Go Green With Alexa

Today I'm talking with Alexa at Go Green With Alexa.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Alexa at Go Green with Alexa. Good morning, how are you? Good morning, I'm well, how are you? I'm good, you're in Florida? Yes, I am. I know it's a little colder than it should be there, but I bet you're not as cold as Minnesota this morning. Yeah, I bet I'm not.

00:30
It's, I think it's minus 13 and I think the real feel or the wind chill or whatever they're calling it now is minus 32. Oh, wow, quite the difference. Yeah, it's 65 here and it's raining, but otherwise can't complain. Okay, what's the nearest city to you? I would say Fort Lauderdale, about 20 minutes away, north. Okay, all right. My daughter's in St. Petersburg. Yeah.

00:57
So she's been like, it's kind of cold here. And I'm like, I don't want to hear it, kid. I was just there last week and it was freezing. Yeah. My definition of freezing. Yeah, I said, you grew up in Minnesota. You know what real freezing feels like. I don't want to hear it. Just stop. She's laughed. She's like, OK, fine. So tell me about yourself and what you do, ma'am. Yes. So I am a sustainability copywriter by trade.

01:26
And I also create sustainability content on my own for the world to see and really just to show people how fun and exciting and how you can get creative with sustainability in your daily life. Awesome. I'm going to pull a page out of my other podcaster friends. Podcast she actually does a podcast about sustainability. And then one question she asks on every episode is,

01:54
What does sustainability mean to you? So what does sustainability mean to you, Alexa? Yeah. So sustainability means to me is what it means is making the least amount of impact on the planet. And that means by, by, by the means of reducing our waste, reducing our purchases, reducing, or not even just reducing the purchases, but being more mindful of the purchase.

02:23
where we're purchasing from and what it's supporting. And really just thinking about the end of life of everything before we make that purchase. It's just being a conscious consumer and also an advocate for the environment. That is an excellent answer. I love that. Thank you. So how did you get into this, the copywriting and sustainability? Yeah, so for copywriting, basically it was a, out of,

02:52
2020 out of the pandemic. I just realized that I didn't want to do what I was doing. I was, I went to school to be, I was pre-med in school to eventually hopefully be a doctor. I decided at the end of my college career that I did not want to do that anymore. I had degrees in biomedical science and public health. And while those might seem

03:19
unrelated to sustainability, I would say that at least the biomedical science gave me a great foundation into science and the overall world of the chemical processes and biological processes of the natural world. And then also on the flip side, the public health degree gave me that foundation of understanding how our systems are currently in place and how they actually all work together.

03:47
health, it's also about community, it's also about the way we live our lives. And the environmental aspect is also a piece of that. So it's something that always fascinated me. I was lucky enough to grow up in a family that really values sustainability and conservation. My parents are both immigrants from Brazil and I grew up in the scuba diving industry down here in South Florida. They had a business for 23 years of my life. They sold it when I was 25 and I was very much part of the business.

04:17
and worked there most of my life. And just being part of that, it shaped me. We composted at home. We were very conscious about what we used and what we threw away. And my parents participated in a lot of conservation efforts as part of their business, because that was something that always was important to them. So just growing up in that environment always caused me to just, I think, view things a little differently than my peers.

04:46
And I didn't really notice that until I went to college, to be quite honest. I obviously knew that my parents were, you know, different, um, than my peers and the way they thought about things and, and approach things was different, but I didn't really realize how different it was until I went to college and, um, was put in the position of, you know, cooking for myself, fending for myself, and then realizing that, oh, wow, I'm throwing a lot of this organic material into the garbage. And I obviously didn't feel.

05:15
It didn't feel right by me. So that's when I started getting like a vermicomposter and making my own home, like body care products and things like that. So just to, that's a little backstory, but then 2020 came, I was working for my parents' business when they sold it right before 2020. And I stayed on with the business to just help with the transition and all that, and decided to keep working with the new owners for the.

05:44
next couple years and that's when I transitioned into copywriting. They knew I was interested in that and they needed help with marketing. So it was kind of like two birds, one stone. And yeah, so I took a copywriting course online and figured out how to start my own business because that was really the goal was to work for myself and to live a life of more freedom and flexibility. So they were my first client. And then I just transitioned. I just decided that instead of just focusing on

06:10
any business, I really wanted to focus only on sustainable clients and nonprofits. Wow. Okay. I was going to say back when you started answering my question, what a pivot that was. But really, I don't feel like it was a pivot. I feel like it was a sidestep into something that you already had some background to build on. Yeah. Yeah. I would say it's like coming back home because I...

