EVs: Easier Than I Thought!

What would be a sustainability blog without discussion of electric vehicles?  After the shutdown last spring, when I had to start driving to work again, I realized just how bad I felt about driving to work every day, when I knew that my car was contributing to emissions that cause global warming.  

But I didn't see a way around it: the main roads to work (about 12 miles away) are just too busy to bike safely (if I owned a bike, which I don't), and the back route involves navigating a two-lane rotary where some traffic is entering from highway off-ramps--not very safe, in other words.  Obviously at 12 miles, walking is impractical (four-hour commute each way), and we just can't afford to live in the town where I work, despite the fact that the pay there is generous.  (Anyone wanting to buy us a million-dollar home, please email me directly!)  Oh, and while I both live and work within a five-minute walk of a train station, and those stations are on the same train line, even the pre-pandemic service schedule would have meant arriving with two minutes to spare (ah, nothing like an uphill jog to work to start your day) and waiting about 90 minutes after work to catch a train home: not practical.  

Finally, after feeling worse and worse, Nate suggested I get an electric car.  In hindsight, this is the obvious solution to such a problem, but it's one I hadn't really been willing to consider before.  Where did this long-held resistance come from?  I'm honestly still not sure, but it was there and real.  I'm sure part of it was fear of the unknown: What will maintenance be like?  How does charging work and how much does it cost?  Where can I charge?  What's the range?  Does it handle well in the snow?  Is it even worth it, if I'm just charging with electricity from a coal-fired power plant?

Nonetheless, I did a little online research.  My main question had a surprising answer: even when charging a vehicle from coal-generated electricity, it produces far fewer emissions than a gas-powered car.  Let that sink in for a moment.  Plus, unlike a gas-powered car, which has no hope of being powered by cleaner fuel in the future (your gas tank won't spontaneously be able to run on clean fuel), your electric car can become completely clean if you manage to find a clean source of energy from which to charge it--like home solar panels--and will also become cleaner as more electricity in the grid is generated from clean sources.

To answer my other questions... I did see that charging at an apartment can be tricky (unless it's a luxury apartment that might offer charging as an amenity), but luckily there are three public charging stations within a 10-minute walk of where we live.  The major charging companies offer smartphone apps so you can see all of their chargers in your area.  They seem to handle fine in the snow (lots of folks in Colorado seem happy with them, and it snows there, right?).  Plus, they tend to require less maintenance than gas cars.  (No oil changes!!!  Plus, they have fewer moving parts, thus there's less that can break.)  And the cost to charge is less than to fill up, even with current low gas prices.  Sometimes you can even find free charging.  There are some rebates if you buy brand new, but after some looking, I found a used Nissan Leaf for a price that was right (less than the resale value of my car--even though my car was the same age and had twice the miles).  

So I made the plunge in mid-November.  Two months out, I'm still loving my new-to-me EV.  It's so quiet to drive, it handles well, and I don't feel guilty on my daily commute anymore.  It's way roomier than I expected (it has a good trunk), and while charging requires a little planning ahead, I'm good at that.  (If you have a house where you can install an appropriate outlet or a charger at your apartment, you don't need to plan ahead, because you can just charge overnight as needed.  Easy!)  My car gets about 120 miles per charge, but newer cars will take you further.  For a daily commuter, 120 miles is enough for me.  Even when I was driving to work five days per week, I only needed to charge it twice weekly, maybe three times if we took it out on the weekend.  It's been a great choice for me, and if you're at all curious, I'd definitely say to do some research: you might find that making the switch to electric is easier than you thought.  

Update 1/30/2021: Naturally, a few days after posting this, I read an interesting column in the New York Times by someone who'd recently made the switch to EV--also a Nissan Leaf, though a newer one.  If you want someone else's favorable take, it's worth a read.

I Use One Pen

There is something about the feel of a pen in your hand that bolsters the imagination.  When pen hits paper, all manner of ideas, expressions, and beauty can come out... Unless your pen has run dry and all that comes out is circles of dented paper as you scratch furiously across the page to get this final gosh darn word out so you don't have to get up off the couch and walk all the way over to where you keep the pens!  Obviously I'm speaking from experience here...

The last time my pen ran out and I grabbed the cheap plastic replacement off the shelf, I thought that it's too bad I have to throw this old one out.  Then, when this next one runs out of ink, it also goes to landfill.  It would really be better if I could use one pen and refill it: so the research began.

Now, as a designer, there is something you should understand.  The first part of this post about the feel of a pen in one's hand was not an exaggeration.  The pen, for a designer or artist, is an extension of the brain, facilitated by the hand.  Juhani Pallasmaa, in his book called The Thinking Hand:  Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture, displays the active role that the hand (and by extension the pen) takes in the design process.  Basically with experience, the muscles begin to do the work of the designer before the designer has truly thought it through.

