Happy Earth Day!

While Evan was getting dressed this morning in his totally awesome Earth Day attire that I found at Wal-Mart for four bucks, he asked me what the shirt said on it. When I told him he looked at me completely surprised and said "Love HER? - The Earth is not a HER!" I then went on to explain to him that all the heavenly bodies are referred to as being feminine - they are all in fact, HERS. He looked at me like he still didn't buy it and then asked "Why?" I didn't really have a good explanation for that so I told him it was because they were more pretty than handsome.

I think I may need to read more.

Today is Earth Day and I am realizing that I am not as green as I would like to be. I have made small strides in trying to do my part to better this planet of ours, and I know that every little bit helps, but I wish I could do more. I am still trying to find uses for things I would normally throw away - at least one more use. I just realized yesterday that the bags they bring the newspaper in on rainy days make wonderful receptacles for small kitty litter clean up jobs. Since the Easter holiday I have a whole new stash of egg cartons at the ready for the day when the kids announce they want to paint. I can't tell you how much sanity is restored by them having their own colors in their own tray. We still do our curb side recycling of newspapers, glass and plastic. I would love to be able to have a garden, but unless we plant smack dab in the middle of our front yard, we just don't have much sun around here. I have some ideas for where we may be able to plant a few things in the backyard, but the plan may necessitate losing some trees that block the sun. Cutting down trees to plant a garden seems to defeat the whole "green" purpose a little bit. I have tried container gardening in the past, but it never seems to work well for me. I would also love to be able to compost. One morning on PBS Kids, Evan and I were watching a Curious George episode where George is learning about composting. I think I was as fascinated by the whole thing as Evan was. After it was over Evan asked me if we could do that. I told him that we could, but we have yet to do it. I guess I should research it a bit more. I don't know if we need to have one of those composting barrels and how much they cost? Can it be outside during a cold winter? It would be a very cool way to recycle our organic waste as opposed to shredding it up in the garbage disposal.

So are any of you trying to be greener? I would love to hear any ideas, tips, tricks or ways you are reducing your carbon footprint.

Because you know that I am vying for the Mother of the Year award (kidding) - here is what Evan brought for snack helper. Dirt sundaes. How cute are they? Not only cute, but SO yummy! I don't think it gets much better than Oreos and chocolate pudding.