Today I woke up to the lovely sight of my cat 'missing' his litter box (did he do this because I bought a different cat food??) whatever the reason I had a nice mess to clean up at 7am...first I grab the 401, then the floor polish, then the airfreshner..what alot of products for a little mess! So I decided to do a little research into household products..hmmm...maybe there was a way to live a greener lifestyle with these products??Here are some points I found:

* Their use may release toxic and hazardous vapors into the indoor air which may be unhealthy for our families.

*The purchase of potentially hazardous products creates a demand for toxic chemicals which contributes to environmental pollution due to the development, manufacture and transportation of these chemicals.

*When hazardous products are used, they are releasing chemicals into the ground and wastewater stream which may contaminate our groundwater and present a problem to wastewater treatment facilities.  Most often hazardous products are not disposed of properly and are landfilled or incinerated where they release their toxins to the environment.

*Household products include cleaners, fresheners, laundry products, drain cleaners, dishwashing detergents, carpet shampoos, polishes and pesticides.  Exposure to toxic household hazardous chemicals from ingestion, inhalation or skin contact can produce acute (immediate) or chronic (long term) health effects...GREAT!!! So, with all that cheery news, I started to look into some more natural alternatives and was atually pretty surprised at what I found!!!

An alternative to furniture polish is SPAM!!! Yep, SPAM! Joey Green has great alternatives for many household products, I actually watched a YouTube video of him using this and it worked great!!

MUSTARD..great for hotdogs and also.....a DECONGESTANT!! Yep, just rub it on your chest instead of the Vicks! Who would have thought you can live a greener lifestyle with the help of mustard??!!

Now VINEGAR (all I have is balsamic! Not sure if this would work!!) has alot of uses: mix it with BAKING SODA, pour down the drain, follow with boiling water and voila! Clear drain!  You can also clean glass and windows if you mix vinegar with water.

Now ladies, do you dye your hair?? Did you know that Whole Foods actually sell environmentally friendly HAIR DYES?? I know I didn't...I must admit though, if it means having to do my own hair, I think I will have to pass on that one for now!

Mommy's, if your child gets the head lice, don't grab the harsh chemicals...grab the MAYO!! Yep, smother your childs head in mayo or VASELINE put under a shower cap before bedtime and wash thoroughly the next day...if that seems a little weird for you, you can also brush hair with an all natural conditioner and comb through.

Are you a hair product fanatic?? Why not spike your hair with TOOTHPASTE? Again, I saw Joey Green doing this! If you want a more gel like appearance use JELLO!

For silky smooth legs, forget the Nair...use PEANUT BUTTER for shaving I actually tried this and recommend the smooth as oppose to crunchy variety!!!

So there you have it! I have a list of things to buy this weekend and actually I really liked the peanut butter shaving alternative, so that is my rather odd baby steps to a greener lifestyle, STEP 3!...the rest I have yet to try!!! Does anyone else have any wacky alternatives??

So I was in my office today with my business partner Janie Coffey when we got a call that one of our friends and colleagues was on his way to treat us to coffee. Now he tends to be a bit of a neat freak and Janie and I tend to be...how can I put this...hmmmm...let's just say we lose our car keys daily under things on the desk..so we commenced to do the panic tidy up and whilst throwing everything in the top drawer of our filing cabinet, it occurred to me exactly how much paper we have! I am ashamed to say we have ALOT of paper in our office....Now to be honest, we want to go paperless, we did from the beginning, but starting a real estate company in a down market really didn't allow us that luxury (maybe in a few months we can...fingers crossed!) but until then what else can we do, to cut down on all this paper waste! I decided to do a little research!! Hence I came across my STEP 2 in my 'babysteps' towards leading a greener lifestyle!

The first thing that I noticed was that ALOT of this paper we hadn't asked for! It was junk mail that for the most part gets instantly trashed (I am new at being 'green' so again I apologise for the trashing of the pizzahut coupons, any pizza I buy now will be from Pizza Fusion anyway..more on this in a later blog). There are a number of things you can do to stop this. For personal junk mail, you can go to www.dmaconsumers.org/cgi/offmailing. they can take you off their mailing lists for up to 5 years! Also call Val Pak Coupons (1 800 676 6878) and Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes ( I am from England and still really have no idea what this is!) 1800 645 9242. Also your credit card companies are some of the biggest offenders in selling your name and address, so it's worth giving them a call and asking them to stop. For those of you donating money or requesting a new product or service, be sure to write 'PLEASE DO NOT SELL MY NAME OR ADDRESS' in big letters on the envelopes. But what else can I do? There is the obvious thing of recyling...

