Apartment Project 1: Composting

This weekend, J and I started our compost bucket. Sometime in April I will go down to the Somerville DPW and pick up an Earth Machine compost bin, but for now we are planning on taking the compost we accumulate to Whole Foods. Friends of ours do this already and they say it is pretty easy and convenient, but I also want to use the compost for gardening, so I am curious to see how many of the scraps we end up using when we have our own machine, and whether we will still need to make trips to Whole Foods after we get a compost bin in the back yard.

Our bucket is a white, 5 gallon bucket that we picked up at Home Depot. We already had an orange 5 gallon bucket, but the designer in me cringed at drawing that much attention to a waste receptacle, and if this is going to be a permanent lifestyle change and not just an experiment, I need the bucket to blend. Given a choice of two lids (screw top and traditional), we went with the screw top lid, which seals in the smell and makes the bin easier to access than a traditional paint bucket lid—how easily the food will be dumped out is TBD. When we got home we lined the bin with this year's tax literature, and went to town cleaning out the fridge. I think this project will only get easier as time goes on, and I am psyched to produce less garbage, and I can easily see this fundamentally changing everything about how I operate in my kitchen. I even had pangs when I composted my juice extracts this morning because I know I can consume them in some way instead of composting them, but I contented myself with the knowledge that baby steps make for better permanent habit changes.

I have a personal challenge with myself to reduce our landfill-bound waste to one garbage bag a month or less. Dare I dream of being a zero waste household? For now, we've had fun researching what we can and cannot compost (spoiler alert: you can compost many, many things you might have thought you couldn't), but we're doing what we can, and I am so excited to start this journey.

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Four

This week was great because I placed these ten items outside for the taking, and a lot of them got taken!

31. Method dish soap that smelled terrible. TAKEN
32. Success Rice that we didn't use for three years.
33. Prototype mittens that I've made but don't wear.
34. Shampoo. TAKEN
35. Frank Lloyd Wright coffee table book. TAKEN
36. Sticky notes from Target that were too sticky when stuck together, but not sticky enough when I wanted to stick them to anything else! TAKEN
37. My old bike bell, which I removed when my mom bought me a bigger louder one. TAKEN
38. Placemats that have seen their day. J will thank me some day.
39. See-through bag that I got when employed with that big retail store at the mall. It was to prevent staff-shoplifting.
40. More yarn, and there will probably be another round of yarn before we move!

Throw Out Fifty Things: Day Three

This week's things came from all over, again.

21. Florals from inside the centerpiece at a reception I went to.
22. The placeholder from another wedding J and I attended last summer.
23. A tank top that has always been too baggy for me
24. A shirt that is sadly a little bit too young on me
25. Some nail polish that I haven't really worn. These purchases can seem like such a good idea until I get them home!
26. Some computer mice that I don't use since I got my Mac, plus they are both missing the USB keys that make them work.
27. Sequined suspenders I bought for St. Paddy's day, then I didn't wear them PLUS I didn't make any money to pay for them. Fail, all around.
28. My old point and shoot which is outdated, cracked, and pretty much useless now that we have two other digital cameras and a bajillion analog cameras.
29. A candle holder that I've had for years, loved, and used, but it is now time to let it go, as it's been half hidden in the bathroom for two years, not doing much of anything—not even really being decor.
30. Scraps from the mesh earring hanger I made last year.
    

Throw out Fifty Things: Day Two

My next ten items came from all over the apartment. I was spot cleaning the apartment because we've been having prospective tenants come by to look around.

