Tag Archives: environment

Do We Really Need ALL This Back To School Stuff?

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The calendar page turns.

Holy smokes  - it’s August.

It’s that back to school time.

Can you feel it?

Time to spend absolute crazy amounts of money for “Back To School” things.

Must all those back to school things be brand spanking new?

I know it’s time to stand in squeaky new shoes, fresh haircuts, have sharpened No. 2′s ready to write, color matching notebooks and folders.  We all gear up for the delicious smell of crayons, book day, committee work, making school lunches and car pooling. We are all beginning to endure the registration lines.

I get this ritual. I did this year after year. and i love the feeling of back to school.

I use to actually save the entire year for the volume of cash I laid out at this time. I had an envelope titled school and each month I put money away.  The three major cash outlays each year;  back to school, the holidays and summer activities.

I think it’s time to pause and re-think this marketing ploy.

I think that some of the back to school expenses are not necessary.

I’d love to suggest a bit of restraint.

A bit of anti-consumerism.

Ask ourselves do we really really NEED all of this stuff?

If the shoes we have now fit, and are in good condition – could we wait to buy the new ones until we need to ?   Is there someone in school noticing if your daughter’s hair has just been cut?  Perhaps there are pencils, markers and crayons from last year that still function?? How can we re-use the binders and folders from the year prior?

I ask this not only to have one save money, but also from an environment perspective too.  So much is just pitched these days.   Mass purchasing lead to more pitching.   Where does it begin and where does end?

Think about it.

 

 

 

Meeting Artist/Author Franke James

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Just got back from a much needed and wonderful road trip to Toronto.

Artist /Author Franke James, whom I admire tremendously,  lives there and had agreed to meet me.

One can’t even begin to imagine my “pinch me” delight at this opportunity!  I say pinch me because Franke’s an inspiration to me.

Prior to my leaving, Franke shared some very alarming news about the canadian government blacklisting her pending european art show. Her post sharing this news was written the night before I left.  All I could do with the time I had was share a tweet about it pointing to her post. Her headline spoke to being silenced.

WOW — I found myself wondering how that would feel?

Imagine having your voice or your art completely squelched!

In today’s day of free speech and expression that just doesn’t seem possible, yet we ALL know censorship happens all the time.

On her blog post I wrote this comment:

Franke James examples creative brilliance, powerful voice and female gumption. Blacklisting her or any artist just isn’t right. Governments rearing their ugly heads like this show who and what they really are. I agree social media will have a field day with this, to your advantage I hope Franke – you deserve better.

Just watch social media will take this ugliness and story to a level not possible in traditional mediums. It will be interesting to see what happens as the situation continues to unfold.

Our time together was amusing.

My getting way lost in Toronto ( ugh ) delayed my arrival terribly.  She, in the mean time, found herself in between a conversation with Huffington Post and a radio interview.

I had all kinds of questions prepared in my head, yet with my late arrival, her flurry of activity, her returning from being out of town the days prior, and everything else. I found myself unfocused and I have to admit a bit star struck.

She told me I looked exactly like she imagined.  I felt the same way  – her big warm smile, giggly personality, cute as a button outfit and her trying to just go with the flow and make it all work was positively endearing. She, her home, her husband, her daughter just arriving for a visit and again the absolute flurry of her life all still had me feel welcomed, treasured and exactly what I might expect from Franke James.

I spoke to her about being famous and what that might be like and she just said …you mean that we might be normal despite being famous??   Uh – I had to agree!!

Franke James green journey captured my attention in 2007.  I was a brand new and very naive blogger.  I left a way too gushy “fan” comment on her post about her giving up her SUV. The truth was I had never been exposed to such original expression or voice.  She impressed me.  Her visual essays exampled the amazing potential and unique opportunity blogging offers.  She also examples a very human and accessible person.   Not often found in fame.

Since, and purely because of the blogosphere I have felt an integral part of her green evolvement and fame!   This speaks over and over to why I love the connecting and power of blogging.

Thanks to social media her recent turn events will not go unnoticed.

I look forward to continuing to be part of the story.

P.S.  Thank you Franke for the signed copy of your book, My Green Conscious!!

