How to Freeze Fresh Tomatoes

I like to eat fresh tomatoes. When my friends and neighbors have an overabundance of tomatoes growing in their gardens and ask me to take some of their extra tomatoes off of their hands the correct answer is always “yes!” because I only have room on my patio for one hanging tomato plant.

Luckily, a generous soul gave me a big ol’ bag of tomatoes this summer. Unluckily, it was two days before I planned an out of town trip. I knew if I left those fresh red beauties in my refrigerator while I was on vacation a week later I’d come back to a bunch of spoiled tomatoes, ready for the compost bin. I don’t have super duper canning skills, equipment, or knowledge. Time was also at a premium. What do to do? I sent those tomatoes to the deep freeze. Yes, it’s true. You can freeze tomatoes. Here’s how.

You will need:

Tomatoes
1 pot of simmering water
1 slotted spoon
1 paring knife and cutting board
Freezer worthy containers
A freezer

How to do it:

1. Blanch the tomatoes by simmering the tomatoes in the pot of hot water on the stove for approximately 10 minutes or until you see the skin loosen or split on the tomato. Remember the idea is not to fully cook the tomato, just to loosen the skin.
2.Remove the tomatoes from the water with the slotted spoon and set aside to cool.
3.Use the paring knife to peel the loosened skin from each room temperature tomato. You can try peeling the tomatoes immediately after you removed it from the boiling water but I wouldn’t recommend it because you could burn your fingers. Want to guess how I found out about this little tip?
4.Cut the peeled tomatoes into quarters or chunks and put them into the containers. I use zip lock type bags. That way I can stack several bags of frozen tomatoes on top of each other in my small freezer. And before you ask, yes I do rewash and reuse my plastic freezer bags as long as I haven’t used them to store meat.
5.Put the containers full of frozen tomatoes in your freezer and let them freeze.

Extra tip: It’s best to thaw and use frozen tomatoes for soups, sauces, and stews instead of using them to garnish a sandwich or salad.

There you have it a quick and easy way to freeze your summer tomato bounty for use later in the year. The next question is what should I make with all of those frozen tomatoes?

Don’t forget to enter my contest! I’m giving away a can of environmentally, child and pet friendly EcoSmart bug spray this week.

EcoSMART Natural Insect Repellent Contest *Closed*

creepy crawly bugs
natural bug spray does it
win some in contest

I wrote a review about EcoSMART Natural Ant and Roach Killer and how this bug spray really does kill bugs dead. (Which is good because killing bugs alive would be really creepy.) What I liked most about the EcoSMART products is that they are not harmful to children or pets because they are made with natural plant oils. That’s very important to me because while I want to stop spiders and the like from coming into The Condo, I don’t want to harm Blitzkrieg while I’m doing it. I like that little fuzz ball and I want to keep him around for a very long time.

So, in anticipation of my 100th post and a sponsorship from the folks at EcoSMART, I’m holding my first free contest giveaway. In this contest, you will win a can of EcoSMART organic insecticide and you get to choose from EcoSMART Ant and Roach Killer, EcoSMART Flying Insect Killer, EcoSMART Wasp and Hornet Killer, or EcoSMART Insect Repellant.

Here's what you have to do. There are three ways to enter the contest you can do one to or all three.

1. Leave a comment about which EcoSMART product you’d like to win on my blog. Make sure that you leave an e-mail address or contact information so I can contact the winner.

2. Sign-up for the Condo Blues RSS feed. Sign-up for the feed and leave a separate comment telling me you did so. Again, make sure that I have you leave an e-mail contact address or other contact information in case you went.

3. Write a post on your blog about the Condo Blues EcoSMART contest and include the URL of my contest page in your blog entry. Tell me you did so in a separate comment on my blog. Make sure that you leave an e-mail address or other contact information in case you win.

Remember that you must leave a separate comment on my blog for each method of entry you choose to do because I will use a randomizer to select the winner. So if you enter all three ways, you will have three chances to win! The contest will run from September 26 – October 2, 2008. I will use a randomizer to select the winner on October 3, 2008 and contact the winner. This contest is open to US residents only.

With all of the bad news about the economy this week, isn’t it nice to try to win something useful for free?

How to Make Moth Repelling Lavender Sachets

I love the look and smell of the lavender growing in my front yard. I also love that lavender is a natural moth and pest repellant.

This year, I had a good crop of lavender and decided to make sachets that I could hang up in my closets to keep the moths at bay.

First, I dried the fresh lavender. Once it was dry, I removed the flowers and cut the stalk and leaves into tiny bits.

Next, I went to my fabric stash and sewed two squares of cotton fabric together.

Then, I filled each square with chopped lavender bits and buds and sewed the last side of the square closed.

Finally, I sewed a piece of leftover ribbon to one of the corners of the sachet, so I could hang it in my closet.

I used the same method to make another free lavender sachet for the sweater shelf in my armoire from a ribbon embroidery sampler.


This post is part of Thrifty Green Thursday.

Save Travel Time and Money with a Zero Waste Road Trip

Husband, Blitzkrieg, and I took off for an 8-hour road trip from Ohio to a tiny mountain town in Northern Georgia. When we travel with our dog, we bring a picnic lunch because we don’t want to leave the dog alone in a hot car for health and safety reasons. I wondered if we could do it as a Zero Waste or Low Waste road trip beause depending up whom you read on the Web or watch on TV (hello Planet Green!), doing something the Green Way is always:

· More expensive
· More time consuming
· More difficult
· but better for the environment

However, I got a lot of encouragement to try it so I gave the Zero Waste Road trip the good old college try. Here were my rules of the road:

“we will try not to generate trash that is disposed of in a trashcan while we're driving from our house to our destination and back. Stuff we can't recycle at our destination (because honestly I don't know what they can or cannot recycle) we're going to take home with us.”

Long story short – we did it! And guess what:
· it was cheaper
· it saved us travel time
· it wasn’t difficult
· it was better for the environment

Here’s what we did and how we did it.

The Trip From Ohio to Georgia
Our trip was an 11-hour car ride (due to a few excess tinkle stops for the dog.) Blitzkrieg took care of business before we left so no doggie pickup bag issues there. However, The Rubbish Diet did say it was OK to invoke a doggie waste management exemption for the entire Zero Waste Road Trip Challenge. Blitzkrieg is pleased we accepted her exemption.