06:36
I always felt that I was destined to do something with sustainability, but I always thought that it was an industry and a career that you needed to be in for 10, 20 years before you really could make a living in this industry just because it's smaller and I guess so niche. But I was clearly wrong. Uh-huh. Okay. So I don't want to get too far in the copywriting stuff because it's not really what my podcast is focused on.

07:04
But not everybody knows what a copywriter does. Do you have a simple explanation for what a copywriter does? Yes. So a copywriter is a professional that writes for businesses and organizations. Basically, all the words that you see associated with the business you interact with on a daily basis, any words on a website, captions on a social media post, voiceover scripts, or just scripts for video in general, blog posts, email campaigns, anything like that, that's what a copywriter writes.

07:34
So you're sort of like a ghostwriter for businesses. Absolutely. Okay, cool. All right, so tell me about how you're practicing sustainability. Cause I did look at your Instagram page and you have some beautiful photos of things that you're doing. Yeah, thank you. So like I said before, I think it's mostly focused on buying less and being very discerning as a consumer. But in addition to that, I also grow my own veggies and herbs and

08:04
That's just a few of the methods, but I also advocate for eliminating plastic in the day-to-day life. That's personally something that I've been on a journey to do. I wasn't always full of plastic in my life, but I've just realized that I don't want to contribute anymore to microplastics into our waterways, into our air. So I just try to minimize how I interact with plastic. And ocean conservation is a big part of my work, obviously.

08:32
growing up in the scuba diving industry. And I really just try to show people that there are fun ways to be sustainable. It's like any area in your life, you can make more sustainable. It really just matters like which one you're trying to appeal to like the other day I had posted about ways you can digitally help the environment and that's like one by deleting emails or not using generative AI or using a search engine that is eco-friendly like

09:01
and yeah, just like giving tips in ways that others can feel useful because I think for too long sustainability has felt like an ideal that you can never reach. And I just think that it's a journey more like getting healthy or anything else. Yes, absolutely. It's a process and a growth experience. Absolutely.

09:29
And speaking of trying to be more sustainable when you're dealing with them, with technology, my web host for our website, for our home, our place, our business, I can't talk this morning, sorry, is GreenGeeks and it's greengeeks.com. And they have a whole thing about how they're trying to give back to the earth on their website. So that's who we use. And I don't get any...

09:59
kickback for saying that either. I just like them. It's been great working with them. Yeah, that's how I feel. I don't get much kickback from anything and I just want to, I usually just spotlighting small businesses and things like that, but I'll definitely have to check Green Gigs out. Yeah. And it's just one word, Green Gigs. There's no space between. And also the way that you can cut back on the technology footprint that we all leave.

10:27
is try not to get the newest thing every time it comes out. Yes. This whole Apple iPhone thing drives me crazy because people are like, oh my God, the new iPhone's coming out. And they just got the newest iPhone a year and a half before. Mm-hmm, exactly. And trade-ins are just another way to convince us that we're doing something good for the planet, but it's not really helping. Buying the new thing is never, never going to help.

10:54
Right. I'm an Android fan, so I have never had an iPhone and I probably never will. And I beat my iPhone, my Android phones to death. Like they have to die before I will replace them. I love it. That's truly the best way to be sustainable is using what you have. Yep. And I'm not going to lie. I have a desktop computer that I do the podcast on and I have, I happen to have two laptops. One is dying. So that's why I have two right now.

11:23
But I refurbished the one that was the best one of the two laptops. I literally set it back to factory settings a month ago and did all of the freaking updates. It took like two hours. Because this laptop is at least four years old and I wasn't gonna spend another $300 to have a third laptop. That's crazy. So there are ways to cut down on the...

11:51
the technology clutter as well as everything else? Yeah, absolutely. And if you're looking, if you need something, because of course, like I don't want to ever put down somebody if they need something for their job or whatever. So if you need a new laptop or new device, check out refurbished sites like BackMark. I don't have any affiliation with them, but I just think it's great that they have certified refurbished options. Yep, absolutely.

12:20
It is not, you don't have to spend thousands of dollars on the newest thing to have a functional machine in front of you that you can use. Exactly. So, and I don't, I mean, I'm not telling anybody what to do. I'm just saying I reset my computer because it still worked fine. It just was slow and it was cluttered with photos and things that I've written that I never submitted, things like that. And I was like, this is dumb. I have the photos elsewhere. I can just...

12:47
dump this whole thing and start over and it will work just fine. And it does, it works great. So, okay. So is it hard growing vegetables and herbs in Florida or is it okay? No, it's so easy. We have a year round growing season and I don't have like, I live in an apartment so all my, anything that I grow is in containers, pots. So I, you know, I advocate for, you don't need much space, you don't need much time.

