Trash to Treasure

I was very excited to hear that Alexis' Kindergarten teacher gave the children a "Trash to Treasure" project for Earth Day.  She gave about two weeks notice (awesome!) which allowed us to think about alot of potential projects.  The problem was narrowing it down.  Here are some of the ideas Alexis and I initially considered:

Cup holder from large yogurt container
Magazine holder from cereal box
Nature wreath from things found outside with cardboard box backing
Flowers and other decorations made out of recycled boxes and paper
Purse made out of recycled containers
Garden irrigation system from soda and milk bottles
Handmade cards from recycled items around the house (boxes, mail packaging, etc.)
and more...

She finally got pretty excited over the pencil/crayon/marker holder idea.  Here she is with her three recycled items: a cardboard scrap from old box, cereal box, an old 2009 calendar that I had kept for the pretty pictures (we often use old calendars to make envelopes from or decorate things with).

Here she is marking the cereal box with a ruler to know where to cut.  We used one cereal box for all 3 pencil holders (and recycled the scraps of course!).

 She was a little too excited to use big scissors (first time!) but the little kid scissors didn't work very well on the cereal box.  Needless to say there was a lot of parental supervision on this part of the project to ensure all fingers remained intact!

 Maybe it's because kids just love Christmas so much but this Christmas scene for the month of December from the old calendar was the first picture she picked.

 She is starting to see her project take shape and is getting pretty excited about it and telling me how she is going to make one for everyone she knows for Christmas this year or for their birthday or "maybe you know, just because they are my friend".

 Posing with her completed "Trash to Treasure" project.  Very happy recycler indeed!

Do you have any fun "Trash to Treasure" projects to share?  Let me know!

Keep Prince William Beautiful

Check out page 24 of April's Prince William Living magazine for my latest article.  Since it's Earth Day this month and a topic right up my alley, see what I say about the local nonprofit organization "Keep Prince William Beautiful" and some green tips.

Aldi - Green or Not?

Some friends have recently been teasing me about shopping at Aldi so I just had to write about it and see what you all think.  

Compared to other grocery stores, I consider them very "green" and they were green before green was cool.  

• They don't give you plastic or paper bags for your groceries--you either bring your own reusable bags or you can buy them at the checkout if you forgot them.
• They make you put a quarter in the grocery carts to make sure you return them, not only saving them money but also making sure the carts don't end up in the trash, side of the road, some back alley, in a dumpster, rusting in someone's back yard, etc.  Less carts they need to buy, less carts need to be made.  Pretty green to me.
• They don't use fancy signs that change every week thus saving on paper, plastic and ink costs.
• They mostly use simple pallets that the grocery items were shipped in rather than spending lots on shelving that needs to be maintained, cleaned (by non-green cleaners in most grocery stores), replaced, signed properly, etc.
• They keep prices low by limiting selection so you aren't overwhelmed with 200 kinds of cereal, but maybe only 20 kinds (which if you have kids like me, this is a good thing, esp. since many of their cereals don't have the kiddie toy attraction boxes like the major brands do at the regular grocery store).

My one big complaint so far was that Aldi didn't carry organic fruits and veggies or organic dairy. And I question some of the products they sell especially since I recently noticed "carbon monoxide" as an added ingredient to their family value pack of tilapia (the regular size tilapia bag did not have "carbon monoxide" listed though...strange).

So I was quite excited when on a recent trip to buy my usual staples of onions, potatoes, carrots, baking staples like flour and vanilla extract, I noticed that they had started carrying organic produce and dairy items!  I guess they are only doing it in certain test markets to see how well it does, so I feel lucky to find them at my local store!

Anyway, so my Aldi top 10 list has evolved now to include several organic items:

1) organic apples
2) organic yogurt or cheese (when they have it)
3) almond milk
4) organic frozen strawberries/blueberries
5) organic dark chocolate (when they have it)
6) onions
7) potatoes
8) carrots
9) veggie hummus
10) wine (no list is ever complete without wine!)

So what do you think?  Do you or would you shop at Aldi now that they carry organic items?

Who Are We?

After a hideous scene at a local coffee shop yesterday I've been thinking about who we are, how we act, why we act the way we do, and why people place so much importance on things rather than on people.

The coffee shop was packed on Sunday afternoon as I stopped by to work on an article I'm writing for Prince William Living magazine.  Everyone, and I mean, everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at this Glittery Lady making a scene with surprise in their eyes.  We all looked around at each other with shrugs, confused looks, throwing hands up in the air as if to say "is this lady really serious?" and even nervous laughter to try and lighten the mood.

