use one less napkin a day to help save a billion pounds of paper waste from going to landfills each year


- Better yet, use cloth napkins!

- Opt out of your ATM receipts to help save 2 billion feet of paper



House Cleaning:
- Many common household cleaners contain chemicals that can cause asthma

- Real clean doesn't have a scent - no pine, no bleach, no chemical smells

- Real clean won't make you cough, sneeze or wheeze

- Try products like Method, Seventh Generation or Shaklee or try making your own with vinegar and borax

- Use microfiber cloths when cleaning instead of paper towels. You can wash them and use them again and again.



Daily Living:
- Use the same cup or glass all day

- Only run the dishwasher when it is completely full

- Never throw away clothing. Donate it to a charity, friend or family member

- Shop at thrift stores. You never know what you can find.

- Plug all electronics into power strips. Turn the strip off at night to reduce standby power.

- Use CFLs (Compact Flourecent Lightbulbs). They are 70-75% more efficient than traditional bulbs and will last longer. You will see the savings the very month you make the switch.

- Wash your clothes in cold water

- Take shorter showers

- Install an energy efficient shower head


- Clean the lint trap on your dryer after each use

- Take a reusable mug to the coffee shop

- Install a ceiling fan to circulate the air in your home

- Keep your water heater temperature at a maximum of 120 degrees

- Install gaskets behind your electrical outlets to reduce drafts coming through

- Check the caulking around your windows to be sure you are properly insulated

Something to Ponder:

Throwing something away doesn't really make it go away. Away is a place - a landfill. Visit a landfill to see the impact of your trash.

RECYCLE, RECYCLE, RECYCLE:
- It takes 100 years for glass to break down in a landfill - recycle it!

- Recycle all aluminum cans, containers and foil

- Recycle plastic containers but check the number on the bottom and make sure your municpality recycles those types of plastic

- Recycle your newspapers. One 4ft high stack of newspapers = one 40ft high fir tree.

- Donate packaging peanuts to a local packaging store like the UPS store

- http://www.earth911.com/ will tell you what you can and cannot recycle in your area.

National Energy Saving Week - Work Day

Today is "Work Day" for National Energy Saving Week. How can you save energy while you're working?

- If you work near a window take advantage of natural light before you flip that switch.

- Recycle all papers in the copy room.

- Talk to your company about implementing a recycling program if you don't already have one.

- Bring your own mug to work. Don't waste those paper or styrofoam cups.

- Look into purchasing shade grown coffee for the break room. Maybe you and some buddies can start a coffee club and pitch in for the coffee of the month program.

Another Green Party

Patrick and I had a huge celebration over the weekend. We had all our family and friends over on Saturday for a combined birthday (Patrick turned 30 on 8/23 and I'm turning 30 this Friday) and engagement party. Although we have a lot of reusable dishes, we didn't have enough for the close to 100 guests we had this time. I did a little research and found out that Chinet paper plates are made from recycled material AND are 100% biodegradable. So, folks, if you must use paper plates, give Chinet a try. They are sturdy and you can feel good about using them. To go one step further, as we did, you can also have your guests recycle all bottles, cans, plastic cups and plastic utensils.