I [heart] Davids It helps me to say these things aloud, I think.

March 6, 2009

Everything you ever wanted to know about recycling

Filed under: Household,Worm Bin — JeniQ @ 5:49 pm

I was given the opportunity to tour the Sonoco Recycling Facility in east Raleigh this past week. It was great, a good learning experience and really neat to boot.

Raleigh has switched to a “single stream” recycling program. That means that instead of sorting all your materials at the curb and putting those materials into different bins within the truck, you can mix all your items together and they get transported to the recycling facility mixed together. This is a cost-savings measure for the city of Raleigh as it means they can use less sophisticated waste pickup trucks, and the pickup crews can move faster and more efficiently. I also think that more people will be likely to recycle because now it should take less work to recycle.

The impact of comingling recycling materials is that once it arrives at the MRF (materials recovery facility), it then all must be separated. That’s what we learned about in our tour of the facility. I tried to document in pictures and videos. It is really an amazing process and watching these people in action makes me want to work harder to keep contaminants out of my recycling bin.

A few tips I learned while I was there.

  • Trash doesn’t belong in the recycling bin. There are people who have to pull it out by hand if you put trash with the recycleables in your bin.
  • Follow Raleigh’s easy-to-use list of acceptable materials when selecting items for recycling.
  • The biggest contaminate to the recycling stream are plastic clamshell packages and plastic bags, neither of which is recycleable.

Ready for our tour!

To see the pictures and video of my tour, read the rest of the article.
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February 23, 2009

Nursery Decor

Filed under: Babies,Decorating — JeniQ @ 10:22 pm

Some of you may notice these items from Henry’s nursery, or my college dorm!

October 4, 2008

good humans

Filed under: Household — JeniQ @ 5:22 pm

Productive things we’ve already done this weekend.

Cleaned powder room
Cleaned guest bath
Swept and mopped kitchen floor
Swept and cleaned hardwoods
Started windowsill cleaning project
Cleaned cat litters
Henry laundry

Feels great to be so productive!

Purchasing Prohibition

Filed under: Household — JeniQ @ 7:09 am

Ele just posted about their resolution to buy nothing new for the month of October. I’m not going to commit to that, but I will think about the concept by listing here what I have bought.

One of my excuses for buying new is that it’s just easier than combing thrift stores, CraigsList and Freecycle. Back in the day, I would totally spend the time to hunt thrift stores and other bargains, but these days it seems we’re just so pressed for time.

P.S. What’s up with this frugal chic thing? Does anyone who’s really broke think it’s so cool?

List of October purchases:

  • six onesies
  • Halloween costume
  • baby spoons
  • sippy cup
  • toy blocks for Henry

September 14, 2008

Recent Accomplishment

Filed under: Household — JeniQ @ 9:01 pm

I re-caulked the shower. The second time since we moved here. It’s a bitch, really. I wish I could pay someone to do it.

Oh well. Looks good, doesn’t it? I used “biscuit” rather than “white” this time, so it looks much more seamless.

Biscuit on biscuit

August 3, 2008

New Freezer!

Filed under: Farmer's Market,Household — JeniQ @ 8:41 pm

Dave is so awesome. He got me a chest freezer, which I’ve been pining over for nearly two years. It’s a 7.2 cubic foot chest freezer and it is living happily in our garage.

Here is it is in place.

It can hold at least one body, if not two

This morning we hit the Farmer’s Market where we loaded up on organic beef, chicken and sausage. We also got some tomatoes and peaches, both of which make for good freezing.
Meat party!

We still have a ways to go before we reach capacity.
A chestful of meat

March 7, 2008

Our Crib has arrived!

Filed under: Decorating — JeniQ @ 11:51 pm

After months of patiently and impatiently waiting, our crib arrived! Dave and his dad put it together last night.

It is gorgeous and fits perfectly in the room.
Crib

Dave made the bed, with the skirt and bumpers. Perfect!
Crib

And here’s Henry’s new stuffed lion, courtesy of Granma Sue.
Crib

February 5, 2008

More Nursery Pictures

Filed under: Decorating — JeniQ @ 5:51 pm

Because I can’t stop obsessing, why should you?

We hung the curtains! Here is a bad panoramic of the room, sans crib.

Nursery Panoramic
Sorry for the scroll, but whatcha gonna do with a panoramic like this?

February 3, 2008

Some things I did this weekend

Filed under: Household — JeniQ @ 11:18 pm
  • Hung curtains in the nursery
  • Installed curtain tie-backs
  • Hung more art in the nursery
  • Used Goof-off to remove adhesive from window seat/shelves in nursery
  • Washed crib linens
  • Washed my own laundry
  • Washed our duvet cover
  • Washed and changed our sheets
  • Rewired lamp for guest bedroom
  • Painted, cleaned and rewired Mickey lamp for nursery
  • Spackled nail holes in interior walls
  • Touched-up interior wall paint of first floor
  • Started steam-cleaning the couch
  • Finished touch-up painting for shelves in nursery
  • Washed all the stuffed animals I sleep with
  • Watched the Giants win the Super Bowl – Yay Tyra!!

January 27, 2008

Nearly Complete

Filed under: Babies,Decorating — JeniQ @ 11:27 pm

This was another good weekend for getting the nursery prepped! It looks like the crib won’t be here in time for the shower, which is disappointing, but that’s OK. The baby won’t need it when he comes home as he’ll be in the pack and play at first.

Our big project was adding more shelves to the closet in the nursery. We really needed a better way to use that space, so we added more ventilated shelving to the single full length shelf that already existed.
Nursery Closet - Right

Nursery Closet - Left

We also hung this fabulous mirror that my brother gave me when I was in college. It’s a gorgeous grain and color of wood, and I think it’ll match the crib really well.
Mirror in Nursery

Then we hung up the shelves that I painted last week. This picture doesn’t show everything, but you can see a few of the shelves. The glider, from Tyra, looks great after I steam-cleaned it last weekend, too. And the red shelves that make up the window seat are almost completely finished.
Decorated Nursery

The changing table is all done, too, and I’m really happy with how it turned out.
Painted Changing Table

I think things are really coming together! I also washed a bunch of laundry this weekend – baby clothes and burp cloths, etc. I had an entire laundry basket full of baby clothes courtesy of Jan, a friend at work. She gave them to me in little increments over time, so when I put them all together, I was stunned at how much there was! And there was another full laundry basket of baby clothes and blankets from our first shower. We have all these adorable baby clothes now, it’s crazy! Thank goodness we have someplace to put them all. 🙂

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