We packed a picnic lunch and dinner in a picnic basket with reusable cups, silverware, plates, cloth napkins, and tablecloth and food bowls for Blitzkrieg. For clean up, I packed a small bottle of dish soap so I could easily clean the dishes after each meal. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to run to the grocery store to buy special picnic type foods for our road trip, I packed a picnic lunch and dinner with food we already had on hand. Our oh-no-what-do-we-have-around-the-house-to-pack-for-a-picnic menu included:

• Pre-made sandwiches Usually I just throw the bread, meat, cheese, and condiment packets, etc into a cooler and we make sandwiches after we stop for a meal. Sometimes we have to toss the food in the cooler before we start back home because we forgot to keep ice in the cooler and the food spoils. The pre-made sandwiches saved us travel time because I we didn’t have to make our food before we ate it, and money/waste because there weren’t many leftovers to potentially spoil.


• Hummus I made the hummus and recycled the chickpea cans at home before we left.


• Carrot sticks


• Grape tomatoes given to us from my Mother in Law’s garden two days before we left town. I didn’t want these yummy gems to go bad while we were out of town, so I threw them in the cooler. We ate these as is and dipped them in the hummus.


• Frozen fruit chunks We originally bought these on our last grocery-shopping trip for smoothies but decided to put some of the fruit in a container to take with us on our trip while the rest of the fruit stayed in the freezer for future smoothie time.


• Drinks –
  o Coffee in reusable travel coffee mugs. We refilled the mugs on the road when we got a bit of the I’m driving a lot drowses. And before you ask, no, the cashier at the gas station didn’t look at we weird when we asked if we could use our own mugs when we bought our coffee.
  o Squeeze bottles full of orange juice Husband was training for a half marathon relay and we wanted to do healthy drinks on this trip instead of bottles of soda. I recycled the juice container at home before we left town.
  o A reusable 3-gallon water jug full of tap water for Blitzkrieg for the road and just the local well water at our destination gave him (or us) tummy issues.

We kept everything cold in the cooler with a reusable frozen ice pack.

I choose to pack everything in reusable plastic containers because they were lightweight, wouldn’t break, and more importantly that’s what I already have.

The only little slip up we had on the way to Georgia was we needed a restroom break and the only available place was a gas station/store. We didn't need to buy gas so we bought juice in plastic bottles because it seemed very rude to just use the facilities and leave without buying something from them. Fortunately, our host and hostess recycle so we were able to recycle one of the empty juice bottles at their home. The other we drank on the trip back to Ohio, so we recycled it at home.

While We Were at Play in Georgia
The week we spent visiting and sight seeing in the Georgia Mountains wasn’t officially part of the Zero Waste Road Trip Challenge although I was still conscious of it so I tried to minimize the trash we made during the week. That was easy because as I said before our host and hostess recycled, used cloth napkins and place mats, and compost food scraps. We ate many of our meals at home because our hostess is a fabulous cook. We ate out a few times and most of the places we ate at had reusable plates and silverware but two used paper napkins. I went with it because I would have felt strange bringing my own cloth napkins with me and I didn’t have room in my purse that doubles as my camera bag to do so either.

Unfortunately, the big camera tiny purse issue also made it difficult to stash the reusable shopping bag I grabbed from its place in the car trunk as we spent a day doing the touristy shopping thing in a fake Germaneque town in the American Smokey Mountains (Irony? Check. Kitschy? Double Check! Had money for unusual arty crafted home goods and found nothing worthwhile to spend it on? Triple Check! ) However, we did buy some very good local wine. (Strange side note: We’re in the Bible Belt and yet there are local wineries everywhere. Am I the only one who finds this an odd combination?) Note to self: Next time I need save my self some trouble and buy a fold up reusable shopping bag to put in my tiny purse for possible vacation purchases.

The Trip From Georgia to Ohio
The trip back was a little more difficult. We stored our picnic leftovers (hummus, fruit, and juice) in our host and hostess’s refrigerator but had to buy more picnic supplies at an unfamiliar grocery store the day before we left. Here’s the menu for the trip back:

• Leftover hummus


• Leftover fruit chunks


• Greek pasta salad


• Stuffed grape leaves


• Munster cheese sliced and eaten as is. Once the cheese was open, I stored it in one of my clean reusable containers.


• A loaf of whole grain sunflower, flaxseed, and cracked wheat bread to eat with the hummus and cheese


• Bananas


• Grapes


• Drinks –
  o 1 small bottle and one pint size jug of orange juice - we recycled the bottles at home
  o The rest of the 3 gallon reusable water jug of tap water
  o Coffee. In this case, we had to buy coffee on the road because I forgot to wash our dirty reusable coffee mugs. Those dirty mugs baked in our car in the hot Georgia sun for a week. By the time, I wanted to use one on the way back home well, let’s just say that it needed more than a good rinse out. Fortunately, we dodge the trash bullet because our city recycles the material that the road coffee cups and tops were made from. Whew.

Again, we kept everything cold in the cooler with a reusable frozen ice pack that we refroze in our host and hostesses freezer.

Total food cost for two meals for two adults: $26.00. Much swankier fare than you could get at a roadside café and much cheaper than buying lunch and dinner for two at McDonalds!


Trashy Confessions
I had empty clean food containers from the trip down. I know I should have taken them to the grocery with me to have them refilled but I didn’t. Partly due to laziness, (I was on holiday after all) and partly because I felt a little strange doing it. I know other people do this all the time and don't think anything of it but I'm not there yet. Fortunately, the Greek pasta salad and stuffed grape leaves that we bought at the store were in plastic containers that I could wash out and reuse when we got home. In fact, I just filled one of those containers with fresh mint from my herb garden and gave it to a party giving friend as a Hostess Gift (How Martha Stewart of me!) Who says that recycling always has to happen by putting something in a bin?

We only had a few slip ups. One of which, and I kid you not, was in the form of banana peels. We bought a bunch of bananas because the local Georgia peaches were picked over and looked not so great at the time of purchase. After eating lunch, I packed the spent banana peels the picnic hamper to compost at home and put the hamper in the trunk of the car. Several hours later in the hot car trunk, they started to smell - Bad. We ended up tossing the peels in the trash at the next rest/gas stop on our trip home. Some of you may say that I should have tossed those peels in the grass because they are biodegradable. That’s true; however, I didn’t want to be a litterbug because throwing those peels on the ground is still considered trash because it could attract animals.

