Woo hoo!  These fireworks are the best kind . . . that is, a photograph of fireworks, which inspires the feelings of excitement and joy, are better for the environment than actual firework displays.  To read more the EPA’s Richard Wilkin’s research about the ill effects of fireworks on the environment, visit Physorg.com.  Honestly, latex balloons (or pictures of them) may be the more environmental way to celebrate, but since we’re in a virtual space, I figured, what’s the harm?

But I digress.  Okay, so do you want to know why I’m setting off fireworks over here?  All right, I’ll tell you.  This week marks my 300th post for Green Mamma! Yay!  I started writing the Green Mama blog in July of 2007, about 8 months after the birth of my daughter.  I had been blogging away about her for our family on another blog and decided that I needed another outlet for my interests in the environment and natural parenting (I figured that family and friends were more interested in cute photos of my daughter and less interested in what I had to say about this or that).  And so I got the idea to write another blog, which became Green Mama.

Months later (and let me admit that I pretty much ignored my blog for several months), I rekindled my passion for blogging about the environment and watched as the traffic to my blog grew and grew.  Eventually, with my husband’s encouragement, I decided to find my own domain space and named it Green Mamma.org (which is what was available at the time and which I’ve explained to myself as being something like fate).

And now I have written over 300 posts, collectively, for the Green Mamma blog!  Amazing stuff, isn’t it?  Of course, I wouldn’t be writing these posts if it were not for the encouragement from friends and readers.  So, I just wanted to say thank you for everything.  It has been a real pleasure crafting Green Mamma, and I am totally looking forward to yet another 300 posts.

Meanwhile, I thought that this would also be another great opportunity to announce the winner of the Santa Cruz Organic Tea giveaway.  Congratulations to Organic Needle!  You are the winner.  Would you please e-mail me at greenmamma@greenmamma.org with your mailing address so that I may forward your prize to you?

Again, thank you to everyone who stops by and reads Green Mamma.  I am enjoying my time spent with you and am learning so much.

Cheers,

Jessica

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For tips on how to carve your own pumpkins, visit e-how’s Jack-o-lantern tutorial. My family and I carved these pumpkins this past Sunday and it is my response to Inspire Me Thursday’s Carve theme.

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This week our Montessori homeschool playgroup visited a local park and learned how to wash and cut fruit, and practice pouring juice. Here are a few pictures from our day:

child drinking juice after pouring it herself

child washing apples

my daughter drinking juice (with 2 hands, as I like to show her)

mom and child getting active together after our Montessori practical living activites

And a little bit about our group and some changes . . .

A few summers ago I had the opportunity to attend a summer writing fellowship with teachers of all ages and backgrounds. As part of our participation in this writing project, we needed to complete a great deal of reading about teaching and the teaching of writing as well as participating in intense writing workshops. I learned quite a bit about the art that is writing and the art of teaching writing that summer.

As our Montessori homeschooling group met over the summer, the participating parents and children each brought something of their own to the group. Some of us visited Montessori schools, read literature about the Montessori approach, and participated in on-line and in-person dialogues about implementing the Montessori method in our homes and for our homeschool playgroup.

Perhaps because of my background in writing I often find that my approach to education and to life in general is rather recursive. I am always returning to my ideas and approaches, again and again, to edit, renew, and rethink how I am doing things. In a way, I am surprised that I had not thought I would do so in regards to my daughter’s (and future children’s) education. What I do know, regarding our family’s decision, is that my husband and I have always felt that our children’s educational paths will, for the most part, depend on their desires and needs as students. Learning is so important in our family. I would almost say that having access to an education and being able to seek out new ideas is part of our family’s survival instinct; neither my husband nor I feel right about not being able to pursue new ways of learning in our lives. It is most frustrating for us both, as learners, to feel stifled. At the same time, it is my hope that my opinions and experiences with various ways of inviting children to learn do not affect our children in an adverse way. That is, I don’t want my hangups regarding education to hurt what my children may or may not decide to do for their own paths.

Which brings me back to the idea of offering homeschool as an opportunity for learning to our children. For now, I don’t know what path my children will choose, and I feel torn as to whether or not I want my daughter to participate in an actual pre-school. For those of you who are homeschooling or not, I am seeking some feedback on how you went about making a decision for your children (or how your children prompted you to help them towards their own path).

