This firecracker of a blogger took a moment to share this post with my readership: 
25 Parent Productivity Tools. 

Wendy Piersall’s EMoms Blog is totally loaded. It’s a fine example of a Blog with all the bells and whistles on it 

I go there and spin with how zippy it all is, how informative, interactive and how fast she must type

I love how different yet alike our worlds are.

Thanks Wendy

Mother Earth

Derrick introduced me to Franke James.

Her blog spoke to my “greenness” heart.  She says things I’m feeling outloud.

He knew her Green Essays would blow me away and they totally did.

She offered me 4 posts to share while I was away – it was very hard to pick just one - Revenge of The Trees

Thanks ever so much Franke

Franke James

Mother Earth

 

Why? (originally posted on June 16th, 2007)

 

Why do I not really care? I wanted to get down to the bottom of my heart, reach into the recesses of my brain, for answers. Become zen for a moment. I resisted at first, found a thousand excuses for not listening. I had picked the wrong time, the wrong place. Saturday morning, breakfast in the kitchen. The distraction of Prad and Alex joking around kept pulling me away. I sent them out for a walk with the dog. Finally, I was alone, and in the stillness, I found a few treasures.

“Paper or plastic”. What will it take for me to remember the green bags? Even when they are in the trunk of my car, and I forget to take them with me to the store, there is that split second moment at the counter, when I need to decide: to go back to the car and get the bag, or to just go along with the clerk’s request. What happens when I choose the lazy way? What makes me go for “Plastic please”? My first thought is, why bother, such a small thing, it will not make a difference. The global warming problem is so huge. One little extra plastic bag, I can get away with it. Leave it up to the powers in charge, the heads of States, the big businesses, to come up with the big solutions. I do not intimately believe in the power of my individual actions.

   

There is also the issue of, even if I do my share, what difference will it make, if others don’t join? Also, I am secretely hoping, that others will take care of the problem, so I do not have to give up even just a little bit of my personal comfort. Can I cheat, can I have my cake and eat it too? I am very attached to my life as I have known it in America. Things I do not really want to give up: long hot showers, letting water running while I work at the kitchen sink, using the dryer to dry our clothes, the convenience of plastic bags, shopping for clothes whenever I feel like it, plane travel, printing indiscriminately on one side of the paper, our two daily papers, not having to unplug and restart my computer each time, paying my bills using snail mail, living in my big house, being a dilettante recycler. It all boils down to a short term personal balance sheet. What am I willing to give up in terms of personal comfort, in return for a relatively minuscule, and mostly unacknowledged, contribution to the larger pie?

Marguerite Manteau-Rao

Check out my blog: The Daily Sins of a Green Girl Wannabe

La Marguerite is a marketing consultant for several social networking ventures, the mother of two teenage daughters, wife of Green Guru, and a Green Girl Wannabe. In the past, she has been active as an artist, a social worker, an engineer, and an advertising woman.  She spent the first half of her life in France and is now an American citizen, residing in Palo Alto, California.

Thank you so much Marguerite!
Mother Earth

I met guest author, Phil Gerbyshak, after he so graciously commented on my Meme
When I was looking for help for while I was away he said he can DEFINITELY relate.

He sent this post 5 Ways to Overcome Adversity to share with my readership.

If you’re looking for a speaker for your next event, why not hire Phil Gerbyshak? He’s the  Relationship Geek who works with organizations to create and deepen relationships for increased profitability and increased employee engagement.

He’s also author of 10 Ways to Make It Great! 
Check out more of his musings

Thanks Phil !!

Mother Earth

Patricia Martin is a fellow WSWE Member and until recently was a mystery to me. I find her writing brilliant, thoughtful and wonderfully intellectual.

When A Civilization Goes Green—The Beautiful and the Flawed

 

The organic movement and ballyhoo to eat-local have taken root in the common culture. In researching my book, RenGen: Renaissance Generation

I observed that people are taking cues from the natural world, a fact that shows up in shopping habits, packaging, color choices, and even window displays. The plain truth is that we have come to respect Mother Nature—early springs, snowless winters, floods, hurricanes, and tidal waves have made an impression on the collective psyche.

 

Three lessons are imprinted on the RenGen mindset:

 

1.            Everything breaks.  Extinction and rebirth are the inevitable cycle of life.  Even things that look solid break down: rock, steel, planets, stars, ideas, texts, and art all decline, fade away, and fall into oblivion. To wit, homes are being decorated in a mash up of ancient and modern. Rough surfaces and raw edges are the new chic. The tyranny of Martha Stewart perfectionism is over and out.

 

2.            Nothing is perfect. Even on close inspection, the most flawless objects are flawed.  Security systems are breachable, viruses cannot be contained by universal inoculation, and whether we are talking about diamonds or tempered steel, flaws are unavoidable. Witness the success of the Dove ads celebrating real female bodies.

 

3          All things are incomplete.  There is never an ending and beginning to anything.  We can decide that enough has been done, said, or written about something.  But that is a self-imposed demarcation.  The renaissance generation will not demand the final word, but will contribute to the conversation, and YouTube and MySpace are perfect mediums to facilitate the exchange.

 

As I look out the window of my writing studio, I see the blue recycling bin resting near the composter. They are fixtures in my life now, where things get broken down, change form and become something else. And it’s perfectly flawed.

 

Patricia Martin is a Chicago-based marketing consultantand author of the brand new book, RenGen: Renaissance Generation– Rise of the Cultural Consumer and What it Means To Your Business, Platinum Press.

More of Pat at her Blog

Thanks for the post Pat!

Mother Earth