DIY tiki man mug

Recently Nate's tiki guy broke. Needless to say, he was really disappointed. So I made him a new one.

This is basically what Nate's original tiki mug looked like

So you want to make your own tiki man mug? Okay!

1. Cut out light brown things from magazines. It's nice to have things that aren't just one flat color because it creates depth.

2. Cut your light brown magazine scraps into shapes that resemble the tiki man's features. Use lighter colors for the features that would stick out the most on a real tiki man.

3. Use the remaining brown papers to cover three sides of a glass jar. Adhere using Mod Podge or glue.

4. Arrange the shapes you cut out into a tiki man shape on the uncovered side of the jar. Adhere using Mod Podge or glue.

5. Brush over the whole thing with Mod Podge or glue.

6. Draw in some details and shadows with black and brown fine point Sharpies.

I did some details with dark brown paper and some with a brown fine-point sharpie.

The backs of the magazine clippings can be seen inside the jar.

Suspiciously easy raw applesauce recipe, or: Why isn't applesauce always made this way?

Spoiler: To make applesauce, all you have to do is blend apples in a blender.

This recipe takes about 15 minutes to make about 1-3 large servings.

Raw applesauce with cranberry and cinnamon

Recipe

1. Chop apples into eighths, approximately, removing the core. I recommend a big knife like the one pictured, because it makes this step very easy.

2. Put apple chunks in blender.

3. Add raw, rinsed cranberries to blender. (optional)

4. Add ground cinnamon (not too much!) and real maple syrup. (optional. Also, this stuff probably isn't raw.)

5. Add a little bit of water (if necessary to make it blend. My blender doesn't work well unless I add the water.)

6. Blend. You might have to use a spoon to move the stuff around in order to make it blend. Be very careful if you do this because it can easily hit a blade and that can result in you getting seriously hurt or making a mess.

7. Let it blend for about a minute once it starts blending smoothly. Then taste it to see if you want to add anything else.

Enjoy!


Also, I'm thinking of making cranberry sauce using the same technique, except I would use more cranberries, less apples, and more maple syrup. And maybe no cinnamon.

Wooden glasses: My eyes' dream come true

A combination of brilliance and distaste for most glasses gave me an idea: Glasses made out of wood! So I googled it and it turns out that they exist!

Besides being seductively earthy, wooden glasses are said to be less harmful to the environment than conventional glasses, as they are made from a renewable resource. Some companies that offer wooden glasses are also more environmentally conscious in other ways (i.e. some plant trees).

On the other hand, many companies that sell wooden glasses are expensive and difficult to buy from. I have included a variety of wooden glasses companies in this list, including some that are affordable and easy to find.

Herrlicht of Germany has 8 styles of wooden frames. I called 10/10 Optics, a NYC store that sells these, and they said that the Herrlicht frames start at $600

Urban Spectacles of Chicago custom makes exclusively wooden frames, starting at $850

Proof of Idaho offers wooden frames, starting under $100. They are even sold in Massachusetts!

W-Eye of Italy offers 10 styles of wooden frames with nickel-free aluminum on the inside to make the frames flexible. I'm not sure if they are sold in any English-speaking countries.

M.A.D.E. of Denmark makes wooden frames that include metal details.

Sire's Crown of California makes wood frames with wood pulp fronts. They plant 20-100 trees for every pair of glasses they sell. The frames pictured above are $300.

ROLF Spectacles offers wooden and bamboo glasses frames, which are made completely out of natural material and with no metal parts.

ICU Eyewear of California offers a few frames with bamboo temples (search "bamboo" on their homepage). The above pair is only $52. They're actually reading glasses, but I assume that you can have prescription lenses put in them.

Amy Sacks offers the "Bamboo Masa" frame with a plastic (cellulose acetate) front and bamboo temples for $125.

Here is an article with more information about wooden glasses frames.


Other places to buy wooden glasses:

Kayu Design (under $200, but only sell sunglasses)
Barbara Creations, Inc.
Yii
Waiting for the Sun
Schwood (affordable and relatively easy to find, but only sell sunglasses)


Coming up next: A post on recycled & secondhand glasses.

Do glasses create less waste than contacts?

After mending my glasses with masking tape, I figured why not cover the whole frame in tape. But that got boring so I didn't finish. And it turns out the tape "hinge" is weaker than the real hinge, so the left side sags. So I've decided to buy new glasses.

I have only worn glasses in public a handful of times. When I found out that I had bad vision at the age of 10, I began wearing contacts.

Contact lense solution, contact lense boxes, contact lense packages, contact lense cases (not pictured: actual contact lenses, cardboard box that solution comes in)

Recently I became worried about all of the waste involved with wearing contacts. So I began waiting two months instead of one month before switching to a new pair of contacts. And I put clean contact solution into my contact case once every few days instead of daily. But this is probably very unhealthy, so I want to try something else.

Which brings me to glasses!

Do glasses really create less waste than contacts?

Some numbers:

A year's supply of contacts (12 pairs of monthlies, with 12 contact cases and 12 bottles of cleaning solution):
549 grams of plastic

A pair of glasses lenses (not including frames):
35 grams of plastic


(statistics from this article)

Well, I probably use about 1 contact case and 5 bottles of contact solution each year (much less than the 12 cases and 12 bottles factored into the statistic above).

On the other hand, everyone I know who wears contacts also owns a pair of glasses (for use late at night, etc.). But the people I know who predominantly wear contacts usually buy a new pair of glasses every 5 or 10 years. I bought my current glasses around 8 years ago.