Education is so important to me (and I believe for all of us), so I am thinking it is a good thing to feel conflicted about whether or not to move forward with homeschooling or whether to continue to follow the Montessori approach, in its entirety. My hope is that my children’s educational paths will evolve organically, however and wherever they may go.

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Sometimes I wonder whether my ache to teach is presenting itself . . . Our neighbor’s girls visit our house at least one day each week to craft and cook with Annabelle and me, and with each get together, I’m having a blast. Thank goodness the girls seem to enjoy my company! This is what we made at our last crafting hangout:

a fake aquarium, as Ella calls it.

a paper plate flower garden.

organic cookies.

To create our fake aquarium, we shaved old crayons onto wax paper, covered the shavings with another piece of wax paper, placed the wax paper on top of newspaper, and then using an iron on a low setting, we ironed and melted the crayon shavings between the pieces of paper. Then we simply used a marker to draw fish and cut the fish out of the paper.

We added to the aquarium of wax paper fish by placing felt waves, coral and starfish around the scene. And then of course, my husband and I drew a few paper fish which we added to the fake aquarium.

To create a paper plate garden, the girls flipped the plates over and colored the outer edges one shade, and the inner edges another shade. We cut leafs from construction paper and used pipe cleaners as stems. What fun!

I’ll share our cookie recipe in another post . . .

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So the FDA is now allowing food producers to zap our food. Specifically, food producers will expose spinach and lettuce to irradiation, using enough radiation to kill E. coli and dangerous germs, which meat and poultry producers already do.

I have to be honest. I do not know the ins and outs of irradiation.  Fortunately, what I do know is how to google “irradiation,” to help me begin my education and understanding of the various arguments made for and against the radiation of food.  As is the case with other food debates (organic versus conventional foods versus GM foods), there are 2 prevalent points of view. On the one side seems to be food producers and their supporters who consider irradiation a way to help prevent food borne illnesses, spoiling and infestation of foods. Supporters of irradiation see it as a practical way to increase the shelf life of foods that have a tendency to spoil. Of course, opponents to irradiation consider it a method for concealing poor agricultural and sanitation practices. Other concerns had by opponents to irradiation include worker safety, the effect of radiation on food and seeds, and the safety of consuming foods treated with radiation. To read more about the position of organic consumers, go here.

At present, Whole Foods Market does not sell irradiated foods, which are labeled by food suppliers with “Treated with Radiation”, “Treated with Irradiation”, and possibly “electronic pasteurization.”

Like I said, I am no expert on irradiation, so I’ll leave you with a few articles to read so that you can decide for yourself whether or not irradiated foods are or will be a part of you and your family’s diet. In the meantime, while the verdict is out, I’ll be sticking to fresh foods and buying local.

More Reading on Irradiation

Charlotte P. Brennand, PhD, Extension Food Safety Specialist’s “Food Irradiation”

MSNBC’s “FDA: OK to zap spinach, lettuce with radiation”

OrganicConsumer.org’s “Preventing Pathogenic Food Poisoning: Sanitation not Irradiation”

Wikipedia’s “Food Irradiation”

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A good friend once told me that she is a collector of friends. In my own lifetime, I have met many wonderful and interesting people with whom I cultivated friendships that lasted the years. More recently, since becoming a mamma and a blogger, I have met and become friends with many environmentalists (and discovered old friends who had been living environmentally all along), many who I not only admire but whose reverence for planet earth I can only hope to emulate. A few months ago I met such a person when I brought Annabelle to the park. While Annabelle ran around and around the playground, she caught the attention of 2 older little girls who followed her and doted on her. The girls belonged to Laura, a mom who loves to talk as much as I do. When we discovered a shared love for the environment, so began a new friendship.

What I love about Laura, aside from the fact that she shares my passion for green living, is that she is a passionate thinker. When Laura comes across new information, she researches it until she finds answers that satisfy her. And as a full time mother, she is not one to sit and watch her children play by themselves in the yard but feels free to run around and play with them. A few weeks ago when I visited Laura and her girls in Hamilton, she showed me her backyard where her children are tending a large vegetable garden. Propped up next to the garden was a huge repurposed water barrel, which once stored pickles for a Greek exporter. Laura and her girls water their garden by collecting water in the barrel and transporting it over to their garden.

