Cooking without Teflon

Raise your hand if you own cookware with a Teflon nonstick coating.
You're not alone.  Nonstick cookware accounts for about 60 percent of all cookware sales.

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Green Moms Carnival: Back-to-School Edition

Click over to Mindful Momma to check out the latest Green Moms Carnival: the Back-to-School edition.  Full of links to great posts about greener shopping, healthy eating, greener schools and eco-activism, it is definitely worthy checking out!

You can find my contribution about my family's favorite eco-friendly lunch gear HERE.

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Green Phone Booth: Eco-friendly (and FREE) Party Decorations

This week's post at The Green Phone Booth: Eco-friendly Party Decor.  Click HERE to find out how a non-crafty person (me) made my own party decorations without spending a dime using materials destined for the recycling bin.

This post is part of

Frugal Friday

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Eco-novice's Favorite Eco-friendly Lunch Gear

My children aren't yet school-aged, but we pack food nearly every day to eat at the park or on other outings, and my husband often packs a lunch.  We've sampled quite a lot of reusable food gear in the last year.  Here is a rundown of our favorites.  All recommended products have enjoyed heavy use by my family for 6 months or more!

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Kidsstore Giveaway Winner

The winner of the giveaway by Etsy store Kidsstore is:
111 Jenette

Congratulations, Jenette!

In addition to cotton flannel blankets, kidsstore also sells long-sleeve bibs, kid aprons, kid clothing,baby/ toddler bedding, kid towel sets, and nursing covers. Check them out!

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Green Phone Booth: Tomatoes

The first week I saw tomatoes at the farmers' market, I bought 10 pounds of them.  After I came to terms with the fact that this might have been a little excessive, I started looking into easy and fast ways to preserve most of them, but then we ended up eating them all.  Read about some favorite ways we consumed them in my post this week at Green Phone Booth: Tomatoes Three Ways.  I'd love to hear your favorite way to enjoy fresh tomatoes in the comments -- pop on over and leave one!

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Will the Real Wood Please Stand Up? (In Search of Formaldehyde-free Furniture)

Lately I was in the market for a wood bed frame and wood bookcases.  I wanted them to be made of real wood, as in real solid wood not particle board or composite wood or pressed wood or plywood or any kind of wood that is engineered or manufactured with glue.

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Eco-novice's Top Ten Top Ten Posts

If you read my blog regularly, you know that I like writing top ten posts.  I got this idea from Amanda, who hosts a Top Ten Tuesday blog "carnival" every week on her blog Oh Amanda.  For this week's post, I went through all my Top Ten Tuesday posts and picked 10 goodies.  Hope you enjoy revisiting them or reading them for the first time!

Eco-novice's Top Ten Top Ten Posts

1. The 10 Easiest Ways to Reduce Toxins in Your Home
2. Top 10 Reasons to Make Your Own Bread
3. QUIZ - Are Cloth Diapers for You???
4. 10 Tips for Going Green with a Reluctant Spouse
5. Save Money on Food while Going Green
6. When to Put Your Child on the Potty
7. 10 Goals for Decreased Plastic Use & Waste
8. Reusable Food Bags - Variety Is Best
9. Surprise! Why It's Better to Not Know Your Baby's Gender Until Birth
10. Things I Avoid Eating

To view all my Top Ten posts, click here.

To read other bloggers' top ten posts, click on the "Top Ten Tuesday" link below.

This post is part of

Top Ten Tuesday

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The Green Phone Booth

Today is my debut post as a regular contributor over at The Green Phone Booth.  I have guest posted there a few times in the past. My post, "Dreams and Realities," is a little introduction of sorts.

The Green Phone Booth is a collective of green women bloggers.  Each writer posts once every week or two.  I will be posting every Wednesday over there.  I am really excited (and a little sheepish) about being in the company of these awesome green bloggers.  The truth is, I read very few blogs, but I have long read and admired The Green Phone Booth.  When I first started blogging and stumbled across The Green Phone Booth I remember wondering, how does one get to be part of such an awesome collective like this?  I feel like a real lucky duck.

I hope you'll enjoy my posts over there, and check out some of the other bloggers' posts as well.  It's a great community.  Join the conversation and leave a comment!

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Back-to-School Shopping at the Thrift Store

It's that time of year.  The time of year when bloggers everywhere write back-to-school posts.  My kids aren't yet school-age, so I don't have a ton to say on this topic, but I do know a little something about thrift shopping.  And one of the best things to shop for at thrift stores is children's clothing.  If you have never shopped at a thrift store before, this is a great way to give it a try.

Eco-novice's Tips for Thrift Shopping for Children's Clothing

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