You can read two articles I wrote in the September/October 2004 issue of Natural Home magazine.

One is a featured article for their regular department "Can This Home be Greened?". In each issue, a Natural Home representative visits the home of one of their readers and makes suggestions to make the home more safe and sustainable. In this issue, I traveled to the hills of Kentucky to green a mobile home. Can it be greened? Find out on page 36.

In the Eco-Experts column, I answer a question from singer Pia Zadora about choosing environmentally-safe dishware and tell how to clean your oven. See page 40.

Get visit Natural Home magazine, or look for it at your natural food store and on bookstore magazine racks.

Things are still on schedule for the December 22 release of the new, updated, revised edition of my book Home Safe Home.

My publisher tells me that I personally can order 100 books and ship them to you in time for Christmas gifts. Orders will be filled first come, first served. I'm starting to collect advance orders now. The price for the 450-page book is $19.95 (full retail) plus shipping and handling. Autographed copies will be available for an additional $10 fee. To order, please go to my website and follow instructions on the order form. This is a limited time offer.

Many years ago, when I self-published my first book, a friend took a look at it and said, "The subtitle should be 'How to do everything with baking soda'". Well, Vicky Lansky wrote a book with even more uses for baking soda. In Baking Soda: Over 500 Fabulous, Fun and Frugal Uses You Probably Never Thought Of she tells how to use baking soda for cooking, gardening, cleaning, health care, and hobbies. This entertaining book also include the history of the baking soda industry and the story of how and why it came to be invented. Since baking soda is completely nontoxic and inexpensive, it's good to know the many ways you can use it around the house.

I was hoping to be able to announce that Debra's List is on-line, but a little hurricane interrupted my plans. I'm very close, though to being able to go live with at least the first 250 of more than 1000 links to products, non-profits, books, and more on my website.

Meanwhile, here are a few samples of what is to come. Each link on-line will have descriptions such as these...

Essential Eating Sprouted Flour Company. A line of organic sprouted flours "that digest as vegetables!" Sprouted spelt, wheat, and rye flours, and sprouted cream of spelt cereal. The website has interesting data on the nature of grains and many recipes for using their sprouted flour. Though this sounds strange (how can sprouts be flour?) it looks just like flour. You can see in pictures how it is made on the website. I tried their pancake recipe and it was delicious. go to the website...

Freecycle. Get almost anything you want for FREE by joining freecycle. When you join a local freecycle group, you can check the daily email postings for items you are looking for, post a request for something you want, or offer something you have you no longer want. Everything is free for the taking. go to the website...

Natural Hair Dye. If you want to color your hair naturally, this is the site to check out first. In addition to carrying six brands of natural hair dye, their "Decision Guide" explains the different types of natural hair dyes, what they do, so you can choose the one that is correct for your need and hair type. go to the website...

Hi Debra ~

I have a hemp shower curtain. We keep the bathroom ventilated as much as possible since the bathroom is small with an average size window that is usually open.

The curtain is only two months in use and is already having mold growth along the bottom edge. I live in Chicago so we experience humidity.

How do I remove the mold and what do I do to prevent it from growing?

Thank you.

"Moldy" in Chicago

I have the same problem with my cotton shower curtain.

I have not come up with a solution. Does anyone know how to handle this?

I currently just keep replacing the shower curtain every few months, which is not the best idea, environmentally. In my last house, we installed glass shower doors, which cost less than $100. We're going to remodel this bathroom, so we'll install the glass doors in this house too.

Since posting my story on how I recovered from MCS, I've had some questions about whether I am actually "recovered" or just "well-managed". I've addressed that on my site, but I'd like to know...if you have MCS, or consider yourself recovered, how do you define recovery? Please send me an email with your response.

Do you need help finding or choosing products? Have questions about health or environmental issues? I'm here by the phone most days from 10:00am-4:00pm to answer your questions. Call me at 727-466-6812 ($2/minute with 15 minute/$30 minumum charge to major credit card).