Blast from the past!
Grade Seven, 1990 I was already down with the environment. This story got chosen to go in the paper as a special insert paper, only one kid got picked from each class. Small town paper and all, but it was still cool.
Click on it if you can’t read it, although it is pretty bad, only grade seven and I already cared about the Earth though WOOT!
Happy Earth Day!! And may we all learn how to treat everyday like Earth Day.
So I will go BULLETS on you.
Ps. Dr. Vegas is always a mentor to the Sock Monkeys, he always gives em’ some advice before they leave our infantry but this particular monkey the Dr. really took to. They had a pretty awesome jam session before he departed, Vegas has already shown off his guitar though so he took it off for the photo.
Last July I wrote on some of the new measures that Adam and I are taking to make the world that we live in a better place and also trying to do our part for the environment.
Since then we’ve added things such as a reusable coffee filter [we both drink a lot of coffee and it is Adam’s fault I never drank as much till I met him] we’ve almost cleared the apartment of *almost* all plastic bags, which is not even close to as easy as it sounds and we’ve added reusable bags. There are people in the West End that recognize and point and give us a smile when we forget our bags and can be seen booting it home with our arms filled. It has happened to us both more than once.
One of my very favourite places to give my money to has always been to the WWF - World Wildlife Fund - I used to adopt animals for people as gifts on a very regular basis, you can also adopt forests, oceans and the arctic now. They have even more animals to adopt than they did when I used to do it, I may get back on that. I want a ‘Hotter than I should be’ organic t-shirt.
This will be the first year of hopefully many, that Adam I will participate in Earth Hour. Between 8 and 9pm this Saturday night, March 29, we will be in the dark with hopefully a massive load of people in the city and around the world. As per their website:
On March 29, 2008, cities across Canada, and around the world will turn off their lights for Earth Hour, a WWF event to raise awareness about climate change and symbolize that, working together the people of the world can make a difference in the fight against climate change.
Earth Hour has grown from a single event in Sydney, Australia in 2007 to a global phenomenon that will occur across six continents and in as many as 20 cities in 2008.
Toronto was the flagship Canadian city to commemorate Earth Hour 2008 but dozens of others including Ottawa, Vancouver and Montreal have already joined!
Our goal is to get thousands of businesses and individuals to participate in this historic event, so we can show the nation and the world that Canadians are leaders in addressing climate change, one of the most critical issues facing our world today.
I’ve been pretty excited about this since hearing about it. I have NO idea what we’ll do in the dark for an hour [I sense there will be some Earth Hour babies being made] but I am sure we will find something or maybe we will invite some people over for some good in the dark conversation.
If you’d like to participate you can either just DO IT or sign up on the WWF website.
If you’d like to do more, ‘The Good Life‘ is a new kick ass campaign/challenge you can also sign up for right on the WWF site and it will guide you through more and more ways to help save the planet basically handing you simple actions to not only help the Earth but to help you feel like you ARE making a difference and to make “Every Hour Earth Hour”.
I encourage you to click on the provided links and participate in this great cause. There is also a jam packed group on Facebook of participants you can also join in there.
If last year ONE CITY was able to accomplish what the quote provided below describes, I can’t wait to see what the rest of us can add:
Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.
About Earth Hour On March 31 2007, for one hour, Sydney made a powerful statement about the greatest contributor to global warming - coal-fired electricity - by turning off its lights. Over 2.2 million Sydney residents and over 2,100 businesses switched off, leading to a 10.2% energy reduction across the city. What began as one city taking a stand against global warming caught the attention of the world.
In 2008, 24 global cities will participate in Earth Hour at 8pm on March 29. Earth Hour is the highlight of a major campaign to encourage businesses, communities and individuals to take the simple steps needed to cut their emissions on an ongoing basis. It is about simple changes that will collectively make a difference - from businesses turning off their lights when their offices are empty, to households turning off appliances rather than leaving them on standby.
Yes, I went out wearing the outfit in the photo, and that outfit is just ONE exhibit in relation to my pleas and WHY I keep asking/telling you folks that someone, Keira, Jennifer, anyone, must for the love of fashion nominate me for ‘What Not to Wear’ and fast I could show up at your place wearing this at ANY TIME!!!!
You’ve all been warned.
No matter how long I live here I can not dress for the weather, no matter how hard I try I am either too hot or too cold.
Let me first tell you what I have on my person and that it was plus one or more degrees when I went out and pissing rain.
Can you say over heat much? Today was ridiculous, I felt like I weighed a million pounds, not good for any day let alone the first day I leave my house to also test my back out. I had to wear my Banana Republic coat and not my Helly Hansen snowboard jacket [even though SKIING IS WHERE IT IS AT!!!!!] because my jacket is BRIGHT orange and would have looked worse than I already did in my coat and wellies, I think.
I needed some panties because I have lost what I fondly refer to as my newlywed comfort weight and am back in a size small panty, I needed a shirt for a Christmas party Saturday night - I found one - which led to needing a new bra which I got in a 34B and not a 32C yet I have lost weight. You tell me. Christmas or not my outfit will have pink.
By the time I got to Payless to look for winter boots for our trip up North I was dripping in sweat and had remembered three times over that I had forgotten my RE-USE-ABLE BAGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When this happened to Adam he walked home from the grocery store with the groceries in his arms, hands and pockets to teach himself a lesson. I think my outfit was lesson enough and you can’t walk around other stores with panties hanging out of your pockets.