Anyway, I'm sure that was more information than you cared to know, so I'll move on.  So what is the most sustainable way to write on paper?  We aren't really sure, and Google isn't telling, but we know that the cheap plastic pen that you get at the bank or hotel isn't it.  There are lots of options available out there.  For us, the most interesting version is a re-fillable pen.  Unfortunately I'm not crazy about fountain pens, but lucky for me, there are rolling ball refillable pens out there.  Some pens have refill inserts that you can buy, but that still has the single use straw.  I searched through all of the pen options and was about to buy a rolling ball with a refillable reservoir, when the lightbulb in my head turned on.  I already had a rolling ball pen with a replaceable cartridge!  It had gone dry years ago, but it was a graduation gift from the RWU librarians, and I had kept it. 

I quickly took it apart and found that the single-use cartridge inside also had a removeable cap.  I did some research, and as it turns out, you can (carefully) drop new fountain pen ink into the reservoir and the pen will start working again.  I found some ink at an office supply store, used an old eyedropper container, and filled it up.  I put too much and got ink on my desk, but I was prepared for that with a mat I made from scrap fabric.

In the end, the pen works perfectly.  I was able to take something that had been sitting around for years and revive it!  I have been using it for months without any problems.  The ink doesn't leak, and the pen writes as well as it always did.  So now, I use one pen and only one pen for 100% of my note taking, thank you card writing, doodling during a boring meeting, and designing.  I do have other art pens that I use for the cards I make for Etsy, but that's why this blog is called Better, Not Perfect.  Over time, I'll figure out ways to make those pens more sustainable, but for now, at least the pen I use the most is better.

PS--from Stephanie: reading this over, I wanted to know why there is a piece of toilet paper in the last photo, not because I'm opposed to the aesthetics of it (although...), but because it's single-use.  Nate claims that he saves it and re-uses it at each filling.  I said there's a better way...

"She dipped her pen into the ink again... She started to write and then stopped and frowned at the pen.  She pulled an orange dahlia penwiper out of her pocket.

'What are you doing?' I said.

'Wiping my pen,' she said.  She stuck the pen into the dahlia and wiped it off between the layers of cloth.  

'It's a penwiper,' I said. 'A pen wiper!  It's used to wipe pens!'

'Yes,' she said, looking at me dubiously. 'There was ink on the point.  It would have blotted the paper.'

'Of course!  So you wipe it on a penwiper!...  You've solved a mystery that's been plaguing me since 1940" (Willis 311).

Willis, Connie. To Say Nothing of the Dog. Bantam Books/Spectra, 1998. 

Look for a future post showing off the orange dahlia penwiper I'll crochet from some orange yarn I have leftover from a previous project.  Also, if you've never read Connie Willis, let me take this as an opportunity to highly recommend her novels.  (The novellas and short stories are more of a mixed bag.)

The Boxes: Chapter 3

The Fourth Use.  Well, once I get an idea I really push it to the max.  I designed The Boxes to easily come apart knowing they would have more uses.  Check out this post about The Boxes:  Chapter 2.  Our friend requested some spice racks.  She keeps her herbs and spices in mason jars, and she has a lot of them.  I was once again excited for a project.

The stock list came together pretty easily.  The new design called for 18"x24"x4" open box with handles on the side for easy picking up.  Wood, screws and handles all came from the previous projects.

I cut the pieces to length first and then sanded them well.  Perfect corners don't matter with this kind of thing, so I rounded everything.  I'm also not planning on putting a finish on the box, so smooth edges and faces are pretty important.

Next, I drilled holes and screwed it together.  Not too epic, but it was a pretty easy project altogether.  It was fun, and nice to work on something for a friend.

The Boxes: Chapter 2

The Third Use.  Remember the boxes I made for our wedding?  Me either... Here is a link:  The Boxes.  Those boxes were made with recycled pallets, giving that wood a second life.  That wood however, was always intended to have a third life.  After our wedding, we had many mementos including beautiful wedding cards that people had given us, a few handmade gifts, and the ropes we had used to "tie the knot."  We didn't want to loose track of those items, but had no place to put them, so I devised a project!  I thought I could reuse that wood from the boxes and make a Wedding Box.  Some of those pallets were made out of oak after all, and it would look quite nice.  

My design involved a 12"x12"x6" wood box, with a picture frame hinged top.  The picture frame would hold some dried flowers from our arrangements. 

The materials were fairly easy to find and included recycled pallet wood, reused screws, some glass from an old frame we found on the side of the road (it was in front of our apartment...one of our neighbors was throwing it out), and some new hinges.  We tried to find small used hinges, but craigslist just couldn't come through this time.

The execution was pretty simple.  I started by sanding the old pallet wood with some 80 grit sand paper on a belt sander.  I more or less squared up the pieces using a joiner and a table saw, and then cut them to size.  Next, I assembled them with a small finish nail gun, and joined two square boxes vertically with some pine blocks and screws.

The top was slightly more complicated.  I cut a piece of pine pallet wood so it measured 3/4"x1" and cut a 1/4" x 1/4" pocket for the glass to sit in.  I then cut the pieces I needed to size at a 45 degree angle so that they would join in a square like a picture frame.  The pieces were glued and nailed.  

