For all of you crafty single moms out there June 13, 2008
Here is a site that gives you instructions for turning your old bras into nursing bras. I am totally doing this. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Green up the purchases you already make tip #4 - Green your drinks May 16, 2008
Okay, this is more of a networking source, and its not really a purchase, but I filed it here anyhow because you will purchase something while participating. This really makes no sense, but it would if I weren’t backing into it.
Its a group of people interested in green living who get together for happy hour one day a month all around the world. You don’t pay for membership or anything, just go to the site and figure out when and where your local chapter is meeting, then show up. Then you buy drinks. So see, what I’m writing about isn’t a purchase, but you purchase things when you get there. See? Ah, its a stupid point.
Anyhow, here in Denver they meet on the last Thursday of the month at Double Daughters. I am going to try to be there, but my sister is due to have a baby the day before, and the minute she goes into labor my mom and I are dropping everything we are doing and driving out to Missouri to be with her. Hopefully we will be there in time for the birth and for a week afterwards. As you all know, there’s really no way to tell when a baby is going to decide to come, so we could be gone on the last Thursday of this month. Who knows?
Also, if there are no posts for a week suddenly, now you’ll all know why.
Green up the purchases you already make tip #3: Green up your online dating April 24, 2008
Okay, so I don’t know if the business practices of this company are any more or less sustainable than Chemistry.com, Match.com, or hotcasualsex.com (I made that last one up, if it really exists I bear no responsibility for whats on there), but I do know that this is a dating site targeted towards green minded people such as ourselves. Plus, its way cheaper than all those other dating sites.
I have yet to meet anyone off this site, so lets spread the word a little, shall we?
Green Up the Purchases You Already Make Tip #2: Buy Local April 17, 2008
This post isn’t going to be a whole lot of use to those of you who don’t live in the front range region of Colorado. My only advice to you is to go on the lookout for similar resources where you live. I have it on good authority there is at least one in Chicago. For those of you who do live along the front range, you’re going to love this!
Buying local is a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, save you (and a lot of other members in your community) money on gas and shipping, and strengthen the economy right in your own community, where it will benefit you the most.
For those of you skeptical about the usefulness of buying local, look at it this way: why should we be buying gas from countries whose populations hate us? Some of them, even, are at war with us. Why contribute to their economies when you could be contributing to your own? Where spending your money will benefit you directly by creating jobs and prosperity in your own community! A community of employed people is a community with less drugs, crime, trash, and violence. Its a cleaner, safer, happier community. Most importantly, it is a community of people paying income taxes, which go to use in public works, maintaining our local and federal law enforcement and military, and the more people paying taxes, the less each individual has to pay in order to generate the same profit for Uncle Sam.
By getting out into that community and purchasing there, not only do you increase happiness and strengthen the economy, you also meet others in your community and form a tighter bond and friendships with your neighbors. Now when was the last time you formed a tight bond or a friendship with the people who provide you with goods made overseas and fuel our vehicles for shipping? That’s what I thought.
So check out these resources for buying locally in the Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs areas, and strengthen your community today!
Colorado Local First is a directory of local businesses. You pick up copies of directories at some local businesses, area hotels and the Tattered Cover Bookstore LoDo and East Colfax locations. You can also check out their website, www.coloradolocalfirst.com, which appears to be a work in progress. You can download printable versions of the directories there.
The Mile High Business Alliance is responsible for Colorado Local First, so give their website a go too! http://www.milehighbiz.org/
The ReDirect Guide (which, what do you know?! will help you out if you live in Portland, OR or Salt Lake City, UT, as well) is mostly, but not entirely local, and also lists only environmentally friendly, or sustainable, businesses. There you get a double whammy of green-ness. Now, I just got ahold of the 2007 issue last weekend, and I must say, it wasn’t totally complete. I know of a few businesses that should be in there but weren’t. In any case, it had a lot of stuff I didn’t know about in there, and the 2008 edition is due out on Earth Day (thats next week, if you didn’t know), so I’m hoping it has more in it. http://www.redirectguide.com/
Enjoy your resources, and happy shopping.
For the record, I have no beef with the Middle East or South America or any of the other countries where our gas comes from. Nor do I have a problem with the countries that our imported goods come from. I’d just rather support my own economy first. Furthermore, sometimes in order to convince people of the good of an action, you have to sink your arguments down to their level. Some people wont go for buying locally if you say its good for the environment, but they’re all for it if you say “Why are you buying gas from terrorists?”. Yes, its awful and racist and I hate that outlook as much as any educated person does, but it is an effective argument to get people to buy local and conserve gas. Terrible, isn’t it?
Greening up purchases you already make, tip #1: Green up your porn April 9, 2008
I was raised by a single mother. I know a lot of single mothers. I, myself, am a single mother. And if there’s one thing I know about single mothers, especially the variety who do not have a boyfriend, such as myself, its that we aren’t getting as much as our married counterparts (which I hear still isn’t much, so this post might interest them too). In my case, I’m not getting any. I’m not really complaining, I’m just stating a fact.
Anyway, for those of you who are discouraged by not getting any (or much), or for those of you who are getting tons but just can’t seem to get enough, and want to live green, I proudly present Fuck For Forests, a porn company I just read about on Grist that uses its proceeds to do environmental work in Costa Rica.
I haven’t checked out the site yet a) because I’m at work, and b) because since having my son my interest in sex has been much lower than usual. I don’t think its because the labor freaked me out about sex, I just think its because I’m tired and not feeling so hot about what being pregnant has done to my body (I read recently someone describe their post pregnancy tummy as looking like a sharpei puppy - that totally describes my tummy). Either way, I can’t report on the quality of porn on the site. All I know is that it appears to be a greener way to consume your porn, if you are so inclined to consume porn.
And here is a comic my friend made, which I think is down right hillarious, and kind of fits the subject. Fun times