11. Books—I have a lot of books that I need to weed through, but these two aren't going to sell on half.com or swaptree.com, and they weren't even on the bookshelf. I have two or three cookbooks that I do use, but for the most part, I use allrecipes.com or google. I also don't have the same interest in architecture that I used to, and while I want to keep a few of my old textbooks, I see no reason to have multiple books on the subject.
12. AIA conference bag. There was a point in my life when I didn't think I could have enough bags. It turns out you can, and I do.
13. J's sister found a Kodak Pleaser Instant camera at a thrift store, complete in it's original packaging. I kept it because it was kind of cool, but then I realized that since the camera is for display, I would have already thrown away the box if it were new, so there's really no reason to keep a musty old box...
14. Yarn, and this is only the tip of the iceberg, because this was drifter yarn that had found its way into my closet. I actually have to tackle the collection of yarn at some point to see what I can do with it. Maybe some of it is sellable, but mostly it will probably go to goodwill (or knitting friends).
15. Some Old Spice body wash that was left when J's brother visited our apartment.
16. Old plastic pots that I picked up at the recycling center to plant some seeds last summer. Yeah, that never happened.
17. Big Black Notebook, because like bags, I have lots and lots of notebooks, and this one has been hanging out since college.
18. Some glittery eyeshadow that I have not worn since I bought it, in high school.
19. A paper take-out box that was handmade by a student in my typography class as her final project. We each got one that had candies and a little handmade paper fortune cookie inside. Each fortune was an inspirational quote by a designer/typographer. A cute idea, but also not something I need to hang onto forever and ever.
20. Old catalogs, one of them is the 2009 IKEA catalog, some of the Urban Outfitters catalogs were from around that time, too. Let it go, woman!
    

Throw out Fifty Things: Day One

I need to get motivated to clean out the apartment for a few reasons. It started because some people came over to view the apartment—we're moving this summer. I feel way more comfortable when the apartment is presentable, and it also makes everything easier, like working, and finding things.

I also want to take some clothes to Poor Little Rich Girl or The Garment District, something I've been talking about since last summer, but have yet to do. I'm amassing quite the collection, which is why I thought I'd go to PLRG, instead. I think I might get more value for some of my nicer clothes there. The rest are just going to Goodwill.

So to get the ball rolling, I started the Throw Out Fifty Things challenge that I saw on Make Under My Life.

Here's what I've "thrown out" so far:

1. White House | Black Market pants (bought on sale, never really wore)
2. J. Crew jeans (don't fit, not my style)
3. Bakers silver sandals (that I never wear)
4. Lacy tube top from The Limited (worn and loved through college)
5. Black slacks from Forever 21 (these have seen better days. Ick.)
6. Some old Mudd jeans (never wear them anymore)
7. Pink picture frame (haven't used since college)
   
8. Vitamin E oil (I bought a new Sally Hansen cuticle pen which works much better)
   
9. Old phone charger (I guess I should find that old phone)
   
10. Masking tape (is old, is kind of gross, and doesn't stick to things anymore)
    

I'm going to be taking the first four items to Poor Little Rich Girl, the next two to Goodwill, and the last four to the recycling center (well...I might just throw out the masking tape, actually)

Things I Love Thursday

Decluttering: I got rid of two of my old Coach bags this week, and I even managed to get some money for them on eBay. Later today, I'm going to take some clothes to the Garment District to see if I can get a little cash for them, too. The rest are going to Goodwill. It feels so good to look into my closet and know that I'm wearing all those clothes. And eventually making room for new clothes ;)

I also cleared off my bulletin board, which now actually looks somewhat organized and inspiring, and this week we were able to eat at our kitchen table for the first time in about a month.

Winning Things: I won a free exercise DVD from SparkPeople on Tuesday. I can't wait until it comes!

Amazon: They consistently under-pomise and over-deliver when it comes to their shipping estimates. And it never fails to elicit warm fuzzies in my tummy—especially when their products are also consistently the least expensive.

Typography: I am loving this class I am taking. I love type. I love learning about type. I love wearing typographic T-shirts to class (I have TONS) and finding signs all over the city whose fonts I can identify. This is the first time in my life that I know a bit about the classes I'm taking as I go into them, and I am eager—no, thrilled to learn the rest.