I'm dreaming of a Green Christmas

Now that Thanksgiving is over I can begin to start thinking about Christmas.


Note to my neighbors: It is NOT OK to put up your Christmas tree, Christmas lights, wreaths or assorted lighted reindeer until December 1st. Not mid-November. It looks like anarchy has come to our village neighborhood.

I like to think of myself as a very open-minded person. Your religion, ancestry or sexual preference will never matter to me. The rules of tacky Christmas do matter.

Christmas decorations may don your home from December 1st through January 1st. With the singular exception of your wreath. If your wreath is still looking healthy you may remove the bow and keep it up until February 1st. No exceptions. I will look at you funny and audibly huff as I pass your home if you break this simple rule.


On December 1st, my family will begin to decorate for Christmas. This year I purchased a strand of solar LED lights for the small bush outside. No remembering to turn the lights on and off, no additional electricity consumption and lights that won't burn out every year. Yea for me!

I also purchased an LED solar spotlight to shine on the front door and wreath. The solar panel is adjustable so I can aim it southbound to get the most sunshine. My house will look cute while being green. Double yea!

This is our sixth, or so, Christmas wrapping out gifts in reusable cloth gift bags. I must confess that I did not make these simple and cute bags, but I purchased them online, from work at home moms and from assorted little old ladies attending local craft fairs. My goal this year is to dust off Granmummy old sewing machine and try to make a few additional bags.

The first year of using reusable cloth bags I discovered my mummy was very upset that Girlie would not have the "experience" of ripping open paper gift wrap to get to her gift. While all I could think of was the poor trees that would have to be cut down in order for my Girlie to have a five second experience.

Mummy quickly changed her tune and now gets in on the act. Everyone gets excited to revisit the unusual bags that they have received in the past. Personally, I love seeing just how little trash we create and how I don't have to spend a penny on my gift wrapping.

Here is a wow statistic from Carnegie Mellon Green Design Institute; If every American wrapped just 3 gifts a year in recycled materials (funny papers, decorated brown paper bags, fabric, etc.) we would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. Trust me as a girl who has as seen a football game or two. That is BIG!

Happy holiday season to all. Please be nice and follow the Tacky Chritmas Guidelines and we will all be merry and bright.

Bye, Bye Catalogs

A few posts ago I wrote about opting out of financial offers and just how much less mail I was receiving. An article in today's Hartford Courant mentioned a website that will make Casey the Mailman even happier.

www.catalogchoice.org allows you to chose which catalogs you want to opt-out of. So basically you can keep recieveing your yearly Rosie Hippo and seasonal White Flower Farm while not receiving that weird grandma-gadget catalog.

Last week my family of four filled four brown paper bags with out paper recycling. That includes school notices, three newspapers, toilet paper rolls, junk mail and lots of catalogs. My hope is that when this catalog opt-out kicks in I will have two bags of paper recycling.

Birth Choices

Lately it seems that everywhere I look I meet pregnant women. It seems that all of these woman are due soon and "just have" to be induced early.

Generally, I can't keep my mouth shut when I meet women who are inducing early and bragging about it. Over the last few weeks I have absolutely strained myself to keep my mouth shut when all of these pregnant woman have talked about just having to be induced early by their doctors.

Now you should know that I am very shy. So when I open my mouth at inappropriate times it tends to surprise people at first. Maybe this foot-in-mouth disease keeps me on the shy side. I'm not sure.

Does anyone out there remember that a due date is just an estimate? Generally due date fall somewhere is a four week period. That's two weeks before your due date and two weeks after.

If you are due over Thanksgiving that does not mean being induced the day before so your doctor can have a big meal with his family.

If you are "feeling big" and your last two kids weighed in the seven pound range that does not mean that you have to be induced before the baby grows too big. 99.9% of the time your body will not grow a baby that is too big for your body to handle.

These woman are playing with fire. They are playing with their babies health. They are playing with their own health. They are adding to an already over medicalized system of birth.

The infant mortality rates in the US are way up. The solution is an easy one. Take the doctors and the hospitals out of the equation for healthy women.