Another slip up came when my camera had some sort of hair on the lens when we were in Georgia. I tried using a (reusable) lens cloth and an air bulb to clean my camera lens. It didn't work. I wanted to try blowing some canned air through my camera body to see if that would take care of my problem. I had to buy some and wouldn't you know it, the store didn't sell single cans. They only sold two cans shrink-wrapped together in plastic. So I ended up buying it (at least we didn't use a bag to take it out of the store) and had to toss the plastic wrapper in the trash. Grrrr! I wasn't very happy about that. However, I was able to fix my camera with the compressed air and saved myself from a costly camera repair.

Therefore, my final trash tally for the week long trip was four paper napkins, 1 plastic wrapper from the cans of compressed air (when the canned air runs out, I'll put it in our recycling bin) and two banana peels. Not too bad. What do you think?

This post is part of Works for Me Wednesday.

Make a Denim Beaded Cuff Bracelet From a Coffee Cup Sleeve

Here's another idea on what to do with those leftovers when you make a pair of shorts from a pair of pants. Grab a cardboard coffee cup sleeve, some thread, and some beads and create a bejeweled cuff bracelet!

Beads by Lilli uses denim for her bracelet but I think any fun scrap fabric will work for this project. In fact, you could wrap some tin foil around two of those coffee cup sleeves and make yourself a set of Wonder Woman bracelets for Halloween!

Is it too early to think about this year's Halloween costumes?

Let’s Give Out Some Awards!

sitting in darkness
brighten their day with awards
time to share the love

Blitzkrieg and I got this wonderful award from The Cat/Dog Blog!

Thank you Chris, we really appreciate it. Blitzkrieg is especially pleased because he says that your award is finally the recognition that he deserves as to how well and often he has to crack the whip around The Condo Blues officeplex and pleasuredome when he's working as my slave driver Office Manager.

Now it’s time to share the love and pass this award on to some of the bloggers that are near and dear to my heart.

1. Green Me - - To one of the first people who reached out to me in the blogosphere, introduced me to Adoptec, and let me host a version of her Green It! Blog carnival. Since we live too far away to share that cup of Fair Trade coffee together, this little .gif will have to do.

2. A Mommy Story – She’s the Real Life friend who inspired me to blog blog (so if you don’t like my blog – blame her!) after I started reading her blog to keep up with what she, her husband, and the kiddoes were up to. (yeah, I know what kind of friend am I that doesn’t just pick up the telephone and just call her like all of the nice and considerate people in the world do.) She and the family are singing a little bit of the Life Slapped Me Blues so they could use a little cheer up I realize that a margarita would be a better thing to send her than a .gif but darn it – that cup holder thingy keeps closing every time I try to set that darn margarita glass in it! So this award will have to do for now.

3. Bin 101 - – Who sent me on a Zero Waste Road trip experiment with one little question, “Do we really need condiment packets?”

4. Crafting for Cheapskates - A crafter who’s favorite craft shop is the dollar store and puts a little bit of rock and roll heaven into everything she makes. Someone after my own heart!

5. Forced Green – Who rode out Hurricane Ike in an RV and lived to blog about it – by generator power no less!

6. Creative Envy - a fellow Cowtown designer who’s taste and favorite shopping haunts are so close to mine that it’s scary. However, that’s scary with impeccable taste, of course.

7. The Handyguys Podcast – They like to hit stuff with hammers too. And they beat me to the punch in doing a couple of posts on topics that are in my idea folder. Looks like these handy guys and this handgal think a like sometimes.

8. Artistic Flair - A talented fused glass artist (and another fellow resident of the City with the toxic nut university) and fellow lover of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. ‘nuff said.

The award comes with these simple rules:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

How to Plan For/Survive an Extended Electrical Blackout

I’ve experienced quite a few short term and long term weather related power outages and blackouts. The worst one was in 2004, when an ice storm took down power lines and left most of my city in darkness for a week. Christmas week. With a big plan for the worst and hope for the best, I give you five things to consider and plan for when the power lines go down and electricity is out for an unknown extended period.

1. Consider Shelter
Staying at Home
· If it’s a summer blackout, it may be too hot to stay inside your house. The easiest thing to do may be to just grab an extra chair or blanket and step outside. Chances are your neighbors are doing the same. This may be a great time to get to know your neighbors a little better and do an impromptu block party, or play a game of Frisbee, baseball, or cards.

· Even if you use natural gas to heat your home, you may not have heat during a winter electrical outage. Some natural gas furnaces use an electrical fan to blow the heat through the ductwork to heat your home. Therefore, even if the heater may still be working, without electricity you’re not going to have the little fan that. And without a working fan, you may have a cold house. (I found out about this one the hard way.)

· If you need to heat your home during a cold weather blackout, be very careful when using kerosene/propane space heaters, natural gas, or wood burning fireplaces, etc. The last thing you need to deal with is an accidental fire or carbon monoxide leak during a power emergency.

· If it’s a winter blackout try keeping extra warm by wearing a warm sweater/extra layer of clothing/long underwear; snuggling up with a blanket, a family member, or the family pet. I have it good authority that dogs make excellent lap warmers!

· In cold weather, open all of the inside water facets so a small trickle of water through to prevent your pipes from freezing.

· It should go without saying but I’ll say it anyway, it is dangerous to try to heat your home with a gas kitchen stove or to operate propane camping stove, barbeque grill, or generator inside your home or even inside an attached garage. This is true even if the garage door is open, carbon monoxide can leak into to your home via the door to your home. in other words: Don’t.

Leaving Your Home
· Remember your pets! If it’s too hot or too cold for humans to stay in your home, then it’s not good for your pets either. Take them with you when you leave your home. If you make arrangements to stay with a friend/family member, ask them if you can bring your pets.

· If you plan to stay at a hotel, check if they will allow pets. Many hotels that do not normally allow pets, may suspend that policy during an emergency. If this is the case, be sure to be extra vigilant about cleaning up after your pet after they, well…you know.

· Some community shelters may allow pets most may not. Check in during a non-emergency time what the policies would be in your area. It may be possible to keep your pet safe at your veterinarian’s or temporarily at a local animal shelter.