Water conservation is vital in Laura’s hometown of Hamilton; because of the cost of water there, as well as Laura’s commitment to protecting the earth’s resources, she has become an expert on how to save water. Since she knows a bit more about water conservation than I do, let me turn you over to her:

There are the usual water saving tips like turning off the sink when you brush your teeth or put soap on your hands [before washing], [but] there are less obvious ways to conserve too:

Outside

1. Add compost. When planting a garden add compost. Compost acts like a sponge and absorbs water [to help nourish the plants in your garden].

2. Mulch heavily. Mulch acts like a blanket keeping the moisture in and decreases the weeds that grow and steal water from your garden plants.

3. Water 2 in 1. Hold smaller pots over larger ones when watering in order to catch the overflow from the smaller one.

4. Say no to mow. Keep your grass a little longer in dry spells as freshly cut grass allows for more evaporation.

5. Don’t throw the baby out with the kiddie pool. If you have a young child who likes to use a wading pool use the water to water your garden after play is over. Better yet, fill it with water from a water barrel and refill the water barrel with it when done.

Thank you Laura for these wonderful water saving tips! By making small changes, even one or two, in our own homes, we are able to make a huge difference for the environment.

Do you have a water conservation tip? If so, please share. I love hearing your thoughts! =)

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Photo credit: Shenandoah National Park

After much hemming and hawing, my family is going away for a green mini-vacation this weekend to Shenandoah National Park, which is just over 50 miles away. Like many other Americans, we are opting to vacation less than 100 miles from home so that we can save the green stuff (like the cost of gasoline and airfare) and contribute to our home state’s local tourism industry. I’m looking forward to a few days of peace and quiet, time spent with my husband and daughter, hiking and taking in views of the Shenandoah Valley, and well, getting away from the everyday.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but think of you, green readers, and your appetite for all things green and good for the environment. So I wandered through the lush green garden of the environmental blogosphere, and this is what I picked out for you:

1. No Impact Man. A New York writer is living an experiment in which he, his Prada loving wife, 2 year old daughter and dog spend a year living without power, eat all organic foods, compost their poop, and swear off plastic (and not just VISA and Mastercard). No Impact Man creates a new standard for green living; so far his family is living in the city and is producing no garbage. That’s right. Nothing to toss to the curb. From his web-site, he describes himself as ” just a liberal schlub who got sick of not putting my money where my mouth was.” It’s definitely worth stopping by to check out what he and his family are up to.

2. Be Thrifty and Fight Global Warming. Thrifty Green Baby Guide is hosting a weekly opportunity for bloggers to submit easy and awesome ways to live green and save a few bucks. My favorite way to save money and our planet is to do just that. Um, and by that I mean, don’t open your wallet, swipe your credit card, bum a few bucks from your friends, etc. Just don’t buy stuff. See? You’re saving money and helping with deforestation. This week’s tip on Thrifty Green Baby Guide is all about solar powered dryers. It’s a lot simpler than you might think.

3. Meet Arianne. Arianne, managing editor at 5 Minutes for Going Green, gave her first camera interview ever! She discusses the vision for 5 Minutes for Going Green, how she gathered together green moms to form the Green team, and how easy it is to go green. If you have a few minutes, say 5, go check her out!

4. H&M hosts their first official nurse-in! Okay, well not really. But after Manuela Valle, a lactating mamma in Vancouver, B.C., attempted to nurse her 2-week old baby in an H&M and was asked to move to a fitting room, she returned to the store to “publicly campaign” with a group of breastfeeding mothers and their supporters. Since breastfeeding mothers are allowed to breastfeed and express milk in public in B.C., these lactivists had every right to stand up (or sit down), nurse, and campaign against persons who violate their rights. Nurse on mammas!

5. Offset Your Carbon Footprint. Even I am starting to think that I sound like a lactating Al Gore. No, not really. But seriously, offsetting global warming is really, really important. Of course, you knew that. But just in case you want a few more tips for cutting back on all that CO2 that you’re responsible for releasing into our atmosphere, I thought I’d send you here, to a Tufts University carbon offset form. Thank you to Elke for forwarding these tips to me. Also, Elke, we’ll be thinking of you in September when you make the 5 day, 320 mile Brita Climate Ride from New York City to Washington, D.C. To sponsor Elke, stop in and make a donation here.

