Happy Earth Day

Earth Day is 40 years old today. Created in 1970 to celebrate the earth, appreciate nature and to act as good stewards of what mother nature has provided. I thought I would take today to reflect on the many little changes we have made in our household to be more sustainable in our daily lives. Maybe you will get an idea or two that aren't that hard to adopt this year in celebration of Earth Day. And as a self professed tree-hugging, liberal geologist I couldn't not write about Earth Day, but you knew that already :)

After the birth of our son, we took a step back and reevaluated what we wanted to teach him about being a good steward of our planet. And we are hoping that our actions speak louder than our words and when he is all grown up its not a question what is the right thing to do.

In 2009 we made the following changes and some are still in progress. We are living greener and more sustainable that before, but we also have to keep in mind our family budget and make changes one step at a time.

• Changed light bulbs in the house to compact fluorescent
• Recycle everything we can and can't wait for the new expanded recycle program in Mecklenburg county to start in July. I'm still bad about batteries, but have a solution worked out to get us in the habit. Luckily many more retailers are recycling these items for us places like Target, Best Buy and Home Depot all have bins for batteries, small electronics like ipods, light bulbs and printer cartridges.
  
• Use reusable totes for shopping or ask for paper if we forget. We are still trying to consistently remember our totes, but I do not let the grocery store use plastic bags on our groceries. And why do the baggers insist on putting my milk in a bag, I don't get it, the milk has a handle for goodness sake.
• Changed our cleaning and laundry supplies to plant based, green and/or natural products. I love the Method and Mrs. Meyers brands. We are still on the lookout for an affordable dishwasher liquid in this category. Any suggestions are welcome.
• Changing our herbicides and pesticides for the lawn and garden to eco-friendly options. Home Depot is carrying a new line of eco pesticides. We are trying out the ant killer on those pesky sugar ants we can't get rid of since redoing the kitchen. Makes the house smell very minty.
• Cloth Diaper Holden. This was a big one, and we love them (well I do, not sure if Jeremy has the same opinion). I wouldn't go back to disposables for multiple reasons and I'm like a walking commercial for cloth diapers. And cloth wipes too, they are great for cleaning up more than a dirty bum. I have to give credit to my mother-in-law for these, she made us a ton of cloth wipes when Holden was still itty bitty.
  
• Got rid of paper napkins (thanks to my mom for helping finish sewing the cloth napkins). We still have to phase out the paper towels. But like I said one thing at a time.
  
• Try to use less plastic containers and buy dry goods in bulk and store in glass jars. We use glass tupperware when we can but we don't have very many so I can't phase out the plastic stuff quite yet.
  
• Buy local sustainable food. I would say about 60% of our food is local, meat, eggs and produce mostly. Dairy when we can afford it. About another 30% is unprocessed, natural ingredients. We have rid our house of high fructose corn syrup, growth hormone in milk and many other hard to pronounce ingredients in packaged foods. I'm really liking this change even though it is sometimes more work for me. The farmers markets here are awesome, and our local farm co-op allows us to get our meat, eggs and dairy from within 200 miles of Charlotte. We have also stuck to our meatless suppers at least one night a week which helps offset some of the cost of the local meats which are totally worth it.
  
• We have recycled our e-waste this year (well we are going to, the old computer is still sitting by the front door waiting for its trip to the recycle center). This is a first for me.

I'm sure there are some other little things we are doing that would count, like consignment shopping for Holden's clothes and toys. But we do that mostly for the savings.

Some big things we want to do this year

• Start a compost pile. I'm just waiting for the compost bins to clearance out at the end of the season
• Get a rain barrel. Jeremy thinks he can build us one, so this is on his honey do list.
• I'm hoping to can veggies and fruits this year as things are local and in season so we have preserved local foods during the winter months.

I'd love to hear what you have done to be a good steward of the Earth in the last year. And I hope we have inspired someone to make one of the changes we made. Every little bit helps.

Happy Earth Day!

