Friday, April 22, 2011

Happy Earth Day!

April 22 is Earth Day, so Happy Earth Day everyone!!  I think it's fun to have a day to say "Happy Earth Day" and great that we have a day dedicated to our Earth and taking care of it, but we truly need to make every day Earth day.  I saw this before and thought, "How true!"  "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  Seriously, how true is that?  It's our job to take care of our planet today so that our children and our children's children, etc., so on can enjoy it.  And guess what?  That doesn't mean you have to make huge changes.  It's all about reducing your carbon footprint.  Find the things that you can fit into your life and do those.  For us, it started with recycling.  It was something we could easily do each day.  (And, I have to be honest, we really only started that because our Haley Bug made us!  She is all about going green and has been for several years now!  I love that about her.)  Now that she has turned us on to being green, we like it.  I'm not perfect by any means.  One thing I am never going to do is use cloth diapers!!  I love my Earth and I know all these crazy amounts of diapers we are using are clogging up landfills, but I just cannot bring myself to switch to cloth diapers.  YUCK!  But if we ALL do something, lots of small changes = a BIG change in the impact on our Earth.  To that end, here are the things we do - again, not a lot, nor Earth shattering (interesting choice of words for today!  LOL) but we are doing something!

  • We recycle.  All glass, plastic, newspaper, magazines and cardboard go in our recycling bin.  The city of Chesapeake got real about recycling about a year or so ago and gave us these nice big recycling cans instead of the one little blue bin we had before.  Now, if they would just start recycling every week instead of every other!  We definitely fill this sucker up in 2 weeks!  I'm pretty sure we could fill it every week by adding paper to our recycling list.



  • We switched from incandescent light bulbs to CFL light bulbs. CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs use at least 2/3 less energy than a standard incandescent light bulb. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road.  The drawback?  They do contain mercury, so will need to be recycled properly and never thrown in the trash.  The good news?  They don't need to be changed all that often, so it's not that big of a deal!  :-)

  • We use reusable grocery bags.  Ok, I'm not going to lie.  Sometimes I forget my bags - I'm not perfect!  But I do my best to remember to grab them and use them when I do my big grocery trip every 2 weeks.  What I need to try to do is use reusable bags for all my shopping trips.  This is something I plan to try to work on.  Why is it so important to use reusable bags?  Check out this website to find out!

  • We are growing a garden.  This one is a work in progress!  We just started our garden this year.  Our seedlings are growing and Mike has already prepared the area for our garden.  Hopefully it all works out, but again, it's all about doing your best!  How does growing a garden reduce your carbon footprint?  You use your energy to maintain and harvest your garden versus the use of machines in large agribusinesses.  There is also no need to transport them.  A small change, which doesn't sound like much, but again, lots of small changes = a big impact!

There are a lot more things we could be doing, and I am constantly working toward being more mindful - always with the help of my Haley Bug!  ♥  Want more ideas for "going green?"  Do a Google search!  There's lots of great information out there.

So, after 2 weeks of not being able to go to the gym, I was finally able to make it this afternoon because Mike got off early from work!  So, I did my first Fitquest workout and then ... ZUMBA!  My favorite instructor was teaching tonight, Jessica Webster.  She is just so cute and full of energy - she really makes you want to keep going.  I loved reading about how she has lost 125 pounds!!  Holy cow - there's some motivation for ya!  (In case you didn't notice, her name is a link to her Zumba instructor page.)  So far, Zumba has been fun no matter who the instructor is, but I really love her.  I got a cute a super cute "I Love Zumba" bracelet from her after class tonight.  I hope the girls are all better next week so I can start going on the regular again!  I will definitely be going tomorrow morning though, since Daddy will be here to watch the sickies!  ;-)

Speaking of the sickies, Carly and Callie are doing a lot better.  Carly only needed one breathing treatment today and I only wiped a few snotty noses.  Hopefully that means they are on their way to kicking these nasty sickies.  I did notice Callie coughing a few times today - REALLY hoping that doesn't turn into wheezing like Carly.  I honestly cannot even fathom having to hold her down for a treatment!  LOL  Callie is still commando crawling away, but has gotten up on her knees a few times.  Carly is crawling like a champ all over the living room.  It is the cutest darn thing ever!  I just can't get over how big they are getting SO FAST!

I had planned on making dirt cake cups for Earth Day, but the day got away from me.  Mickey would have thought that was cool I think.  Or, being OCD, she might have thought it was disgusting!  LOL  It's the thought that counts, right?  :-)

2 comments:

  1. I love my cloth diapers believe it or not! Way less work than anticipated. Also, do you live near the Navy base? I believe one of my high school friends also raves about your Zumba instructor. They are a Navy family in Virginia - wouldn't that be a small world?

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  2. I don't think I could handle the mess, Jennifer!!! You go girl! We do live in the Navy base area - my husband is in the Navy as well! How funny would that be?? It really is a small world.

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