Pecans for All

There's a pecan tree in an empty lot across the street from our house.

My dad discovered it when my parents were here for Thanksgiving, and he and my mom took the boys out to gather pecans. "There are lots more still in the tree," my dad announced, laying a sack of pecans on the kitchen table.

I made a mental note to collect more pecans, but there never seemed to be time.

One night, there was a crazy thunderstorm, and when we went outside the next morning, the street was littered with pecans, many of them crushed from cars taking a shortcut down our street. I figured that must have been the last of the pecans and resolved to do better at collecting them next year.

A week later, I saw a man lingering around the tree in the empty lot. He was thin, disheveled, and dirty, and he carried a bulging, bumpy pillowcase. He paused as I stepped out my front door, looking slightly uncertain, as if he was worried I would tell him to leave. But then he went back to what he'd been doing - collecting pecans and dropping them into the pillowcase. I couldn't believe how many he'd found and wondered if some of the pecans in that bag had come from other people's neglected trees. Either way, I figured, that was the last of the pecans.

Today after running errands, I noticed a "clunk, clunk" sound as I stepped out of my car. I glanced over at the tree and noticed that it was filled with birds who were busily knocking pecans from the branches. The nuts would crack open as they hit the street, enabling the birds to feast on the meat inside.

After the birds left, my boys and I decided to check out what was left of the pecans. We hovered close to the ground, nudging aside the leaves with our toes- but we still filled our pockets and then some. I plan to use the nuts to make some kind of treat to deliver to our neighbors when we go caroling later this month. Somehow, it seems fitting.

From one pecan tree: food for a man in need, food for the birds, food for my family and our neighbors.

It's these little snippets of life that remind me why I love the planet we live on.


(And oh yeah, I got a new camera for Christmas. Thanks, Mom and Dad!!!)

Related Posts:

• Nature Walk at North Hills Park
• Faux Camping Trip at Jordan Lake
• Thank You, Dear Stranger
  

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A Little More Action

My cousin's wife posted the following comment on my last post:

It's good to know that there are other people out there coming to the same realization as we are and wanting to do something about it.

Amen to that.

Until I discovered all the eco-bloggers out there, I always felt like I was alone in my opinions. It was a pretty great feeling to find other people who think like me.

Now that I've been blogging for a couple of months, sometimes I become delusional that everyone is making or has made the same changes I am. I'm surrounded on the Internet by so many awesome people doing so much good in the world. My inbox is constantly overflowing with newsletters and email from Grist, New American Dream, Co-op America, and the Sierra Club. I follow several blogs on a daily basis, and spend more time than I should thinking about the ideas I've read and the ideas I have for my own blog.

And then I'm forced to make that occasional foray into the real world...Like when I had to go to the mall a month ago...Woah, that was a wake up call that not everyone is avoiding consumerism.

So back to my cousin-in-law's comment.

I bet there are more people than we realize out there who have the same beliefs as us. I bet there are plenty of people who would agree that in this time of economic turmoil, it's time for some serious changes. So why do we sometimes feel so alone?

Maybe it's just that we're not talking loudly enough.

If you have an opinion, speak up. Tell people about it. And not just on your blog. Make a spectacle of living green. Get active in making the change happen. And as we transition to a new presidential administration, make sure your government officials know what you think.

If you're like me and have never written a letter to anyone in government before, here's some helpful information:

• To contact President-Elect Barack Obama
  
• To contact the President and Vice-President
  
• To contact your Representative
• To contact your Senators

I know what I want to see from our next Administration. I want a President who reinstills confidence in America. I want a President who's more concerned about doing what's right for the American people than in whether or not he's going to get a second term. I want a President who cares more about what the average American thinks than about what the mega-wealthy with the funds to support his campaign think. I want a President who does not believe that the American dream is based on consumerism or that the way to survive a national crisis is to encourage people to spend more money. I want a President who sees global warming as a real threat and who builds up the United States as a leader in environmentalism. I want to see some huge changes in our agricultural system.

