Pack green, pack light, pack right

Holy smokes!  I am going to Europe for 5 weeks.  In that time I will be attending a wedding in the South of France, living large in Prague with my childhood BFF, and presumably walking and biking my tuchus off all across the continent (destinations include Barcelona, Berlin, and Paris). So how on earth does a fancy gal like me manage to pack light, stay green, and overall, remain classy?!  Here are my top packing techniques, honed to near perfection over years of trial and error abroad. 

1. The trusty, dusty Boy Scout roll. There is a reason this is the all American packing method of choice amongst our nation's patriotic outdoorsy youth. (Actually, I can't back that up... any Boy Scouts reading?)

Roll your clothes up tightly instead of folding to make the most out of your suitcase space. This allows you to squeeze clothes into every available square inch. It also reduces wrinkles and makes it easy to see at a glance all the riches you have packed.

2. Ziplock bags are your friend! They buy you beers, they laugh at your jokes, but most of all they help keep your stuff organized. I like to separate mine by garment type; i.e. blouses, skirts, undies. Anything that doesn't fit in it's designated zip lock is left behind, which keeps me honest in the packing-light department. This method has the potential to be wasteful so make sure you hold on to your ziplocks for reuse when your trip is over.

3. Have a gift suitcase. If you are seeing friends abroad, chances are you want to bring them treats from your homeland. Designating a separate suitcase for this purpose also ensures you have plenty of space to bring goodies for yourself and your friends back home, too. 

I like bringing local bath products (these lotions are from the Indie Pendent in Virginia Highlands), and small bottles of American bourbon. I scored these on my recent trip to Kentucky. The dream catchers are authentic (not made in china!) from Cherokee, NC. If you travel a lot, it's a good idea to pick tiny gifts up as you go about life to later share with friends in foreign lands.

4. Throw and go. I originally learned this from a girl traveling in Israel with me. At the end of the day, she threw her gym socks away rather than repacking them moist and stinky in her bag. Anyone who reads this blog knows that the thought of throwing away perfectly good gym socks makes my palms sweat, so I adapted this trick to fit my more green ways. If you have old, worn out undies you've been meaning to toss, save them for your big trip! It's not exactly wasteful since you intended to throw them away anyway, and it saves you the trouble and space of repacking used underwear!

[not pictured because, ew.]

See how easy it is to pack light and go green? It's the only way to travel! Now get out there and start planning your big trip to Europe so you can put my methods to the test.

Btw, hello from MFin FRANCE!!! Nothing tastes better than your first croissant of the trip, even if it is from an airport cafe. These are the faces of happy, green, light travelers. 

a pop of color

When weather's wet grey
pops of color here and there
brighten up the day.

If you want to start a novice herb garden, grow mint! You can harvest leaves right away for tea, and it will put up with almost any abuse. Forget to water it, leave it in the rain, you name it. Mint don't care. 

You can also add it to juices! Yum! I added some juice pulp to my latest muffin batch, and forgot I had added mint. It actually turned out delicious! Random surprising bites of mint in the muffins really start mornings off right. 

Also, feather hair extensions and pink umbrellas are pretty important too. Make sure you have some on hand. 

What's your favorite method to stave off depression when weather is damp and gray? 

compost queen

I don't know about you, but I always get this twinge of guilt when I throw something away that I know can be reused. I've felt a particularly strong twinge every time I've thrown away table scraps that I know would make good composting.

In case this concept is new to you, any raw food such as peels, cores, stems, etc make excellent composting. Compost is the rich soil produced from decomposed plant matter and is extremely healthy and delicious to plants! Composting is nature's recycling bin, and if I claim to be green, then by golly, I'm wanna be green down to my cooking scraps.

Actual bee on actual flower at Truly Living Well Urban Farm

However, composting is difficult. It requires space; outdoor space. And frequent tending to. You have to have the right balance of food scraps and "brown" substance (basically mulch) or else the compost will be all wrong and attract animals and become a big stinky mess. If you live in an apartment, like I do, it's not an option. So what to do other then sadly watch your wilted lettuces and hardy potato peels be carted off to the landfill where they're no use to anyone?

In my search to end this moral conundrum, I found several solutions. One is making something called garbage soup. Appetizing, no? You keep your tasty leftover bits in the freezer, and at the end of the month you make a vegetable broth out of them. This option didn't really work for me because I just don't find myself making vegetable broth very often. My freezer scraps eventually made their way to the trash can, iced over and pungent. But if you like to cook soup, this could work for you.

If you live in a super cool progressive city like Portland, there is an amazing service where people on bikes will come and collect your composting scraps at the end of the week. But I live in no such city.

So I researched community gardens to see if any nearby greenspace would appreciate my leftover scraps. Several gardens declined, saying that to keep their crops organic they must only use compost matter produced from the garden itself. Finally, I discovered Truly Living Well, an urban farm located surprisingly central to Down Town Atlanta.

It's nestled away by the Martin Luther King Center, and you'd never know this bit of green heaven existed unless you stumbled right on top of it. The friendly (mostly volunteer!) staff was delighted to accept my composting scraps. Not only that, I started the school I work at on a composting regimin, and deliver the entire school's scraps every week, too! Teachers and parents, this is a wonderful learning oportunity and children love visiting the farm and delivering their scraps in person. It's a great way for them to physically interact with the food cycle and to think about their own waste and green choices.

You can buy simple compost bins for your counter top at stores like Walmart and Home Depot. I use this one for the school and a simple tupperware in the fridge for at home. I find that reduces the smell factor.

It feels awesome doing something (even so small) for the planet. And it tastes great too. I like to stop by Truly Living Well's market when I'm done delivering my scraps and peruse their organic, locally grown goodies. I even like to flatter myself by thinking that in a way, I helped grow them. YUM!

What can you do? Use the ever-trusty google search engine to find community gardens in your area, and start making calls. Even if they can't help you directly, they may have some good leads for you. That's how I found my own urban farm utopia!