It’s Earth Day and I have decided to do the green thing and be unplugged today. I will be spending the day outdoors playing with my beautiful girls and readying my garden for this summer. Today I will not be posting my Fabulous Five post because I will not be on the computer but will certainly be back next Friday with a list of five more wonderful bloggers to share with you. Keeping with the spirit of Earth Day, I will be recycling some posts from the very beginning..2 years ago, when the only person who read me was my wonderful Big Guy.
Remembering the Bliss of Birth
Play dates: A Brief Deviation
2 year old Selective Hearing Syndrome and Other Nuggets of Wisdom
Hell on Wheels in Pink Taffeta and a Helmet
Bringing Home Baby
Waking Up Mommy
Potty Training~ the Next Frontier
Breaking Up is Hard to Do
Road tripping with toddlers or Hell on Wheels
Hey, Look at the Fat Girl
And if you are looking for some great Earth Day ideas and ways to be #kind2earth and to raise environmentally aware and responsible children please take a look at this article.
Happy Earth Day! Now go outside and enjoy this wonderful planet!
Earth Day 2011 is almost upon us. What are you planning on doing with your children to save our planet? Can’t we all stand to be a little greener? I KNOW we can in my house. Sure I take steps to be kind to the earth but when I get too busy or things get “inconvenient” all the “Green” goes out the door. So this Earth Day, I am committing to taking some steps ( with my children) to be kind to the earth. Are you? I partnered up for an exciting Earth Day project with Nickelodeon, the National Wildlife Federation and The Motherhood.com. I signed up to be aB Kind 2 Earth Day leader for my state. You can be one too. Just sign up here. Here are a few ideas to get you started.
Photo courtesy of Google
Water
1. Use only the water you need, and reuse when possible. *Rain barrels can be used to collect rain and then you can use it to water a family garden. *Bathe together. Put the kids in the tub together. Shower with your kids or your husband. It’s saves water, creates memories and nurtures the bond between siblings.
2. Dispose of solid and liquid wastes and medications safely. *Take advantage of medication take-back programs or household hazardous waste collection programs that accept medications, pharmaceuticals, oil, paint and other liquid wastes.
3. Protect your local water source from pollutants, excess pesticides and garbage. *Everyone lives in a watershed — the area that drains to a common waterway, such as a stream, lake, estuary, wetland, aquifer, or even the ocean — and our individual actions can directly affect it. For example, watch the weather and apply necessary chemicals when the rain won’t wash them away, and dispose of livestock or pet’s waste appropriately or litter off the ground.
Image courtesy of Google, View Courtesy of Mother Nature!
Air
1. Pass on gas! Take public transportation, carpool, plan your day to reduce trips and vehicle emissions.
2. Make sure your home’s air is healthy, learn about indoor air pollutants from indoor energy use and toxins.
3. Reduce your potential for exposure to mercury.
4. Plant a tree. Or plant many trees! Plant a garden. Plant a vegetable garden.
5. Prevent additional air pollution by finding alternatives to burning your waste.
The air we breathe, the life we live
Land
1. Use pesticides safely! Reduce or eliminate where possible.
2. Learn about composting, try it out!
3. Learn about ‘Greenscaping’! Try it out at home and promote it in your community.
*By simply changing your landscape to a Green- Scape, you can save time and money and protect the environment. *Save time by landscaping with plants that require less care *Save money by eliminating unnecessary water and chemical use *Protect the environment by: *Conserving water supplies. *Using chemicals properly and only when necessary to keep waterways and drinking water clean. *Reducing yard waste by recycling yard trimmings into free fertilizer.
4. Learn about the native species and the negative effects of non native plants and animals in the environment. Plant native species in your gardens, encourage important pollinators such as bees and birds by planting gardens full of their favorite plants. Join a team in your community that removes non-native species.
