Attoning for Eco-Sins

naughty

OK I need to make a confession....while i am passionate about living in harmony with nature and treading lightly on the earth, on a daily basis I commit a significant eco-sin that needs to evolve and change. Basically, I'm a fashion/brand/clothing addict. I LOVE clothes. I love stylish, fashionable, edgy clothes. This fact is profoundly inconsistent with my desire to be eco-friendly, and I've always felt that the two are incompatible. Almost like having a split personality...love the earth...love clothing? What's a girl to do?

eco-schlepping

So, I have a plan to change and attone...Jules and I are headed to LA for a few days for Born on Earth Kids, and during the trip I plan to scope out a few fabulous eco buys for myself. The eco-fashion world is really heating up - West Third in LA is supposed to have some hot eco-boutiques, including Vie, Romp & Evita Co-op. Check out this LA Times article about the boutiques!

It is so exciting to see that we no longer have to sacrifice style for eco-consciousness!

Lululemon Athletica

my new threads

sustainable bag!

As a busy mom, I am always trying to figure out what to wear and how and when to work out. So I thought I would combine the two with a new "sporty-mom" look. A friend of mine who knows the ins on sporty fashion gave me a great tip on a fabulous new store, which sent me on over to lululemon athletica. Not only do they have fabulous yoga-inspired work out clothes but they are also focusing on becoming more sustainable; they are taking action to reduce their six largest waste streams: fabric, paper, packaging, garbage, product, and store construction. Fashion plus a little sustainability, anyone? What a surprise it was to discover the store in San Diego, as part of their grassroots actions, holds free yoga classes on Saturday with a continental breakfast following. Now I know what I'm doing every Saturday: yoga, breakfast, and shopping! Maybe it is becoming a more perfect world... It was hard to leave the store with just three items, but I was able to focus on creating one starter look. To top it all off I left the store carrying a bright red sustainable bag with new goods in tow. Utter bliss.

Greening Kids Lunchboxes

Anybody out there struggling with plastic sandwich bags and other waste from kids lunchboxes? Well you are not alone - in fact, about 3.5 billion pounds of garbage is produced each year by typical lunchbox garbage. Our family too struggled to find eco solutions all last year...here are a few ideas I've been trying out this year:
1. Instead of using plastic bags, try using wax paper bags - like these from Natural Value:
2. Try out the Laptop Lunchbox system with removable containers, that don't contain phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), or lead.
3. Utilize only organic, non-processed, healthy food. Try to incorporate as much local food as possible. Here are some great ideas from the laptop lunch folks.
4. Try using the Lunchopolis system. This product aims to provide a 'garbage free lunchbag' - and they come in fun colors and styles too!

Enjoy! :-)

Cleaning with Love

Me & Mrs Meyers

I wish I loved to clean. I profoundly cherish having a clean and happy home, but between 2 kids, a fun-loving husband, Chloe our doggie, Midnight & Poppy (our 2 cats) and in general living in the country, I find that 'clean' is not even close to a perpetual state....and thus I need to clean way too often. I have never enjoyed cleaning, and never been that great at it. But I have had a domestic eco-revelation!

I am now an aspiring domestic eco-goddess aiming for a gorgeously clean, eco-friendly and happy home...all thanks to Mrs Meyers. Since I found her, I have fallen in LOVE with cleaning (well at least in LOVE with my cleaning products from Mrs. Meyers). These products are not only good for the environment (natural, biodegradable and cruelty-free), but they smell AMAZING. My cleaning has become my daily aroma-therapy. Seriously, I get a big mood booster from these products because they smell so amazing. They have Lemon Verbena, Geranium (my favorite), Baby Blossom, Lavender, Basil, and Peppermint for the holidays! YUM. Check em out here, and have fun loving to clean:-)

Pumpkin Patch Outing

Getting into fall and Halloween, we have a new tradition of going to a real pumpkin patch to pick out our pumpkins. So a couple weekends ago, me, Z, "Vivi," and "Mr. Everest" headed out to the nearby hills to pick out some pumpkins at a very fun pumpkin patch. It was a gorgeous day and the crisp fall air was refreshing.

"Mr. Everest" gets up close with some cute animals at the patch

And later we headed on over to the apple orchard. These horses were the main event...This horse ate lots of apples and "Vivi" made a new friend. Animals are our friends.

Farmer's Market Fun

One of my favorite ways of being eco is experiencing the local farmer's market with Sienna & Tessie, Chloe (our gracefully aging 12 yr old doggie), and Jacques. We usually bike or walk to the markets on Sundays, which creates a special family Sunday. This past Sunday we had exceptionally beautiful day in Windsor - slightly chilly, intensely blue, fresh breezy day…so we hit the farmer’s market and got to see all the gorgeous pumpkins, eat local honey, energize our spirits and connect together as a family.








