Litter bugs!

This is a short little rant by me about throwing things on the ground. You’ve been warned.
Today the girls and I had a great day at the park, then right after the park we headed over to the post office. I was putting little miss K in the car when I realized that my Birkenstock, I know so crunchy, was sticking to the pavement. I tried to pretend that it wasn’t gum, but we all know the feeling of stepping in hot gum. It sort of oozes through the tread on your shoes and finds its way into every nook & cranny.
I immediately start doing the get the gum off my shoe dance, and B thinks it’s so funny looking that she joins in. Now not only do I have gum on my favorite pair of shoes, but my 3 year old is mocking me without even knowing she’s doing it.
So here’s my issue people.  Why throw anything on the ground when there are garbage cans everywhere?  Not only does it make our streets, highways and parks look horrible not to mention what it does to animals, but don’t you realize that you could be the one to step in your own stupid gum? If for no other reason than that, please throw your garbage away!

Survey Says

Hi all! I’m trying to get a better understanding of how/why people choose to live green or not. If you have a minute and don’t mind filling out random little surveys I’d really appreciate it. Thank you!!!
Please answer the following questions in a comment to the site.  Thank you
1. Do you try to live a green lifestyle? Please tell me why for both yes & no answers
2. What do you think will make the biggest positive impact to the environment? (driving less miles, eating organic etc)
3. How do you try to reduce your impact on the environment?
4. Do you talk to your children about being environmentally responsible?
5. Does fear play into your environmental choices?
6. If money wasn’t an issue what is one thing that you would change about your life/house to make it more eco friendly?
7. Do you recycle?
8. What is your biggest challenge when it comes to being Eco friendly?

Again Thank you!!!!

Drastic Plastic challenge

I’m just doing a little horn tooting today. It’s been over a year since we last had plastic baggies in our house, of any size. Yes sometimes this has been a huge pain! Like where do you put a half used onion, if you put it in a plastic container the container stinks for life. But the feeling of keeping so many sandwich baggies out of the landfill is worth it! I will say there are days when it would be so nice to shove a sandwich into a little plastic baggie and then throw that baggie away when done, but after the first few months it was easy.

If your feeling up to the challenge, try giving up the one use plastic baggies.

There are a lot of cool other options out there.

check out some of these sites
http://mightynest.com/shop/reusable-sandwich-snack-bags/magenta-reusable-plastic-sandwichsnack-wraps-set-of-2

http://www.ecoditty.com/ This company uses organic cotton to make their super cute and colorful sandwich bags, really you should check them out!

http://lifewithoutplastic.com/boutique/cotton-hemp-sandwich-p-313.html

Know you have a few places to start your no toss plastic challenge.  I’d love to hear how you do!

Conversation with a preschooler

Have you ever talked to a preschooler? It is one of the funniest, sweetest things I’ve ever had the chance to do.  I’m sure it’s more enjoyable since the preschooler is my own, but preschoolers are a funny breed.   They are learning about the world around them and every experience is new and hopefully exciting.  Sometimes my preschooler takes things so  literal all I can do is think yeah technically that’s right, but not really what I meant. Like eight & ate.  A resent misunderstanding “If I eight it is it still this many” (holding up 8 little fingers) Um, OK anyone else want to explain this one?  Today’s misunderstanding might be my all time favorite, for now at least.

Exact conversation:
Me “B we need to brush your hair it’s a birds nest”
B “OK mom” as she’s scratching her ear
Me “does your ear hurt?”
B “I think the bird built the nest in my ear”

It’s the innocents that makes them so literal and it’s the innocents that I want to try and keep for my girls as long as I can, as I’m sure most parents do.  I think that might be why it’s so hard for a lot of parents to talk to their kids about the environment and being green.  I think a lot of the Green Eco lifestyle comes out of fear and being scared of what will happen if we don’t live green.

We have started talking to B about living green. We don’t use the term “being green”, could you imagine what a preschooler might think if you told them they were going to be “green”. B already knows that banana peels or conana (as she calls them) don’t go into the garbage, but go into the chicken bowl.  She reminds us to bring our canvas bags to the store and don’t forget to turn off the lights when you leave a room cause she will not let it slide.  She also knows that we eat organic foods because “they are better for everyone.” All these little things are fun, helpful & practical. We are trying to encourage her to start habits now that are Eco friendly, that she will do w/out thinking about as she gets older.

We also talk about not wasting things like water, food & even toys. Toys I know sounds weird, but really everything that is throw away ends up in land fills.  We try to give all of the things in our house a second home when we are done with them. We involve B in the process of going through old stuff & bringing them to the goodwill, salvation army or where ever they need to go. Just another habit.  So why do this & how do you start?

I think anything that has to do with young kids and big topics it needs to be brought to their level and have a positive spin on it. With this particular topic I think the more fun you make it the more kids will enjoy it. Make a game out of it.  See who can remember to turn off the most lights each day or build a container to start a compost bin and turn it into a family project, nothing says fun like worms and dirt.

I think the why is simple, young kids need to learn to care about the world around them at a younger age than any other generation has before.

I would love to hear more ways that you make being Green fun for your kids.

B is already sharing all her Green secrets with little K