Even though I got boots at Payless I MAY end up taking them back they were seventy something dollars after taxes at PAYLESS?? The more I think about it the more wrong it seems.
Today is a perfect example of WHY I let Adam dress me. From now on when people ask me WHY or look at me funny when I say my husband dresses me [as long as he is home!] they will be referred to this post.
AND on the walk home it started to rain hardish and the umbrella with ALMOST broken open button, BROKE and would not open and my fingers got extremely sore and red and cold. I tossed it because it was poking my anger spot.
Top five total BS reasons I didn’t insist on the cordless guitar being mine and have not even tried it:
Back in late 1999 and early 2000 the roommate I was living with was huge on recycling, I at the time did not give a shit about recycling and would only recycle things when she was around and I’d ask if everything was recyclable in a mocking way, even if I already knew because I found it all rather silly. How ignorant I can be.
I can’t remember now when I started to recycle but I do as much as I can and she has become jaded and doesn’t.
For me, recycling has become a bit of an obsession, mind you a good one. I like to keep the How to Set Out Your Recyclables page handy off of the City of Vancouver website. Yes, I am nerdalicious and I love it. I get extremely pissed off and rant about anything that does not have clear recycling instructions on it, there is no excuse for that in my opinion in today’s day and age. I also think that apartment recycling and recycling from your home should be the same so things we don’t have bins for I recycle anyway because I know the guy that lives across the street in a HOUSE gets to so why oh why can’t I?
Recently Adam and I have added new measures to being people who are good to the Earth. I used to be really bad about leaving the water on when I brushed my teeth. I turn the water off now. Adam used to only use cloth hankies at work, now he uses them at home as well. I still use a tissue I can’t blow my nose into something as many times as a hankie should be good for. I am much more conscious of how long I’m in the shower for. And then one day I was in the kitchen and glanced down at the extension cord that contained, the microwave, the coffee pot, the grill and the toaster oven. I unplugged everything and when Adam got home I told him we were going power friendly we would be unplugging the entire kitchen when not in use and we would also unplug the power bar connected to the computer when the computer was off. We still leave the fan on almost constantly and haven’t gotten into turning off the power bar that runs the t.v stuff yet but I am sure that is coming.
It has been an adjustment but one that makes me feel good about myself when I remember to do all of the new things we are doing. I find it rather fun. Since I started recycling I have found it fun, although I don’t know why I find it ‘fun’ to be exact. Since we have started implementing the changes I have found myself almost sickened at how much power we were draining just out of our tiny kitchen, I can’t believe how much there is to leave unplugged. I still have a bad habit of leaving the t.v with the mute button on when I’m home alone but not watching it, I find it to be comforting, I picked the habit up from my dad, why he leaves his on I don’t know. I’m working on not doing that as well. Some things are easier than others, the t.v is on mute right now and I am not watching it.
…. ok you talked me into it… I’ll go play Guitar Hero Encore Rocks the 80s edition right now then so at least I’m using it.
Sometimes I am a crap housewife and I don’t clean for a few days in a row and the kitchen gets messy which sucks because I don’t do the cooking so then we end up eating out because I have guilt and don’t want Adam in there if I’ve been neglecting my job. This is the only job I’ve ever had that I don’t have to worry about getting fired from and sometimes I think I may take it for granted a little BUT I make up for it in other ways I promise I do. I did take a good number of beer bottles out to the alley for the homeless yesterday that were taking up too much counter space and there was already a dude out there about to leave so I said “HEY do you want these?” He did. I used to always take all my stuff to the Salvation Army. Not empties but old shit I didn’t use, old clothes, basically the regular crap you give. I hate it when I get rid of stuff and then want it back, I do that a lot. But now I give everything to the alley. It isn’t to be lazy either. Why have someone selling it when there are people in my alley who need it NOW and I don’t need it.
I did something HUGE. It actually cut into my dishes/cleaning time because I had to drop it off. I lent a hard cover book without the cover to a friend that I JUST got in the mail and I have not read. It is a girly book, Shopaholic and Baby, a great fluff summer beach book. I opened it, the fresh new sound a hard cover makes when you open it creeped out from the bind and the smell of untouched pages filled my nostrils. Heaven. This is a big step in trust for me. I do not like lending books. Really I don’ t like lending anything. I have to like you more than a little. It made sense for me though because it arrived when I had JUST started Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald and it is almost 600 pages long.
Also, while I’m just spewing out random shit which I guess is what I normally do here ?? Hmmm. I wanted to let you know that we finally watched Snakes on a Plane. Some of you know that snakes are the animal that scares me the very mostest of all things that scare me on earth. But yet crocodiles and alligators are my favorite animal. I don’t try to make sense of it either. Snakes on a Plane ruled. It had insanely bad dialogue, bad acting, a ridiculous plot, one snake that was so big there was NO WAY they could have even gotten it on the plane and as IF it fit in that bin that the rest of the snakes came from. I screamed out loud a couple of times. SPOILER: There is one part where a snake bites this chicks tit, right on her nipple, only thing that could have made it better is if her implant exploded.
I gotta go do dishes because eating MacDonald’s makes you fat.
Eight days till I’m 30.
