Eye Opener: Junk on the Brain

As defined by Wikipedia, antiquing, although there are several meaning, is a shopping activity. And an antique is an old collectable item.  Junking is defined as discarded material, some of which may be reused in some form, this definition came from a free online dictionary. Also defined by Wikipedia, a flea market is a type of bazaar or merchandizing area, where inexpensive or secondhand goods are sold. Also using the free online dictionary, a thrift shop is defined as a shop that sells used articles as to benefit a charitable organization. About.com defines upcycling as the practice of taking something that is disposable and transforming it into something of greater use and value. I couldn't find an exact definition of a resale shop but the free online dictionary, defines resale as the acting of reselling something. Also when I typed in resale shop definition into Google, a bunch of thrift store popped up. So I think I'm save to assume that a resale shop is similar to a thrift shop, in that it resells used items.
These terms have to do with environmental health because it's all about recycling and/or reusing. It helps the environment to reuse old items so big corporations don't have to go through making new and improved ones and releasing potentially hazardous toxins into the environment, although its still happening, it helps. And the more people who reuse and recycle, the need for new and improved decreases.
A local antique shop called Antique Boutique is located on 357 Canal Park Drive Duluth, MN 55802, their phone number is (218) 529-7667. Jadco Special Haulers Inc. is a junk yard located on 4011 Rehbein Road Duluth, MN 55803. Their phone number is (218) 724-5538. There is an annual flea market on the second Sunday in August located at Lake Superior College 2102 Trinity Road Duluth, MN 55811. This organization is state wide so there is no phone number but you are welcome to email them. A common thrift store in Duluth is Ragstock located on 9 west Superior st. You can contact them by phone (218) 722-1201. I couldn't find a store that provided just upcycling products but I found a website with a list of stores that sold upcycled furniture. The are several named stores with contact information on the website for anyone's use. Dannie Duluth is a consignment shop located at 932 E 4th st Duluth, MN. You may contact by phone (218) 724-8507.
Back in my hometown Hayward, WI there is also an annual flea market every summer. Although I don't go every year, I have gone before with my mom and have shopped around. I have also made good use of Goodwill which is another consignment store with several locations. I have gone antiquing before with my mom, and it is one of my least favorite childhood memories, although I may enjoy it now.
"It's a Salad Spinner" It is a big round piece of metal being used to hold salad ingredients on a table and it spins! Avoiding the problem of having people to pass the salad. I grew in a family where entertaining was a big thing. Having big family holidays and parties on the weekends for our closest friends. This would be great for a big family dinner. It's easy and there is no passing the salt or butter. I also find it cool that the bowls fit into the holes in the metal, I didn't even realize there were holes in the metal until I looked at the side pictures. Another project I absolutely love is the this organizational window. I'm all about organization. I think this is not only cool and creative but a very well use of an old window frame. I'm a lover not a fighter, this next project I also love. It is called "Must me L-O-V-E!". They are wooden blocks painted red and then the designer added a dictionary page with the definition of love on it to the blocks. I like this as a great decorative piece.

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Week 5

My SMART goal is to eat 3 servings of fresh vegetables everyday. And well this week, once again, wasn't any better than last week. I have been having some troubles with  my teeth. I started eating regular food sooner than I should have and I became swollen all over again, so I was forced to go back to eating applesauce, yogurt, and pudding, ick! As of today I have resorted to eating soggy cereal because if I have to eat one more spoonful of applesauce I may actually throw up! To deal with this challenge I have been looking and researching a little bit for ideas of soft and different meals that I could eat, especially ones have some sort of vegetable in it. If you have any ideas let me know! This week I learned that when people tell you it's going to be "awhile" before you can eat solid food again, "awhile" doesn't mean 4 days, it literally means "awhile", like a week or two.  I also learned that I need to be a little more patient with these kind of problems. Healing is a long process, in words of my mother and roommates "You have to remember you had your gum tissues cut open and four, rather large, teeth yanked out, you are NOT going to be healed in a week!" Darn it!! I will keep my plan the way it is. My plans for this next week is to do some deep research on meals that are soft and nutritious and if worse comes to worse, I have a blender!

Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

The product I chose to find on the Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database was the shampoo that I use which is Garnier Fructis. The health concern for my shampoo was moderate, which isn't THAT bad but after looking at some of the facts and ingredients I did get a little freaked out. The first two ingredients  that were the highest scored in the hazard concern was the fragrance and some chemical I can't even pronoun but after reading a little bit it sounds like the chemical is Formaldehyde. Although reading about the hazard scoring about my shampoo, I'll probably stick to buying it. I like my shampoo and I feel like no matter we do these days, there are going to be health concerns or risks. It does, though, scare me that there is formaldehyde in my shampoo.

