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Looking for a new showerhead? Why not pick one that is green/smart and helps you save on water AND energy.

I recently got a 1.6 GPM Energy and Water Saving Showerhead from the Clean Air Gardening Store and it is a great product for a green home. It addresses a common habit…leaving the water running while it heats up. Of course no one wants to step into frigid water but it is all to easy to turn it on and then leave to do other things. I know I am guilty of that and my kids can be to. We end up wasting hot water and energy many times when we do this. But with this showerhead it is no biggie if you need to go run to the laundry room to get a clean towel because this showerhead is SMART.

It has a built-in ShowerStart technology sensor that senses when the water is warm enough. It senses when the water reaches normal bathing and showering temperature (95 degrees) then “pauses” the flow of water, retaining instead of wasting your hot water. When hear the water stop running and know your shower is ready to go. When you are ready to get in, jump in and turn the valve to resume water flow. Easy!

You save water by not wasting it and you save energy by not heating up water that just goes down the drain..your shower waits for you. It is also a low flow showerhead, and will save about 8 gallons or water for every 5 minutes you shower and according to their web site that should save you around $230 on utility bills and more than 7,600 gallons of water per year. It pays for itself after 3 months. It is only $39.99 at Clean Air Gardening.

Here is a video to show you how it works. The only difference between the one in the video and ours is that ours has a cord attached to it so even the kids can pull it and re-start the water….very cool.

I have been reading about WWII Victory/Freedom Gardens lately. I am not sure when the concept began but our history is rich with stories of people who used times of war and economic depression (like The Great Depression) to get proactive and start growing their own food. During WWII you could find posters encouraging you to start your own garden and avoid the restrictions of food rations and to become more self sufficient during those stressful times. Families grew their own food on what land they had. Other people gardened in vacant lots, on rooftops, and in city parks. Public schools even designated areas for gardens and the students maintained them.

The purpose behind the freedom/victory garden was to lessen the demand on commercially grown produce and thus more would be available to the Armed Forces and lend-lease programs. It reduced demand on materials used in food processing and canning. Railroads could focus on transporting munitions and not food. And of course giving the people an important job to do helped maintain the morale of Americans on the home front. By preserving fruit and vegetables for future use they were also preparing for the worst.

So what does this have to do with the present? Well, we are facing an economic depression right now. Our country is at war, gas prices are $4-6 a gallon, and gas prices are causing food prices to skyrocket as well. In the local paper here in Ohio I was just reading about people having to spend 20-30 percent of their income on gas. After they pay their living expenses, if they can, then what do they have left to buy food with?? If ever there was time to bring the freedom gardens back I think now is one of those times.

Although the reasons for starting one might be slightly different. By growing your own food you will become less dependent on greedy corporations to feed your family and become more self sufficient. You will save money by not having to buy food at the higher prices you see now and you will save gas money too. You can grow enough to can and preserve food for later use. You can grow and extra row for the needy in your local community. You can grow heirloom fruits and veggies and help preserve our heritage and the great flavors and colors of these lesser known varieties. You can help send the message that during times of recession the answer is hard work and voluntary simplicity not “shopping” as our current President would have us believe…where the only entity who gets ahead is the corporation.

Also, we may want to garden for food security reasons just like they did in WWII…not because we think we will run out of food but because conventional food growers often use noxious chemicals on our food. Their dirty practices may also expose us to things like salmonella as we have seen just recently with spinach and tomatoes.

To that end I am now calling my modest garden a freedom garden. You can see some pictures of what we have here…I will be adding more as the season progresses. I am growing several varieties of lettuce, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, spinach, beans, 4 varieties of tomatoes, strawberries, blackberries, squash, and watermelon. We will also be growing our own pumpkins this year. The items we like that we are not growing I will be buying at my local Farmer’s Market. Corn for instance takes up too much space so we can buy it from our farm neighbors. There is also a farm nearby that sells raw nuts and some fruits we won’t be growing. We will be getting apples from a nearby orchard.

It is a wonderful feeling to grow your own food and feed your family with nothing but your sweat and hard work. It is also a great feeling to become less dependent on “the man”. I also like teaching my kids important lessons…aka where food comes from and how to grow it yourself! Preserving food is also another great skill. One book I highly recommend on that topic is Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning, it is full of great information on preservation techniques using salt, oil, sugar, alcohol, vinegar, drying, and lactic fermentation.

If you don’t have a yard to garden in you might try some of the following:

1. Plant in containers on your porch, patio, or window.

2. Look for a community garden that will give you a designated spot or plot to garden. You can also join up with friends or family and plant at one of their homes if they have the space.

3. Find a small secret place to garden at a local park. I know one gentleman who gardens in various places in Central Park!

4. Do you have an elderly neighbor who used to garden but can’t anymore? Volunteer to work their garden in exchange for half the produce.