2. Consider Your Food and Medication Needs

Preventing Food Spoilage

· Keep the refrigerator door closed to keep your food from thawing and defrosting. If you’re lucky enough to have a cooler and find ice (remember everyone around you is going to be looking for ice too, so it may be available to you when you need it) prioritize what food and medication (if applicable) you need to keep cold in the cooler and what food you may be able to eat/drink right away.

1. A block or bag of ice will last approximately 24 hours before it melts and you’ll need to replace it.
2. Blocks of ice will melt more slowly and keep things colder a little longer than a bag of ice cubes. However, in an emergency, it’s tacky to be fussy about such trivialities – it’s best to take what you can get and be grateful

· According to the Health department:

1. Refrigerated food will keep in a closed unpowered refrigerator for 8 hours.
2. Frozen Food will keep in a closed unpowered freezer for 24 hours

· If your food is warmer than 40 degrees F, (you can use a meat thermometer to check the temperature) and/or you have exceeded the time deadlines stated above, throw the food away because harmful unseen, unsmellable, and untasteable bacteria may be growing in your food and you could get sick.

· It’s not a good idea to do the “hey, taste this – does it taste like its gone bad to you?” test when you reach the keep/toss two food deadline (even to someone that you don’t like.) Just grit your teeth and throw the food away. Also, be sure to throw away condiments like dairy-based bottled salad dressings, mayonnaise, etc.

· Check your renter/homeowner's insurance policy because it might compensate you for the food loss. In that case, take a photo of the food and make a list of all of the items you had to throw away.

· Composting the spoiled fruit and veg (do not compost meat and dairy products) may take a little of the sting out of how much money you are literally throwing away (hey at least you’re going to make fertilizer out of that stuff you bought and can’t use for food) but brace yourself; it’s still going to hurt.

· A more fun alternative may be to fire up the gas or charcoal grill (completely outside please for safety) and cook and eat as much food as you can before it spoils. This is an excellent time to get to know the neighbors and have a community BBQ, because chances are, they are in the same boat as you.

Preparing Food

· If you have a gas stove in your kitchen, you should be able to cook on it as normal. However, if your gas stove has some features powered by electricity (such as a timer or clock) it goes without saying they those features will not be working.

· If you have a propane gas, camping stove/grill or charcoal grill use them outside to prepare hot meals. It is possible to boil water on a gas grill but it takes a lot of time and fuel to do it (again experience talking here.) However, if you’re desperate for a cup of hot coffee, it may be worth it.

· If you don’t have the means to cook a hot meal, take a look around your kitchen and cupboards to see if you have anything to make a cold meal with, say peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with a side of a home made three-bean salad? Alternatively, maybe you should consider using up that gallon of milk in the cooler and gave a bowl of cereal for dinner. Get creative.

· Of course, you could always try to find an open restaurant or shelter that’s selling/offering hot meals to those who need it.


3. Consider How You Will Light the Night

Eventually, it’s going to get dark and you’ll need to see where you’re going or you’ll bump your nose on a wall in your house (ask me how I know this.) Hopefully you’ll have a flashlight and

working batteries within easy reach.

• On the other hand, if you’re a citizen of LisaLand, you’ll have a flashlight that contains dead batteries and you won’t have spares in your freezer because you kept putting off buying new ones. Then Murphy’s Law will give you a double smack when you realize that you have every other type of spare battery around the house except the kind that you need for your dead flashlight and go to the store just to find out that the rest of the city beat you to the store and bought every spare battery in the store. Learn from my mistake. Keep a spare set of batteries in your freezer (so they will last longer) or a set of rechargeable batteries powered up on a charger.
• If you’re lucky enough to have a working battery operated flashlight or rechargeable camping lantern turn it on sparingly in order to save the batteries for as long as you can as a precaution.

• I keep a rechargeable camping lantern plugged into the wall at all times, just in case. Yes, it sucks up a little vampire power but to me it’s worth it because I’ve been in the situation where I’ve been sitting in the dark and forced to stare at a rechargeable lantern with a dead battery as a form of entertainment. A little FYI here: No amount of wishing or mind control is going to recharge a run down rechargeable camping lantern or battery without the help of electricity. I’m just sayin’…

• Other Lighting Suggestions
  · Crank powered flashlights (Side note: Experience tells me that the pump powered Forever Flashlights, while a fun science experiment for the kiddos, are pretty useless for long term use. i.e. other than to use to keep from stumbling around the house while you’re gathering your other nonelectrical lighting alternatives from around the house.)
  · Propane gas camping lanterns (use with caution)
  · Candles (use with caution and never leave a candle burning in a room unattended.)
  · Solar powered garden lights. If you have solar powered garden lights, let them charge up in the sun during the day and bring them into the house at night. This is a safer lighting alterative than using candles - especially if you have rambunctious children or pets. (I wish I could take full credit for this genius idea but I can’t.)

4. Consider How You Will Communicate With the Outside World

Out of all of the problems and inconveniences that arise when you lose electricity, I think that losing easy access to communication is the worst. When the ice storm knocked out our electricity for a week, I couldn’t access news reports on what was going on, how long it projected to last or what services are available to those in need via Internet, TV and in my case the radio. That’s because I donated our only battery operated radio to a charity shop in a fit of “let’s clear some of the clutter out of The Condo.” Don’t be me, get a radio and some batteries, and keep them just in case you ever need them.

After that storm, on a whim, I bought an uber super duper battery operated weather radio. It runs on AC power (so I can use it as an actual radio in a nonblackout emergency), has a built in rechargeable battery (charged each time I plug it into an electrical outlet. Like the camping lantern I mentioned above, I also keep the weather radio plugged into an outlet), can use traditional batteries, and when all other batteries lose their charge, I can recharge the built in battery with a crank recharger. My radio picks up the national emergency weather station, local radio, and TV stations. I can use it to recharge my cell phone. I can also use it as a flashlight. I think the only thing this radio doesn’t do it make me a hot cup of cocoa while I’m waiting for the lights to come back on.