Images below taken by karen hanrahan 

 

 

Images below taken by Franke and Bill James 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Moms Wonder About Fracking

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Turns out I am not alone in my wonderings about the horrific process known as Fracking, something slotted for our very own McLean County

Fracking stands for “hydraulic fracturing,” a highly polluting and chemical process for tapping underground pools of natural gas. The process harms our drinking water supply.

Green moms took a group look at the  Fracking issue and had an emergency carnival about it – thanks to Diane of Big Green Purse for hostessing this important topic.

You might want to read what some of us learned.

 

 

 

Getting Kids Back In Touch With Nature

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This post is for this month’s Green Mom’s Carnival. The topic is ideas for getting kids back to nature. Green Phone Booth is hosting. You can view the entire collaborative commentary here

Last month I spent a day teaching kids how to make seed starter pots out of newspaper.

I was struck by several things.

What a simple fun project.

How easy it is for all ages to participate. Including myself who since has taken on planting her own seed starts!

The project involves being practical and using leftover newspapers, making something, planting a seed that one can watch grow, and growing something that is either beautiful or good to eat!!

The versatility of the project is also worth mentioning. Once the starts have sprouted a child can either plant it in their garden or in a pot on a porch or in a sunny window!! Very inexpensive also.

I was so struck by the pleasure that younger kids have in making, playing  in dirt and the idea that something will grow and become.  I was reminded of wonder and joy!!

One rather boisterous child exclaimed, “You mean it will grow and become a real flower? For real? ” His toothless grin really warmed my heart.

Make a starter pot out of newspaper or two. Plant a seed and watch it grow.  When it matures let’s say into some snap peas or radishes, or perhaps lettuce.  Eat it! And then do it all over again!!

Nature at your fingertips!

image by karen hanrahan

 

 

 

Get A Clean Oven Without Nose Hair Removal

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Oven cleaners are one of THE most dangerous cleaning products ever.

Here are a few lovely substances one might find in an oven cleaner:

Naphthalene
A white crystalline compound derived from coal tar or petroleum and used in manufacturing dyes, moth repellents, and explosives and as a solvent. Also called tar camphor

Petroleum Distillates
A thick, flammable, yellow-to-black mixture of gaseous, liquid, and solid hydrocarbons that occurs naturally beneath the earth’s surface, can be separated into fractions including natural gas, gasoline, naphtha, kerosene, fuel and lubricating oils, paraffin wax, and asphalt and is used as raw material for a wide variety of derivative products.

Butylcelosolve
Any of four flammable alcohols derived from butanes and used in organic synthesis and as solvents.

Carcinogens -
Substances that increase the risk of neoplasms in humans or animals. Both genotoxic chemicals, which affect DNA directly, and nongenotoxic chemicals, which induce neoplasms by other mechanism, are included.

Ammonia -
A colorless, pungent gas extensively used to manufacture fertilizers and a wide variety of nitrogen-containing organic and inorganic chemicals.

Chlorine -
A highly irritating, greenish-yellow gaseous halogen, capable of combining with nearly all other elements, produced principally by electrolysis of sodium chloride and used widely to purify water, as a disinfectant and bleaching agent, and in the manufacture of many important compounds including chloroform and carbon tetrachloride.

Hydrochloric Acid -
A clear, colorless, fuming, poisonous, highly acidic aqueous solution of hydrogen chloride, HCl, used as a chemical intermediate and in petroleum production, ore reduction, food processing, pickling, and metal cleaning. It is found in the stomach in dilute form.

Organochlorine -
Any of various hydrocarbon pesticides, such as DDT, that contain chlorine.

the above definitions sourced from what’s under YOUR Sink?

What if you could clean off burnt on food in your oven without losing nose hairs in the process?

Allow me to share a green clean nugget, a moment of greenness – just you, me and that darn oven.

Consider trying a green clean scouring paste that smells a little like something between bubble gum and cherry Kool-Aid.

Gentle in that it won’t scratch, but mighty in that it works really well !!

It’s NON-TOXIC and bio-degradable too!

Certainly not something one thinks of as an oven cleaner.

How many folks do you know who believe it needs to be really nasty chemical to get the job done?

Try again.  Pick your very toughest stain or oven and let this alternative scouring paste and a little elbow grease take it on!!


circa 1967self-cleaning flickr image

last year one of my readers said — i have that oven!!