WE'VE GONE GREEN!!! well yellowish green

As promised....our going green blog.

Despite what I said before, I really do love the Earth. If nothing else, God loaned it to us and we need to return it in the same or better condition when we are done. I just hate it when hypocritical people try to tell me what to do and how to do it. That being said, I ended my anti-save the Earth revolt pretty quickly.

I was busy working one day and watching bad television (shocking revelations up in here). Specifically, Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane. Geez even the title is annoying. She is so odd and unreal. Enough about her (really, enough, cancel that show, put me out of my misery). On this particular episode Kimora Lee Simmons gets her carbon footprint assessment. ***This is just the kind of stagey reality tv that annoys me (this reality show brought to you by SmartCAR).***You remember Little Ms. Carbon Footprint from the Al Gore hypocrisy. It is basically a report of your impact on our planet (Earth that is). Anyway, a few days later I decided to figure out what my carbon footprint was. It wasn't good. I got a recount, it still wasn't good. Near as I can tell most of my issues are due to: the size of my house, the diaper situation, and the amount of air travel I suffer through. I even took the challenge to reduce my footprint and guess what? There is no way to fully negate the effect of flying cross country 3 or 4 (okay 6) times a year. I could replace all of our light bulbs, shut down our garage fridge extravagance, and walk to work...Yep still a gigantic footprint.

There are certain trappings of motherhood that I like, my plus-sized SUV is one of them. I can bring home $354 worth of Costco purchases without rearranging anything. I can add extra kids to my haul without a second thought. AND the thing has an incredibly impressive turning radius. Plus it is paid for. We are seriously considering investing in a smaller more fuel efficient car to replace the truck. See, yellowish green. Score.


Kevin has become quite the Recycle Master, The King of Recycling....
The Recycle-nator. The City blessed us with a brand spanking new mixed recycling bin. In my head I call her Big Blue. The weeks that Kevin is in charge of garbage Big Blue is full and happy. I was so embarrassed the other week when it was clearly my garbage week (we don't assign weeks we just pitch in and the other person gets out of the way) since Big Blue was nearly empty. Every other week...SCORE


We are promoting the concept of conservation with Patrick. It is hard for me to believe that there may not be water automatically coming out of the faucet so it is definitely difficult for Patrick to grasp. We sing the Dan Zanes song a lot, Reduce Reuse Recycle. I am trying to teach him about buying locally grown food. What a drag, no imported out of season berries.

Some of this green movement is ridiculous to me. For example, throwing out all of your cleaning supplies, makeup, etc. in favor of green products. DUH! And some of it is confusing. For example, am I supposed to run the dishwasher or wash by hand? Should I buy the organic food transported from across the country or the local fertilized food? I need someone to take notes for me.

The Recycling King and I never had a conversation about trying to be kinder to the Earth. Even though we (okay, it is mostly me) are way above (okay, below) average with the footprint thing, we are making changes. Here is the biggest deal....we reduced our electric bill by 45%. Imagine if we actually knew how to work the programmable thermostat!

My Carbon Footprint is bigger than your Carbon Footprint!