The radio cost $50 which and seemed a bit like overkill until a year later when I found myself in huddled in the utility room with tornado sirens blaring, a thunderstorm rumbling, (and the dog subsequently barking at each thunderclap) and the electricity was out for four hours one evening. I was happy that I had the uber radio then to keep me entertained (from the local TV and radio stations) and informed (from the local news stations and the national weather service radio channel.) If you don’t have a battery operated radio I suggest that you get one (it doesn’t have to be a swanky expensive one like mine, just something that will allow you to access the local news when you’ll need it most) or put it on your holiday/birthday wish list. You might be glad you did.

5. Consider What You'll Do While You’re Waiting

Basically, you’re going to be in a situation of hurry up and wait so you might as well make the best of it. Above all, be patient and realize how fortunate you are even if you’re in a situation where things are bad. Unfortunately someone else probably has it worse for example all of the brave emergency personnel who have to work outside in the dangerous conditions to restore services and help you and yours.

Be kind and reach out to others who need it. Find something fun and different to do while you’re waiting for the lights to come back on. Here are a few suggestions:

· Read a book
· Play board games, cards, or if it’s daylight get a neighborhood pickup Frisbees/basketball/softball game together
· Clean up storm damage around your house or help your neighbors with their clean up efforts (if it’s safe to do so)
· Smooch with your sweetie on the sofa like teenagers
· Alternatively, you may choose to work on little craft projects. For example, when we suffered through our weeklong blackout, it was Christmas week. The electric company was working like crazy to restore power to the city. I figured that they needed all the help they could get. Therefore, I decided to help them out by invoking a higher power: Santa.

My sign read “all I want for Christmas is Electricity (and a pony)” (Who doesn’t want a pony sometime in their life?!)

Because I believe in Santa.

And you know what? It worked!

Ike Sends Hurricane Force Winds to Central Ohio

Sunday night I just went through my first hurricane and didn’t even know it.

Because I live in Central Ohio.

Yes, Ohio.

In Ohio, we have a saying, “if you don’t like the weather wait a few minutes and it will change.” It should be the state motto because it sums up how often and how wacky weather events in our area can change from good to Bad and from Bad to Worse, and Worse to “Head for the basement! It’s a tornado!” We didn’t get such a warning last Sunday about the windstorm and its Category 1 Hurricane winds (very strange for us because we’re Tornado Country not Hurricane Country) that Hurricane Ike decided to share with the rest of the country after he battered the Gulf Coast. Thanks Ike, but that’s one gift that’s just not as fun to share, as say, a box of chocolates.

Why didn’t I know until much, much later that Hurricane Ike was going to send Ohio 75 MPH winds instead of the usual really freaking bad rain, wind, and thunderstorms that eventually make their way to Ohio after a hurricane hits the southern US? This, in a city where a weather forecast of frost covering the ground in winter will send most of our local weather people into predicting Armageddon? Where the local weather forecasters literally freak out and give out weather warnings, watches, and advisories like it was candy at Halloween when we get a piddly three inches of snow? So why didn’t I find out about the possibility of this high windstorm and what not to do (stand outside with the neighbors and talk about how bad the wind is blowing) until I was in the middle of it?


One reason. Football. Ohio State football to be exact.


Yes, football. On Saturday night I turned on my go to local TV news station for news on Ike and what we might expect locally once the hurricane dissipated when it traveled over the land and up into Ohio. This is one of the few times that the local news is more important to me than the national news. So what was Channel 4’s lead story Saturday night?


The score of the Ohio State - USC football game! (The game was still in progress at the time of 11 pm newscast.)



Obviously I have my priorities all screwed up because I thought that reporting on a hurricane in an area where officials warned people living in Galveston that if they didn’t evacuate that they could face “certain death” might be a little more newsworthy than the state religion that is OSU football. Hmm… maybe this is why I always worked as an on-air TV writer/producer in the promotions department and not as a producer in the news department?

So Husband, Blitzkrieg, and I hung out at home Sunday night as high winds blew all around The Condo, blissfully ignorant about how bad things were outside. In our ignorance, we looked out of the window every so often, remarked how bad the wind was blowing, and wow - look at the little tree in our front yard! It’s almost vertical in the wind! Do you think our tree will snap in two? (Fortunately it didn’t. and neither did our neighbors. Let’s hear it for tiny trees that haven’t grown up into big trees yet – Yay!)

A little later that night, I got a phone call from my father in law. He said that they lost their electricity and it might take a week to have the lines repaired. They live in a small town about 100 miles south of Columbus. He said their big concern was that if/when their city’s water tower runs out of water the city will be totally out of water because the city won’t have electricity to pump more water to the water tower.(Side note: I had not idea at the time that water towers need electricity to send water to small town residents. Later after thinking about it - it resulted in one of those “wow I could have had a V8!” forehead slaps.)

I told him that the guest room was theirs for as long as they needed it. He asked me if we got any storm damage. I told him not really. A Strip of siding blew off the house from a crossed the street. Our only casualty was that the storm blew one green tomato off our hanging tomato plant. (Does anyone have a recipe for fried green tomato?) Dad says he’ll keep us posted on whether they are coming up to stay with us or not and closes the conversation with, “OK. I got the message. We’ll bring tomatoes from our garden!” and hangs up. (Huh?????)
He called back several hours later to say that their power was back on and to cancel their reservation at Hotel Condo.
It wasn’t until halfway through the storm that I saw a TV report that said we were getting Category One hurricane force winds. Good golly Miss Molly! Their expert weather center advice: Stay inside. OK, I have no problems with that! (Of course this information came several hours later after I spent time outside clearing items off of our front porch and back patio so they wouldn't blow away.)

Monday morning is when I found out how bad the windstorm really hit Columbus. (Because finally all of the local TV news stations were reporting the windstorm story and not the football game story.) Here’s the lowdown (with some of my comedic observations thrown in because sometimes you just have to laugh when you’re faced with adversity):

• Approx 40% of Columbus (business and residential) lost electricity due to the storm. They are predicting that it will take a week to restore power to all of those who lost it because all of the electric companies had to recall the 200 + workers that they sent to the Gulf region to help with Ike damage back to Columbus to fix Ike damage here.

1. I am very, very, very fortunate to be one of the few areas in town that have electricity (although I know how bad it can be to be in extended blackout because an ice storm took out my electricity for a week several years ago.)

