Wet Wednesday: Hang Out

A single-use water bottle can't do this...

 Yet, another reason why reusable bottles are better than single-use plastic.  :)

Sippin' (the Plastic-Free Way)

"Here can you hold this for me?" I said, while handing my daughter my glass straw.  Then as I started to fill my bulk containers, I heard: Ping ping ping  It was the sound of my glass straw hitting the concrete floor (at Tidal Creek).  I cringed thinking the worst.  Ok, I wasn't panicking or anything...Glass Dharma has a lifetime guarantee... so no need to fret... but still I cringed just the same. Then as I leaned over to pick it up... I noticed that it was perfect... absolutely perfect.  No cracks, no chips... no nothing.  :)

If you've been following along, I have been saying "no thank you" to plastic straws for quite some time now... and it's been almost a year since I committed 100% to not accepting plastic straws (no ifs ands or buts)-- even in my smoothies.  Yup, from August to May I had at least one smoothie a week and not one of them was drank with a straw.  That is until I participated in the Glass Dharma Earth Day Letter Writing Initiative... and got me some glass straws.  When I first got my glass straws, I was super excited... my kids and I popped them into our waters and fun ensued.  Seriously, it had been so long since we drank from straws that we forgot how much fun it was to sip, sip, sip....

Now I'd like to tell you that I take our straws with us everywhere and use them all the time, but to be honest.... I'm really really bad at remembering to take them when we go out to eat....UNLESS, of course, I'm getting a smoothie.

Admission:  I have an addiction to smoothies.  Seriously. I sip and slurp up A LOT of smoothies with my glass straws!  

Just to let you in on my addiction.  For the past year, I've been going to yoga every Friday.  And every Friday after yoga, I get a smoothie at Tidal Creek.  I've now upped my yoga to 3 times a week... and you guessed it... that means more smoothies!!  Sometimes they're chocolate, sometimes they're fruity... but boy oh boy are they always super yummy!! :)  Of course, I used to go without a straw.... I was cool with going without....really I was... yes, even with a green smoothie mustache and a line across my nose.... I was fine.  But... you know what????!!!  Smoothies are SO much better with a straw.  A million times better!!  No doubt the smoothie tastes good no matter what... but it's honestly more pleasurable to drink using a straw.


....Says the girl who always says, "I don't need a straw." ;)


Now that I officially have a major thing for glass straws... thanks Glass Dharma!!  I feel this need to share them with everyone.  It's fun to say "glass straw" and see people get very intrigued.  BUT... even better than that is giving them to family and friends! They are definitely my new favorite thing to gift.  When my family came out to visit for my birthday, I ordered a bunch of glass straws and gifted them to my family.  Days after getting home (to Iowa), my aunt made my cousin a thick milkshake...  and sent me his response.  Thumbs up!  His favorite feature was something I hadn't even thought of:  The glass straw doesn't go flat like a plastic straw!  Woot!!

While Bushwalla was staying with us, he came home with a drink with a plastic straw...yikes!... I asked "what's up with the plastic straw??".  ...and then, being the person I am...I couldn't let him go around using plastic straws.  Friends don't let friends use single-use disposable plastics. ;)  Without hesitation, I said, "I have something for you" and gave him one of my glass straws.  He immediately started using it... and a month later is still using it!!!  Most recently during his live and online show at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf he talked about reducing the amount of plastic he uses and showed off his glass straw!  Yay Yay Yay!!  Go B!!!  (another ripple effect in progress) 

Ok... so it's been 3 months since I got my first glass straw.  I'm super grateful that Glass Dharma asked me to participate in their Earth Day letter writing initiative because thanks to the glass straw I'm back to sipping my drinks... slurping up the end of my smoothies... taking my kids to get fun things like root beer floats... all while still encouraging others to kick their plastic straw habit. :)

Hmmm... it's still early... I think I need to go make me a smoothie... ;)

Backyard Birthday Bash

Back in mid-May, my husband let me in on a secret:  He was planning a party to celebrate my 33rd birthday!!!  This was big news to me as I couldn't remember the last birthday party I had... AND... as soon as I got over the "shush, no you're not" feeling... I began to get excited.  Not only were we going to be having a Bushwalla house show... this was an opportunity to throw a different kind of party.  Normally parties create a lot of trash, because who really has enough plates, flatware, and such for 50+ people?  Red solo cups, aluminum cans, plastic flatware, paper napkins, bags of chips, and convenience foods reign during parties.  For my party, we had to do something different.  So on Saturday, June 25, we did just that.

