i feel lucky.

happy happy st. paddy's day t'ya!!

ok, that's the best brogue you'll get out of me,
as my ancestry is german, german, german, german, german, polish, german & german.

ja.

nevertheless, i mich glücklich.
that is, i feel lucky.

blessed. grateful. whatever.
but today, let's call it lucky.

:: lucky to live in austin, texas, especially in the springtime.

:: lucky to live in a beautiful home i feel more & more at home in all the time.

:: lucky to live with our wonderful four-family all together for the time being.

:: lucky to live with three good dogs who keep me company & make me smile.

:: lucky to live in a strong, resilient, reasonably healthy body.

:: lucky to work for myself, from my own home office, with some amazing people.

:: lucky to have the creative gifts & practical talents i have.

:: lucky to have plenty of healthy, caring family.

:: lucky to have so many beautiful, brilliant, loving friends.

:: lucky to be here now. & now. & now.

:: lucky to be 46 going on 47.

:: lucky to be me.

:: lucky to feel so, so lucky.

how about you? how are you feeling lucky today?

bloom day.

my dear friend diana is a master gardener, talented writer
& now, a gardening writer.

her blog, sharing nature's garden,
often participates in garden bloggers' bloom day,
in which those with green thumbs & flexible clicker-fingers
post photos of what's blooming wherever they are on the 15th of the month.

so, even though i'm not a gardener of any kind,
neither actual nor virutal,
i still love to see spring busting out all over.

so in homage to diana & her fellow dirt-players,
i snapped some shots of the first, fresh signs of spring
here in the heart of texas.

up above, a pretty pink bud on our neighbor's peach tree.

down below, the bright new leaves of the same neighbor's willow tree, waving in the warm breeze.

a bradford pear tree's delicate white blossoms in another neighborhood yard.

the eye-popping purple flowers of a red bud tree.

& the grape-ish color [& aroma] of a downtown mountain laurel tree.

& finally, i thought i might share a photo of what i'm growing:

impassioned protesters,
recently rallying for adequate state funding for public education.

[perry refers to our governor,
who is always perfectly coiffed & almost always an inadequate leader.
imho.]

so, what is your garden growing, either literally or metaphorically??

happy arbor day.

"Trees are poems

that the earth writes

upon the sky."

Kahlil Gibran

image source: magonovus

pay gap. sux.

i was all about the greening of the blog during earth day[s] last week. now i need to turn our attention back to another sort of vital green.

cha-ching.

tuesday, april 20th, marked how far into 2010 american women must work from january 1, 2009, to match what men earned last year.

no, no typos. for what a guy earned working from 1.1.2009 to 12.31.2009, a gal had to work an extra 110 days [78 weekdays] to earn the same.

o.m.g. i'm sorry － what year is this?

2010 － and women are still earning only 77 cents for every male dollar.

the harvard business review put together this eye-opening [potentially to the point of tears] presentation of some of the pay-gap facts, such as they are ... i dare you to not be righteously rageful [click the image to go to the rest of the presentation]:

sux, yes?

the lilly ledbetter fair pay restoration act was the first bill president obama signed into law. it doesn't seem to have done much yet, but obama says he's not done with pay parity yet.

the president is cracking down on pay inequity and backing the paycheck fairness act. the measure will make it okay to talk about pay in the workplace, make it easier to prove sex discrimination, and make penalties harsher for companies who underpay women employees.

go-bama. american women don't have 110 days to spare.

image source: huffington post

healthy children, healthy world.

happy 40th birthday, earth day!!

yes, earth day has been around since 1970. but despite our hybrids & our single-stream recycling bins & our solar-powered rechargers, earth day isn't really about us mid-lifers.

it's about our kids.

for while we all want a cleaner, greener place to live now, what we're really working for is a better future for our planet & the people who will live on it then. our children.

healthy child healthy world definitely shares this goal, but comes at it a little differently.

hchw's angle is, if we don't get green now, then our children might not live to enjoy that improved future.

healthy child healthy world is a nonprofit organization inspiring grownups to create healthy environments for families.

according to hchw, over 125 million americans － especially the young ones － are experiencing a historic high in chronic diseases like cancer, autism, adhd, asthma, birth defects, & developmental/learning disabilities.

and scientific evidence indicates environmental hazards & household chemicals may well be causing & contributing to this tragically unwell trend.

so healthy child healthy world educates parents, supports protective policies, & engages communities to make responsible decisions, simple everyday choices, & smart lifestyle improvements.

for healthier children. & a healthier world.

for my family, i'm undertaking hchw's 5 easy steps, with the goal of completing them all by next april 22nd.

and i'll be using hchw's impressive shopping lists of healthy, safe, nontoxic, green products & services － from clothing to groceries to pesticides － to become a more conscious consumer.

so, what are you willing to do to help health-ify your kids & the world over the next year?? please share.

and have a great earth day. :)

envirosax － beauty in the bag.

you might not remember, but i sure do － last year's earth day had me lamenting that i was still consuming plastic grocery bags even though i knew better & had known better for a while.

no more.

finally, around autumn, i found the reusable bags i knew i needed to make the change.

big. beautiful. bold. botanical.

hello, envirosax.

the choices are myriad. 13 different 5-bag graphic sets [i got 'botanical' & 'mikado', & gave a few to friends as holiday gifts].




organic options － bamboo, cotton, hemp, linen.


