2. random musings. the other night i sliced up two whole batches of strawberries while sitting in bed with the hubs. this made me feel like something of a pioneer in the area of taking the comfort of pregnant women to new and wonderfully extreme heights. I had a huge cutting board, the strawberries, a glass bowl, a small bag for garbage, and a big ole knife in bed with me. it was awesome i tell you. awesome. we watched backed up episodes of "lost" and "the marriage ref" on our make-shift "poor-man's tivo" (aka a moded Xbox) as i sliced and sliced and sliced away in my jams. i even got into a really nice rhythm where i cut up a strawberry, ate a strawberry, cut up a strawberry, ate a strawberry. it was all rather lovely. you're welcome pregnant women everywhere. not only is the bedroom now an okay place for eating... it has also been deemed an ideal location for food preparation! yay us!
3. my contribution to earth day. let me be frank. i am not really "into" the whole environmental movement thingy that Al Gore and Leo DiCaprio and their happy band of idealistic, overpriviledged, prius-driving misfits have gotten everyone all riled up about. hippies, actors, and x-politicians alike tend to be too extreme/naive/starry-eyed/self-righteous for me to ever hope to identify with them or come to some sort of an understanding about where they are coming from.
it's all too much.
too "doom and gloom."
too "end of the world"
and far too ridden with something we mothers
already know far too much about. that's right.
the big g.
guilt, baby.
our loving homes are garbage factories.
we have carbon footprints
(what does that even mean?!)
the size of texas.
every time we throw plastic in the trash,
a dolphin cries and is subsequently slaughtered
by a japanese fisherman.
we are all horrible, horrible people.
in their eyes, paper-towel users are basically the spawn of satan.
we get it. and we don't like being told this over and over and over again.
we got it the first time.
our very existence is detrimental
to the well-being of the earth.
we suck.
noted.
but today, while innocently blog-hopping/stalking around my lappytop, i managed to make a serendipitous (and very "earth day" appropriate) stumble across a site called gorgeously green. and i really loved it. it had useful (and non-fanatical) information, a lot of commonsense, and great suggestions for small, positive changes we can make in our everyday lives. kinda nice. my favorite discovery of the day was learning how to make a fruit and veggie spray that gets rid of pesticides. this is for those of us who can't afford to buy everything organic, but would certainly like to. i thought that washing fruits and veggies really well was enough. not so.
but today, while innocently blog-hopping/stalking around my lappytop, i managed to make a serendipitous (and very "earth day" appropriate) stumble across a site called gorgeously green. and i really loved it. it had useful (and non-fanatical) information, a lot of commonsense, and great suggestions for small, positive changes we can make in our everyday lives. kinda nice. my favorite discovery of the day was learning how to make a fruit and veggie spray that gets rid of pesticides. this is for those of us who can't afford to buy everything organic, but would certainly like to. i thought that washing fruits and veggies really well was enough. not so.
the author of gorgeously green was on oprah, and i watched the video clip on her site. the clip is fun, and Julia Roberts is in it. so if you like big, pretty teeth, helpful advice, and worm composting bin thingers, you should watch it. if you don't like those sorts of things, but want the ingredients for the veggies/fruit spray, i have posted it below:
pesticide spray:
one cup vinegar
one cup plain distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon baking soda
20 drops GSE (grapefruit seed extract)
pour into spray bottle
spray vegetables and leave for 5-10 minutes then rinse
no more pesticides! yay!
4. in summary. this is how i think i feel about earth day:
a. being fanatical and doomsday-ish doesn't help anything.
b. being positive and optimistic can sort of help everything.
c. i sort of like the idea of using "for the good of the earth" as an excuse for not showering as often as i should...
d. i am something of a closet granola. i got really excited (like, more excited than any woman ever should get) about that worm bucket thing they featured in the oprah clip posted above. i love worms. always have. pet worms sound charming. they sound even more charming when you take all of their nutrient-rich poop uses/benefits into account. worm poop ='s awesome.
e. i really want my own chickens someday. there is something so insanely charming about that...i can't even adequately express it. i. want. chickens. walking around my backyard. eating bugs. laying eggs. clucking contentedly. making me feel whole inside for reasons i don't understand, but suspect may stem from a late-blooming adoration for emery county and all things rural, wholesome, and farm-y.
