Hey Chicagoans! Are you and your closet ready for Winter?

I’m coming to you live from my ice cold living room. I am fully decked out in wool sweater, wool socks, and completely wrapped up in a blanket. (Think human burrito.) It feels like the cold weather hit us out of nowhere and I am one of those stubborn people who hates to turn their heat on before November. (I get it from my mother by the way.)

Anyways, every fall and spring, I do some major closet organizing. This is not limited to just the coat closet. I do my closet that I share with my husband, the kids’ closets, and our coat closet. We are pretty limited on closet space (as most people are here in Chicago) so we can’t just keep everything in there. I follow the following steps pretty closely but feel free to change it up a little bit to suit your lifestyle.

It’s good to have helpers!

1) Pull out all the clothes and throw them on the bed. I like to sort through all of my clothes and if I haven’t worn it in the last year it gets donated. This is a little more important for my kids stuff. They grow so quickly that there are always clothes that are too small in their closet. So, it’s October and I won’t be needing my shorts and tank tops for the cold a$$ winter months. I like to store these items in big flat sterilite bins that stack nicely in our basement storage. I choose the clear ones because then you can see whats in each tub. I put all the summer clothes that I am keeping into the bins. Clothes that we have outgrown or don’t wear anymore get donated to local organizations that are in need. (email me if you are looking for donation centers!)

2) Hang up all of your sweaters and warm winter clothes! I am a little crazy about having matching hangers but ultimately its nice to just have thick plastic hangers that can support the weight of a heavy sweater. I like to sort the clothes by type and by color but I know not everyone is as crazy as me.

3) We have two adults and two kids in this house and in the winter that means we have about a hundred mittens, hats, and scarves floating around. I like these collapsible soft boxes because in the summer I can hide them away when we don’t need them. In the winter I can pull them out again and fill them with all of our winter accessories.

4) At the end of winter, I get our heavy coats dry cleaned. (And they need it.) So now in October, I remove them from their plastic bag and carry up these monstrous, but necessary, coats to hang in the upstairs coat closet.

So if you take anything away from this, please remember the following three things:

• Donate! Don’t Toss! - It’s getting cold here in Chicago and there are many people in need of warm clothes: help them out! If you have coats to donate but don’t know where to take them, email me and we’ll help you out!

• Organize your life - The feeling of opening a newly organized closet is wonderful. Especially when the clothes are sorted by color. :)

• Think warm - The cold icy air came a little sooner than expected so its time to get out your warm winter accessories and coats.

If you have any questions or need help tackling your closets, please don’t hesitate to email me at courtney@puromundum.com. Organizing is my jam and I’m always happy to help!

Recycling in Chicago

Ever wonder what can go into those blue recycling bins? The city of Chicago created this great infographic to break it down! Should I bag my recyclables? Do they need to be rinsed? Once you’re a pro, take this quiz to see how much you’ve learned!

30 Days Without Cans: Good Try or Epic Fail?

Well it is time to pay the piper. I epically failed at my self-imposed challenge of going thirty days without using aluminum cans.

So here is what happened. We got a soda stream and I can’t say enough good things about this contraption. I love a good glass of sparkling water and the soda stream came through for me. The first two weeks were great. I drank the soda stream water and we filled our growler a couple of times at Half Acre and at Metropolitan. (Both excellent breweries if you haven’t been yet!)

Now here is where it all went south. We hosted a birthday party for my daughter’s fourth birthday about two weeks into the challenge. We invited about 60 people over to our house. I knew we couldn’t make enough sparkling water in the soda stream for everyone so I (sigh) bought some La Croix at Costco. Now the day of the birthday party I didn’t drink one but the days following I weakly helped myself to the deliciousness that is La Croix.

If the La Croix slip up been my only failure, I don’t think I could classify it as epic. But fast forward to a few days later to my friend Ryan’s birthday at the Cubs’ game and I managed to drink a couple of cans of Bud Light without even thinking about it. (Palm to face)

Where does that leave my challenge? One of my favorite quotes says ‘we don’t need a handful of people doing zero waste perfectly. We need millions of people doing it imperfectly.’ For two weeks, I did a very good job avoiding aluminum cans. If we can all be a little more mindful about things like aluminum can usage we are heading in the right direction. We can’t change overnight but making these small changes is progress. (Plus, I recycled all of my shame-filled La Croix cans. So there’s that…)

Starting tomorrow, I am going to give thirty days without cans another try! Who is with me?