2. I made phone calls to my friends to check if they had electricity or not (only one did) and offered up the spare room in our refrigerator to anyone who needed it to keep their food cold, our electricity to charge their phones/lamps/battery packs, and our weather radio and rechargeable camping lamp to anyone who needed it. No one took me up on the offer but all thanked me for the offers.

3. Husband’s office didn’t have electricity but fortunately does have a backup generator. He went into work on Monday but since we have electricity at home, and his position isn’t as mission critical as some of his other co-workers, he was asked to work remotely Tuesday and possibly Wednesday. In fact, as I type this, he’s on a work conference call to sort out how to keep everything up and running when most of the city isn’t.

• It’s hard to find gas stations that are open because many don’t have electricity. (Not that we need it although there are many who are in much worse situations who do - like those who don't have electricity and must drive to the store to buy food to replace what has already spoiled in their refrigerators.) Those gas stations that do have electricity to run their gas pumps ran out of gas early in the day Monday. This is another reason why Husband wasn’t very upset about not having to go into work. He doesn’t have much gas in his car and his office is too far from the house to ride his bike to work. However, we’re within biking distance of a couple of grocery stores so we’re OK if we need to get milk, etc.
• My place of work however has power and is open for business because I’m working from The Condo. Again, I am counting myself one of the very lucky few that have electricity at home.
• AEP suggests that their customers’ report that their electricity is out not via the customer service telephone number because the phone lines are overloaded (they will get a recording if they try calling in) but via AEP’s Web site. Point of order: Am I the only one who realizes that if someone doesn’t have electricity running to their house that they won’t be able to connect to the Internet and use AEP’s Web site because their router (wireless or no) still needs electricity to connect their battery powered laptop to the Internet?
• The noon local news broadcasts (all stations) were mostly a live feed of the mayor’s news conference about how the City of Columbus was dealing with the blackout, which businesses (a lot of them) and schools (all of them) were closed, and what citizens should do about food safety (frozen food will keep for 24 hours, refrigerated food for 8. After that, it isn’t safe to eat and you should throw it out or have a big neighborhood BBQ and eat what you can before it spoils), downed live power lines (stay the heck away from downed electrical lines!!), and about what to with the thousands of tree branches littering the city (bundle them with twine and put them beside your trash cans to be taken to a city facility to be mulched with your normal trash pickup.) A few irreverent thoughts race through my little head as I listen to the news conference:
  
  1.  This is good information that everyone that doesn’t have electricity should know about, but how can they? They don’t have electricity to power a TV!
  2. I’ve gone through a weeklong power outage. I know how much it sucks. I should do a blog post giving some practical advice on how to survive an electrical power outage. Then I realize, hello, the people that need the information the most won’t be able to read it on my blog because they don’t have electricity and can’t access the Internet.
  3. Oh, yes. File my brilliant idea #2 under “you don’t realize how much you count on something until you lose it.” In this case, that something is electricity. Now I realize why when my great grandmother was asked in a newspaper interview on her 100th birthday as to what invention she thought was the most useful one she experienced in her life time she simply said, “electricity.”
  4. I mention #2 to Husband, whereby he suggests that I write the post anyway but in such a manner that a concerned friend/relative/person that has electricity can relay the info quickly and easily over the phone to a person living without electricity. Good idea (and I send a little Thank You to the heavens for sending Husband to me at the right place and the right time in my life that I realized how wonderful he is and said yes to his proposal.) I’ll write and post on that later this week.

So that’s all of the news from The Condo. I realized that is post deviates a bit from my normal “how to” blog posts but I’m writing it as a public service to those family members and friends that I haven’t been able to talk with in person that Husband, Blitzkrieg, and I are all OK and that they don’t need to worry about us. Right now, we’re trying to focus on helping those around us that need it. I hope that if you’re able, you’re doing the same. If not, may I suggest a sympathy toast with a very appropriate drink for these (literally) dark times:

Great Lakes Brewing Company’s Blackout Stout.

EcoSmart Organic Insecticide Review

I have a little agreement with nature. As long as ants, spiders, bugs, and the like stay outside of my home, they get to live. Once they come inside The Condo, I will squash them like a bug. End of story.

For the first four years of Condo living this arrangement worked out very well. Until now. Some sugar ants decided to test my theory and infiltrated my kitchen via the threshold of a sliding glass door. Oh, I could squash all I wanted but more came. I tried caulking up the crack under the baseboard where those itty-bitty ants entered The Condo. That worked for about a day until the ants ate through the caulk laughing at me all the way- ha ha HA!

So why didn't I just pull out the bug spray, you say? One small problem. His name is Blitzkrieg. My dog likes to pull sentry duty right in front of that sliding glass door. Any bug spray that I use to kill the ants on the floor by the door will probably get on or in him, since he likes to lick his paws. And while I want to kill bugs I don't want hurt my dog.

Therefore, when EcoSMART Organic Insecticide contacted me about sponsoring a contest on my blog I jumped at the chance to try a free sample. I tried the EcoSMART Ant and Roach killer. It is made from organic plant oils (rosemary oil, cinnamon oil, wintergreen oil, mineral oil, and canola oil) and is supposed to kill bugs naturally. It is safe to use around children and pets.

But does it work?

Yes it does.

Before trying the Ant and Roach Killer inside The Condo near the screen door, I tried it outside on the porch where lots of spiders like to hang out and sometimes come in through my open windows. A few tiny spiders on my interior windowsill proved to be excellent test subjects. I sprayed them with the EcoSMART and watched them quickly keel over. Dead. Honestly, they flipped over on their backs just like the cartoon bugs do in the TV commercials for those not-so-child-and-animal-friendly and not-so-organic pesticides. EcoSMART also gets bonus points for smelling like wintergreen oil as the Ant and Roach Killer was dissipating in the air as the bug spray was doing his job as the spider slogged through it on my windowsill (not that I gave it the big sniff test like I did the low VOC wood glue.)

The only downside to the EcoSMART Organic Insecticide is if you use it indoors there may be some excess product left behind after you spray it on a surface. Although this might have more to do with my overzealous and heavy-handed spraying than the product itself. If this happens to you, EcoSMART recommends that you wipe up the excess product. Despite the excess sprayage, I will definitely continue using this product.

Now here comes the exciting part! EcoSMART is allowing you - my fabulous readers - to try one of their products for free! This giveaway (and I might add this is my very first contest giveaway) will be for one can of EcoSMART Organic Insecticide and you get to choose from EcoSMART Ant and Roach Killer, EcoSMART Flying Insect Killer, or EcoSMART Wasp and Hornet Killer.