13:16
you really just need to do it. It's rather easy. I really just have pots all over my staircase leading down to my place. And it's really that simple. Florida is the best place to grow anything, I would say, from tropical fruits and veggies in the winter. That's the thing when everyone else is hunkered down for the winter where that's our growing season for all our great veggies and tomatoes and strawberries and things like that.

13:47
Is that because it's too hot and too muggy in the summer? Yes, exactly. Okay. Yeah, we don't have that problem here. It's too hot and muggy in the summer. It's too cold and dry in the winter. It's a trick growing things in the northern tier states and we do it, but sometimes we fail. I have been bitching for months about the fact that our summer garden this year, this past year was terrible because it rained and rained and rained. And my husband said to me the other day, he's like,

14:15
I'm gonna go start some radish and lettuce seeds in the greenhouse. I said, it's not even February. He said, yes, but in the greenhouse, it's fine for cold weather crops. Yep. And I said, I could have pickled radishes in a month. He said, you sure could. I said, please go plant radishes. That would be great. So he's very excited. The greenhouse is new. It went up in May of 2024. Oh, that's awesome.

14:42
So he's just dying to see how things are going to do in there with the sun pouring in the front where it's all, um, whatever he used, not glass, it's the polycarbonate sheets. Speaking of plastics, oops. So yeah, he, uh, he literally planted lettuce seeds and radish seeds yesterday afternoon when it was minus 32 windchill outside.

15:11
Wow. So that was interesting. Got to work with what you have, you know? I love it. Yes. And he was practically dancing when he came in and showed me the photo. He took up the little packages on the little stick that he stuck them in the raised beds, you know, to mark where they were. Oh, I love that. It's really fun watching your 55-year-old husband act like he's five. It's kind of amazing. I think that's a huge part of sustainability is keeping that childlike wonder.

15:40
I think if you don't have it, you're not going to do it. Yes, you're so right. It's motivation. Mm-hmm. Yes, you have to be curious. You have to have some courage and you have to be good with failure, I think, sometimes. Yes, absolutely. And that's the thing what I advocate for is imperfection. So there's going to be issues. There's going to be quote unquote failures, you know. But...

16:07
The thing is that we learn and we grow from it and we don't expect perfection ever. Right. Because if everything was perfect, it would be so incredibly boring. Right. Yeah. And number two, if everything was perfect, everybody would just do everything right. And there would be no need for us to have grocery stores because we would just be growing our own stuff all the time.

16:29
Hopefully eventually we get there, but even in the perfection of like policing each other and being like, well, you didn't do this and you're using a laptop right now and how could you be talking about sustainability when you're on an Apple laptop? Well, you know, that not everything is perfect. And I think that's, that is the beauty of it is understanding how it works in our modern world and not shaming people along the way.

16:55
Well, just in general, Alexa, not shaming people along the way is a good premise to have, I think. Yeah, I'd agree. Shame does nothing but lock people up and they just stop and they don't try anymore. Yeah. It's just something that I have seen in the past and even I guess I've received the criticism in the past that, oh, well, what does it matter if you're not doing everything right? And

17:23
I'm here to tell you that anything, any action you do does make a difference. Uh-huh. Absolutely. I have been sick for the last couple of weeks was with COVID. I might as well say it. And it's been hard getting over it. And one of the things that happened with it is that food didn't taste good at all. And I didn't lose my, my sense of taste or smell, but you know, you get sick, you don't want to eat and I knew I had to eat to get better. I knew I had to sleep to get better. And so I would.

17:52
I would dish up my food and sit down to eat it and I get halfway through and be like, I'm not going to finish this. I'm not hungry. It tastes like cardboard. This sucks. And I would of course throw it away. And I felt really bad about throwing food away. That's fair. But at the same time, you're sick. Yeah. It's not like I was going to eat it the next day and it wasn't like my husband could take it to...

18:16
work with him for lunch the next day because I don't know if COVID can get passed back to someone who's already had the same strain, but I sure as heck didn't want to find out. Right. So there are things that we do that we know are going to be successful and there are things that we do that they're not going to be successful. So you just have to find the offset and the balance I think. Absolutely. And yeah, just give yourself grace in the process. Yeah, exactly.