How often do glasses-wearers buy a new pair of glasses? I'm hoping to replace my glasses no more than once every 5 years.

I'm estimating that buying a pair of glasses every 5+ years is less wasteful than wearing monthly contact lenses.

Also, there are glasses available that are made out of recycled and renewable materials.

I will soon post about the best places to look for glasses made out of recycled materials, and glasses made out of wood!

4 minute "apple pie," or: the product of my menstrual cravings

Yum

Today my hormonal body said to me, "Go to the kitchen and eat apples with butter and cinnamon."


Recipe:

1. Chop up an apple into pretty thin slices. Take out core.
2. Spread a thin layer of butter onto one side of each apple slice.
2. Sprinkle generously with ground cinnamon.

I actually liked this more than I like apple pie.

The process

A delicious contrast between nourishment and heart attack fuel

Enjoy!

Trying out democracy: The first days of Occupy Boston

I've been spending a lot of time at Occupy Boston. I am very enthusiastic about this movement and hoping to do what I can to support it and keep its energy up.

Here is a podcast in which 3 participants of the Occupy movement give eloquent explanations of their involvement in the movement:

NPR's On Point with Tom Ashbrook on the Occupy movement

Some photos I took at Occupy Boston during the first days of the movement in Boston:

Marching outside of Bank of America

Marching outside Bank of America

One protester, Nikki Sauber

Inside the spirituality tent

A view of the occupation, located outside of South Station

A general assembly meeting at the tent city

Many occupiers find these numbers very concerning

The most wonderful breakfast

I have a cold. This morning, my mom recognized that I wasn't feeling ambitious enough to make breakfast, so she made me the most wonderful breakfast.

It consisted of:

chopped oranges with lettuce
grapes
chopped red pepper
raw cinnamon applesauce with almonds, lettuce, red pepper, and oats with honey
water with lemon, lime, orange, and honey


I am inspired to mix fruits with vegetables more freely.

Humane bug catcher

As someone who is very afraid of bugs (though I'm working to change that) and very uncomfortable with killing things, a problem arises every time I find a bug in my house. I've recently been trapping them under cups for my dad or Nate to bring them outside, but I don't like walking around with bug/cup sets all over my floor and counters (there can be a lot of bugs in my house) and I feel like I'm kind of torturing the bugs.

Solution: For a while I've been envisioning a fly swatter that captures flies, and all kinds of bugs, instead of squashing them. Today I finally googled it--and it exists! PETA has them for $12.

Also, apparently President Obama killed a fly during an interview a couple of years ago and PETA sent him one of these.

Critic 'jimspar' says, "if you love bugs so much why don't you marry them." Hmm.

On the other hand, Stephen Colbert and friend contend that "There can never be enough apologies."




More humane animal control products: DIY humane fruit fly trap, frog saver lily pad for pools, humane mousetrap, and animal rescue car kit



My next invention idea: Filters that go inside your nostrils to protect you from secondhand smoke.

Luckily, BSU became a smoke-free campus this year, so I am less worried about my exposure to smoke than I was last year.


*Update: Nose filters (aka nasal filters) exist!

One of Einstein's non-scientific contributions

My friend Christine recently blogged about this quote by Einstein that I like so much I decided to post it here too.

(Background is Australian Aboriginal art, font is Parker's Hand, one of my recent free Photoshop downloads)

"Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing it is stupid." -Einstein

This reminds me that I never finished reading A Briefer History of Time last year! I got to page 30 and kept reading it and rereading it, but couldn't get it. This time I'll try to read Prisons of Light - Black Holes since it is said to be easy to understand.

Black holes, I want to understand you!

Me gloating about the adventure I am about to embark on

Nate and I are going on our first ever road trip together! (It's his first ever road trip, and my first ever road-trip-with-Nate.) The last and only other road trip I went on was with my dear old friend Katie McGuire and it was an absolute all around good time. There were kittens, puppies, Amish people, historic monuments (especially that extremely famous one I always mix up with the Eiffel Tower--any guesses?), magical glass trees, scary motels, yard sales, peace-inducing open fields, a direct correlation between gas prices and our location on the east coast, and a general feeling of freedom.

Here are some relics from that beautiful week of my life:

This trip was a big part of the reason that Pennsylvania is my favorite state (as pictured)

The magical glass tree outside an art museum in Baltimore

We stayed in a bed and breakfast owned by Mennonites, who let us hang out with their kitten

So overall the road trip of 2008 was probably the most enjoyable experience of my life so far.

This time around, we are going to take a slightly different approach to travel because I found out about this thing called CouchSurfing!

This means that we don't have to stay in a motel ever again! We will now be staying with Christina in the Bronx for two nights and Adam in Connecticut for one night. Thanks to CouchSurfing, even though Nate and I don't know Christina and Adam at all, they are letting us live in their apartments for free. And we will probably hang out with them as if they are our friends. I love this!

There is some recent controversy about CouchSurfing changing from a nonprofit to a B Corporation.

B Corporations, or Benefit Corporations, "must by law create a material positive impact on society; consider how decisions affect employees, community and the environment; and publicly report their social and environmental performance using established third-party standards."

(from this article)

"I emailed [CouchSurfing] to request a refund of my donation. I suggest you do the same if you use this website." -my friend Dylan, via Facebook

As of right now, I don't care very much about the change because CouchSurfing is such an awesome resource for me.