We are taking a Vegas and Grand Canyon family trip. My parents are here from India and we had booked this trip long time back, before the H1N1 (very PC am I not?) outbreak. Usually I would not even give a second thought to outbreaks like these, but now that I have my every ever so cuddly 15 month old with me I am a bit worried. We are still going ahead with the trip but decided to purchase hand sanitizer for times when we don’t have access to water. I of course do not want anything to do with ethanol based hand sanitizers so decided to do some research online. I usually use Burt’s Bees or California Baby products but was disappointed to find Burt’s Bees is 92% ethanol! California baby does not make hand sanitizer. I found CleanWell hand sanitizer while googling for California baby though. Reading numerous reviews, this product seems great. My only problem with them is they use patented “proprietary” process, meaning they will not reveal all the ingredients

I don’t even know these hand sanitizers will kill the new H1N1 virus. Anyway lacking anything else I’ll take my chance with this and use it only when i cannot find regular soap and water.

1. Using paper towel in my kitchen. It is so convenient and feels clean. I just cannot get myself to use cloth. Will composting the used towels make me feel better? (Note to myself – Buy composting bins by this weekend)
2. Using gas powered mower. I am thinking about buying an electric one. I don’t think I can make a transition to a push mower.
3. Let the water run till it gets cold to fill up a glass of water to drink. I do manage to fill up water in a jug so I don’t waste water; but it only lasts for a week and I am back to square one.
4. Use dryer to dry clothes even in summer.

I am planning to keep adding to this list as and when I remember and I hope I can cross off some items in future

The bamboo floors in my living room are finally installed. They look great and I love them
The floors are Urea and Formaldehyde free so I guess there is improvement in the internal air. Now I am thinking of replacing the kitchen floor (they are coming apart). I think I’ll go with Marmoleum, if they are affordable. The bamboo floors made a dent in my budget. Being green when updating the house is expensive and I had to pick and choose as to where I wanted to put the cash and where I could scale back. While updating the floors in my house I went for top quality bamboo but had to bite the bullet on my choice of carpet. I wanted wool carpet on the 1st floor but they were insanely priced, so I chose to go with Mohawk Smartstrand carpets. Mohawk says it is green, uses less petroleum since it is made out of corn; I wonder how true this statement is?

I have been really depressed this week. I have been trying to refinance my mortgage and why not the rates are so low. I thought since i had bought the house when the housing market was already down, it should be easy to refinance. But, no the price has fallen down so mush that i cant refinance without paying another down payment. I don’t know if i should use up my cash balance to refinance, especially in this economy when i don’t know if i will still have my job tomorrow.

Recently our living room and guest bedroom were damaged by ice dam. We have to replace the flooring for the whole house. Insurance is paying @ of original flooring, which is crap. Anyway, i wanted to replace the carpet with bamboo flooring to be more environmentally friendly. As i started looking for deals i realised not all bamboo is the same. You have to be careful where your bamboo comes from, i.e. forest or plantation ( i don’t want to take away Panda food..do i now?). Then if it comes from china what is the cost of transportation? What kind of finish is being used on the end product, what is it treated with..think formaldehyde..VOC etc etc. Anyway after doing a lot of searching i found my floor. I went with Plyboopure bamboo - they come from plantation and are urea formaldehyde free. The adhesive that we are using is also formaldehyde free and low VOC. The only problem is it is costing me double of the regular bamboo that i found at lowes . Being green in this economy is tough.

Welcome to Tuku Musi. My name is Preeti and I look forward to posting stuff about being a mother, programmer and organic living enthusiast.

Why the name Tuku Musi? well it’s the name of my favorite nursery rhyme in my native language of Oriya.

Welcome again and here’s hoping for a greener earth