Photo Courtesy of my Brother in Law
Energy
1. Save energy at home Choose energy-saving appliances if they’re available. Look for Energy Star!
2. Hang dry your clothes.
3. Go renewable! Create your own power from wind, the sun, water, or biofuels.
4. Find alternate ways to reduce use of diesel and other fuels for transportation, production and energy.
Waste
1. Reuse. Upcycle! Take something that is disposable and transform it into something of greater use and value.
2. Recycle metals, plastics and paper
3. E-cycle Recycle and/or properly dispose of electronic waste such as computers and other gadgets
4. Don’t litter! Properly dispose of trash and waste
Photo courtesy of Google
This Earth Day, my family will spend the day outside and unplugged; being mindful of our footprint. We will be staying around our home, working in our garden. I also think it’s time to teach the girls about how to separate the recyclables. On a daily basis, my girls are mindful of their footprint and the older they get the more I will explain. For now, they can help by turning off lights, separating recyclables, not wasting, bathing together, buying locally grown organic foods, helping Mommy hang the clothes on the line and remember the reusable grocery sacs. Life is good. Let’s help it stay that way but raising responsible, socially and environmentally aware children.
The world is a beautiful place and we are allowed to marvel and enjoy her on a daily basis! Please take care of her! Recycle. Reuse. Reduce! Happy Earth Day 2011! The link I am including is a link to great ideas for Earth Day activities to do with your children. Go to a National park, the local farmers market, just go outside and enjoy the marvelous planet of ours! And remember to be #kind2Earth!
How do you say Goodbye to someone that you never really knew? This is the dilemma that I am faced with tonight. A few weeks ago a received the call that my estranged Grandmother was sick and in the hospital. I was told that it might be cancer. The news was shocking, but not like you might think.It was the shocking in the sort of a way that you might feel if a total stranger told you that they just found out that they might have cancer. You feel bad. Of course, cancer is a terrible thing to have happen to anyone. I hate cancer. But more that that, I was upset because I was going to have to be the one to tell my father.
My father, like most Daddies to little girls, is seen through my eyes as stoic and tough. He always has been . He never cries and he seldom admits he’s wrong. He demands respect and he is an authentic man among a world of phonies. My father has never been perfect, has seldom been soft but has always fiercely loved his children. I never wanted to be the one to break his heart.There’s just something about the vulnerability of a man crying, that completely destroys me.
Since the call, my father has returned to the states and we have learned that my father’s mother does in fact have stage 4 cancer that has spread throughout her pancreas, stomach and her lungs. Today, she decided that she does not want to take the medicine any longer because she feels out of sorts. She is a very proud woman, even when she is hooked up to machines and nearing her end. The original timeline was 6 months but with ceasing the medication and giving up the will to fight, we are assuming that it will come much quicker.
I received another call tonight, it was to come and see my Grandmother and say my goodbyes. But the problem is that I’d feel like a hypocrite going to the bedside of a dying woman that I barely knew to say my final goodbye. For me, it would be like standing at the edge of a complete strangers bed and telling them that I will miss them and I love them. The problem is that I DON’T know her.I’m not even sure that I love her more than the stranger on the street.At this point, the only thing that we share is my father and our blood. It sounds so callous and hard to say out loud and I am sure that you think me a complete monster, but I must admit that it is the way I feel. I feel for her that she is dying and she wants to mend her fences before she leaves the world. But she has never wanted to mend the fences before. In fact, she is the one who, metaphorically, couldn’t have the fence the way she wanted it and so her temper got the better of her and she kicked that little fence until it began to break. Instead of fixing that poor breaking fence, every time she passed that fence she kicked it and kicked it until finally one day she completely broke it and then she never looked at the fence again…for 30 years. The fence was of no consequence to her.
My heart aches for my dad, to see his mother dying.My heart aches for her that she will probably never get to mend her fences and for myself and my children, who never really got to know the woman who brought my father into the world. I pray for peace for all of us.
Happy Earth Day! Now go outside and enjoy this wonderful planet!