Glittery Lady was freaking out about how she spilled coffee all over her "$1,500 Gucci purse--do you realize what kind of purse this is?"  She obviously wanted to make a scene and loudly yelled at the coffee shop employee, a teenage boy working to make some money on a Sunday afternoon, about how upset she was that they overfilled the coffee so much that it "made" her spill her coffee all over her purse and glittery boots as she was getting in her car.  "I come here every day and this is crazy, why would you fill the cup so much to make it spill like this.  Look at my pants, I have spots on my pants!"

They were black pants and I didn't see any spots on them...just sayin'.  Though I did notice my own shirt full of washable paint spots from a craft activity with my kids earlier in the day.

Someone yelled out "you know, there is this thing called a washing machine..."

She ignored the comment and responds to the teenage coffee shop boy with "This is terrible, this has ruined my day. YOU have ruined my day.  And my purse, what are you going to do about my purse?"  I'm still not sure what she expected a teenage boy to do about her $1,500 Gucci purse, but he offered her a free cup of coffee for her trouble.  She responded with "I don't need a free cup of coffee, I can buy coffee if I want.  I want your card, I want to file a complaint because this is absolutely terrible, just terrible! Really, you have RUINED my day!"  The manager comes over, a young twenty something girl and kindly gives her the card with some apologies.

As she was leaving, a middle aged woman told her to "have a nice day" to which she responded nastily with a "How am I supposed to have a good day after all this? LOOK at my purse!!!" and the nice lady said "well, you can try to have a better day, try to smile, because you know spilled coffee is not the end of the world".  I chimed in and said, "yeah, if spilled coffee on your very expensive $1,500 Gucci purse is the biggest problem you have today than you should consider yourself lucky."  Several others chimed in with "yeah" and "seriously lady, worse things could happen." and she walked out loudly grumbling "I can't believe this, this is terrible!"

Those of us left in the coffee shop bonded...we found out that the kind "have a nice day" customer lady had cancer the year before and really was trying to make the other lady realize that spilled coffee really isn't the end of the world...cancer, well, that might be the end of the world for that person...but spilled coffee? Not so much.

So how do we treat each other?  Do we treat our Gucci purse's better than we treat human beings?

With this, I wanted to share a quote from a recent blog I came across:

"A life rich with faith, family, friends & creativity, secure in the idea that a life well lived has nothing to do with what we have but who we are."

I couldn't have said it better myself.

Thanks LivingWellSpendingLess for reminding us of this very important fact that it's who we are and how we interact with others that matters...not a Gucci purse.

Made In China

Not to sound like an alarmist, but wow, this is a bit alarming especially when you see the video of Beijing over the last 3 weeks.

And to think that we contribute to this every time we buy something that says "Made in China".  Take a look around your house, your closet, your car, your kitchen, even your refrigerator and freezer.  How many things did you find that say "Made in China"?  Did you even realize that jar of chopped garlic came from China?

I know it's hard.  Especially when it's shiny or new or oh, such a great price!  Been there, done that.  Still struggling with that every time I walk into a store (as you can tell from my Cupcake post).  Every. Time.

I'm not against buying anything from China (sort of).  I understand we live in a global business environment and want to support other countries (and vice versa) through trade.  I love the bamboo bowl I bought several years ago through Ten Thousand Villages - handmade by artisans in Vietnam through one of their special arts programs.  I love the scarf I bargained back and forth for in a Portugal flea market.  But there are some countries with very strong, rigorous environmental and human rights laws or with great programs that work directly with struggling artists or crafters.  And there are some countries that, simply put, suck at all that.  We just need to be more aware of which countries those are and put pressure with our purchasing dollars to encourage them to change their ways.

It gets to a point that you have to stop blaming others for the problems we see in the news (like this air pollution article) and take some of the blame ourselves for our every day decisions.

It gets to a point that we can no longer say "I don't care. I don't live in China so this is not relevant to me."

It gets to a point that you look in the mirror and ask what is happening to us as human beings.
Or worse, you look at your child and wonder what it's going to be like for their generation and feel fear for them.

It gets to a point where you stay up late to write a blog post about all this to share with people even though you've worked hard at your full time job all day, cooked dinner, cleaned up and washed dishes, did a load of laundry, read the kids some stories and brushed their teeth and now all you want to do is just crawl into bed and go to sleep.  Even if just one person reads it and thinks twice about their next purchase or the next time they throw something in the trash, it was worth it.

We are all in this together, but individual actions matter.