Countries where midwives and home births are the norm have lower rates of infant mortality and c-section rates plummet. Higher rates of early mummy and infant bonding. Mummy can take care of her baby earlier because she hasn't been cut and shot full of heavy drugs.

Personally, I had two very different births.

The Cliffs Notes version has me first pregnant with Little Girlie. I was young, working around a ton of nosey women in a school. Everyone shared their horror stories. I had no one to look-up to. I went to an OBGYN and a hospital looking for guidance. My labor looked like a three-ring circus with standing room only and nurses leaving my door open and inviting others in to see the "lady who can't push." My Girlie and I almost didn't make it through. I had a host of post-birth medical problems. Hubby and I decided to stop having children because it wasn't worth the risk.

With my Little Guy I was a little older, better connected with other mummies and much better read. I decided that if I could have a birth my way then I would try for another child. No interventions, no medications, no doctors, no hospitals. I had my son in a comfy bedroom at a freestanding birth center. I was allowed to get into a birthing tub in a dark, quiet room.

I gave birth to my 12 pound, 23 inch Little Guy peacefully in the water the way my body told me to. Within the hour I was up and around heating-up lasagna in the birth center's kitchen. Five hours after Little Guy's birth I decided that I was ready to go home.

Hubby, myself and my new Little Guy all dove home together at five hours old. The three of us slept the day away together. Never apart even for a second.

On days two and three the midwife came out to my house and visited us. Over the second week my mummy came to stay and help with my Girlie, myself and the house while I took care of Little Guy. On week three I had a postpartum doula come visit and help out for twenty hours.

Gradually I was on my own and the was OK.

To all of those pregnant woman out there, please listen to your bodies. Your mummy gave birth, your grandmummy gave birth, her mummy gave birth and their bodies all knew how to do so. Be strong and have your experience.

Today I Am Cinderella

Today, I am pretending to be Cinderella.

Not the beautiful, mice scurrying, riding in pumpkins, dancing with handsome men Cinderella. I am the toiling away at the hearth Cinderella.

Luckily we don't have a real hearth. That would just be one more thing to clean. We do however have sticky floors, ringy tubs, grungy counters and an entire mountain of dirty clothes. All of these things and more need to be cleaned before the family begins to arrive for Thanksgiving tomorrow.

All of this cleaning made me think about how I used to clean.

Things began to seem off with me when I was pregnant with my Girlie. Hubby had to take over all of the cleaning because my gut told me that I shouldn't be inhaling all of those strong smells while being pregnant. Then, after sweet Girlie was born I would clean when she wasn't in the room. Why would I expose such a sweet little thing to toxic fumes?

By the time I got pregnant with my Little Guy I finally smartened up. Something wasn't right.

After a ton of online research and talking to lots of people in the know I discovered that I didn't need gross smells and powerful white bottles to get my home clean. Things like vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice all had disinfecting properties while being safe enough to eat. Anything that was safe enough to eat was certainly safe enough to clean my home.

The changes in my cleaning cabinet came slowly. First a bottle of Dr. Bronner's. The website said that you could wash your floors, brush your teeth, wash your hair and clean lots more with this one little bottle. I stared simple with my floors. The Dr. Bronner's cleaned my floors so well that I told my friend Kim.

Kim had two very sick kitties. The kitties were regulars at the vets office. The vet couldn't figure out what was wrong with them. A few days after Kim got rid of her harsh floor cleaner she noticed the kitties getting better. A month later, the kitties were perfectly fine.

Kim's kitties are enough proof for me. Why would I let my human children crawl and play on a floor "cleaned" with toxic chemicals?

For my next purchase I bought an all-purpose cleaner. The 365 Brand makes a great cleaner. I could finally spray my counters clean without my eyes watering.

Then, came lemon juice and Borax to clean the toilets. No more opening the window to clean the bathroom.

Today, my house has 100% safe cleaning products. You could lick my counters if you were very brave. You could roll on my floors naked if you were very, very brave.

My advice to everyone out there including Mary, my new-to Whole Foods friend, my parents who are trying to green-up for their health, my neighbor who is ditching her bleach bottle and everyone else out there is to START SMALL.

Just change one product in your cleaning routine with an homemade product or safe alternative. As you get used to it, you can remove something else. Then, pat yourself on the back for cleaning the air in your home, the groundwater in your community and the air and water near the large cleaning chemical manufacturing plant.