I know what I want...What do you want?

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Time to Save Some Money

I picked up some booklets from Co-Op America while at the Green Festival and have been perusing them the past couple days. One is about Sweatshops, and is amazingly depressing, and the other is about Fair Trade, which I already know a bit about so that makes it a little less depressing but still guilt-inducing.

I got some birthday money from my dear mom and dad and was planning on heading over to the Gap Outlet to pick up a couple pairs of much-needed jeans, but after reading about sweatshops and how much Gap pays their CEO, I don't want to give them my money.

On the other hand, sweatshop free clothing is sooooo expensive, and I'm still getting over issues with thrift stores (to be discussed later).

This is my constant dilemma. I want to give my money to companies I like, but they're always more expensive. I don't think I can afford them. On the other hand, buying sweatshop free, fair trade, organic, etc. is the right thing to do, so shouldn't I find a way to do it?

I'm determined to find a way, so I'm on a quest to save money. One of the other booklets I picked up from Co-Op America was about energy efficiency, so here are their recommendations:

Baby Steps

1. Turn off lights you're not using.
2. Schedule an energy audit.
3. Don't heat or cool empty rooms.
4. Let your dishwasher breath. (Air dry your dishes.)
5. Shift your load to off-peak times.
6. Turn off your electronics when not in use.
7. Eliminate "phantom load."
8. Eliminate your second fridge, and show the first a little love. (Clean the coils every six months.)
9. Wash clothes in cold water.
10. Give the dryer a rest.

Jogging Stride

1. Plug your air leaks.
2. Reduce your water use.
3. Cut waste through windows. (Seal the edges of your windows.)
   
4. Help your water heater. (Add an insulating cover.)
5. Install ceiling fans. (And reverse the direction in winter.)
   
6. Get a programmable thermostat.

Marathon Runner

1. Upgrade your appliances.
2. Upgrade your water heater.
3. Green your roof.
4. Save energy through landscaping.
5. Replace your windows.
6. Don't waste energy on TV.

So I'm going to start with the baby steps, and I'll see what I can do toward saving me some money.

How energy efficient is your household? Do you have any other energy saving tips?

GratitudeToday:
I'm grateful to have energy to keep my house warm and cool, to power my oven which I used all day baking bread and muffins and pitas, to power my washing machine and dryer which got my clothes clean today, to give me lights so I can see after sunset, and to power my computer so I can write this blog. Now, if only I can learn to use that energy more efficiently.

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November Round-Up

I'm embarrassed to reveal this month's spending. I don't know how we could have gone so wrong! I can't even blame it on going green because that only accounts for part of it. The rest I'm guessing must have been celebratory spending because my husband and I thought we would be closing on our house this month, which would have given us a little wiggle room in the spending department. But we didn't close on our house, so instead we just ended up spending money we didn't technically have. Thank goodness for that cushion from the economic stimulus check!

Monthly Spending (budgeted amount in parentheses)

• Groceries: $751.56 ($500)
• Okay, I admit when I first saw this number, I started hyperventilating a little bit. But then I remembered that this was a five-shopping-trip-month, which happens about four times a year (I really ought to figure out a way to budget it in). So if you subtract $125, the amount of an average shopping trip for me, you get about $625, which is still scary, but not as scary. And at least I know now that if I really want to retarget my grocery spending, it's gonna cost at least $100, probably $200, more than I have budgeted.
  

• Transportation: $205.80 ($300)
• Another good spending month in this area, and this is even considering that we took a trip to DC to see the Green Festival, so that added another $60 to the usual spending. Of course, gas prices are hovering around $2 in Raleigh these days.
  

• Electricity: $89.39 ($150)
• Good times here again, thanks to Raleigh's temperate climate.
  

• Water/Sewer: $19.51 ($50)
• Again, good here.
  

• Entertainment/Miscellaneous: $595.45 ($300)
• Here's where we really went wrong. Again, there was the trip to DC, and it was my birthday, but that only accounts for about $100 of it. The rest is itty bitty spending here and there, all adding up to a whole lot of money we don't have.
  