9 different quirky kid designs.

+ 20 solids for the more conservative consumer, water bottles & shower timers.

i surprisingly almost never forget these lovelies out in the car － maybe because i get compliments on them almost every time i use them.

& bonus x2 － they hold a ton, so fewer trips to & from the car once i get home. & even packed full & heavy, the broad, strong straps mean they're easy & comfortable to tote.

envirosax have made the difference for me.
now i'm the one making the difference.

:)


image source: envirosax.com

hole-y green typeface, batman!!

OK, it actually has nothing at all to do with Batman, but anytime you begin an exclamation with the word "holy" (or the wordplay equivalent, "hole-y"), then you've got to end it with "Batman!!" It's like a law or something.

Anyway, it looks like I may be a few months behind the eco-curve, but now that I know about it, I've just got to let you, my faithful followers, in on this: ecofont. Already downloaded it and using it for every document you print? Good for you. Not sure what I'm babbling about? Welcome clarification from SPRANQ creative communications of The Netherlands.

What we print daily uses not only paper, but also ink. So the folks at SPRANQ began to think — how much of a letter can be removed and the letter still be readable?

Following extensive testing of all sorts of shapes, the best results were produced using small circles. Thus was born ecofont, a typeface that uses up to 20% less ink to print it.

Less ink = fewer ink cartridges = less waste/recycling = happier Earth.
*AND* it's free to download (yes, for both PC and Mac), free to use.

Go now. Click here.

Then change all your default printing fonts.
Be kind to the Earth.

circus of irony.

Big － really, really big － news over at Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey . . . and at the White House, no doubt.

On the eve of President Barack Obama's inauguration, Ringling Bros.' first Asian elephant born from artificial insemination (!!) arrived at a whopping 250 pounds, and almost square (39 inches high, 41 inches long). The big, big bouncing baby boy was named, honorably, Barack.

Baby Barack is the 22nd to be born into the Western Hemisphere's largest herd of Asian elephants － 54, including 13 over the age of 45 and one older than 60 － all under the care of the Ringling Bros. Center for Elephant Conservation. The Center was established in 1995 to ensure future generations have the opportunity to experience the endangered Asian elephant species, and includes a 200-acre, state-of-the-art facility designed for the elephants' reproduction, research and retirement.

Barack － the pachyderm, not the President － is the first calf for mama Bonnie and an as-yet-undetermined donor daddy.

I'm all for elephant conservation, and the circus, for that matter, but does it strike anyone else odd that they named an elephant － the Republican party's mascot － for our new Democratic leader??

buying for a better world.

For those of us still traveling the evolutionary continuum from giving presents to giving presence for the holidays － in other words, everyone for whom it still 'tis the season to buy stuff － here's a wonderful new website for acquisition: worldofgood.ebay.com.

World of Good by eBay is an online superstore hybrid of, well, eBay and World of Good, a fair trade wholesale business. Essentially, the partnership is trying to do for the mothers of Africa, Asia, India and Latin America what eBay did for their U.S. counterparts, promising to sell more fair-trade goods than have ever been sold in one spot before.

At the website, you can search for products benefiting a particular cause, read artisans' bios and check third-party verifiers for specific items. The site also links to articles, blogs and bulletin boards － it even has its own Facebook group.

From cause-positive coffee to eco-friendly earrings to a serious selection of sustainable stocking stuffers, World of Good is worth a good look.

green your life.

I've been meaning to get around to spreading the word about this remarkable, responsible resource for a while, but between Dara Torres, Alice Paul and Tina Fey, I guess I've been occupied otherwise.

But now, let me introduce you to GreenYour.com, Your Guide to Green Anything!!

GreenYour was created by some environmental experts, writers and researchers seeking to make environmental progress practical for everyone.

Want to "green" your baby's bedroom? dry cleaning? catering? swimming pool? shoes? funeral? GreenYour's got what you need to know.

The website is separated into three sections: Facts, Products and Tips. Over 150 subject areas have been developed to date, with more than 700 green tips and 2,500 green products, as well as a terrific list of green blogs and other like-minded Internet resources for folks seeking environmental friendliness.

I poked around for a "Green Your President" page, but turned up nothing . . . yet . . . maybe next month??  ;D

you can't drink from a styrofoam cup.