I can’t imagine a more perfect Sunday, or a better way to be green! Find a Farmer's Market near you!

Why I Got Rid of My T.V.

"Mom, where's the T.V?" "Um, I'm not sure, is it gone?" "Yes! It's not there." "Oh, well, I guess we took it away." "WHY?, where did it go?" "We gave it away." "Now what are we going to do?" "We are just going to read, and color and spend time together and when we are bored, stare at the sky." "What about movies?" "We can still watch those on the DVD player." "Oh, okay."

There are several friends I have who never spent time watching television and I always admired them for that. I found that I enjoyed the time I spent with them in their spaces. Time just felt different, and it felt better. I wanted to have my time in my own space feel like that too. I also did not want my kids to create a strong television habit. So my husband Z, and I got rid of it because 1) that was the only way we could stop watching it, 2) we just had to try it for once in our lives to see how it felt to live without it and 3) we had a small window of opportunity before the kids got any older, before they would really know what hit 'em. Now we have more time to do other things, like go outside, bake cookies, listen to music, to think, read, and chat. Not to mention rent good movies. For my part, it is so much better than mindless hours of reality T.V. (I mean no offense, but are the Kardashian's lives really that interesting?) Now if I want to see an important event like a presidential debate or SNL skit, :) or special program, I can mostly find it online. The two little ones get to watch an assortment of children's programs on DVD. And if the man in the house needs to watch a game, he can get on over to the local sports bar or pub and hang with the guys. Everyone's happy!

Creating an Eco-Mom Lifestyle

Since I left Microsoft a couple of years ago, I have been focused on learning and acting to change my ways to become more sustainable. In my family, we are far from perfect, but we have made a lot of progress through simple actions. Here are a few simple steps we have taken:





1. Drive less - we use our bikes, our feet, our pedi-cab way more than we used to. Jacques bought me a shopping basket for my bike, so I can now bike to our local organic grocer - the 'Green Grocer'! Biking is not only eco-friendly but it is spiritually refreshing and great exercise.
2. Turn the lights off - just like putting my seatbelt on in the car is a habit, so is turning off the lights now. And of course, changing out the lightbulbs to CFLs is critical.
3. Waste less - we have dramatically minimized our waste by learning to recycle, reuse & compost. Composting is fascinating - if you are composting now you know what i mean...how in the heck do all those nasty food scraps turn into beautiful dark soil? the miracle of nature.







our cute compost bin and our double recycler cabinet
4. Put a sweater on - instead of turning the heat on all the time, we wear more clothes in the winter, add blankets, have family fires.
5. Consume less - It is so easy to just keep accumulating 'stuff' - toys, clothes, products, etc. So we are trying to reduce buying, start mending/reusing/etc. and are loving hand-me-downs.

6. Eat local and organic - we eat pretty much 100% organic, and as local as we can. We go to the farmer's markets, the 'Green Grocer', and we have our own veggies and fruit growing in our yard.

my meyer lemon plant

7. Eat less beef - the environmental impact of feed-lotted cattle is absolutely devastating, so we avoid eating beef as much as possible.
8. Don't use harsh chemicals - for cleaning, we use all eco-friendly products. We love Meyers cleaning products (see my other post on that).
9. Green your home while you make home improvement choices - we remodeled our home a year ago and made a lot of green decisions: bamboo floors (renewable resource), the most incredible organic paints (YoLo Colorhouse), sustainable decking materials (from recycled Milk bottles), and sustainable fencing from LifeTime Lumber.

These changes have not felt like these sacrifices at all - rather and it has been fun to make these small but important changes in our family life.

Peace is In

Peace is in. I spotted the Universal Peace Flag String at the Earth Day festival in San Diego a year ago and just had to have one. Mine hangs over my door. I know I am a poser, but now I can live my dream of being a hippie-wannabe. The nine peace flags say peace in a variety of languages, including, Latin - "pax," the "dove of peace," Arabic - "as-salaam, Chinese - "huh ping," Sanscrit - "shanti," Russian - "Mir," Hebrew - "shalom," English - "peace," and "rainbow peace." These flags are beautiful and hand batiked in Bali. Sometimes I feel like the peace string is somehow making an impact, that someone, somewhere out there is feeling the good vibes.

Picking Blackberries

Here is an older pic of the girls (and Chloe:-))picking blackberries up at Camano Island in Washington...life's simple pleasures.