Photo credit: Tracy Carr

In general, I have this great desire to prove (most often to myself) that when we most think we can't get around plastic... there ARE ways around it and through planning and rethinking it can be done.  Deciding to throw a party without using the typical party fare: paper plates, plastic/compostable cups, plastic cutlery, etc. takes extra thought.  The first thing we did was figure out what kind of food we wanted to have.  Based on past experiences of trying to reduce waste during parties, we immediately decided on foods that didn't need forks, spoons or knives.  Here's what we ate:  Flaming Amy's Burritos, chips with salsa, Mellow Mushroom Pizza, watermelon, cantaloup and cupcakes.  Here's how we avoided waste:  Took our own containers to Flaming Amy's for salsa, requested no plastic, composted food scraps including cupcake wrappers and the pizza and cupcake boxes :)

Another thing that I wanted to consider was filling my recycling bins with a bunch of aluminum cans and glass. Obviously, we got a keg of beer.  Then we made an easy decision:  No soda.  Instead, we had sweet tea and homemade lemonade.  We put the sweet tea in one of those big Igloo coolers (like you see get dumped on sports players). While we were at Hands Across the Sand on Saturday morning, my mom made fresh lemonade by squeezing 50 something lemons!  Then we filled reused glass juice jars that I had saved with the lemonade.  The lemonade could be poured from or drank directly from the bottle.  It was SO yummy!!  Check it out... can you guess how much I LOVE lemonade??? ;)

Oh right... so what did we eat on and drink from?? At first we thought about going to Goodwill and buying extra plates, but after the suggestion from a friend... we ended up renting plates and glasses.  Seriously.  What was awesome about renting was that we didn't have to do any dishes.  We just put the plates and glasses in their respective trays and took them back to the party rental place!

Photo by: Gabrielle Lyons

The party was SO much fun... everything turned out better than I could have ever anticipated.  We created  zero-trash and I would guarantee that nobody felt like they missed out on anything or realized that we were striving to go plastic-free. (Ok... there were a few people that knew what was up ;) ) Now... I can't end this post without mentioning how amazing Bushwalla was is.  Not only is he an extremely talented artist and an amazing performer... he's also like-minded.  What I mean by "like-minded" is that he's eco-conscious.  While at Hands Across the Sand, he was exactly like me... stopping to pick up every piece of litter he saw... even the cigarette butts!  He even wanted to do a 20 minute beach clean up with me!  (Bummed we didn't get to it, but no doubt there will be another time!) Turns out that he's been wanting to start doing beach clean ups in San Diego for quite sometime... and now he's feeling inspired to get it started!  YAY!!!  So if you don't know "who" Bushwalla is... go check out his music and support this eco-friendly, funky, soulful, hip-hoptimistic, being love musician...entertainer....artist.

Gratitude to all of my family and friends who shared my birthday with me... I had an absolute blast!! 33 is going to be good... real good... I just know it :)

Rethinking Party Favors

The other day I got a text from my friend that read:

"Unless u can help me come up with a cool party favor, I'm just NOT doin it!!! I'm not givin JUNK!!!"


I immediately called her and said, "Take a stand!! Don't give party favors!" I said that because I really hate party favors. I always find it kind of ridiculous that kids expect a gift for going to a birthday party and giving a gift to their friend. I certainly don't remember party favors when I was a kid. The only time we ever walked away from a party with something (other than bellies full of cake and ice cream) was when we did a craft activity such as decorating shirts with puffy paint.

At our house, we don't usually give out party favors for our kids birthdays and when we don't I am always left feeling like a cheapskate. SO... for my friend... I decided to think about it... BECAUSE some people just feel better giving party favors... and if they're gonna give them... the least that I can do is put some thought into it and help them come up with something besides a bag of plastic junk that will most likely end up in the trash can/landfill/oceans.


So here's what I told her:

• Pencil Holders: Last year, for my son's 7th Birthday party... I wasn't going to give out party favors. Then I had some Smencils from our fundraiser... so I bought some to support the initiatives of the non-profits that I'm directly involved in. THEN... I looked under my kitchen sink and there were SO many steel cans. I decided that I was going to reuse repurpose the cans and make pencil holders for the kids. Here's how: I ran the cans through my dishwasher to make sure they were free of all gunk, let them dry thoroughly, then I spray painted them. (I did purchase acrylic markers for the kids to decorate their "pencil holders.")

• "Sponge Balls." These are great in place of water balloons :) My mom and I made them for my daughter's pool party last year. We had a total of 4 friends invited plus a few brothers...so it wasn't too much work. The kids had a blast playing with the sponge balls in the pool, however, they didn't really hold up well to the older kids throws.

• Cloth Napkins-- Put the kids names on their own reusable cloth napkin. Use fabric paint to let the kids decorate their napkin with their handprints.

• A Growable Favor-- Get small peat (or terracotta) pots, fill with dirt, plant a seed (flowers, vegies, etc) and if you want to make it fancy: tie a ribbon around it.

