Mother's going GREEN Day 100 - Green Party

Today's post will be short and brief... As it is day 100 since that day, which seems so long ago, that I decided to green our family, I have decided to join the Green Party of Canada. With talk of a national fall election I thought it only fitting. In the past I have never been consistent with my voting but now I will vote "GREEN" . There are green parties worldwide - be sure to join the one in your area. In going green try and support the green politics in your country/nation.

Mother's going GREEN Day 91 - Getting your Bills On Line

This is a simple step you can do on your journey to becoming green. While I was receiving some bills on-line there were a couple I was still receiving a paper copy in the mail. Cell phone and land phone. My land phone amounted to about 10 pages. I make lots of long distance phone calls.

So today, day 91, I decided to get these bills on-line. While for my other bills it was relatively easy - just go to the companies website fill in a form and there you go done, not more than 5 minutes. I quickly realized why I had not converted these 2 bills to on-line sooner as I spent the better part of the morning trying to do this. While getting quite frustrated and calling the companies were I was put on hold in total for 30 minutes, I kept reminding myself that this was for the greater good. And now it is done.... All bills from today onwards will be received online.

The benefits of on-line billing are as follows:

-- save paper

-- saves more paper

-- saves even more paper

-- saves trees that are required to make paper

-- saves water that is required to make paper

-- saves energy that is required to make paper

-- and it is convenient

Some interesting facts in regards to paper and for more paper facts click here

-- Approx. 324 L. of water is used to produce 1 KG of paper

-- Paper and paper products accounts for more than 1/3 of all Canada’s waste

-- Canada uses 6 million tonnes of paper and paperboard annually.

-- Only 1/4 of Canada’s waste paper and paperboard is recycled

-- Paper manufacturing is the 3rd largest user of fossil fuels worldwide

Mother's going GREEN Day 85 - Trip Planning

This concept, Trip Planning, is not something new for my family. I would say I have been practising this since I had children. It is only lately that I learned it is a green action. Just goes to show you that some of your habits and actions maybe green and you don't even know it yet.

Trip planning is planning your trip so that you are not running multiple errands separately. This is especially important when you are driving.

For example if you need to say go to the post office, pick up some milk and drop your kid at an extra curricular activity - then you plan out your trip. Not go and pick up the milk in the morning, return home and then after lunch go to the post office and return home and then late afternoon deliver your kid to his karate practise. Instead you leave a little early for the karate pick up the milk and go to the post office on the way to the karate lesson. This saves huge amounts of gas, energy and reduces your carbon emissions.

Since I am using karate lessons - you can guess my son does karate. Instead of dropping him off and returning home only to pick him up later. I either stay and watch the practise or I take my little ones and go for a walk and do some 'window shopping' again saving some milage, gas, and carbon emissions.

On a side note I was impressed by my husbands green action. I came downstairs after settling our little one down for the night and noticed our garbage can in the middle of the driveway with the lid open in the pouring rain. Puzzled by this I ask my husband what he was doing. "I am washing it out. I figured instead of using the garden hose to rinse it out. I would collect some rain water in it instead and use that to rinse it out." was his confident response. WOW was my reaction - this green thing does rub off on him in little ways. Way to go hubby for thinking green.

Mother's going GREEN Day 82 - Children's Eco-Craft

Today's craft is rather simple. It will make a Simple Statement. A Green Ribbon, show the world that you support a Green lifestyle. It is so simple that you can make a whole bunch of them and give them to your friends.

The Green Ribbon.

You will need:

-- Green Ribbon

-- A Safety Pin

-- Needle and Thread (Ideally the same colour thread as the ribbon - but just use whatever colour thread you have on hand - no point going to buy a matching thread. The only green thread I had was a dark green colour.)

Instructions (with an adults help if required):

-- Cut a length of your green ribbon (mine is approximately 8 inches long)

-- Approximately a third from the bottom sew on your safety pin (see pictures to right)

-- The fold the ribbon to create a loop (ensure the cross over piece of ribbon covers your stitches of sewing the pin on)

-- Stitch the cross over piece of ribbon in place.

You're done. Wear your ribbon with 'Green' pride - make a few more and share....

Mother's going GREEN Day 78 to 81 - Back on the GREEN Schedule

Day 78, Day 79 miss a few Day 81. Having the husband at home for a few days after our vacation puts my schedule out of whack. As I explained to him I run a tight ship around here and he just gets me out of my routine. Makes my life much busier as I now need to tend to his needs too... All the wives out there - I am sure you can relate!!! But he is back at work today and life returns to normal. Please do not get me wrong - I enjoy having my husband around and miss him now that he is back at work but now I have time to get back to blogging...

On the subject of my dear darling husband - he seems to have taken some several steps back on the green scale since we returned from home..... that darn darling husband (DDH). I asked him to go to the store to pick up some organic baby rice cereal - (started solids for our little one - but more on that on a another posting).

