Green Options

While chasing down LA’s finest hot dogs I stumbled on a great new project in Los Angeles.

There’s a new Loft Community popping up and it’s really exciting. Live/work spaces are automatically desirable to anyone with kids. The day I became a mother there was an intense need to be near my kids, to keep them close. I didn’t realize how sustainable my decision to stay home was. I’d fogotten about commutes, dry cleaning and pantyhose within moments of changing my first diaper.

Who doesn’t love a Birthday Party?

How do you keep birthdays green without being that obnoxious sustaian-a-Mom that everyone rolls their eyes at?

1. Invitations. Keep them digital. No one wants another piece of paper. Most of the moms in my neighborhood use evite, it’s good and reliable and you can even add potluck, carpool and end times to the evite.

2. Decorations cut down on the paper items and invest in a few pieces that will be appropriate every year. How about a fabric Happy Birthday Banner that will be festive, and build tradition.

If you’re crafty, you could probably make this yourself, but if you’re me, $38 is a bargain.

This just in, the city of San Francisco is having a hearing Monday that will decide if a resolution calling on California to create a Do Not Mail Registry will come before the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. A Do Not Mail Registry would give citizens the choice to stop receiving unwanted junk mail.

Can you imagine?

Because I’m so green I won’t be taking my private jet up to San Francisco, but I am extending an invitation to all you.

According to the National Action Against Obesity the girl scouts who peddle cookies each spring get 40 to 60 cents from each box sold. Roughly ten percent of each sale. Ask any mother whose living room has been taken over by boxes of cookies, any father who’s had to drag their daughter into work with a cookie order form, if that’s worth it. The Girl Scouts of America assert that 12% to 17% of each sale goes to the troop. At $4 a box that’s between 48 cents and 68 cents per box sold.

I know that looks impressive until you scroll down and see this.

I love Girl Scouts. My Mother was a Girl Scout, her Mother was the Troop Leader, but the Girl Scouts have been setting a terrible precedent. They’re asking young girls and their mothers to endlessly solicit from friends and family without adequately compensating them. If we’re raising our girls to be strong, let’s also raise them to be clever capitalists.

Okay Jessica, but what does this have to do with a sustainable lifestyle?

I just finished reading The Mom’s Guide to Growing Your Family Green. I’ve got one word for you.

Yipee!

Finally, there’s a book for moms who are looking to go green that doesn’t make them feel like a failure. I’ve always been pretty green. It was recent that I realized that a lot of my peers don’t think about sustainable living. I’d just assumed that everyone went through the same processes that I did.

What I didn’t realize is that a lot of women (especially parents) felt like they had to do everything. By “everything” I mean everything from green cleaning products to the diva cup to growing their own food, and by being made to feel like a perennial failure, many parents are unwilling to attempt any part of a sustainable life, for fear of being mocked.

I had to stop what I was doing this morning to write this post. The newswire came in with the headline FRITO-LAY SPRINTS AHEAD TO IMPROVE FUEL EFFICIENCY and I stifled a giggle. Then my blood boiled.

Frito Lay thinks you are an idiot.

Rather than traditional delivery trucks, Frito Lay has announced that they will buy a fleet of Dodge Sprint Delivery trucks. Unlike bullets at wartime, frankenfood is not something we need delivered.

I agonized over writing a review of Eco Store’s Dishwashing Soap.

Then I wrote it anyhow.

And I’ve never been more delighted to be wrong.

I. Hate. Paper. Mail.

I don’t dislike it, I detest it. I don’t need yet another bill from AT&T to sit on my desk. I pay it all online anyhow. I’ve signed up for internet only billing with a few companies, but for some I’m so panicked about not receiving the email (think mortgage) that I really want it sent to my physical address.

I’ve eliminated some of the obvious junk with 41Pounds, but there’s got to be a way for me to still get traditional mail without the 42 dollar footprint (no that’s not a typo), well, someone had the idea to stop fighting the postal system and migrate to a virtual mailbox.

Zumbox.

Dear Husband,

I know it’s difficult being married to me. I won’t eat fast food, partially hydrogenated anything, red dye or any other Frankenfood. A box of chocolates will just send me into orbit because of the high fructose corn syrup and cut flowers leaves me cold.

I did make a few itsy, bitsy requests of you last week. But really, Valentine’s Day is like my Superbowl, and I’m getting all excited about it.

Darlin’ I want a dog. Yeah, I know, no dogs because puppies keep you up all night, pee all over the carpet and gnaw at the kids’ toys.

Guess what? I can totally fix that. I want Jimmy! Jimmy is potty trained and little (doesn’t eat much), he’ll occupy the right side of my lap (I’ve got one for the left), he doesn’t shed AND I doubt he has many teeth left.

But here goes.

I was sent a sample of Eco Store’s Automatic Dishwashing Soap, and I almost fell over when the box arrived. Peanuts, it was packed to the brim in packing peanuts.

I don’t even know what to say. I was (and am) startled that a company who wanted to be sustainable would ship in a packaging that will outlast my Great Grandchildren. What’s worse is this.

I love the product.