An interesting tidbit of green clarification from The Dow Chemical Company:

Dow has been making STYROFOAM brand foam for 60 years, and we’d like to set the record straight. STYROFOAM is a registered trademark of The Dow Chemical Company for its line of extruded foam products made from 100 percent pure polystyrene foam. STYROFOAM brand foam is not used in the manufacture of disposable foam products, such as cups, coolers, meat trays and packing peanuts. Blue* STYROFOAM brand insulation creates more energy-efficient homes around the world, and in North America alone, over two million homes are insulated with STYROFOAM insulation, resulting in $200 million per year in energy savings, as well as significant reduction in fossil-fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions. STYROFOAM brand foam can be reused and recycled, and all production generated scrap is recycled at the point of manufacture.

Who knew??

sounds like 'air guitar,' but much, much cooler.

Why I'm just now hearing about this, I've got no idea, but in India, the country's biggest automaker (Tata Motors, hee hee) is already manufacturing the world's first commercial compressed air-powered vehicle. The AirCar was developed by ex-Formula One engineer Guy Nègre, and uses compressed air — yes, just plain old garden-variety air — to push its engine's pistons.

Apparently, it was initially introduced about a year ago, but it seemed unlikely it might ever make it to the U.S. due to a bevy of stumbling blocks. Number one, though refueling is quick, simple and cheap (like, $2 for the whole tank — seriously), it must be done at a gas station equipped with custom air-compressor units, so there's a huge infrastructure issue. You can refuel by plugging the car into the electrical grid, but it takes about four hours to fill up, and the car's driving range is only about 125 miles — which means a road trip from, say, Austin to Dallas would entail a four-hour plug-in pit stop around Waco. Third, the car's lightweight, glued-together fiberglass construction didn't seem like a safe bet in crash tests. And finally, Americans would probably balk at a) the original model's itty-bitty size and b) its 68 mph self-imposed speed limit.

*BUT* the mother of invention is hard at work somewhere, because it now looks like the little gas-free ride that could actually will, American-style. Zero Pollution Motors expects to produce America's first air-powered car no later than 2010, aiming to manufacture about 10,000 AirCars a year. According to Popular Mechanics, ZPM wants to make the debut model a $17,800, 75-horsepower-equivalent, six-seat modified version of the original developers' CityCAT (pictured), with a dual-energy engine that will let the vehicle travel as far as 1,000 miles at up to 96 mph with every teensy-weensy fill-up of air and either traditional gasoline, ethanol or biofuel. And the family-size, four-door CityCAT is already undergoing standard safety tests a la Europe . . .

Personally, I can't wait to see what colors it comes in . . . I'm thinking maybe green??

happiness is a cute shoe.

I wear a size 11 shoe, so I'm no Carrie Bradshaw when it comes to footwear. Sure, I try to find the cutest shoes I can, but being a size above and beyond the "norm" severely limits the selection. Though nowadays, I must confess, it seems more and more shoemakers are beginning to provide sizes for the double-digit girls like me . . .

So imagine my joy when I went to simpleshoes.com to try to order this darling dotty number in an 11, and they actually had it! I had seen these shoes in a couple of different catalogues and a couple of different stores around town, but never in an 11. So I wasn't sure the manufacturer offered them, but they do, and I did, and now they're mine!

The icing on this tasty little cake? They're made from all environmentally friendly materials -- hemp, organic cotton, water-based glues and ortholite/recycled car tire pedbeds (yes, the outsole used to be an actual tire on an actual car). Cool, huh? and they're keeping me looking cool this summer, too . . . :)

the power of two: help the environment.

From the ABC World News Tonight series "The Power of Two" . . . 

Two powerful things you can do to help save the planet:

(1) Eat less beef; and
(2) Get an energy audit.

Here's the video story:
http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4847978

Here's some basic information about environmental vegetarianism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_vegetarianism

And here's some essential information from the U.S. Department of Energy about home energy audits:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/energy_audits/index.cfm/mytopic=11160

Small changes can lead to big differences!!

go green by not going at all.

As many of you know, since the beginning of the year, I've been working part-time at the office of an environmental ad agency. And, as many of you know, I've been struggling with the transition from full-time work-at-homer to part-time office worker/part-time work-at-homer. And, as many of you, I've been struggling with the skyrocketing price I'm paying at the pump － not only shelling out more, but also more frequently now, since I'm driving into downtown three days a week.

So, combine all of the above, and it's not surprising I've been thinking about the real costs of my commute － not only to my work freedom and flexibility, but also to my bank account and to the environment.

Of course, I'm not the only one thinking about the commute/gas/global warming connection. Recently, the Washington Posts' On Balance blog featured a post by guest blogger Brian Reid about how telecommuting might lift a big burden off of employees and the planet. In "The Green Argument for Telecommuting," Reid writes:

The folks at undress4success.com, a site focused on working from home, estimates that getting the 40 percent of Americans who could work from home off of the roads and into a home office would save 625 million barrels of oil a year, spare the atmosphere from 100 million tons of carbon dioxide and save us all $43 billion in gas costs. ... Teleworking even one day every two weeks should theoretically cut gas usage by 10 percent, which is hardly marginal.

Maybe I'll forward this information to my environmentally-oriented employer to open negotiations for a two-day in-office workweek ...