Smoke in the Fire Station

Picture walking by your local fire station and seeing smoke pour out of the front door....

My family is lucky to live in a small village in Connecticut. It is part of a larger suburb, but our village has it's own small town idenity.

Twice a year our Hose Company hosts a community breakfast as a fundraiser for fire fighting equipment. They pull the fire trucks out of their bays to set-up large round tables and lots of chairs. The firefighters all help by either cooking or taking tickets. $6 for adults and $4 for kids.. What a deal!

We haven't missed one of these firefighter braekfasts since we moved to the village. Actually, we went to our first breakfast just before we closed on our house.

Today the Family bundled-up in our coats and mittens (thanks to hubby's grandmother for making us all new mittens this year) and walked down to the firestation. By eight a.m. nearly all of the tables were occupied. At the breakfast we saw our friendly crossing guard with her family, our neighbor whoos family has lived in the village for generations, a school friend of my girlie and our neighbor with the jumpy dog. We all ate together in the smoke-filled fire house.

The friendly firefighters will cook you eggs any style. You can also get french toast, homefries, ham, sausages, rolls, coffee, orange juice and grapefruit juice. The food is really good. Like, I would eat there every weekend if I could good. They even nailed my "over medium" request.

Thank you to our village hose company for hosting another great breakfast for our family and our community. We are counting the days until your next breakfast in May

The Gym

Yesterday morning I dropped my girlie off at the bus stop and headed toward the gym with my little guy. I make the trip three to four times a week in the colder months.

But yesterday I started thinking about my trip to the gym and the impact it has on the earth.

I chose the YMCA first, because there aren't many options around here. They also have a beautiful zero-entry pool for the kids to get some exercise and have fun in the colder months. They have an amazing gym with tons of equipment and friendly people. They have a certain kickboxing class that I love and spinning classes that I aspire to try someday. The best gym perk for a mummy with little ones is the childcare room that my little guy actually likes.

Over the summer I suspended my Y membership because I was hiking, biking and swimming both with the kids and when they were both in camp. Now that 40 degree temperatures are here and my little guy is with me all of the time, with the exception of a few nursery school hours, the gym is the only option.

For the first time yesterday I timed my drive. 14 minutes. That's 28 minutes round trip. If I visit the YMCA three times a week, that's 112 minutes per week. 504 minutes per month. 5040 minutes or 84 hours of driving over the school year.

84 hours of driving!?!

I can picture 84 hours worth of emissions spewing from my station wagon and I'm beginning to feel ill.

Yes, I walk the three minutes to the dentist and give myself a pat on the back. But now I DRIVE 84 hours in a year just to use the elliptical, kick a bag and lift a few weights.

You may say just buy a workout DVD or run around the block a few times. Trust me when I say that I have tried and failed. Trust me when I say that my blood pressure and other assorted old lady-type problems are finally in control now that I joined the Y. Trust me when I say that my kids are more active and happy in the winter now that they can swim and rock climb instead of staying home coloring or watching TV.

Do I put my body and health before the earth's health?

What is a girl like me to do?

Family Meeting

Late yesterday the mail came as it always does. My friendly letter carrier, let's call him Casey, parks his mail truck at the beginning of the neighborhood and walks the block every day except for Sundays and Mondays. Casey wears shorts for much too long in the season and appears to be some sort of medal-winning speed walker.

Anyway, Casey and myself have been much happier since I opted-out of financial offers. My mail was cut in half after those tree-eating financial offers stopped coming. Friendly Casey's bag must be almost a pound lighter each day.

The monthly electric bill arrived yesterday. This bill, like the others, stresses me out. Last months bill was lower than usual. Our family's monthly usage was nearly 30% lower than it was last November! This great news called for a Brady-style family meeting.

We gathered around the kitchen island so I could share the good news with the family.

Thank you to Little Son for turning off his overhead light at night and for using his solar nightlight.

Thank you to Little Girlie for turning off the lights when she leaves the room.

A special thank you to Hubby for giving a little cheer and for being truly excited that I was excited.

Let's aim for 35% next month!