Patagonia ran this ad on Black Friday. Sales shot up 13 percent over the previous year.

Nothing like deprivation to muddy up your understanding of “want” vs. “need.”

For instance, here’s a sampling of items I’ve considered “needs” over the past two weeks: new sports bras, shower curtain, new couch pillows, lime-squeezer kitchen gadget, iPad case, duchess satin bridesmaid dress, cat scratching post, and a handmade silver ring shaped like a poppy. This is doubly remarkable, as I’m not really the shopping type. But I’m also in the middle of a self-imposed No New Stuff May, and we all know what happens when you start branding the fruit forbidden.

Photo by D_S_O.

I’m worried about my worms.

It’s not that they aren’t thriving, mind you. The little guys slither about in what I imagine must be a happy manner whenever I lift the lid of the vermicompost bin for a weekly feeding. I introduced the lot to my apartment last August, so they’ve had plenty of time to settle in. I imagine members of my worm community pairing off, buying their own patches of dirt, and raising worm families. I wouldn’t be surprised if a few of the skinny, lethargic ones are teenage offspring going through their James Dean phases.

It’s the harvesting part that has me worried. That is, I need to get the dirt out without losing (or killing) my worms.

Photo by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan.

My garden is overflowing with heirloom tomatoes! I can’t keep up with the egg drops from my Leghorns! I don’t have enough room in my fridge for all this kefir starter! First world problems, yes, but problems faced by many a home-grower or -maker nonetheless.

If only there were an elegant solution, one that didn’t involve choking down yet another eight-egg omelet or aggressively foisting that 20-pound bag of jalapenos on your coworkers … One that got you a little something in return, even …

My friends, there is -- at least here in Seattle. And last Sunday, it had me vigorously considering the trade-in value of a bag of homemade beef jerky while a banjo player plucked away in the background.

You guys, I just can't use a pee rag.

Yes, I love the trees. No, I don't want to waste paper. Yes, I want to green up my life, bathroom habits included. But the conventional go-wipe-flush routine has served me well since toilet training, and I've gotta say, switching to an old strip of cloth in lieu of toilet paper isn't an easy transition. Today's hardcore greenies have dreamed up plenty of other TP alternatives, but you know, none of those look so great, either.

I know I've pledged to try out green lifestyle practices, but when an editor suggested the ol' pee rag, I hit a serious brick wall. Still, while researching the many other low-waste bathroom habits I could be adopting instead, it struck me that perhaps these TP tricks fall into a natural progression. One can't be expected to go from 0 to 60 immediately. Better to identify your comfortable cruising speed first, then gradually amp it up, step by step.

Two environmental offenses accompany the call of nature, of course: wasting paper (all that wiping) and water (all that flushing). The methods below, arranged from least to most radical, aim to reduce waste on one or both fronts.

Natural born cleaners. (Photo by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan.)

Things I know, but wish I didn’t: Cake frosting is full of trans fat. Too many martinis can give you cancer [PDF]. Zillions of mites make their homes in our eyebrows. And, of particular concern during spring-cleaning season, common household cleaning products contain a host of nasty stuff.

What a buzzkill. Just as I can’t in good conscience eat spoonfuls of cake frosting straight from the jar, neither can I simply squirt easy-to-find, grime-zapping conventional cleaners all over the counters and be done with it. Up ‘til now, I’ve addressed this problem with nontoxic (if still store-bought) products from the likes of Seventh Generation and Method. But this year, I’ve decided to take the natural cleaning thing the next logical step, which explains why I spent the other night rubbing half a lemon into the shower tiles.

Before the overdose: Ted can hardly wait to nosh a razor clam. (Photo by Elisabeth Kwak-Hefferan.)

If you've never enjoyed a fresh bivalve harvest, here's a tip: 15 razor clams is a significant gustatory investment. Hey, I love clams. I love them swimming in chowder, peeking out of my linguine, breaded and fried. But trust me, after spending an hour knuckle-deep in clam innards, I know now that even the most ardent enthusiast would do well to pace herself.