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If you’re a busy mamma or lady like I am, devoting time to personal care isn’t at the top of your list. Lately, my morning beauty routine adds up to pulling my hair into a ponytail and, if I’m lucky, sweeping bronzer onto my cheeks. For me, choosing between a happy toddler with a messy mamma versus a fussy toddler with a well groomed mamma, I tend to take the former unless there’s another set of hands around to help me out.

Since my beauty care regiment is just about nil, I sometimes feel like I a) look the neighbor’s teenage daughter (without makeup on, people think I am 16), or b) look like I haven’t slept in days (months, years, who’s counting?). And when it comes to my hands and feet, I usually ignore the idea that they’re intended to be attractive and that my hands are better suited for changing diapers and writing and that my feet are wonderful resources for getting me and my entourage from point A to point B.

Still, I am a woman, and every now and again, I pray for pretty feet. With a toddler in tow, getting to the nail salon for a pedicure isn’t as easy as it used to be. And beyond any logistic issues I have in finding the time and money for a pedicure, popular nail care products are not among the healthiest of personal care items; in fact, pre-natal care professionals usually recommend that pregnant and breastfeeding mothers avoid receiving manicures and pedicures because of the alarming chemical ingredients in nail care products. According to Christey Hadley, a staff writer for Babyfit.com, pregnant mothers should take precautions when selecting nail care products and salons. She writes:

Many nail products contain formaldehyde and toluene, which in small doses can cause moms to feel dizzy or nauseous, but in large repeated exposures have been linked to birth defects. There are many polishes and products available which are both formaldehyde and toluene free. Ensure that either your salon or room where you paint your nails is well-ventilated or that you wear a mask to defuse the fumes.

Nail equipment that is not properly sterilized is another cause for concern for anyone thinking about prettying their feet with a salon pedicure. Since unclean nail equipment can lead to infection, ladies (and gents too) may think twice about walking into a salon to pamper their feet. The International Pedicure Association provides the following suggestions to ensure pedicure safety:

• The pedicure area, whirpools, and salon/spa looks clean
• Your feet are examined and health questions asked before the pedicure
• Instruments look clean and are disinfected
• Items that cannot be disinfected are disposed of after the pedicure
• Proper tools are used (most states do not allow a credo blade)
• Drill bits (if used) are disinfected (cleaned)
• Salon/spa has proper ventilation
• A laundered towel or new disposable towel is used on each client

A healthy and green alternative to salon nailcare is to do your own manicure and pedicure at home. Not only can a home pedicure be accomplished while your child is in the bathtub, but you can ensure that you are receiving a clean, green, and healthy pedicure that rivals any salon. Here’s how to pretty your feet at home.

1. Research healthy, cruelty free, and eco-friendly nail care products. While I do have my favorites, the best route for selecting personal care products is to learn what ingredients are in products you like to use or are willing to purchase. Awesome databases for researching personal care products and that provide information about ingredient concerns, whether or not ingredients are linked to cancer or other diseases, toxicity, sensitivity, and whether or not the company uses animal testing include the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep Cosmetic Database and SafeMama.com. Once you feel comfortable that a product is healthy for you, your child, the environment, and your budget, bring it home and get ready for your home pedicure.

Recommended Materials:

foot bathing tub (a deep dish tub will do)

t.p. or cotton balls

2 towels

polish remover

nail file and clippers

forest friendly nail brush

environmentally friendly: polish remover, foot scrub, foot moisturizer, and nail polish

2. Get ready. Set up your pedicure space. Make sure that all supplies and materials are on hand. I referenced Marie Claire’s perfect pedicure guide to help me prepare for my good karma home pedi, but feel free to adjust their recipe to your tastes. To begin my pedicure, I filled a 5” deep dish bucket with warm water and placed a hand towel at the bottom of the bucket. While Marie Claire suggests that you add epsom salt to the water, I chose to soak with water only.

3. Clean up your feet. Before soaking my tootsies, I removed the old nail polish with one of those green nail polish removers (remember, you researched yours) and some t.p., and then I clipped and filed my toenails.

4. Soak your tootsies. I soaked my feet for between 5 and 10 minutes. Meanwhile, I invited my 19 month old into the foot bath and let her soak her tootsies too. A shared foot bath with your kiddo can add up to a lot of fun and a few inches of water on your floor. Soak wisely.

