Happy Earth Day!

Well Earth Day is almost over, but I wanted to post about it. Okay, let me tell the truth-I didn't even know it was Earth Day until I watched Oprah. Yes...fine, I'll admit it. I'm one of those people that usually gets inspired by one of Oprah's shows. I wish I could say I look into earth issues or other world issues on my own and inspire myself, but no, I don't...I just wait for Oprah to do a show on stuff and if it's important to Oprah, then darn it...it's important to me too! Oh come on, you know you all love her.

So anyway, today she did an Earth Day show and it made me re-evaluate what I'm trying to do to conserve energy. I'm actually doing a pretty crappy job at conserving. I basically just try not to let the faucet run, turn off the lights when I'm not in a room, I have a few of those twisty lightbulbs...and yeah, that's it. Well, my friend Oprah told me today that there are two huge things I could do that would make a big impact, and I think I'll try it.
1. Water bottles. I'm totally guilty of reusing and reusing my water bottles. Did you know that they're only designed for one use? After that the chemicals in the plastic start leaking into the water you continually refill into it. Gross. And I'm not one to only drink my water from fress unopened water bottles. It's too expensive. So this is my plan: I'm going find cute hard plastic reusable/washable water bottles and store several of them in my fridge for my family to drink from. It's kind of sad to think about how many water bottles are being produced a day and not being recycled. Speaking of recycling...
2. I'm going to start recycling again. We used to recycle everything when we lived in Washington, but since being in Idaho this last year, I just haven't taken the time to set it up with the recycling people. Too lazy I guess, and I use being in an aparment as an excuse. Well, I'm lame and I'll try not to be and actually recycle when we move to our new place. I know it shouldn't be too hard to aquire one of those big blue bins.
3. Cut back on the plastic shopping bags. I feel guitly every time I come home from grocery shopping with a million plastic bags, and I actually like the green reusable shopping bags you see, and they're really only a dollar each. So I'm going to try that too. I'll just get 3-5 to begin with and stick them in my trunk and try to get in the habit of using them when I go grocery shopping. It will be a good thing for Isaac to see me do, too.

So there are my Earth Day resolutions. I love this beautiful place and I need to take more responsibility for my actions. Just because I don't know where my trash is going, doesn't mean it's going to the right place.

What about you? Do you have any Earth Day resolutions or easy tips I could use? Or you could just tell me to get a life and quit TIVOing Oprah.


These three pictures are from the San Juan Islands in Washington. Jon and I lived there the first three years of our marriage. That place was BEAUTIFUL and I miss it so much. I think I'm a much happier person when I'm surrounded by green trees.