Without fail, the one thing I am most asked about is tucked in the far corner of our kitchen above the sink.

Yep.  It’s our water meters, the one thing that has made me more conscious of just how many resources I use every day.  The $9/gallon gas and electricity that costs 3x as much as I paid in the US don’t affect my subconscious near as much as these meters.  They measure my hot and cold water use To The Liter.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but in the US, Martin and I paid a flat fee of around 35 bucks a month for unlimited water.  Now there is no faster way to drive ourselves crazy than watching these German water meters run.  A liter is 4.2 cups.  We drink that much water in one sitting.  With a little Q&A, let me see if I can answer the questions I’m most often asked by many of you.

Do you cook differently, like using less water with your pasta?

At first I did.  I would let the water trickle while I tried to wash something, and it was impossible.  I’d skimp on water in our noodles, which made them cook unevenly.  Now we keep filling our pots just as full as we did in the US.  If the water doesn’t need to be turned on all the way (like to wash hands), we keep it lower.  Some of our water goes to the plants, though we usually put them outside in the rain for a free drink.

Do you brush your teeth with the water running?

Do people actually do this?  (Confession:  no one actually asked this question.)

Do you take faster showers?

I really tried; I failed.  Now I play with the shower nozzle so the shower is off when I don’t need water.  Some people call them Navy showers.  They’re probably also American expat showers.  It’s what a lot of expats seem to be doing.  Then we go and compare water usage notes with one another.  The best things you can do are get a low-flow shower head and take fewer showers.  We don’t have a bathtub.  As nice as a bath is every once and a while, they’re huge wastes of water.

What about toilets?

Well they don’t use very much water.  Newer toilets have features where you push the small flush button when you’re flushing small things, and you push the big button for, well, the bigger things that need more water to get going.

Do you worry about how much water your appliances use?

We really tried to find the best appliances we could while keeping to our budget.  We’ve compared washing machines that are top-loaders versus front-loaders (and chose a half-size machine so we’d always wash full loads).  Then I scoped out the dishwashing versus hand washing conundrum, though I admit it was really because I was hoping that being lazy (ie dishwasher!) meant I could save water.

Do those meters drive you nuts?

Yep.  They also remind me of just how lucky I am.  Every time I see that meter, I think of all the people who don’t even have access to water like me.  Things could always be worse.

What about you?  Any tricks that you have to cut down on your water usage?  I just looked at our meters, and I know we could do better.  So do share!  And while you’re at it, let me know if you have more questions about our little German life.  Thanks for the ones you’ve asked so far.

It’s time to take the cake!  Short of the gifts, I’m pretty sure cake is pretty high up there in the list of things to get excited about on birthdays.  Before you grab those parfin birthday candles, scope out the latest part of our Green Birthday Guide below.  It’s your how-to on everything eco-cake related.

The cake

1.  Try to buy organic ingredients.  They’re better for the environment and you, which I know you’ve already heard more times than you’ve eaten birthday cake.

2.  If you’re grabbing a cake mix, look at the label.  Try to buy something that has the fewest amount of ingredients.  Make sure you know what those ingredients are, too.  A lot of cake mixes have artificial yuckies in them.  Who knows.  A healthier cake might just mean more birthdays down the road.

3. When buying from a bakery, ask about their ingredients.  One cake shop I know uses Crisco for all their desserts except the ones that go to the local organic grocer who won’t accept transfat.  Ask what your bakery can offer.

4.  Watch out for unnecessary packaging.  From plastic containers for store bought cakes to plastic wrap on containers of frosting, make sure you’re using as little packaging as you can to get your cake home.

Frosting

1. Use all-natural food coloring.  If you’re using a lot of food coloring – like to make that blue frosting as bright as the sky – natural dyes are well worth looking into.  Seelect makes a large range of colors, and check out the ingredient list for their yellow:  water, glycerin, turmeric extract.  That’s it.

2. Same rules as with the cake:  organic, read the labels, avoid unrecognizable ingredients.  Artificial butter flavoring + Crisco does not equal any kind of butter frosting I recognize.

Sprinkles

1.  Sprinkle sugar on top.  Brown sugar can resemble sand.  You can also mix a little food coloring with sugar to sprinkle on top.

2.  Chop up nuts, organic coconut, or chocolate for the top.  Seasonal organic fruit, too!

3. Use natural sprinkles that aren’t made with chemicals and dyes.  My favorite is Lets do… Sprinkelz.  Their sprinkles are German, though it’s not why I love them.  They have four ingredients, all of which I recognize (even in German, so you know they’re basic).  Plus these cute things are organic and vegan.  I actually find it a little creepy that one of their promotions is being a vegan (animal & dairy free) sprinkle.  What, do you suppose, are “regular” sprinkles made out of?

