Category Archives: Recycle

Do I Save Time and Money By Being Green?

I don’t wake up every morning and say, “I need to save the earth today.” However, since we moved to Minnesota, I recycle and shop with reusable bags. My motivation is simple: I either already pay for these services, or the services pay me back. Continue reading →

The End of an Era

Our baby is no longer a baby. Until last week, she sat in a handed-down, seven-year old Britax Boulevard. It was finally time to get a booster because she fit the height and weight requirements. More importantly, we tended to accidentally bop her head on the ceiling of the car when we put her in the Britax. Sorry baby!

Now that we have a safer, bump-free seat for Kiddo, I was trying to figure out what to do with the old one. Here’s what I found out. Continue reading →

The Replacement For Our 1st Gen Nano Arrived!

We sent in our broken iPod Nano (1st Generation) in mid-November, soon after Apple announced their safety recall program. It took a really long time before we actually received the padded mailer to ship it back; we received one in late December. Well, last week the replacement came! It looks like this:

Continue reading →

Preserve Family Memories

If you didn’t know, I’m Asian. Thus, many of the stereotypes you think of are generally true about me. My eyes are not slanted, but I remember wanting to lower my Honda Accord and put an oversized spoiler on it. For a moment. Then, I thought better of it. Not surprisingly, my family loves to have the latest and greatest in consumer technology. I remember my dad, standing behind a video camera during family gatherings and my milestone events, recording the moments. It was fun to have VHS tapes of these, but a year ago I realized that I hadn’t hooked up our VCR. It was time to figure out what to do about those family home videos.

Continue reading →

Why Not Swap Christmas Wrap With A Friend?


Even though I don’t like buying wrapping paper, we own some. Christmas packages are a lot more fun with the holiday paper. I was doing some wrapping the other day and realized that we had the same rolls of paper for three years. It’s getting boring! And with Kiddo getting excited about Santa, AND being very detail oriented, I almost considered buying more wrapping paper. Almost. But I could not go through with it.

Later that day, I chatted with a girlfriend. It turned out she was in the same boat. So… we’re trading a few rolls of paper with each other. Crazy, huh? But why not? Now the Santa presents will not look suspiciously similar to the ones from Mom and Dad. My friend and I are meeting up for coffee later this week to chat and trade wrapping paper. :) Winning!

Confession…

I’m a hoarder. Just kidding. But not really. I collect cardboard boxes and packing material. After moving more times than I would like, I have the tendency to keep boxes in our utility room. After a while, they kind of pile up. Right now it looks like this (but really, there is a lot more than this, they don’t fit in the frame of my camera lens):

Trust me, my collection has been much worse in the past. I simply hate the moment I need to send something in a box (like when I sell something on eBay or want to send a gift to a friend) and have to go to a place like The Container Store to buy one. That store has so many sparkly organizational things I think I need, but my life has been chugging along without it. Besides, the parking lot of that store in our area is such a pain!

So I am giving myself a deadline: I will break down and recycle all but three boxes (one small, one medium, one large) after the new year. I am waiting until we shipped the last of our holiday packages (or returns, on behalf of our gift recipients). You can hold me to this. I promise. I’ll even post photographic evidence too! (And then, of course, I am pretty sure my collection will start up again so that I’m prepared for next year.)

No Wrapping Paper? No Problem!

I hate buying wrapping paper. When I think about the effort it takes me to go out, buy the paper, wrap a gift and make it pretty… then when I give a gift, the pretty paper is eventually thrown away. If wrapping paper were free, I would go all out and make the presents the most gorgeous things in the world. But I don’t have the means. Here’s a solution that works for me. Continue reading →

Junk To Treasure: 1st Gen iPod Nano Recall

Look in your desk drawers, closets, and junk piles to see if you have a 1st generation iPod Nano. They look like this:

These babies were sold in late 2005-ish it might be unlikely that you have one? You might have either thrown it away, recycled it, traded it in, or sold it by now. But it might be worth your time to look around because…. even if yours still works, Apple is recalling them because of a battery issue. Check this webpage on Apple’s site to see if you are eligible for a replacement. You will need the serial number. Your replacement will be sent six weeks after Apple receives the defective one and will come with a 90-day warranty. By the way, the replacement is a slick and shiny new, Nano. Nice, huh?

We have a broken 1st gen Nano sitting in our storage closet, because I planned to use it toward a 10% discount for new iPod through Apple’s iPod recycling program. If this broken Nano it is eligible for replacement, I am thrilled to save $130 instead of $13. Yahoo! Check your junk now!