Lydia Likes It

Oh, that view

Sunset over MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We never tire of it.

Refillable cleaning products

Why not make a new year's resolution (it's not too late) to take better care of our planet? Good Filling helps you do your part, by providing an easy way to refill your own containers with dish soap, hand soap, laundry detergent and all-purpose cleaner from on-site sanitization stations (there's one in my building). Products are supplied from eco-friendly companies like Seventh Generation, Puracy and The Unscented Company. You save approximately 20 percent over the retail cost, and you won't be purchasing any single-use plastics. If you can't find a filling station near you, you can order their products from the web site. We've refilled our grocery store dish soap container three times, and we'll keep using it until it wears out.

Seeing in color {green}

Trust a LEED Gold building to feature eco-friendly art in its lobby. The Living Green Wall, which reflects my apartment building's commitment to a sustainable environment, combines jade pothos, philodendron brasil, and neon pothos plants. It offers a range of benefits, including natural air filtration, VOC (volatile organic compounds) removal, stress relief, and assistance in the building's thermal regulation, and it brings the vibrancy of nature inside. 

The volunteering life {looking close to home}

When my husband Ted and I moved from our 19th-century rowhouse in Boston's South End, we traded a life of endless repairs, crooked staircases and dusty brick walls for the convenience of a modern high-rise apartment building. We also traded nearly 40 years of community involvement for a different kind of community, one of renters rather than homeowners, and because of the transience, people are less involved with the world outside our doors, and less connected to each other.

All of that lack of connection leaves the door wide open for those of us who are natural community builders. The more I looked for opportunities to bring people together, the easier it was to find things I could do myself, or propose to my building's "cruise director" (i.e., manager of resident satisfaction). SCUBA anyone? One of my neighbors is a veterinarian and a certified SCUBA instructor, and he's offering a class in our pool. Another is a scientist and traditional Indian dancer; I connected him with the cruise director, and I hope he'll be doing a class or demo in Indian dance.

For my part, I'm starting with voter registration. A few weeks ago I manned (womaned? peopled?) a table in the lobby offering voter registration information, forms, and applications for mail-in ballots. I did it again this week, while there's still time for people to register for the November election. I had information sheets telling new residents where to vote in person, when to vote early, how to sign up for a mail-in ballot, and how to change their registrations online. Easy to do, and it felt great to be able to answer questions and help my neighbors.

Sunsets

My husband Ted's first office in Boston looked to the west, over Beacon Hill and Back Bay and the Public Garden and Cambridge, past the old John Hancock Building with its weather beacon, along the Charles River to the iconic Citgo sign in Kenmore Square and beyond. When we moved to our current apartment, he wanted to have that view again, forty-some years later, and so we do. The sunsets amaze, delight and bless us with their brilliance. (iPhone photo taken through the window, no filter. Please excuse the reflections.)