• Clothes: $0 (no set budget)
• I don't have any idea what happened to that suit I mentioned last month because it never showed up on Wesabe. Therefore, I don't have to report that spending, right?
  

• TOTAL: $1,661.61 ($1,300)

Changes I Made This Month:

1. Bought recycled paper towels, and tried to decrease my paper towel usage by sacrificing some of Third Son's diapers to rags.
2. Bought recycled copy paper.
3. Took some steps to decrease my junk mail. This will be an ongoing process.
4. Started making yogurt again!

Goals for Next Month

1. I have one more paper-related change to make.
2. I had planned for my next change to be food, and originally, I had intended to completely change my grocery spending all at once, no looking back, and then figure out how to get my spending back under budget a little bit at a time. I think that would make my budget list on my sidebar look a lot cooler, but unfortunately we are still paying for two houses (sorry to keep harping on that), so I don't have the money to do that right now. Especially if we're going to keep blowing it on the entertainment/miscellaneous category. So for now, I'm going to have to make small changes a little bit at a time. This month, the plan is dairy and eggs.
3. I'm going to start keeping track of how many bags of trash/recycling we go through a month.

Gratitude Today: My bathroom cleaner smells like peppermint (which is my absolute favorite smell in the whole world) because I made it myself. And because it's nontoxic, Third Son can play on the floor next to me while I clean the bathroom.

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Changing Directions

I never had any plans when I started this blog to mention that I am a devoted Christian who attends church every Sunday (even when I'm travelling). A desire for a better world is nondenominational and nonpartisan, so I never thought about bringing it up. But as I'm thinking about gratitude this month, I think I would end up falling short if I didn't mention how grateful I am for my faith.

I tend to be a person who doesn't mention my faith outside of church. I don't like to offend others or feel that I have to defend something so personal, and those traits generally lead me to the extreme of not mentioning my faith at all.

But the truth is that all of my other beliefs – about kindness, fairness, and justice for all people, animals, and the world we live in – stem from my faith in God.

We just found out yesterday that the buyer who put an offer on our house in Maryland has decided to withdraw her offer. I am honestly devastated. I am having to reconsider whether I really can afford to make some of the changes in my life that I was hoping to make, buying local, organic and fair trade. I am hugely disappointed in this setback toward our ultimate goal of having a small farm and passive-solar house.

But I also have faith that it will work out the way it's supposed to in the end.

Bear with me as I may be changing directions on this blog in the coming weeks.

Photo by Phillie Casablanca

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Did He Know I'd Go So Green When He Married Me?

I signed up for a challenge from Joyce over at Tall Grass Worship to blog about gratitude for the whole month of November. I think this is an awesome challenge that will set the right tone for the upcoming Christmas holiday.

I promise that in the future, I will tie the gratitude theme more into the theme of this blog: going green on a budget. But today is my birthday, and today I feel awe and gratitude for my amazing husband, who knows me oh so well. So today you get to read about that.

Although the budget is really tight right now as we're struggling to sell our house in Maryland and also pay for an apartment in Raleigh, my husband asked me if I would be very upset if he got me a small something for my birthday. The very fact that he asked me shows how well he knows my frugal side, but guess what he got me (without any prompting from me)? A stainless steel water bottle. The perfect gift! (Except maybe a compost bin for some red wrigglers, but maybe I'll get that next year.)

He also talked me into heading up to Maryland for the weekend so we could attend the Green Festival in DC. I had decided that we shouldn't go, but he reminded me how much I really wanted to and helped me figure out the money issue. So we left the kids with a friend and spent the afternoon amongst the DC crunchy crowd learning about cradle-to-cradle design, compressed earth bricks, and the 12 step program to saving the planet. I'll blog more about those later. Right now the point is simply this:

After almost seven years, I still really love my husband.

Happy 30th to me!