f. i already don't use paper towels, and it makes me feel infinitely "better than" all of you out there who do. imagine how superior i will feel when i get my chickens and worm compost-y bucket thingamajig up and running. i won't even be able to talk to most of you anymore. my blog will have to go private so only amazing, "green people" can bask in my words of wisdom and goodness. which brings me to...
g. judging other people and/or trying to guilt them into changing is the least effective method ever invented. the key is to educate, inspire, and enlighten. people who absorb enlightened information are changed almost instantaneously by the very nature and goodness of the information absorbed. change inevitably (and near-effortlessly) follows. knowledge is power. pretty much the only power we really have.
h. pregnant women (well, okay, most women and sensitive people in general) should probably change the channel when oprah's earth day special segways into clips from an academy award-winning documentary (the cove) all about hundreds of dolphins being slaughtered in a blood filled cove in japan. i'm pretty sure that my soul is eternally scarred. it made me feel sick, and really sad, and super angry, and sort of fanatical all of the sudden. then i finally understood why some of those crazy hippies can't pipe down about the things they care about. sometimes things happen and your soul sort of screams at you and says it won't be your friend anymore if you don't stinking do somthing about it. so then you have to. well, that or be forced to go running around without a soul... so i guess i even have to cut the al gores of the world some slack now. boo. (sorry gore-haters)
i. while i do think that everything can be done in wisdom and moderation, i also think that we are guests here. more than guests, we are stewards. i'm going to try to start acting like one. (at least for as long as it's super-savvy and hip to be "green" that is... when DiCaprio is out, so am i. ;)
pesticide spray:
one cup vinegar
one cup plain distilled white vinegar
1 tablespoon baking soda
20 drops GSE (grapefruit seed extract)
pour into spray bottle
spray vegetables and leave for 5-10 minutes then rinse
no more pesticides! yay!
4. in summary. this is how i think i feel about earth day:
a. being fanatical and doomsday-ish doesn't help anything.
b. being positive and optimistic can sort of help everything.
c. i sort of like the idea of using "for the good of the earth" as an excuse for not showering as often as i should...
d. i am something of a closet granola. i got really excited (like, more excited than any woman ever should get) about that worm bucket thing they featured in the oprah clip posted above. i love worms. always have. pet worms sound charming. they sound even more charming when you take all of their nutrient-rich poop uses/benefits into account. worm poop ='s awesome.
e. i really want my own chickens someday. there is something so insanely charming about that...i can't even adequately express it. i. want. chickens. walking around my backyard. eating bugs. laying eggs. clucking contentedly. making me feel whole inside for reasons i don't understand, but suspect may stem from a late-blooming adoration for emery county and all things rural, wholesome, and farm-y.
f. i already don't use paper towels, and it makes me feel infinitely "better than" all of you out there who do. imagine how superior i will feel when i get my chickens and worm compost-y bucket thingamajig up and running. i won't even be able to talk to most of you anymore. my blog will have to go private so only amazing, "green people" can bask in my words of wisdom and goodness. which brings me to...
g. judging other people and/or trying to guilt them into changing is the least effective method ever invented. the key is to educate, inspire, and enlighten. people who absorb enlightened information are changed almost instantaneously by the very nature and goodness of the information absorbed. change inevitably (and near-effortlessly) follows. knowledge is power. pretty much the only power we really have.
h. pregnant women (well, okay, most women and sensitive people in general) should probably change the channel when oprah's earth day special segways into clips from an academy award-winning documentary (the cove) all about hundreds of dolphins being slaughtered in a blood filled cove in japan. i'm pretty sure that my soul is eternally scarred. it made me feel sick, and really sad, and super angry, and sort of fanatical all of the sudden. then i finally understood why some of those crazy hippies can't pipe down about the things they care about. sometimes things happen and your soul sort of screams at you and says it won't be your friend anymore if you don't stinking do somthing about it. so then you have to. well, that or be forced to go running around without a soul... so i guess i even have to cut the al gores of the world some slack now. boo. (sorry gore-haters)
i. while i do think that everything can be done in wisdom and moderation, i also think that we are guests here. more than guests, we are stewards. i'm going to try to start acting like one. (at least for as long as it's super-savvy and hip to be "green" that is... when DiCaprio is out, so am i. ;)