5. Smooth ‘em and dry ‘em. If possible, select an earth friendly foot file to sand the soles of your feet. Since I am a daily runner, callouses build up on the balls and heels of my feet, as well as on my big toes. After you sand your feet, dry them. If you are interested in cuticle control, you may want to use the edge of a nail file to gently push the cuticles back. Exfoliate with an eco-friendly scrub and use a nail brush to clean the bases of your nails. I love the feel of exfoliating scrubs on my skin so I opted to scrub my rough ankles as well as my lower calves. Once you’re done exfoliating, rinse, rinse, rinse.

6. Moisturize. Remember that you did your research to find green and healthy nail care products? Now, pull out your clean, green, and healthy foot moisturizer and take a few minutes to rub it into your feet and calves. Let your skin soak up the moisturizer. Then, rinse away the lotion and dry your feet.

7. Polish it off. I am not a personal fan of polished nails because, as I said before, I really really dislike having to maintain pretty hands and feet. I consider the au natural look to be prettiest. That said, I know that after having done all that work, you’ll probably want to complete your pedicure with some color. Lucky for you, Marie Claire has a few wonderful tips on how to put polish on with ease and no mess. Read on!

Now that you have given yourself a home pedicure that is full of good karma, pat yourself on the back and brag to your husband and anyone else who will listen about your clean, green and healthy pedicure and all the money you saved yourself by staying out of the salon. Go ahead, you deserve it!

If you have clean, green, and healthy beauty tips, please share. You know I love to hear your thoughts.

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Two weeks from now marks our one year anniversary in our home. Sold to us as a 3 bedroom home, we anticipated turning our home’s third bedroom, currently a loft, into a room for one of our children. For the first 6 months, the loft served as a sitting space where we stored books, a rocking chair, and my hope chest. When I decided that I wanted to learn to sew, we moved an old folding table upstairs (left behind by the previous owners in our laundry room). To create a crafting table, I spruced up the folding table with a rustic tablecloth made from yellow and purple floral fabrics and covered it with a clear piece of vinyl (to catch spills and messes from crafting).

Sadly, my sewing ambitions suffered over this past year because of my desire to write, mother, take photos, and be with people. I do hope, however, to sew. For now though, my machine rests in a prominent place so that one of these days, when the time and right project come along, a humming sewing machine will be heard (and not just a singing Annabelle).

I packed up my folding table, rolled up the vinyl (it makes a fine crafting mat for projects with Annabelle), and repurposed my yellow and purple fabrics as table and desk covers.

Then I found a desk on Freecycle that needed someone new to love it. I painted it white and purple, borrowing leftover paint from the color scheme used in Annabelle’s room (it really is too bad that I failed to capture a before photo of the desk). I added new hardware to the drawers and asked my husband to sand down the warped wooden sides of the drawers.

A few days later on a weekly trip to the Goodwill, I noticed a white chair that seemed to be waiting for me. $10 later it was in the hatchback of my station wagon and on its way to my writing space. At home, I topped it off with a yellow seat cushion.

Together, the found desk and chair make a perfect pair. I placed my new work station by the window in our loft so that I may see the trees when I write.

I reorganized my idea board by posting cards with ideas to inspire my writing: parenting, the environment, breastfeeding, gardening, journaling, collage, spirituality, education, and photography. My totem images include a photograph of my father from his service in Vietnam (what a handsome dad I had. He looks like James Dean), the cover of Rolling Stone featuring Barack Obama, and a photograph of my husband and me in Peru.

The best part about my writing room’s new layout with the small desk is that it opens up the space for play and crafting on the floor. Later this week I will post photos of a new art project that Annabelle and I worked on here one night.

So this is my writing space. Where I spend my time. Just thought I’d give you a little glimpse into my world . . .

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One afternoon as we headed out to the garden, Annabelle and I met this little turtle. I noticed him as soon as we opened the back door and considered it a strange but welcome omen. It was the second of three turtles I crossed paths with this week, so out of curiosity, I researched the symbolic meaning of turtles and learned the following:

1. In the east, the turtle’s shell is a symbol of the heavens, and its underside, a square, is symbolic of the earth. Thus, the turtle represents a union between heaven and earth.

