Bring your own bag!

From an email subscription from 1/2 Price Books, comes the following green tip. If we really want to reduce our dependence on oil, we need to look beyond just what cars consume. Our everyday shopping and living habits consume quite a bit!

GREEN TIP No. 010
It’s good to b(eco)me carried away.
Paper or plastic? How about neither. Both plastic and paper bags are less desirable for the environment, not to mention, not as strong nor as functional as reusable carriers. Keep a tote bag in your car to lug groceries and books to and fro.
BARE FACTS & STATS: it takes as much petroleum to make 14 plastic bags as it does to drive a car one mile. Paper bags use even more petroleum. Plastic bags are made from nonrenewable petroleum resources that require the use of toxic chemicals during production and processing. Few facilities collect and recycle them, and most plastic bags end up as litter or in landfills. Plastics production accounts for 14% of toxic air emissions in the United States. The 10 billion brown paper grocery bags used in supermarkets annually require virgin pulp to give them strength to hold heavy groceries, cutting down millions of trees for the creation of bags. Learn more at
b(eco)megreen.info

Orwell to blog

Heard about the Orwell personal diaries going online on NPR this evening - should be an interesting read. Could be quite dry at times, but as they progress into the start of WWII may provide some interesting commentary. And probably a bit more digestible a day at a time rather than reading in book form. Sounds like a good idea - we'll see how it shapes up.

Lactation Nation

Great article courtesy of Texas Monthly

hot summer

so, before i head to bed, while surfing the internet, the news was on in the background.
so i overheard

we now officially have had 38 days at or above 100

argh
thank heavens for the modern convenience of air conditioning.

no more circles

Seriously, I think we ended up painting about 100 little orange circles, and 3 or 4 coats on each, so really over 300 of them. That's not happening again! But, the whole thing is pretty cool - we're happy with the result. And now we finally have access to the drawers to put stuff away.

1 - Before, with everything pushed to the center;

2 - painting sky and ground planes;

3 - painting the 'cells'
4 - finally some tree stumps ('stem' cells)






5 - fruit!
After all of that, we were able to put together the crib tonite after one of our birthing classes. Thanks to Preston, Robin, and Emma for letting us borrow it ;) And no, the sheets aren't washed yet, but I had to put them on for the photo. Now this just gives me a great excuse for getting new coordinating sheets for the bed!