It’s coming up- that hallowed day for which people around the world die - Voting Day. No matter which candidate you like or which you hate, if you vote your conscience or strategically, if you vote by mail or in person, do it. Vote. My daughter says she doesn’t like either of the major candidates and that not voting is her right, as well. Yes, not voting is a right, but voting is a privilege. If you don’t exercise your privilege often enough, it may slip away from you while you are ignoring it. I ignored it when I was younger, but now that I’m getting older and realizing that I seem to have little power and have accomplished less than I would have like to in my life, I realize that I can still vote. I can study up on the initiatives, the referendums, the policies, the candidates, and I can make an educated choice on the ballot. I can, so I will, and I will hope that others take it as seriously as I do. Apathy never helped anyone, never made anything better, never helped a nation in trying times. I am no longer apathetic about what comes our way, and one way I can let my voice be heard (at least outside of the electoral college) is to vote.

Here’s hoping you have a great and meaningful November 4th.

It’s that time, again, when the children are going back to school. Stay-at-home residents will benefit with quieter days and enjoying the last warm days by the pool in peace!
This might be a good time to take advantage of the mega sales on school supplies the next time you are Target or WalMart or your local drug store. Yes, you might need a package of pens or note paper, but consider the 10 spiral notebooks that are on sale for $1. What? You don’t need 10 spiral notebooks? That’s good! So maybe you can drop $5 and buy 50 notebooks and drop them off at a local high school, to help out with the students who can’t afford school supplies.  Other items that teachers and students can use that are dirt-cheap right now include binder paper, pencils, pens, markers, glue and glue sticks, calculators, crayons, markers, rulers…
So, even if you aren’t going back to school yourself, being a part of that surge of energy keeps you young. And doesn’t it feel great to help?

I used to dream of living in a quaint European city or town where people ride bicylces everywhere. I thought I’d have to move there to be a part of that lifestyle… until gas prices went through the roof (just as my bathroom scale was also edging higher).

It turns out that one of the good things about apartment dwelling most anywhere is the close proximity to one’s everyday errand destinations, like the grocery store, the post office, the bank. One way you can beat the gas pump and lessen your fear of the bathroom scale is to ride your bike when running nearby errands.  Think of all of the benefits! You’re not creating any pollution. You’re reducing the local traffic. You’re saving money. You can save some more money by quitting the gym because you’re getting exercise on a real bike, not a stationary bike. You’ll live longer and stronger. You’re shaking it up- giving the locals something to think about. Plus, your derrier is getting nicer. What’s not to love?

Being at the front end of a trend can be a really fun thing- you get to have a new lifestyle! Just think of all the bicycle choices there are these days! Do you want to be an Italian racer type? Or a mountain-bike type? Or look like Miss Gulch in The Wizard of Oz, like me? She was the pre-curser to the Wicked Witch - You know, where she’s riding down the farm road with Toto in her basket strapped to her bicycle? I sing the tune under my breath when I pedal- “duddle la duddle la dah, dum. Duddle la duddle la dah, dum.” Yup. I think my kids would agree.

I used to live in a house with a curb-side, all-you-can-fit-into-the-giant-bin recycling program. I loved it! We generated twice as much recycling material as we did actual waste, and boy, did I feel great about it! I was saving the world, one cereal box and hamburger meat foam tray at a time. Feeling all green and fuzzy.

Until the downsizing occurred, which moved me and my packaging into smaller digs with NO recycling program. As you know, if you’ve been doing something for years, suddenly not doing it leads to heaps of guilt. I struggled to throw our bags of “trash” into the dempsty-dumpster, knowing it wasn’t really trash; I was filling a landfill. The local recycling machines are fine if all you want to do is get your deposit back on beverage containers, but what about the Cheerios box?

Here are some options to help get back that green feeling again:

Find a friend w/ curbside recycling and ask if you can add your materials to their bin. If they are green and gracious, they’ll let you, but be a considerate squatter. Crush your cans, collapse your boxes, roll over your milk jugs- in other words, minimize the volume of material that you put into their bin. One of the families in our school carpool agreed to let us share their bin, so I just made my contribution while I was picking up their kids for school. Eventually I overwhelmed the bin so I’m loading my leaf bags full of recycling material into my carpool partner, Mike’s car trunk and he puts it into his bin. When he gets fed up, I’ll have to make a new friend…

You can also collect your materials and lug it to a local recycling center, which is a bit of a hassle, but you’ll feel better. The challenge will be allocating space to collect enough to make the schlepp.

Maybe we can get our apartment communities to install recycling bins. It makes sense- we’re using less space than homeowners, so we should be using less landfill space than them, as well. Let’s here it for our team!

One other way to be a part of the solution is to reduce the amount of packaging you are buying in the first place. Duh. Remember, it’s not just Recycle. It’s Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, so don’t skip the first two steps!

We can make less waste, as well. Buy green, look for less packaging, use reusable shopping bags (because how ridiculous is it to put your used plastic shopping bags into the bag recycling container at the grocery stores so they can process it into - wait for it - new shopping bags!)… go ahead, blog your ideas on this so we can all try new ways.

Feeling green and fuzzy again,

T