Living Green - How Can We do it?

Sometimes I think I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Advice on living green is to open your windows and air out your house. My sweet husband, BB, and I love the outdoors and can't wait to open our doors and windows in spring. He sits on the deck even when he has to bundle up in a heavy coat. I just crave fresh air. But I am allergic to some of the trees on our mountain side and a few weeks ago, they burst into bloom almost overnight.

As I drove on our road I admired the lovely spring colors, almost as colorful as fall, but different in that spring colors on the trees here, are soft and almost pastel - pink and pale green, soft yellow and white.

Hardly noticing I was getting sick, I kept my windows open and walked Rocky, the dog, began planting things, and before I knew it my sniffles and coughing from allergies had become a full-fledged sinus infection which soon had both ears filled with fluid. After a week on antibiotics, my ears opened but I came to my senses and closed my windows in the house.

As bad as indoor pollution is for me, outdoor air is terrible at certain times of the year. We have had a week of rain and the blooms are gone, the trees have leafed out and I can breath again.

Now I can go back to open windows, but I wait until evening when the pollen is not as bad. With my green cleaning products -- vinegar and water and baking soda, some 7th Generation products, and one called Planet, I can survive now.

If I had the money to do so, I'd only have "green sheets" "green towels" "green pillows and pillow cases," "green furniture" - no particleboard, no formaldehyde, no VOC's in the paint. But I'd have to throw out almost half my furniture and then we'd be sitting on the floor, and the floor is just too dusty (I'm allergic to house dust). So I live as green as I can which means as healthy as I can for now.