Earth Day 2007

Yesterday, April 22, was the global celebration of Earth Day. As you may have read in my previous post we were very awakened after watching the film An Inconvenient Truth. Then this past Friday Oprah did a show on how each one of us can make little changes in our daily lives that can make a big impact on our planet.

As a family, we already live fairly green. I think one of the guests on Oprah said she was "mint green". We recycle, we ride our bikes as much as possible to work, camp, and school, we use compact fluorescent light bulbs, grow some of our own food. We are aware of our environment and try to make good choices.

After having seen Oprah, Brent and I decided that in honor of Earth Day we would make some of these simple changes in our family's life we encourage you to do the same:

1. Switching from paper to cloth napkins. On average people use 2,200 napkins per person per year. If we all gave up only one napkin a day, we could save a billion pounds of paper waste. Cloth napkins are much nicer to use anyway and can be used multiple times between washings.

2. Not taking a receipt at the ATM. According to the author on the show, if everyone left their receipts in the machine, it would save a roll of paper more than 2 billion feet long—enough to circle the equator more than 15 times.

3. No more bottled water. We buy cases of the stuff for soccer and things of that nature thinking that as long as we recycle the bottles we are not harming anything not stopping to think of the resources required to fill that bottle with basically tap water. From now on we will use our filtered refrigerator water in sports bottles that can be used over and over again.

4. Re-usable grocery bags. Our first stop on Earth Day was to our local Trader Joe's. We were low on wine if you want to know the truth. Anyway, we picked up 5 of these re-usable grocery bags for only .99 cents each!


5. Re-fillable coffee cups for Starbucks runs. Rumor has it they will even give you a .10 cent credit on your drink if you bring your own vessel to drink it from.

6. Ecofriendly cleaning products. As we run out of our toxic cleaning supplies we will replace them with more earth friendly versions.

These are just the things we are going to start right now, I am sure more will follow but for now it is pretty easy to implement these changes. When I told Madison about the changes we were making she said "we are only 4 people Mommie, how can it make a difference at all?" Good question indeed, I simply said that we needed to do our part to save the planet for her children. She just smiled.

My New Road Bike

After many months of waiting, my new road bike is finally here. She is the Terry Isis, named after the Egyptian goddess which is translated to mean queen of the throne.

You can read more about her here at The Facility Bike Club blog.

Eggs with Legs

This past weekend was Easter and our girls were with their other parents, the exes. We assumed that they would be doing the Easter activities while with them on the weekend so we did not plan or prepare for it. Somehow, they did not have the time and both our girls were disappointed.

Since it is spring break I took a couple of days off work to spend with Madison. Monday I headed to Alberstson's to get some eggs and dye kits.

The day after Easter is a great time to buy such things. I got several kits for $1.00 each! I bought each girl and 18 pack of eggs and their own decorating kit.

Last night we finally had the time to decorate and had a blast. Madison's were called Eggs with Legs, Shayna's were princesses, and well mine were Hello Kitty of course. Coloring Easter eggs is a peculiar tradition but does bring joy to our kids and lets them tap into their creative side. And we get egg salad for days to come.

South Park did an episode that you can watch a clip of here last week about the Easter bunny that was quite hilarious. Evidently St. Peter was a rabbit and there was a secret club of men who dress as the Easter bunny of course they were called the Hare Club for Men.

WNCC Soccer Tournament

This past weekend Shayna and I played in a one day soccer tournament that was a fund raiser for the local community college soccer program.

Last November I was playing on a Futsol team when I broke my ankle mountainbiking. I only got to practice for about a month and then play in one scrimmage before my MTB accident. Besides watching my girls, and coaching that is the extent of my soccer experience.

When this tournament came up Coach John asked if Shayna and I wanted to play. I had not run since my accident so last Wednesday I went and got new running shoes and then went for a one hour run to see how my ankle would hold up. It was fine (my muscles were not) so I decided to do the tournament.

Our first game was at 9:00 in the morning followed by one at 10:50, 12:30, and 2:10. Our team was basically the Futsol team with some additions. The ages on our team vary from as old as 40 (not me) to as young as 14. Some of our ladies played in college and one just got a free ride scolorship to college. What we did not know was we would be playing againt all college teams.

In our last game one of the cute little college girls asked if we had won our last game. I just started laughing and said "no sweetie, we are just a bunch of old ladies out here trying to have some fun". After that the word spread and they took it easy on us and started laughing with us when we would miss the shot or fall down.

Needless to say, we lost every single game and I am not sure we even managed to score a goal all day. Our oldest player tried so hard that she had a bruise on her ankle the next day!

Shayna and I had a great time together at the tournament and shared the pain the next day not being able to walk, stand, or climb stairs due to the pain.


We have both decided to play Futsol next season together I am very excited. I am going to get us some Futsol balls so we can practice in the cul-de-sac all summer cos mamma has no foot skills.