Soon after a wildly successful first clam dig on Washington's Roosevelt Beach, I found myself back in my kitchen, staring into a bucketful of razor clams. Fifteen meaty clams needed killing, de-shelling, dressing, and cooking before we could enjoy the sautéed clam recipe we'd been talking about for the past 100 miles. It was already past 8 p.m.; perhaps we’d been a bit ambitious.

There was the matter of killing them, for one. None of the pieces of clam literature I’d studied mentioned exactly what you’re supposed to do between shoreline and skillet. On the advice of a veteran clammer, we’d kept our catch alive in seawater on the three-hour journey home for maximum freshness.

"Everything I’ve read just starts with 'Pour boiling water over them for a few seconds until the shell pops open,'" I told my boyfriend and co-chef, Ted. "Can that be right?" With the clams still squirming around in the bucket, I suddenly felt a little seasick.

Ted gave me a look. "You're going to make me do this, aren't you?"

The elusive Pacific razor clam, in all its glory. (Photo by Ted Alvarez.)

You know what would make supermarket food taste better? Making grocery shopping more like clam digging. Imagine having to paw through a bin of wet sand to find your onions, or thrash through icy waves for a chunk of Parmesan. Challenging, yes, but think of the feeling of accomplishment as you sit down to dinner.

I thought about this last Sunday as I stood knee-deep in the Pacific, wind-whipped and sandblasted. I’d come to Washington’s Roosevelt Beach on the second clam-harvest weekend of the year to up my foraging game: Having already tackled blackberries, mushrooms, and dumpster donuts, the coveted Pacific razor clam seemed the logical upgrade. The animal kingdom is a whole new ball game, even if the animal in question does look kind of like a stray pancreas.

My personal carbon offset plan has bogged down with a serious case of the Couldas.

For those of you just joining us, I’ve been on a personal quest to nullify the carbon dioxide emissions from a trip to Texas last October. All 1,858 pounds of it. Rather than buying a dubious carbon offset for the trip, I wanted to slice enough emissions from my own lifestyle to atone for my sins against the climate.

How’s that been working out, you ask? Coulda been better.

I could have cut back to once-weekly showers, saving gallon upon gallon of water. After all, it takes gobs of energy to gather, treat, and deliver fresh water on demand. I could have gone vegan, lifting resource-intensive and methane-spewing meat products from my conscience. I could have given up my apartment and my job in favor of a life spent illegally squatting in the woods and eating raccoon gristle. All that power I’ve been sucking to keep my food cold and my computer humming? Off my balance sheet.

Perhaps it won’t shock you to learn I didn’t do any of those things. That’s why, to date, I’ve managed to offset just 789.5 pounds of that mighty 1,858-pound total. Well, that’s the official tally. I’m hoping you’ll give me some credit for a side project I’ve undertaken. More on that in a minute.

A good night's haul: baked goods saved from Seattle dumpsters

It was 8:30 p.m. on a recent Sunday when it clicked. I was standing on a dark sidewalk outside of a donut shop -- the donut part is key -- getting ready to venture into my third dumpster of the evening, when I at last saw diving for the brilliant enterprise it is. And I owe it all to an unassuming black trash bag.

As you well know if you read my last column, I didn’t quite get the hang of the whole diving thing at first. I was actually kinda repulsed by the idea of picking through sodden food refuse in back alleys, even if it meant rescuing perfectly good eats going to waste in commercial trash bins for superficial reasons. But I appealed to you, dear readers, for help, and then I picked myself up for another go.

I’ve come up successful on four dumpster dives now. I’ll get back to that donut shop in a minute, but first, the tales of other dumpsters I’ve known, and the lessons I’ve learned along the way:

Perhaps I should have seen this coming. The very name "dumpster diving" makes the nature of the activity pretty clear. It doesn't hide behind a sanitized euphemism, like, say, "gently used snack gathering." It's right there in the title. Dumpsters -- you dive in them. But as I stood behind a neighborhood bakery, peering into a slimy abyss of trash, there was only one thought in my mind: Somehow I thought it'd be less putrid. I admit, I was reluctant when Grist first suggested that I investigate the dumpster-diving phenomenon firsthand. But now that good old-fashioned garbage-picking has gone all …