2. The turtle, in Hiduism, symbolizes the creator and holder of the world.

3. In Japan, the turtled symbolizes longevity and good fortune, and in China, the turtle signifies fertility, vitality, and great patience.

4. In Africa, the turtle represents the feminine and thus appears in fertility rites.

5. The Iroquois considered the turtle the wisest of all beings and as a symbol of Mother Earth. The hard outer shell protects living beings, analogous to Mother Earth protecting life.

As a child I loved listening to my mother read the story of the tortoise and the hare to my sister and me, and so I came to see turtles as slow but strong beings with great endurance and patience. When I became a runner, I often thought of myself as the tortoise because speed in my stride is lacking; however, I always manage to complete my runs with patience knowing that I give my best effort and am able to endure.

I selected the word health this week to inspire my gratitude post, so I thought it was particularly auspicious that turtles– being the symbol of longevity, fertility, endurance, and patience–should cross my path. In our family, health is our wealth; both my husband and I are conscientious of taking care of ourselves. We both try to choose nutritious foods (although my husband loves fried foods and ice cream, and I am a slave to chocolate), we exercise, spend time together (and a fair amount of much needed alone time, which nurtures the soul), garden, learn, and laugh. We are hoping to set a good example for our children. Already Annabelle has revealed an appetite for fruits and veggies and a real love for dance, running, and swimming. I pray that our little girl will grow up to be a healthy adult, though having said that, I recognize that there are so many components to the idea of health.

I asked myself, what exactly contributes to one’s health? I created an idea tree with health being the trunk, and the roots and branches representing different values that influence our health. What I realized from this visual (and likely understood intuitively all along) is that our individual health is connected to and interdependent upon the health of all else: the physical, mental, and spiritual health of our families, our water supply, our air, our soil, the collective health of the people in our community, in our nation, and across the world.

And then I thought about what power we have over our individual health when our personal wellness is linked to a great number of influences. This thought path brought me back my original purposes for creating this blog: that our individual choices to protect and care for our environment are tied into our care and love for ourselves, our families, our communities, and all of nature.

Small as we may perceive ourselves to be, our choices speak volumes and can truly make a difference in the grand scheme of things. What I have learned since the inception of Green Mamma is that the best way we, as individuals, can exercise our power to protect and preserve our personal health, our families’ health, worldwide health, and the health of Mother Earth, is to reduce carbon emissions and slow down global warming.

How can we slow global warming?

I visited ClimateCrisis.org to refresh my memory and focus on specific ways that my family can take action against global warming. The good news is that our family is already making a good effort for going green; so far, we are: using CFLS which require 60% less energy than incandescent bulbs, replacing filters on our heating and a.c. units, choosing energy efficient appliances, turning off and unplugging electronic devices when they are not in use, running full loads in our dishwasher, recycling, using recycled products, buying locally grown and organic fresh foods when possible, eating vegetarian (100% for me and at least 75% of the time for my husband and daughter), reducing road mileage (my husband is trying to bike into work 3 times each week and of late, I bike to local children’s events as much as possible), we maintain our cars and keep our tires inflated, and we are intending to purchase either a hybrid or a more fuel efficient car the next time we buy a car.

Still, there is much more to be done. Right now, our house is cool (almost too cool) and could stand for a 2 degree temperature drop, we could learn how to use our programmable thermostat ( that one is a little embarrassing to admit to), we can install low flow shower heads and use a clothes line (when our HOA isn’t looking), we can plant trees and switch to green power, we can exercise our consumer power and choose fewer packaged foods, we could carshare with our neighbors, and reduce the number of road trips our family makes each year.

The turtle as a symbol of Mother Earth, the world resting upon its back, is a reminder to me that all of life depends on the health of our planet. As thinking human beings endowed with compassion, we have the ability to care for our earth and thus for ourselves, wildlife, and nature. It comes down to our everyday choices. Whether we drive miles and miles from home to work, what beverages and food we consume, the containers and packaging used for the things we buy, personal care products and their ingredients, home and garden care, the amount of garbage we send to landfills each week, the list goes on and on.

What are your thoughts regarding the health of Mother Earth?  As individuals, do you think it is within our personal power to protect and care for the environment?  Have you or your family experienced a health issue that was somehow connected to the health of the local environment?  I love reading your thoughts.  Please share.

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