5. Buy from local farms and skip the middleman.

So now it is your turn. Are you gardening to produce your own food this year? What is your motivation?

Photo Credit

The winner of the earth friendly art supplies and staionary is Jen with comment #13! Congrats Jen. Enjoy!

The winner was picked as always with random.org. Thanks to Stubby Pencil Studio for hosting this contest!

We recently added another board game to our collection. We LOVE games and mom especially loves games that have some earth friendly message or that encourage a curiosity in nature. A few weeks back I won a $50 gift certificate to a homeschool store, I used part of it to buy The Farm Game for Kids. I have to say that this is one enjoyable and educational game.

The game has three levels of play so it is almost like having three different games in one. The first level is for kids starting at age 3. Basically you go around the board collecting produce (eggs, apples, corn, or watermelon) if you land on a produce space or you chill out on a playground or school bus space. When a player reaches the Farmer’s Market stand, play stops and produce cards are counted. The player with the most produce wins.

In the second level, for ages 5 and up, you use two dice. One to move on the board and the other to calculate how much you get paid for selling produce. So if you move 2 spaces up on the board onto a watermelon space and you roll a six on the other die then you use the produce chart to deduce that you have earned $12 selling watermelons. When a players reaches the market the game stops and money is counted to determine a winner. This level is great for teaching how to count money.

The third level, for ages 7 and up, involves both dies, money, and the produce cards. It gets a bit more complex but basically you use the dice and the chart to determine how much money you get based upon how many produce cards you have collected…so more math is required for this level.

All three levels are fun and it inspires a curiosity in farming, an awareness of the value of food, and it is great for teaching basic math concepts and chart reading. The game is colorful and well crafted too. It is an awesome game for homeschoolers teaching math concepts and if you are just playing for fun you aren’t disappointed there either. I highly recommend it!

And while your here, check out some of the other educational, eco themed, socially conscious games we like.

Then you need to watch the following video and stop by a donation center for Soles United. This looks like an amazing program that not only helps the less fortunate but it repurposes a popular product that is being sold my the millions in this country.

Thanks Jen for the heads up.

TGIF! Have an awesome weekend everyone!

I have some personal news I find rather exciting. This month marks two years since my cancer diagnosis. Can you believe it has been that long! Well, I am 1.5 years cancer free at the moment. I hope I am not getting too cocky posting that! I still think about all the great people I met during treatment and of course I have gnarly scars to remind me everyday that life is a precious thing. Well, as I got to thinking about this today I decided that my kids and I are going to do something for children affected by cancer. I am directing my efforts at kids so I can involve my own and get them excited about it. But of course adults are also victims of this horrible disease. So I will also be volunteering to provide “Chemo Rides” for those who may be alone and need a lift to their weekly chemo sessions.

For the children I was thinking about sewing crayon rolls and then giving them to children at The James, a cancer hospital in Columbus, Ohio. I need to speak with them about it but I soooo hope they will agree to let us do this. And oooh, if I could get soy crayons at wholesale rates…hmmmm.  Anyway that will be my little project to work on. I am just looking for a more reliable sewing machine and I will be set.

Other interesting things:

My good friend Carrie at Natural Moms Talk Radio has a great post up about eating cooler in the summer. Cooking in the summer and heating up an already hot kitchen presents a problem for many folk but her post has lots of great suggestions.

No Impact Man is talking about how religion and faith in God can’t be used as an excuse for being environmentally lax. Awesome post!

Re-purposing marbles to make lovely marble suncatchers. Which reminds me that I am now using Flickr to document our family adventures. Check it out if you have a moment!

It is yard sale season!!! I have been yard sale hopping 3 weekends in a row now and have scored some great things. Just today I found 3 handmade costumes for a little girl. They were worn in school plays and are so adorable. Now my daughter can be a renaissance lady, a pilgrim, and wear an Asian Kimono. My son also got a pair of roller blades for a $1….they just need new wheels. It got me thinking about some of my posts here about yards sales. See budget and style on a cheapskate budget.

Well, I am off to enjoy my weekend! See you later!

La Marguerite wrote an article recently that really resonated with me. I think she accurately hit on an important factoid about the green movement…many people don’t think highly of it. They have snide remarks, they thumb their noses at it, or just veil their distaste for something they perceive to be nothing more than a way of inconveniencing them or guilting them. Green means change, consuming less, and voluntary simplicity and let’s face it, MANY want NO part of it. La Marguerite suggested using the term smart to refer to things instead of green. I totally agree. Many of the greenest products are the smartest too.

Think about it…a hybrid cuts down on fossil fuel usage and dangerous emissions. It is also a cost efficient choice. Solar and wind power might cost more initially but eventually you will save money on those too and stick it to big oil. Reusing and repurposing is frugal and self sufficient. Green is SMART! It seems as logical to me as one plus one equals two.

