Join me on my quest

I have always been interested in doing things more green. For my sake as well as for the environment. Growing up we participated in our cities curbside recycling program from it's inception. I can remember almost always having half of the kitchen sink full of water with assorted bottles and jars soaking so the labels could be removed (a requirement to recycle at the time).

In middle school choir we put on an "Earth Day" concert for our parents. This was back in the early nineties, before going green was cool and environmental activism was on the rise in public schools. (Anyone else remember the 3 R's?) The music chosen for this particular concert centered around the Earth and the damage we were doing to it. I can still remember some of the lyrics to the songs...

Spoken lead in:
"Sun beating down,
burning everything in it's path.
People wrapped like mummies,
trying desperately to carry on normal lives.
Roam aimlessly.
You are about to enter a life without time and space.
You are about to enter LIFE WITHOUT OZONE..."

Enter choir:
"EVERY TIME YOU SPRAY A CAN, OPEN A FRIDGE, OR CHARGE A FAN CFC'S, AND HALON ESCAPE...THEY FLOAT UP TO THE ATMOSPHERE, EATING OZONE AND IT'S CLEAR BURNING RAYS OF SUN SEAL OUR FATE...WE GOT TO START NOW TO CHANGE IT SOMEHOW...WE'RE DESTROYING A PLANET THAT WE TAKE FOR GRANTED...WE'RE KILLING THE OZONE...killing the ozone...

Okay, I won't lie - I googled that. I am not that big of a dork. And looking at that lead in- wow! Kind of terrifying. But to be fair I do remember parts of it. And to this day I constantly yell at my husband for releasing halon into the ozone when he leaves the refrigerator door open too long (his school obviously wasn't as cool as mine!)

Today there are a lot of little things that I do to be "greener" - buy organic milk & eggs, use "green" cleaning products, unplug appliances that aren't being used, etc. But I know I can be better. I know that I want to do better....not just for me, but also for her.





Meet my little girl Emma. She turned one not that long ago (crazy!) and she is the light of my life. It's kind of crazy how that happens. How life changing having a baby can be. Shocking I know but I don't think you are even capable of grasping what that truly means until it happens to you. I knew from the second that she was born and the nurse placed her in my waiting arms that I would do ANYTHING for her.

Which brings me to my quest to be greener. To eat (and feed Emma) only the best - I didn't breastfeed her for a year to have all that good nutrition replaced with empty, processed calories! To eliminate as many nasty, dangerous chemicals used around the house as possible. To encourage my family and friends to follow in my footsteps and adopt similar practices.

I'd like this journal to serve as a place where I can talk about what I am doing to make our lives better. Post interesting articles I find (for fear that I am driving my family crazy with the emails). And to share realistic ways that the average working mom can make their lives a little greener too.


"If everyone in America simply recycled the paper, plastic, glass and aluminum products they would typically throw away, we would decrease the amount of waste sent to landfills by at least 75%. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all of our waste, each year." Source: the green book, elizabeth rogers & thomas kostigen