Author: Courtney Bellmann

The DANK Haus

My family and I relocated from Munich, Germany to Chicago in the summer of 2016. It was very important to me to find a place to continue our ties to Germany. My husband is German and both of our children have American and German passports. I was thrilled when I found the DANK Haus in Lincoln Square online. I was double thrilled when I saw that it was within walking distance of our apartment.

The DANK Haus, the German American Cultural Center, is located at 4740 North Western Ave. It is just steps away from the Western brown line stop. We first enrolled our daughter in the weekly ‘Krabbelgruppe.’ We sang German songs, played, and met other families in similar situations to us. We love the DANK Haus and all of its wonderful programs so much that we make it a point to volunteer as much as possible. They put on many cultural events from cooking classes, to their monthly Stammtisch (meetup), to other special occasions like the World Cup watch party and the Eurovision watch party. The Kinderschule teaches German to children from ages 1 to 14.

So, why am I talking so much about the DANK Haus? I created Puro Mundum for two reasons. The first, to help people get their homes organized. The second reason is to then collect items that people no longer want and donate them to local non-profits that need them. I have a list of items that our beloved DANK Haus could use. If you have some of these things in your home and don’t need them anymore, please consider donating them to one of Lincoln Square’s favorite organizations.

Here is their wish list!!!!!

1) Tools and cleaning supplies: This includes but is not limited to: rags, paint brushes, zip ties, and a staple gun

2) Dining room table with chairs in good condition (farm style would be amazing)

3) Clear stacking tubs with lids

4) Christmas: nice strands of Christmas lights, a 9/10 ft Christmas tree, and nice, larger decorations

5) Full length mirror

6) Matching hangers

7) Large planters for the garden

If you have any of these items and you’d like to donate them please email courtney@puromundum.com or lauraengel@dankhaus.com

Author: Courtney Bellmann

Rosé All Day

Recently, I invited a few friends over to my house to test out some metal wine glasses and cocktail tumblers. We tried the Yeti wine tumbler, the Klean Kanteen 8 oz tumbler, the Corkcicle classic stemless wine cup, the Yeti 10 oz. lowball rambler, and finally the Hydro Flask 10 oz tumbler. We put them all through very rigorous testing and evaluated them based on several different categories.

Style

In the style category we agreed that Corkcicle and Hydroflask were the winners. They come in a ton of different colors and look nice and sleek. We really like the look of the two Yetis but the colors they come in tend to be more masculine (navy, dark red, stainless steel, etc.) The Klean Kanteen only comes in black and stainless steel.

Chill Factor

The cups that kept our rosé/water/apple juice the coldest longest were the Yeti and the Klean Kanteen. Although, we also agreed that our glasses of rose never last that long so this would only be really important on a very hot day or a beach vacation.

Durability

My daughter decided that when she was done with her apple juice that she would throw the Klean Kanteen tumbler down our concrete steps. It didn’t dent at all. A little bit of the black color chipped off. This cup also comes in stainless steel, so I imagine you wouldn’t have the chipping problem with the stainless steel. We didn’t throw the other cups down the steps so I can’t tell you what would happen with them. The Yeti, however, felt the most sturdy in our hands.

Price (Cheapest to Most Expensive)

Klean Kanteen 8 oz. Tumbler: $17.95

Yeti 10 oz. Rambler Lowball: $19.99

Corkcicle Classic Stemless Wine Cup: $22.95

Hydro Flask 10 oz Wine Glass: $29.99

Yeti Wine Tumbler: $24.99 plus a lid for $9.99

Is it Leak Proof???

This was a fun test. We turned them upside down and shook them to see if liquid came out. (Don’t worry, we used water. I’m not one to waste rosé.) We only did this with the Corkcicle and the Yeti wine glass with the magnet slider lid. All of the other cups have lids that don’t close, so they will obviously leak. The Yeti didn’t lose a single drop! The corkcicle, on the other hand, was very leaky.

Overall

Our overall winner is the Yeti wine tumbler. It might be the most expensive one but it kept the wine cold for the longest amount of time. It didn’t leak, even when we shook super hard! It also feels very good in your hand. It is a high quality product and very durable. (Plus, doesn’t Brittni look super cool holding it?) Our second favorite is the Hydroflask wine tumbler. It comes in lots of pretty colors but is also very functional.