Cupcake Liners

1. Large cupcakes need paper liners so they don’t crumble in your hand, so why not pick recycled or unbleached paper?  You can find several brands including Beyond Gourmet that sell 48 cups for less than $1.50 in the US.  We haven’t had any cupcake cravings here, so I’m not sure about what’s available in Germany.  (Anyone know?)  

2.  Make mini cupcakes and skip the paper liners all together.  Bite sized cupcakes are cute and perfect for dropping into your mouth in one bite.  We’ve tried both ways with and without the paper cups.  Now our vote is to just skip the unnecessary waste.

Candles

1. Buy beeswax candles.  The problem with your regular old candles made from paraffin is that they burn really fast and create a lot of smoke.  Who else has struggled to get all of the candles lit?  Or how about set off the smoke detector?  Those problems kind of disappear when you use bees wax candles.  You can get them at a lot of organic food or candle shops or Amazon.  Plus they smell so amazing you might not want to blow them out too fast.  Gives you time to think about your birthday wish.

Don’t forget about all the other green birthday ideas we’ve covered when you start thinking about that cake – like greener plates and napkins.

Please let us all know if you have any eco birthday cake ideas or if you’ve tried any of the above mentioned items.  I love learning more.

(Images from Amazon)

There must be something about men and their personal spaces.  Every man has his.  It’s the one spot his wife won’t poke at or hang around when he’s not around.  For some men, the spaces are enormous.  Other men can’t quite live that large.  My husband is one of them.

His first man cave was in the utility closet in the kitchen of our 450 square foot apartment in the US.  The desk fit right between the water heater and furnace.  He had to get off of his chair and close the door so that I could open the silverware drawer.  Every other woman kept their dishwashers and dryers in her closet.  Not me.  That’s where my husband went.  

He never had to clean it up.  He could work late at night without bothering me.  Best of all, he was just an arm’s reach from the cookies when they came out of the oven.

But German houses don’t have closets.  We’d already put our bikes in the only alcove in the apartment.  Little did we know, finding Martin a space of his own was going to be our hardest task in the entire remodel of our house, including the kitchen.

It was great reading all of your guesses about this last corner of our living room.  Bookcases, a bar (ooh), a closet… all of those would have been so lovely.  When you live in a small space, though, everything you have in your house has to accommodate all the people who live there.  Drats.

I guess this is where I get all lovely dovey and report:  a happy husband is better than any of those other great uses of this space.  So here you have it.  When I showed you this:

We were building this:

Our man cave.

The dirt on what you see:  The front three panels are hinged together and screwed to the brown wall.  The wall is solid concrete and rebar, so don’t worry.  Those panels aren’t going anywhere.  Martin just has to fold the frosted glass panels together against the wall to reveal his desk.  You can see the beige of his chair right above the couch arm rest.

All I have to do is close the panels back up when he’s not looking.

The entire desk was inspired by a scrap piece of hardwood we found marked waaaay down.  The folding panels were inspired by my grandmother’s love of music and hate of organized sheet music.

Martin is still moving in.  The very last box in the house has finally been unpacked.

So no big screen TVs and leather couches in this man cave.  No pictures of busty German maidens carrying mugs of beer here (I think).  Still it’s the man’s space.  Do you have one of those at your house?  I’d love to swap stories.

(Images by Katie for Making This Home)

We’re still working like crazy over here with our next reveal.  Can I distract you with a poem in the meantime?

I love seeing little girls in Easter bonnets every spring.  They’re always smiling and tugging on their little hats.  This quick poem popped into my mind fairly fast.  Coming up with complete poems in my head doesn’t happen very often, so I hope this one can give you a quick smile on your Sunday:

BEES IN YOUR BONNET

Bees in your bonnet
would be a bad thing.
Use fake flowers
to lessen the sting.

(Image from about.com)

 

By now, you’re pretty familiar with this angle of our house.  You know the little kitchen we built and the bright yellow couch.  You know our pear green dishes.  And yes, because of all your encouragement, we’ve decided to pull our dishes out of their drawer and keep them on the open shelf.  So thanks for making me have to walk a whole half step more every time I unload the dishes now.

But have you ever wondered about the other side of this room?  

Ahhh.  Good point, right?  The only time I’ve ever shown you anything was back in November.  I think I was making dinner on the washing machine in the bathroom back in those days.  All you’ve seen is this shot:

Wouldn’t it be nice to see more?  Well now you will.  We just got the missing piece delivered.  Martin and I are spread across the living room building one of our last items.  I know this clue won’t help, but here’s a part of it clamped and drying right before we dismantled our table saw and tore down the tarp wall.

Any guesses?  You think about it and let us know while I hurry back to help Martin.  The clock is ticking before it’s officially illegal to use power tools for the rest of the weekend.

The results on the other end of this room can be found here.

(Images by Katie for Making This Home)