The demand for recycled paper is growing as many people like myself want to try and lead a greener lifestyle. However unlike most other recyclables, paper cannot be recycled over and over again as the fibers become too weak.. I read somewhere about a community who diligently saved all their newspapers. Their stack kept growing and growing and in the end, they actually had to pay someone to haul it off and chances are it went to a landfill anyway! What a shame! Time to put our paper to use. I went to my local government webpage (in my case it's MiamiDade.Gov) and discovered they had a recycling program I wasn't even aware of! The recycling bins are only $3.50 each. They tell you how to segregate the paper (so you probably should get a few bins) and you don't even have to remove the staples! I have to contact the service provider tomorrow to make sure they collect from my building (too late now today..printer issues mean I am still in the office at 8.15pm!). What about all those flyers we diligently put at our listings???

I wonder how many people pull up to my listings, grab a flyer, jump back in their car, look at it, realise they have no interest and that flyer gets tossed??? I would guess about 15 out of 20! maybe it would be better to just leave one permanent flyer there that cannot be removed??  Along with the use of a talking house? .For those unfamiliar, the Talking House enables the potential buyer to tune in their car radio to a specific frequency and listen to your pre-recorded message about the house. Janie and I use them and they are pretty great as you can also mention your other listing addresses on the recording.

So for alot of us, going paperless is a little too costly, we can start on the road to becoming semi-paperless!! Set up an efax, they are very easy to do. Since I got mine, I haven't used the regular fax machine to receive faxes at all! It's so much more convenient.

And finally although I myself at the moment cannot be totally paperless, I use a title company that is. Florida Closing and Title spent over $20,000 making their company totally paperless and president John Ioannou says it was the best thing he ever did. Aside from the environmental benefits he doesn't need a huge file room and the clients love that all their paperwork after a closing is given to them on a disc!

So although I cannot be paperless, I will put my paper back into circulation best I can...until that glorious day when I don't have to look for my keys under all that paper!

How Green Are You?? .....

So this was the title of a quiz I took this morning (all quizzes in the past have tended to come from the pages of Cosmopolitan, so I guess I am growing up....). Apparantly, I am 'Light Green' (thought I was looking a little off color today...), according to my quiz results 'I am open to the idea of green and somewhat aware of the changes I can make to help the earth'...  I would say that this is pretty accurate, I would like to lead a greener lifestyle Now I have to tell you,  I want to do my bit for the environment, I really do, but I find the whole 'green' topic a tad overwhelming, when brought up in conversations it becomes almost like a competition as to who is greener...and like anything else (other than a Kit Kat) when rammed down my throat, it's hard to swallow...

So, tomorrow is 'Earth Day' did you know that? I didn't until this afternoon (hey, at least I am some shade of green...baby steps...), so what better day to start my 'green' blog.  Earth Day is the day people are supposed to call their local governments and urge them to take significant and equitable action in climate change. If in Washington DC, you also got to rock out to Jordin Sparks who was one of dozens of celebs that took part in Sunday's Green Apple Festival (with all due respect to 'Baby Loves Salsa' - the Miami line-up wasn't quite as good...).  So after calling our governments, then what? Well there are many things we can do to lead a greener lifestyle but I believe that change has to be gradual for it to stick (if I say, I am going to give up dessert for example, I will need a good 10 years of gradual change for this to work..crash dieting never was my thing)..So..

 STEP ONE     I decided my first step was going to be to take my own bags to the grocery store with me, so I did..I probably looked a little odd asking for my eggs, milk and apples (organic of course) to be put in my own Macy's bag (look, it's the only one I had in the house, I am trying OK?? One step at a time..!)..But it actually felt good, I ran into my house, dropped off the groceries and threw the Macy's bag back in the trunk of my car (yes I said car, not bicycle and no, it's not a Hybrid, if I could afford it, it would be..)

So, this is kinda the introduction to my Blog, (the next ones will have more info, less rabble) turning green in baby steps for people like me, we can learn together, a few times a week I will have a different easy step and lots of Green info, some specific to Florida. I am not 'green'  but I am learning. Like dieting - (my business partner Janie Coffey is forced to diet with me next week because I miss my abdominals - Janie if you are reading this, good job on getting no mayo on the subs today..) turning green is the right thing to do, but it does involve changing your life a little (or alot if you can) and that's always easier to do when others are joining you. So folks, let the 'Green Way' commence!! and I swear to God if I look like this girl in the picture at the end of it, I will QUIT...I have my limits you know.....