18:45
So what do you grow? I'm really curious about what you grow on your stairwell. Like I will say, it's mostly herbs, just because that's the easiest thing for me to grow and I don't have a lot of space. I would like to get into potatoes next growing season, but I'm gonna have to figure that out. I'm trying to see if I can finagle a raised bed in my apartment complex. But for now I have jalapeno peppers, dill, thyme, mint,

19:15
basil. I have a now a wild sweet basil variety that's like more for Florida. I have lemongrass, tomatoes, two different varieties of tomatoes that are popping right now, which is amazing. I have a cabbage that I don't think is actually going to produce, but we're watching it. Bok choy that I've been harvesting from. And then I also just got a Harwich product system.

19:42
from my husband for Christmas. So we've been starting that and we're trying to grow some lettuces inside. Nice. Bok choy is one of the prettiest little leafy greens ever. It really is. I love watching it come in and so fast. Yeah. And it's so weird because it's like a lettuce and a cabbage mixed together. That's so true. Yeah. I'd never had it before. My husband planted it when we moved to our place that we live at now.

20:08
We moved in four years ago and he put in bok choy and I was like, what's bok choy? And he said, it's like a, an Oriental, let us see thing. And I was like, I don't know that's the correct explanation, but I'm going to go with it. And, and he said, it's we'll use it in stir fry. And I said, okay. And he grew it and I tasted it raw after I'd watched some and I was like, Oh, this is amazing. It's crunchy. Yes. I love that. The texture is great. Yep. I had no idea. I had never had it before.

20:38
And I don't know why I just hadn't, but I love it. And he's going to grow some more in the greenhouse. Yay. So we'll have that again, too. Again, I'm hitting 20 minutes and losing my train of thought because I'm still not quite on top of getting past this sickness. So I was going to say, if you need room to grow other things, are there any community gardens in your area or anything? Yes, there are. There's one not.

21:05
far from me and I go there. I've gone there to volunteer and plant fruit trees. I do hope to spend more time there this year. And I think they I believe they rent out spots. And it's like very affordable for like a whole year and you can have a plot. But I just love having it accessible and next to me all the time. Me and my husband do share a car because we both work from home. So and also there's no need if we both work from home to have two cars.

21:34
I prefer to have things closer to home. I'm not opposed to it. My parents grow a lot of things and I have the luxury of getting a lot of their produce that they hope grow at home. So I'm patient for now and the future. I have hopes and aspirations of, you know, having a property that it can grow things on, but for now this works for us. Sure, absolutely. Do what you can. What you have where you are is a mantra we use all the time.

22:04
I will tell you if you get the chance to grow potatoes, it is so fun when it's time to harvest them because basically you pull the plant out of the ground and it doesn't bring the roots with it because they're heavy with potatoes. Right. And you take a shovel and you just lift the dirt and all these potatoes just roll out. It's so fun. Like I've seen it in person because we grow potatoes.

22:30
and I've seen videos of it and every time I see it I'm just astounded. It's like nature is so freaking cool. It is so cool and yeah I would love to do like some canvas bags and then I've seen people like pour them out and then all the potatoes come out and I think that's so so funny as well like I would love to do something like that just we can't grow them I mean we can grow sweet potatoes year-round but have to wait on the regular potatoes until next year probably.

22:57
Yeah, and we have trouble growing sweet potatoes here because the season just isn't quite long enough. Oh, that makes sense. Yeah, so we've got the flip side going here. We've got, we do. You can't do potatoes and I can't do sweet potatoes, so we'll figure. It's really funny how different regions support different foods. Oh yeah, and in Florida in general, we have like three different zones. So like if you just go a couple hours north, not even an hour north, and it's a different.

23:25
gardening zone and they can grow different things and can't grow certain things. So it's so fascinating. Yeah, my daughter is caretaking some avocado trees, bushes, whatever they are for her mother-in-law. And she can just go pick an avocado whenever she wants to when they're in season. And I'm like, I'm so jealous because we could never grow avocados here. We would have to have a room in our house designated for avocado plants.

23:54
that was at a certain temperature and had a certain amount of light all the time. And we just can't, we don't have that. Yeah, that's the one thing I'm obsessed with tropical fruits, obviously, because I grew up with it. So my parents always, they have this amazing avocado tree that the avocados are so big, it's a different variety than like the Haas avocado. But the avocado avocado gets so big, it's like a butternut squash bigger than a butternut squash at times. Wow. Yes, it's huge. And it's like bigger than my forearm.

24:21
and they're long and delicious, like creamy but firm. It's amazing. I'm jealous. Honestly, I didn't like avocado. I thought I didn't like avocado because I had guacamole when I was like 14. And when I was 14, I was really picky. So I didn't like anything anyway. And then I tried avocado like seven, eight years ago and had it in a salad.