Here's what you have to do. There are three ways to enter the contest. You can do one, two, or all three.

1. Leave a comment (complete sentences please) about the contest on my blog and tell me which EcoSMART product you'd like to try. Make sure that you leave an e-mail address or contact information so I can contact the winner.

2. Sign-up for the Condo Blues RSS feed. Sign-up for the feed and leave a separate comment telling me you did so. Again, make sure that I have you leave an e-mail address or other contact information in case you win.

3. Write a post on your blog about the Condo Blues EcoSMART contest and include the URL of my contest page in your blog entry. Tell me in a separate comment on my blog that you did so and the URL of your blog post. Make sure that you leave an e-mail address or other contact information in case you win.

Remember that you must leave a separate comment on my blog for each method of entry because I will use a randomizer to select the winner. The contest will run from September 15 - 19, 2008. I will use a randomizer to select the winner on September 20, 2008 and contact the winner. This contest is open to US residents only.

Good luck and let the games begin!

Blog Post Updated 8/15/08 2:26 PM (EST): I wrote this contest post last week and scheduled ahead of time to run today. However, due to the massive damange that Hurricane Ike has left in it's wake from Texas to Ohio (as of this writing over 289,000 homes & buisnesses are without power in Franklin County due to the high hurricane force gusts that blew through Central Ohio last night) it doesn't seem right to run a contest this week, so I'm canceling it for the time being and will reschedule it at a later date.

Everyone in The Condo is safe and sound and we are one of the very few neighborhoods that are lucky enough to have electricity. Many of my friends do not and I'm in the process of calling around and offering up the spare space in my refrigerator to those who may need it. I'll post a little more on this tomorrow. Stay tuned!

My New Blogging Gig!

Capessa Blogger
Sustainable Style I write
my new blogging gig

Today is Friday and no one is singing the blues in this Condo Today. For three very wonderful reasons:

Happy Reason 1: Next week, I'm running my very first contest here on Condo Blues. It's sponsored by a great company (no relation whatsoever to the entities I will touch on in Happy Reason Number 3) and I hope that everyone comes back to me September 12-19 to get in on this great giveaway. I hope that this contest is the first of many yet to come.

Happy Reason 2: It's raining! My parched plants are very grateful for today's rain although I hate that it's at the expense of my family, friends, and readers that are in the path of Hurricane Ike. I'm especially concerned for Forced Green whose hurricane survival plans include either lashing herself to a big tree in her yard or moving to the moon because she's so sick and tired of hurricanes and hurricane season. I only hope that if she chooses the tree option that the hurricane (or possible resulting tornado) doesn't blow her and the tree to the Land of Oz. If it does, then I hope she brings us all back sweets from The Lollipop Guild or a pair of swanky new shoes. I hear Oz is a great place for shoe shopping. Just ask Dorothy Gale.

Happy Reason 3: Capessa asked little ol' me to be their Green blogger! The name of my Capessa blog is Sustainable Style and I'll be blogging about environmentally friendly living. It's not a paid blogging gig. I'm hopeful that it will give more exposure to my blog Condo Blues and to the marketing/promotional/more fun writing that I did in the beginning of my professional career (and would like to do more of) than the current instructional design/technical writing I do now to keep Blitzkrieg in kibble.

I'm honored, flattered, and a little confused because I didn't start Condo Blues to be a typical "green" blog. Originally, I just wanted a place where my inner jester got to write about how my many decorating and DIY projects tended to turn south unlike what they show us on TV. (Am I the only who feels robbed that the producers edit the reality of out reality home improvement TV? Then I remember that when I was a TV promo producer that I edited the bad takes out the projects that I was producing and directing. That realization made me sad. So then I ate some chocolate. That made me feel better because chocolate has magical healing powers. Just ask Harry Potter. He'll tell you.)

Sure, I show a lot of projects that feature how to reuse and reclaim what others may toss out in the trash. I grew up in a family that hated wasting stuff (see my About Me page. I revamped it.) So I guess that makes me Green. In addition, I'm Picky Girl. Half the time I can't find what I want in a conventional store so it's just better to make it myself. And lo and behold most of the time I've saved myself some money to boot (hello Frugal Hacker badge!) Good. That means that I can put the savings towards some other really cool, well-designed (I can't live with ugly), and expensive thing that I want for my house and will take care of and keep forever. Environmentally friendly people call that "Sustainable." I do too. I also call it "a good way to convince my husband who hates shopping that buying this thing is a good return on investment." (Hey, when it comes to spousal/partner management sometimes you just have to suck it up and do whatever it takes. Right?)

That being the case, I was so excited to be part of this new Capessa venture. They've already interviewed people I admire like Jennifer Perkins of The Naughty Secretary's Club (stay tuned for a review of her new book right here!) and DIY Network fame and I'd be blogging along side Shirley Bovshow of the TV show Garden Police (I just hope she never sees my yard in it's current state or I'd so be getting a citation.) Then after some research (sorry, occupational hazard) I found that the parent company makes some not so environmentally friendly products.

Crap. Crapidity, crap, crap, crap!

I have assurances that I don't have to promote those products and that I can blog about environmentally friendly competing products. I will hold the copy write to my blogging work (this is very important to me because it doesn't often happen with my tech writing.) However, although I really wanted to take this gig, I had mixed feelings. Would blogging for them taint my Green street cred? Bigger question, do I even have a Green street cred?

I reached out to my network and got answers all over the place. Finally, Husband put it all into perspective for me.

Husband: Lisa, you need to think of this like Alan Colmes of Hannity and Combs from Fox news.

Me: Huh? You know I get most of my national news from BBA America. (I'm an Anglophile - so sue me!)

Husband: Think about it. Alan Colmes is the liberal guy on a conservative TV news network. He's committed to presenting the liberal side in a place that doesn't really agree with it or want recognize it as a valid argument. Sweetheart, if you want to change the world why preach to the converted? Blog from the belly of the beast!

I love that man.

That tears it. Cover me kids, I'm going in. Read my latest post on preserving fresh herbs on my Capessa blog Sustainable Style.