The glass was very tricky.  I disassembled the large picture frame that it came in and carefully removed the two foot square piece of glass.  It obviously would have to be cut down to fit in my smaller frame.  The goal was to cut two 12"x12" pieces to create a sandwich for the flowers.  Cutting the glass involved drawing a line with a black marker and placing a ruler along that line.  I scored it with a rolling glass cutter, then put a skinny piece of wood under the score and pushed down on either side to snap it.  It worked!

Stephanie and I arranged the flowers between the glass, and then I placed it in the frame.  The glass is held in with window points, typically used for old single pane windows.

The result is pure magic... Well, maybe that's overstating it, but it does look nice.  We recently got some hinges and the box is now complete!  The flowers look great and at a glance you can see some of the items inside.  Maybe we will open it up on some future anniversary and remember the little things.

Homemade English Muffins

For a little over a decade now, I've eaten basically the same thing for breakfast every morning: black tea, Greek yogurt, and two English muffins, toasted and with butter.  What can I say, I'm a creature of habit!  

The Greek yogurt at least comes in a container that's readily recyclable, and I've finally found a company, Arbor Teas (not an affiliate link, though if they're reading this and want to give us money...) that offers loose-leaf tea in fully backyard-compostable packaging--yay!  

The best muffins I've made.

I'm not aware, though, of any company that sells English muffins without a plastic bag and cardboard that's almost certainly coated with something (plastic, wax) that's not really recyclable or compostable.  So, inspired by one of Nate's friends who tried making her own English muffins at home, I embarked on a journey to, first, find the perfect recipe and, second, perfect my ability to follow it.

After trying several recipes, the one from America's Test Kitchen was the winner.  (I think I found it in their Cook It in Cast Iron cookbook at the library, but I'm honestly not positive.)  It offered the best chance for actual nooks and crannies (the other recipes I tried gave me a more textured bread, but not quite nooks and crannies), and it avoided the beeriness that I found in some other recipes that called for longer rising times.

I've modified the recipe to accommodate some whole wheat flour, adding a little extra water to make up for the denser wheat flour.  I'll substitute a whole cup of white whole wheat flour or half a cup of regular whole wheat flour for an equivalent amount of bread flour.  This gives a nuttier taste and offers a (slightly) healthier final product.  

I also use cream instead of whole milk--this consistently gives me English muffins that stay moist for longer, an essential quality for homemade bread, which tends to dry out quickly.  (What do they add to store-bought bread that prevents this from happening?  It can't be good, whatever it is.)  Whether or not you use any wheat flour, I strongly suggest substituting cream (heavy or light, half and half would probably do) for the milk.  Don't even think about using skim milk or low-fat.  It just won't be good, and since these take four hours, it's worth it to use the right ingredients for the job.  Cream is essential, and it keeps practically forever in the fridge.  (Now if only I could find a readily available brand of cream that comes in a recyclable package instead of those horrific, unrecyclable cartons.  It's the one ingredient I add with totally irredeemable packaging.)

The rising is where things get the most tricky, and this is where I'm still working on my technique.  Let them rise too long, and they'll fall in and deflate, resulting in fewer nooks and crannies, though they'll still be tasty and fine for toast, which is the only right way to eat English muffins, after all.  Don't let them rise enough, and they'll also not have the nooks and crannies so key to English muffins, though, again, they'll be serviceable.  I've taken to preheating the oven to the lowest setting (170 degrees F in our case), then shutting it off, letting some heat escape, and placing the dough inside to rise.  I think the second rise is more essential to good texture: you've got to stop before they start to deflate.  Check after 45 minutes for sure.  But I haven't yet made anything inedible, and with each bake, I'm improving my intuitive sense of when the dough looks ready to cook.  The two photos below show what happens when I let the dough rise too long (overproofing, in baking parlance).

overproofed dough = flatter texture

Normally, they should be far puffier, like rolls.

Ultimately, the homemade English muffins have a bunch of benefits that store-bought just can't offer.
1) They taste better than store-bought, even if they don't always have quite the same nooks and crannies.
2) I'm avoiding the waste from the English muffin packaging.
3) I'm saving a bunch of money.  (I'm something of an English muffin snob, and the name-brand I liked, in its whole wheat variety, was running me about $8 per week, which ends up totaling to over $400 per year on English muffins.  I haven't yet done the math, but I'm pretty sure the ingredients I use cost less than $8 per week.)
4) I know exactly what goes into my English muffins, and it doesn't include any preservatives or weird chemicals.  (While I've never been super concerned about additives, listening to this book made me more aware of considering the potential effects of what I put into my body.  Plus, it was a great book.  You can check out my book blog if you want to know more about what I'm reading.)

English muffins are just one of many items that I'd never considered cooking for myself until I met Nate, who is more daring in the kitchen than I am.  We'll be posting lots more about our various home-cooked recipes in the future, and I hope some of you might be inspired to try cooking something that you didn't know you could make at home.  Reduce packaging, save money, and have a tastier product: not perfect, but definitely better!

The baked English muffins should be puffy.

Look at the nooks!