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Week 4

My SMART goal is to eat 3 servings of fresh vegetables every day. This week achieving my SMART goal was very very difficult. I had one big challenge this week, and really no successes, to be completely honest. The one challenge I had was on Thursday I got all four of my wisdom teeth pulled so I have had to eat extremely soft foods. I'm still having trouble eating "normal" foods. I feel like I have failed the project, because I haven't been able to eat hardly anything. It's frustrating and annoying. I miss eating regular foods. I try everyday to eat "normal" foods but it doesn't last long because my jaw starts to hurt, but I'm going to keep trying everyday. I guess the lesson I learned this week is to always brush and take care of my teeth, even though it was my wisdom teeth, not like rotten teeth, but I never want to get teeth pulled again. I enjoy eating solid food too much. My plans for next week is to make up for this week and go ALL week long without slipping up. I will continue with my goal, I can do it!

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Week 3

My SMART is to eat 3 servings of fresh vegetables everyday. Achieving my goal this week was difficult once again. Some successes I had was making sure I ate 3 servings of vegetables daily fresh or not fresh. There wasn't really any strategies that came into when making sure I ate 3 servings daily. But some challenges I had was making sure I had fresh vegetables around the house. This time it wasn't so much that I was leaving to go somewhere, like going home last week, it was more I've been really tight on money because I had car issues and bills to pay and everything just seemed pile on at once money wise. I decided that for this week just the 3 servings of vegetables daily would be better than eating 1 serving of fresh vegetables daily. I felt a little disappointed in myself when I wasn't able to eat fresh vegetables but like I said I figured just eating vegetables in general was better than nothing. I learned this week, and not with just this assignment but I learned in general that I need to manage my money better although some things, like car troubles, I can't help. My plans for this next week is to come up with a budget plan. I will continue with my SMART, I am determined to complete this challenge.

Eye Opener: CSPI

Some of things I learned after reading the facts on all the different components that go into raising and killing cattle are that cattle suffer health problems from a diet that is high in grains. So far in my career of learning about nutrition is that grains, especially whole grains, are very good for you; so it surprised me that cattle actually get health problems from eating too much. I suppose, though, too much of anything is bad. A couple more things I learned was cow manure is equivalent to 33 million cars' carbon dioxide and that manure lagoons break open and spill during a storm or something. One of the most shocking facts I think I read though was that there are far more antibiotics given to cattle than to people! That's a lot of antibiotics.
My results from the Eating Green Calculator were that 2.8 acres are used for growing grain and grass in order to feed the cattle, 58.9 pounds of fertilizer are used to grow the animal feed, 0.3 pounds of pesticides are used on the fields, and 17,732 pounds of manure is produced from the cows. The number of acres and pounds of fertilizer and pesticides doesn't sound like a lot to me, but the number of pounds of manure produced sure surprised me. I can't even imagine that amount of manure. I wasn't able to see the results after clicking "Click here to improve your diet and protect your environment", therefore, I wasn't able to see and decide on the pledge.
After scoring my diet, some foods that gained me points were eating extra-lean beef, fat-free dairy, fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Some foods that lost me points were eating high amounts and/or low amounts of beef, chicken, egg, milk, cheese, and ice cream. The area in which I need the most improvement on is environment. One thing I can do to improve is eating more organic foods.
To me this means I'm a bad influence, bad influence on the environment and I believe it. I know that some of my actions cause harm to the environment and there are actions I can take to help improve the environment but at the same time I feel like I can only do so much. Although I can maybe buy some organic items such as meat and milk every month, I can't afford to buy all my groceries organic because after all, I am a poor college student. I do, however, plan to do more when I can afford to do so.

Eco-Chic Lifestyle Change: Week 2

My SMART Goal was to eat 3 servings of vegetables everyday. The first few days of starting my SMART goal went really well. I ate some fresh green beans, green peppers, etc. I then went home for the weekend and ran into some challenges, that set me back. A challenge I faced was on Saturday I went to Cranberry Festival in my home town, I was there from 9:30am to 6:00pm and the only food available to for me to eat was either burgers or hotdogs. There wasn't a whole lot of options for vegetables. Solution could have been that when I got home at six was to just eat all three servings but that caused another problem/challenge. Because my house is now used as our cabin and my parents are only up there on the weekends, they don't keep fresh vegetables around. In replacement of no fresh vegetables I ate canned vegetables (which I know aren't as healthy) and recycled the can, so I got in most my servings and still kept it Eco-Chic by recycling. What I learned this week was to plan for different environments, such as traveling home. My plans for this next week are think ahead and what my plans are and try and figure out how I'm going to get my three servings of FRESH vegetables. I will be keeping my SMART Goal as is.

The results of my Ecological Footprint came out to be that if everyone lived like me we would need 4.4 earths to provide enough resources. I'm surprised because I actually thought I would use up a lot more "Planet Earths" than the results said I would. I feel like I use a lot more water and energy but then again the quiz didn't calculate the amount of water or energy I use, it just wanted to know if my house had energy or not. I think if the quiz calculated the exact or estimated amounts I would use a lot more resources. Some ways I could reduce my ecological footprint would to drive less and car pool, walk, or take the bus more and definitely use less water. Some examples would be, take shorter showers, turn the water off when I'm brushing my teeth, etc.