How to Make Old Doc Martin Boots into a Hip Flower Pot

Husband and I spent at weekend at the Dublin Irish Festival. We saw the sights, we ate some pretty good haggis (yes, it’s a Scottish food, but we Celts in America sometimes have to have Scottish stuff at our Irish events and vice versa because we don’t have access to 100% all Irish or all Scottish entertainment or food vendors all the time like they do in say, Ireland or Scotland), listened to great bands such as The Tartan Terrors (friends of ours from our Renaissance Festival days), Gaelic Storm (you might recognize them as the steerage band in that tiny film about a boat that sank), and spent quite a bit of time at the Celtic rock stage listening to The Prodigals, and yes, Bad Haggis.

After that I got the itch to make something creative and yes, a little bit rock and roll. Even, dare I say - a little punk rock? So I decided to dig out my very first pair of Doctor Martian boots and make a flower planter out of them.

First I made a self watering planter from a plastic water bottle Husband got after running a road race and a bit of leftover t-shirt material.

The original laces from my boots were long gone. I think I cannibalized them as laces for one of my many Elizabethan bodices. No worries! I used a pair of pink shoe laces that I got from a past Race For The Cure to lace the bottle planter snugly into each boot.

Then I planted some free wildflower seeds that I got from an Earth Day event into each boot. Watered as necessary and waited.

Ta da! My boots are now a punk rock planter.

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Strappy Leather Drawer Pulls

Sometimes it's the little details that can turn a potentially blah set of drawers into a wow set of drawers. I think these leather drawer pulls from Spinneybeck do just that. They come in a wide range of Bauhaus-inspired colors (kudos to you if you recognize that I'm taking about the Bauhaus design movement and not the punk rock band) and are designed by Emanuela Fattini.

Yes, these drawer pulls are on the pricey side. I suppose that's what you get for good design and the company earning a Greenguard certifification (meaning that the company is certified that it uses environmentally friendly manufacturing and shipping processes.) However, if you're handy, I'm sure you could come up with an inspired-by design or two made out of strips of leather or rubber (if you don't like the look or use of leather) and some screws.

This type of drawer or cabinet pull would be a great finishing touch to either an industrial or country style kitchen. What do you think?

Environmentally Friendly Wood Glue, Who Knew?

Good things come to those who blog, or in my case, those who are lucky enough to win a contest because I won a nifty tool bag and two bottles of environmentally friendly wood glue called EcoGlue Premium Wood Adhesive from The Handyguy’s Podcast. Thank you Brian and Paul, you're the best!

Now I have to admit that not until I got the bottles of low VOC EcoGlue in my hot little hands did I ever think about the ecological or environmental ramifications of glue. It never crossed my mind. So I wanted to know what made EcoGlue so special. Well, it turns out that most wood glues contain Volatile Organic Compounds, which are also know as VOCs. In the case of wood glue, it’s generally formaldehyde.

Um, OK. That made me ask myself, “What actually is a VOC? What does it do? How much exposure to it is bad? And why the heck should I care?”

Here is what the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has to say about volatile organic compounds:

"Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are emitted as gases from certain solids or liquids. VOCs include a variety of chemicals, some of which may have short- and long-term adverse health effects. Concentrations of many
VOCs are consistently higher indoors (up to ten times higher) than outdoors. VOCs are emitted by a wide array of products numbering in the thousands.Examples include: paints and lacquers, paint strippers, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials and furnishings, office equipment such as copiers and printers, correction fluids and carbonless copy paper, graphics and craft materials including glues and adhesives, permanent markers, and photographic solutions.

Organic chemicals are widely used as ingredients in household products. Paints, varnishes, and wax all contain organic solvents, as do many cleaning, disinfecting, cosmetic, degreasing, and hobby products. Fuels are made up of organic chemicals. All of these products can release organic compounds while you are using them, and, to some degree, when they are stored."

OK so the EPA defines what VOCs are. The list of compounds that are considered VOCs are too many to list in this post and frankly my high school chemistry isn’t up to snuff to determine or recommend how much or how little of each compound is considered an acceptable or detrimental amount to your health. Unfortunately, in my research for this post, I couldn’t find a creditable scientific source that gave me any clear indications either. All of the scientific sources I checked for this article couched the amounts and effects of VOCs by using phrases like “may or may not” “could or could not” “might” “some.” Clearly more scientific testing and research needs to be conducted to determine how much or how little of an exposure to a VOC has a direct and definite cause and effect relationship to human health.

Now I’m not ready to totally discount that VOCs aren't something that I want in my house, especially if I had asthma or migraine suffers or people in my home with other breathing problems/illnesses. However, the “may or may not” short- or long-term adverse health effects (in my research ranging from an occasional slight headache to possibly causing cancer) is a lot of wiggle room for whether something is considered entirely evil all the time, in all amounts and for any length of exposure. In other words, kids, I’m 100% sure on this issue myself. I don’t have enough creditable information to make a recommendation to you on whether avoiding VOCs in all ways, shapes, and form is a good (or bad) thing or not. So while it’s something I’m going to try avoiding when and where I can because I do get migraines, I’m not comfortable telling you what to do. Your mileage may vary on this issue.

Let’s get back to the glue, shall we?

So what do VOCs do in wood glue anyway? The Handyguys have a very succinct answer: VOCs make glue stink. Interesting. So I tested it. The traditional wood I tested stunk. Bad. The EcoGlue Premium Wood only gave off a faint odor. It reminded me of the smell of white school glue. Not bad. Not too bad at all.

I can’t believe that I sniffed glue for you people.

You’re welcome.

Anyway, the EcoGlue passed my nonscientific sniff test. The Handyguys took care of testing how well the EcoGlue bonded two pieces of wood together. I encourage you to check out their podcast because they tested it Mythbusters style! They glued two boards together with a conventional wood glue and the EcoGlue. Then they put the variety of heavy items (including a drill press. Oh to have your very own drill press!) onto the glued joints to test if the bond would fail. It didn’t. In fact, in their test the EcoGlue actually made a stronger bond between the two boards than the traditional wood glue.

So regardless of the EcoGlue being a low VOC glue (it contains less than 1% VOC) I’d definitely use it because it creates a stronger bond over the traditional wood glue counterpart. Just like a good wood glue is supposed to do.

Now if only I can keep from gluing my fingers together when I use it for a project. That would be something!