The DDH returns after several hours with plastic bags of stuff....His excuse for the plastic: "Well I did not think to take the canvas bags as I was just getting cereal". Then why did you not just get the cereal.....

Then there was the new coffee maker - Here is a snippet of the conversation:

"Jen the old one is terrible does not keep the coffee warm after a couple hours and it spills the coffee when you try and pour it - and besides this one does not have a pot so no spills and you can get a cup of coffee with one hand - look the picture on the box. The mother is holding her child while she gets a cup of coffee - I just had to get it."

With a stunned expression I respond: "Did you forget that we only buy stuff we really and truly need - not just want and besides I never had a problem pouring a cup of coffee with one hand using the old coffee pot. And you should be drinking the coffee after it is made and not leaving it turned on all morning hoping it will stay warm when you want it."

Still hoping to get himself out of his ungreenness he states: " Well if I use this coffee maker, I can make coffee to take to work in a reusable cup rather than buy some on the way to work; idling the car while I wait to go through the drive-through and then land up throwing away the cup - now that is a good thing you can post in your blog."

"Sure, and you could not do all that with the old coffee pot?" I ask still a little stunned by this new object that has intruded into my green world.

If you are wondering where I am going with this - Well it is quite simple - Do not buy stuff you do not need. Do not fall for the marketing on the packaging and do not buy things on a whim!!! Think GREEN!!!

Mother's going GREEN Day 63 - Green your Hotel Stay

As with your air travel when going on vacation you can look for hotels you are doing something for the environment and state as much in their policy. For us though we chose a hotel that would offer us a good rate - since my husband is in the industry we got a really good rate. However, although they have an environmental policy on their corporate web page - in my opinion it does not add up to much.

Having said that there are ways you can still "green" your stay at the hotel and it is similar to what you are already doing at home. (just thought of something funny....call ahead and ask what type of light bulbs are in the rooms - if it is not the environmentally friendly kind - perhaps we can pack a few and replace what is in our room anyway - an environmental token) Anyway back to how you can green your stay....

-- On entering your room unplug some of the many lamps (there always seem to be so many lamps in hotel rooms) as we already know that even if it is plugged in it still uses energy. Turn the air conditioning down or off or heating down.

-- Conserve water as you would at home (not running the tap while you clean your teeth; maintaining your 3 to 5 minute shower)

-- Ensure that you turn off all lights when leaving the room - if you get a turn down service ask that they do not turn on any lights or radio. (My pre-mother life was also in the hotel industry and I remember that when our VIP hotel guests would check in we would have the room set in a 'welcoming atmosphere': some gentle lighting (light turned on) their favourite music playing on the radio (radio turned on) etc. Looking back I can see how wasteful this is as guests never show up when expected and that energy just wasted perhaps for hours).

-- Reuse your towels for at least a week. That is what we do at home - so why should it change when on vacation. Most hotels offer you the choice - that if you hang your towel up - you do not require new ones. Although this is not always followed by the housekeeping staff I found a cool little sign from Go Green Travel which is what I will be using to ensure we reuse our towels and elimanate the energy used to wash them after we have only used it once.

-- Don't use the little packages of soap, shampoo and body wash. It is probably full of chemicals. Instead bring and use your own tried and trusted products which are environmentally friendly and you will not waste all the 'small' packages.

-- Use the little recycle bin that most hotels offer in the room and recycle all that you possibly can.

Enjoy your stay and make it GREEN.

Mother's going GREEN Day 46 - Children's Eco-Craft

Today's Eco-craft was crafted without my children . Their dad had the day off so they spent some quality time with him, and I according to my husband I was "sticking garbage together to hang on our door." Today I made a wreath out of recyclables.

Go Green Wreath

You will need:

-- Twigs (flexible ones) We collected ours the other day from the woods near our house

-- Recyclable items. (It can be anything) I used: Cardboard egg carton, pop bottle caps, milk jug lids, plastic bag from fruits, large yoghurt container lid, milk jug & the shower scrubby.

-- Paint and paint brush

-- Glue

-- String

Instructions: (with adults help if required)

-- Bend twigs into circular shape to create a wreath (tie as required)

-- Using the glue (glue gun works best) decorate wreath with recycled materials.

I used:

-- The shower scrubby for the 'ribbon' on the wreath

-- The yoghurt lid painted with the recycling sign

-- Colourful circular accents are the milk jug lids

-- The 'Go Green' sign was painted on a plastic piece cut from the milk jug

-- To make the 'pop top flowers' we cut 2 sections of a cardboard egg carton, painted the inside green. Glued a circular piece of clear fruit bag plastic to the centre to create a petal effect and then glued a bottle top in the centre as the flowers center.

Voila - we had our wreath. Be creative there are limitless possibilities to creating a wreath with a recycled theme.

Enjoy displaying your wreaths so everyone will know that you are 'Green'.