My friend and her 6 year old daughter decided on giving a planted sunflower seed in a peat pot :) I am SO grateful that my friend asked me my advice AND took it... woo hoo!! Now there are 23 kids (and their parents) who have seen a different kind of party favor!!

By the way, my kids are super excited to add the sunflowers to our flower garden!!

Here's some bumble bees enjoying one of our sunflowers from last year :)

Green My Ride

For the past 5 and a half years, I have had been driving a Toyota Sequoia. (I know, I know.)  Over the years, it's been such a struggle for me... I really loved my Sequoia... it's dependable and it fit our family. BUT... it's also a gas guzzler... and such the opposite of everything that I am... and everything that I believe in (ummm... if for some reason you don't know what I believe in... you may want to start from the beginning ;) )

When people would ask me, "How do you like your Sequoia??"  I would always hesitate... say that it's really great... make sure I told them our reasons for having it... and how I wished Toyota could put the technology of the Prius in it :) 

As much as the Sequoia was "not me".... there are were SO many reasons why I justified having it:

• 3 kids in car-seats and no way was I getting a mini-van.

• When family came to visit... having the ability to seat 8 people really was nice. 

• I don't drive that much (about 10K a year)

• We have a crazy-ass Weimaraner that we find it's easier on her (and our) mental stability if she rides along with us than stays at home.

• And having all the extra room was really nice for when we traveled... not to mention built in DVD players.

For the past 3 years, we have really wanted to get a different vehicle.   But it never really made sense for 2 reasons.

1.  Three kids in car-seats.  2.  My Sequoia was paid off.

So we waited... and waited... until 3 weeks ago... when we finally made the decision that NOW was the time to make the switch.  And two weeks ago, we bought a....

So even though I've always wanted one (the technology completely AMAZES me)... being a family of 5, I really never thought that it would make sense for our family.  Another moment of "proving myself wrong" ;)  I am absolutely LOVING it... and have not had one single second where I missed my big curb jumping Sequoia ;)  I have to say that I am still amazed at everything about the Prius.  Its size is very deceiving... totally always thought they were tiny... but they are so spacious (seriously)!!  AND the best part... after zipping around for the past couple of weeks... I've become a more conscious driver!!  Yes, I admit...from the moment I got my drivers license, I have been the "pedal to the metal" girl.  Green light. GO!!!!  Ahh... but not with the Prius.  As I accelerate, I watch the "Eco" monitor thingie and take my time and don't waste energy.  (I've been referring to it as the "marathon runner vs. the sprinter"... the marathon runner starts slow and builds up pace conserving energy... while the sprinter does short bursts and runs out of energy fast.  Something that I wish I would have thought of when I had my 14 mpg Sequoia.)  SO... for anyone who's ever thought that Priuses are slow... let me go ahead and tell you... it's not the Prius... it's the driver watching the Eco monitor trying to beat their best mpg :)

Oh yeah...thanks in part to my conscious driving (watching the monitor and coasting... I LOVE coasting)... I'm averaging around 50 mpg (it was 51, but my "heavy footed" hubbie has dropped it down a notch ;) )

My Sequoia (sold a week ago) next to my new ride.  (I may have changed my car... but the color remains the same... well kind of... Phantom Gray is now Winter Gray Metallic)

SO... what about all those things that I justified having my Sequoia for??  They're just that... justifications.  I don't miss a single thing about the Sequoia... not even the ability to jump curbs ;)

AND... there has been a whole other learning experience from this change....

When I signed the papers... I felt a tad strange.  I made a lot of different choices with this purchase than I would have made in the past.  I didn't get the top package... not because we couldn't afford it... but because we didn't need it.  I had made the decision that I did not want leather... in all of my other vehicles, I've always had leather seats... but I thought think that if I'm not going to eat a cow... then why the heck should I sit on one??  Anyway... as the dealer was going over what I was getting (or more so what I wasn't getting) I said to my husband, "I feel cheap."  And then the thought of my New Year's "Life Resolution" popped in my head.  Having leather... getting the top car package... is something that society has made me believe is one sign of success.  

I LOVE when I have moments when I see and feel change unfolding right in front of me :)


(Update:  As of May 2010, I am averaging about 58 mpg!! Woohoo!!!)

Reduce Reuse Reduce Video

Here's a video submission for the EPA video contest: Our Planet, Our Stuff, Our Choice. I absolutely LOVE this video. Sure, I may be a little biased since my superhero friend Jennifer is involved, not to mention Bonnie (she, too, is amazing) and the talented work of J Sun Productions.

Aside from all the amazing people involved...I love this video because the concept of REDUCING and REUSING MORE to Reduce our waste is so simple and so easy... it's perfect.