Author: Courtney Bellmann

30 Tage Ohne Dosen

When I lived in Germany, we very rarely drank out of aluminum cans. In Germany, all aluminum cans have a twenty-five cent deposit on them. The deposit can be refunded at any location where cans are sold. However, it really pushed us to drink less soda. When we, on occasion, drank beer, we would drink it out of glass bottles. The bottles also have a deposit but its only seven cents. (For some reason the seven cents was easier to swallow, even though we always returned the bottles and cans. Ha Ha!)

So what’s going on with aluminum cans? Why does Germany want to discourage people from drinking out of them or at the very least, make it very painful to not recycle them? It takes more energy to mine and produce aluminum than any other metal. According to The World Counts, we are using over 200 billion aluminum cans a year. (And now take this next statistic with a grain of salt considering the source) The Aluminum Association states that 67% of aluminum cans are recycled in the United States.

This brings me to our 30 Tage Ohne Dosen challenge. My husband and I have decided that we are going to do our very best to go the next thirty days without buying or consuming any beverages out of aluminum cans. Before you worry that we won’t be able to drink any beer or sparkling water, (GASP) we have plan.

One of my passions is to support local businesses. In Lincoln Square, we are surrounded by amazing breweries that will fill up your growlers with their delicious beer. When the time comes to buy some beer, we’ll just hit up our favorite brewery and bring our growler. :)

Sparkling water is a whole different story. I drink many, many cans a day and love it so very much. Our plan to tackle this addiction is to buy a soda stream. This comes with a high initial cost but my husband has found a pretty clever way to bring down the long-term costs. It requires a little bit of space but we are purchasing a large C02 tank that will live in our basement. We’ll be able to refill the tank for the soda stream twenty times for a couple of dollars each time.

If this sounds way too extreme for you (and check back in with me in a few weeks after giving up my precious La Croix) one thing you can do to make a difference is ALWAYS RECYCLE YOUR CANS!!!! Also, check our instagram (@puromundum) in the next few weeks for pictures of our new C02 tank. It’ll be a beauty.

Author: Courtney Bellmann

It’s all about the Metal Water Bottles!

Klean Kanteen? Yeti? Hydro Flask? Swell? In my quest to limit our plastic use at home, I’ve been on the lookout for the best metal water bottle for our lifestyle. I’ve tried out a few different brands, asked my friends what they like and finally, the toughest critics, I let my kids give it a whirl.

Overall, the big winner for me is Klean Kanteen. It is best suited for our day to day needs. It comes with a variety of different caps. The sports cap is great if you’re going to the gym. It has a sippy cup lid that is perfect for my two year old son. I also like that it comes in so many different sizes. I have the 40 ounce size to sip on during the day and the 27 ounce for when I go to the gym. It is also extremely durable. My kids really put them to the test and they have survived.

Another one that I really liked was the Yeti. If you are only looking for a bottle that will keep your water cold all day, the Yeti is excellent. I tried the Yeti 26 ounce rambler bottle. It is a decent size and really keeps the cold in. My only complaint is that if you are moving at all it is very difficult to drink out of the wide mouth. I’m not the most coordinated person on the planet so I can only drink out of it if I am sitting, unless I want water all over my shirt.

Now when I asked a lot of my friends what their favorites were, I had an overwhelmingly positive response to Hydroflask. It is not my personal favorite because it also features a wider mouth and I have that spilling problem. It does, however, keep your water cold for hours and it comes in lots of fun colors.

The last water bottle that I played around with was the Swell bottle. In terms of aesthetics, this bottle is number one. It is sleek and comes in all kinds of colors and patterns. In terms of price, I'm not the biggest fan. The smallest, cheapest one is going to run you about $35. With two kids its not the most affordable option.

So let’s wrap this up. Klean Kanteen might be my favorite (and no, they didn’t give me any free bottles for this blog unfortunately) but ultimately switching to a metal water bottle and ditching the one time use plastic bottles is such a great decision that it really doesn’t matter which one you choose. It’s an easy switch to make that has long lasting effects on the environment. According to the Environmental Working Group, Americans consume roughly 8.6 billion gallons of bottled water annually and only one in five bottles is recycled. With over 5.25 trillion pieces of plastic debris floating in the ocean we have to do better. Go out and get whichever reusable bottle you love best and do your part. :)

Author: Courtney Bellmann