24:48
And I was like, I don't know why I didn't like this. This is great. Right? Avocados are, they don't necessarily taste like anything. It's what you put them in that makes them taste good. Yes. Yeah. And I grew up in Brazil, they eat it sweet. They don't even eat it salty at all. And so like I grew up with my mom always making it sweet with like, you basically mash it up and add brown sugar to it. But here in the U.S. everyone eats it with salt. So like, it's a really versatile vegetable. Or I guess, fruit vegetable, I'm not even sure.

25:17
ehhhh fruit i think i can't remember it's kind of like lamb i don't know if you eat meat but lamb is one of the meats that takes the seasoning of anything you season it with takes the flavor and so you can cook it with mint jelly you can cook it with barbecue sauce you can cook it with salt and pepper and it's just going to absorb whatever the seasoning is that you use

25:41
And so I always kind of liken avocado to lamb because avocado is just gonna take in whatever you season it with. That's a great point. So, you said you have hopes of maybe having some land someday. Is that like a dream or is that like a goal? I would say why not both, but.

26:05
I guess a house is first and the house with like any amount of land would be enough for me. Like I said, I grow on steps right now in a garden so I can make any amount of land work. Yeah. And my parents have their own land so I don't feel like the need to get that unless it was .. I like living by the coast. I'll just say that and there's no coastal land near us. Yeah. That seems to be a problem on any coastal area right now. Right.

26:33
I grew up in Maine and I can remember being able to walk along Sabago Lake, like for miles, just along the lake shore. And I guarantee you that's not the truth now. I bet that's not possible now. And in Minnesota, there are very few, I mean, it's the land of 10,000 lakes, but there are very few lakes where you can just walk the shoreline for miles because everyone owns the shoreline. Right.

27:01
Yeah, and I'm not even talking about the shoreline because that's just not even, and I wouldn't want to do that anyway, but I live five minutes away from the beach right now and that's how I like it. So although it'd be nice to have land, I don't think I could give up the coastal lifestyle. Yeah, no. It was really hard leaving Maine and knowing that I would be so far from the ocean. But then I learned that there were so many lakes here that it was ridiculous, so that helped. And my father-in-law used to live on.

27:30
a lake here in Minnesota. So I would get out of the car, walk to his backyard before I would even go on the house and just smell the air because air, air smells different around water. Absolutely. And so I would just stand there and breathe in for like five minutes and he'd be like, are you going to come in the house? I'll be right there. I'm just meditating for a moment with your lake. And he's like, Oh, I keep forgetting you have a thing about that.

27:57
like, yes, yes, I do. Thank you for providing me a place to do this. He's like, I just need to get used to this. I said, uh-huh. Yes, if you could, that'd be great. And he said, you know, you could always just come in the house and go stand on the balcony out back and get the same fat. It's not the same. I said, but then I'm not rooted in the grass. And he's like, you're one of those. I'm like, yes, I am. I am absolutely one of those for sure. Have to ground. Yes. And I didn't even know it was called grounding bed.

28:27
but now I do so intuitively you knew yeah it's I don't know I grew up in the Maine woods like my my lullaby was the wind through the pine trees at night because the windows were open so my parents raised me to be a nature baby and when people aren't raised that way they don't have the same understanding of it as I do you're so right and then trying to educate people on it they're

28:56
I'm like, no, for real, you should try it. Yeah. And also they have to have their own experiences of nature to just realize how tremendous and amazing it really is. And then that's when I notice at least people become more catalyzed to be more sustainable and things like that. Yes. Yes, for sure. If I hadn't been raised the way that I was, I wouldn't be as interested and as practicing, I guess, as I am. No, same here.

29:23
It never would have occurred to me. I just would have been like, I'm going to go to the store and buy pop and chips and not worry about it. It'd be great. And I try not to do that. I try to eat good or well, sorry, eat well. And I tried to drink a lot of water because we're what 90% water, I think. And the more water you put in, the better you feel. So. Same here. Yep. More, more nature.

29:49
Yes, every day, every minute of every day, if at all possible, as I sit here and stare at my monitor. It's too cold to commune with nature today in Minnesota. I'm not going out there. I haven't been outside once today. That was more than enough for me. That's fair. Yeah. When your nose hairs freeze, when you step on your porch, you know it's cold. Yeah, that's enough. I'm over here and like I'm bundled up and it's just like in the 60s and just a little

30:17
rainy, dreary, but I'm obviously not equipped. That's cozy napping weather. That's not freezing weather. It depends who you ask. I know, exactly. All right, Alexa, I try to keep you to half an hour and we're at 30 minutes. So thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you so much for having me. Have a great day. Thank you. You too.