Frankly I get sick of hearing how green is a new religion. To me it sounds like someone saying that cancer research is a religion. If someone is really passionate about curing cancer would we call them a fanatic or a crazy anti-cancer person? No…we wouldn’t. So why is it that someone who is trying to save or preserve our planet gets a weirdo label? If someone is really passionate about green issues why do they deserve to be called a fanatic? It boggles the mind really because as a species, the earth is one thing EVERYONE has in common. It is our one home. Everyone should be on board with protecting it.

My younger brother is one who is constantly digging at me about my green enthusiasm. He is just one of those people who doesn’t think humans can do any REAL damage. I ask him to define damage…I mean how many animal species are extinct already? Yesterday in my hometown I heard a gentleman say this “If you don’t like gas prices thank those lousy environmentalists!” Yes, us lousy folk want to preserve our planet and make living on it enjoyable for everyone. Lousy would not be the word I would use to describe such a goal.

Of course our goals are impeded by pseudo greenies too. The companies and people who greenwash to make a buck or just make themselves feel better about their not-so green choices. It irritates me when I read articles written by “green” people who say things like well, I know I should do this or that but hey “I am not that person, or that just isn’t my choice”…aka I am not the person who sacrifices for something I am supposed to care about. It sends the movement a step back IMO. And I have been guilty of it myself plenty of times. I often think back to old habits and remember how opposed I was to making changes. At the time I could justify them until the cows came home…things change…you learn, you grow, you change.

Which brings me to green guilt. Lately I have been changing my opinion on that matter. Unlike mommy guilt I am not so sure green guilt is a bad thing. It can be good in SOME cases.

Guilt is subjective. Are we really being guilted by our peers or are their courageous words and actions simply acting as a mirror for us… a mirror that shows us something we aren’t proud of? Some cases of green guilt are just that and thus productive. That said don’t let anyone give you crap if your not further along than they are…it is a journey. As long as you keep moving and trying you are doing more than most.

The green movement is about reaching out for social and environmental responsibility, voluntary simplicity, bringing awareness to everyone, concern for others, and courage to do the right thing.

It is about deciding to reduce our footprint for future generations so they aren’t footing our bill later on…to make sure we aren’t writing checks our grandchildren won’t be able to cash. But they are not fanatics…they are passionate about something that technically EVERY human should be passionate about. That’s not green…that’s just smart.

What do you think?

One of the MOST important things I want to do for my kids is to create opportunities for them to to use their imagination and ingenuity to “create”. Albert Einstein once said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

I fully agree with his statement. I have accomplished so much in life because I actively nurtured creativity in life and in business. When I worked in marketing there was nothing that served me better….my job was to imagine a company brand, marketing materials, a PR campaign, collaterals, and then create what I saw in my mind. I still have my portfolio with all of my concepts and designs. I knew I wanted my children to feel the same empowerment that I did from being able to visualize something and then make it a reality.

Our home by design is a haven for creativity and artistry. We have paints, soy and beeswax crayons, sketching pencils and instruction books, stencils, beads, clay, play dough, beeswax, sewing supplies, costumes and face paints, henna, decoupage materials, cross stitch and knitting supplies…we are always adding to our “creation station”.

Yesterday I read a book that really resonated with me. I couldn’t put it down! It is The Creative Family - How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections by Amanda Blake Soule. It is full of advice on how to easily encourage a creative atmosphere and it has many simple projects for the whole family to do. It also gives many ideas for inspiration. I loved her ideas to use kids artwork to make thank you cards and Christmas cards, I loved her idea to use beat up vintage children’s books for art projects, and I loved her ideas for organizing everything. I will be making our own inspiration wire like she shows in the book, which is filled with beautiful color photos of her home and her family’s projects. My favorite tip was hands down the one where she suggested taking shirts with paint/marker/food stains and dying them. I hadn’t thought of that! There is also a chapter devoted to being resourceful and not wasteful. It has many planet friendly ideas.

One tip that I fully endorse it to buy quality art supplies for your kids…not the cheap stuff you get at big box stores. Yes, it does cost more but their creations are worth it. After all, we don’t like using low quality tools when we have a job to do. That is one reason I like soy crayons so much…they color smoothly and evenly unlike chunky, splotchy petroleum crayons. Quality watercolors are steadfast and won’t fade like the little Crayola sets you can buy. A good wooden handle, animal hair paint brush will last for a long time as opposed to a cheap plastic one. A good place to look for cheap but high quality materials is at yard sales and estate sales. I know I am looking for children’s desks this summer. Even if they are in bad condition I can paint them and give them a makeover.

Among the projects outlined in the book…a pencil roll, felt blocks, a pair of pants from an old T-shirt, freezer paper stenciling, embroidering your children’s art on clothes and pillows, making memory books, and making bedtime bags….plus much more.

I think it would be hard for anyone to read this book and NOT be inspired by it. I know I will be referring to my copy for a long time to come.