I did not get any endorsement from the retail outlets or products mentioned above, just sharing our knowledge with the internets

We're off to the Races

Holden walked tonight. Only 4-5 steps but it was still really cool. He was laughing at how excited both Jeremy and I were when he did it. Now I'm not so gullible to think he hasn't already done it at daycare, but at least they didn't tell us, so we are going to claim this milestone as ours. And we were both home when he did it. How cool is that? We will try and get it on video soon.

Table manners

We have been counting our blessings that we made it to 13.5 months before food issues started popping up. It started with carrots and a refusal to eat them. Now Holden is refusing peas, avocado and his one time favorite green beans. We have tried to season them different ways and sneak them into pasta with no luck. We are even getting gagging now. Fruit on the other hand he is all about.

Second problem we have is lots of puking lately. Not sure what is going on but it is always after his night bottle. He seems fine and all I just think he is eating too much. He is a little congested but nothing like previous colds. We are going to stop giving him the night bottle unless he is really fussy and see if that works. I'm just concerned he won't get his 24 ounces of milk in a day if we take out the bedtime bottle. Any suggestions are welcome.

Bubbles

We finally got the video camera uploaded so here is a video of Holden having a ball with a new bubble machine we got.

Random Wednesday

Not quite a wordless Wednesday but plenty of photos.

My first harvest from the spring garden!

Holden laughing at Dad with his first spaghetti and meatball face.

I met Stacy and Cameron at the park on Good Friday since we both had to take the day off since day care was closed (we were so upset to have a long weekend). Holden is still not sure about the swing.

Dad and Holden coordinating for Easter Service. My baby boy is starting to look less like a baby and more like a little boy.

This is my favorite photo from Easter, he is scrunching his nose listening to us talk on the patio at a friend's house.

What's new

It has started to get really nice around here, aside from the spring rain showers. Though, the rain is making my spring garden sprout really nicely. We have been taking Holden outside to explore and unfortunately we aren't over putting EVERYTHING in our mouth. So he has now officially tasted every type of leaf, stick and dirt that is in our yard.

Playing in the backyard

His 2nd tooth arrived last week. I think the top front teeth aren't far behind. He has taken to screaming when he is excited about something. Its a tense all of my muscles and yell loudly until my face is red and I'm out of breath scream. Kind of funny but certainly not an inside voice. He also has a stubborn streak, going to blame that one on Dad. We have been working on "no" to no avail. We get either an immediate pouty face and full on bawling or a laugh and lets do it again like we're playing a game. It can be quite frustrating during the morning rush, and I know we are just at the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning to listen.

Holden trying to figure out the new snack cup

Enjoy the photos, we have been a bit remiss on catching him with the camera. Packing to many things into our weeks I'm afraid.

From our trip to Raleigh this weekend

Family Visit

This weekend Jeremy and I made a trip to the triangle (Raleigh area for the non-Carolinians. Oh boy I think I just called myself a Carolinian). Anyway, we went for the weekend to visit some distant relatives of Jeremy's. His 2nd cousins (his mom's cousins or Jeremy's great uncle's kids, however you want to think of it). They hosted a lovely Saturday afternoon cookout for us and we got to find out all about his great grandfather and grandmother. We stayed through Sunday morning and had a great visit and good food. We got to peak at his great-grandmother's recipe book, that was very neat, all of the recipes clipped from the newspaper and handwritten ones all in the same book. It reminded me a lot of my mother's recipe book, crammed with both clipped recipes and handwritten ones.

One of the things that spurred the visit, is back last year, Jeremy made a trip to Ohio for an officer down memorial service for his great-great-grandfather Enos Rath. Enos was killed in the line of duty back in 1899. The town of Hicksville, Ohio had a rededicating of his tombstone and a true "officer down" memorial with honors. Jeremy was the only direct descendant of Enos Rath that was able to attend the ceremony (as far as we know). Afterward, he was able to get in touch with his 2nd cousins and that is how we got to go meet everyone. In addition, they had some of Enos things that had stayed in the family and were past down. We got to see his police issued pistol and his billy club (which is what the perpetrators beat him to death with).

It was all very cool (for the lack of a better descriptor).

Jeremy with his 2nd cousins
Enos' pistolEnos' billy club