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Thank You, Dear Stranger

This post is my submission for this month's Green Moms Blog Carnival. The subject is gratitude/favorite green things. Even if my submission is not chosen, you should check out the musings of all the great Green Moms on November 3 at Best of Mother Earth.

Gratitude is a frequent subject of conversation between me and my two older boys. The conversation is generally one-sided and goes a little like this:

"A thank you would be nice." OR "A little less complaining, a little more gratitude." OR "Gee, I'm so glad I did this for you since you are showering me with thank-you's."

First Son is just catching on to sarcasm, and it's way above Second Son's head, so dear hubby and I decided maybe we ought to have some more specific, less sarcastic lessons on gratitude. In the past two months, we have had five family night lessons on the subject of gratitude. I haven't noticed an increase in the number of thank-you's, but they can tell you this:

First Son: "Gratitude is saying thank you and showing love."

Second Son: "You show gratitude by being kind to people."

The point we've been trying to get across to the boys is that gratitude is meaningless without action. It does no good at all to feel grateful for someone if you don't tell them, or even better, show them.

Last week, my husband needed a ride to work really early in the morning, and the only way I could get my sleepy boys to put on shoes and head out to the car was to promise them some donuts. You'd think they'd be grateful for the treat, but as typical three- and four-year-olds, they spent the morning fighting and complaining, and by the time we were settled at a table in Dunkin Donuts, I was pretty frazzled. It was 8:00 in the morning, and the day was not looking good.

And then a nice gentleman at the next table started teasing my boys and making them laugh. He showed us pictures of his twin grandkids and told us some jokes. In short, he brightened the morning.

I am truly grateful for a man that I will never see again.

I'm sure you can think of similar times in your life when you've been grateful for the kindness of a stranger. How do you show gratitude to someone who was only in your life for a moment? How about passing on the kindness? Share a smile with the next person you see. Open a door for someone who needs a hand. Say thank you to the cashier, the bank teller, even the workers at the DMV. Show your gratitude for a stranger by being kind to another stranger.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the holiday of Thanksgiving were accompanied by a season of kind-giving?

In the spirit of showing gratitude for strangers, I would like to tell you about three of my favorite green things, which are not really things at all. They are organizations filled with people I've never met but for whom I feel grateful because they are people who are making a difference.

New American Dream

• Mission Statement: Help Americans consume responsibly to protect the environment, enhance quality of life, and promote social justice.
• Why I love it: The New American Dream embodies just about everything I believe in. I like what they stand for so much that I actually applied for a job with them two years ago when I lost my job and was panicking about becoming a full-time stay-at-home mom. I didn't get the job, but I like them anyway. If they were a political party, I would vote for their candidates.
  
• How I'm Showing My Gratitude: I'm spreading the word about their "Break the Bottled Water Habit" campaign.

Co-Op America

• Mission Statement: Harness economic power—the strength of consumers, investors, businesses, and the marketplace—to create a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.
• Why I love it: Co-Op America focuses on economic action to end injustices, and I obviously believe where you spend your money makes a difference or I wouldn't be blogging about being a Conscious Shopper. Also, although I am concerned about the environment, what really sends me on a rant is social injustice. (It seems like our society would have progressed enough by now that we wouldn't be treating each other unfairly.) So I'm grateful that Co-Op America has the two-sided mission of social justice and environmental sustainability.
  
• How I'm Showing My Gratitude: I'm participating in their Fair Trade Trick or Treat, and I'm hoping to attend their Green Festival in Washington, DC.
  

Sierra Club

• Mission Statement: Explore, enjoy and protect the planet.
• Why I love it: What's not to love about an organization that encourages people to get outdoors?
  
• How I'm Showing My Gratitude: I plan to get involved in my local chapter.

Time Magazine had a special edition a few months ago called "The Case for National Service." I'm not sure if I agree that service should be required, but wouldn't it be great if we all embraced the concept of volunteerism? Maybe this holiday season, we could show a little gratitude by being kind to those around us - even strangers - and by giving back to our communities. Let's all have a little less complaining and a little more gratitude.

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