I Can’t Remember

The winter holidays are about shopping and getting stuff, right?

At least that is what people who sell stuff would have us believe!

Remember: don’t trust anyone who acts like they’re doing you a favor and then charges you!

Not only is there a magazine about shopping, called “Lucky“–as in “gee, aren’t I so lucky to be buying a collection of ads so I can then know what the people who want my money want me to buy and how much it’ll cost me!”
but there is also blogs about shopping, like ShoppingAddicted. At least they admit that shopping for some is an addiction, similar to a gambling addition in it’s self-destructive pattern. And the first step is admitting you have a problem.

I’m serious, here! I could not be more appalled!

Want to get your friend or relative the “perfect” present?
Make sure it’s consumable, because if it takes up any space at all it could end up costing them big.

Check out Paul Graham’s assessment on how much “stuff” is costing us to store and upkeep–to the point that stuff isn’t even valuable anymore, and how those who grew up poor are still hoarding in a misguided attempt to be rich:
Stuff
And MSN’s late cover if the same topic:
The hidden costs of too much stuff

That’s “eco” as in economical as well as “eco” as in eco-friendly.

Have you price Thanksgiving dinner? Made as list of everything you’d need to cook everything from scratch and added it up?

It’s cheaper to cater it.
No, really!
And while you’re at it, cater it from your local (or not so local) eco-friendly market. Do the whole dinner, or just part.
I’ll be cooking a local, free-range grass-fed turkey, and then ordering all my sides from Whole Foods.

Crazy, but true!

Technorati Tags: eco, economical, environment, Thanksgiving dinner

The costumes you buy at the store for your children often come with masks that are off-gassing toxic chemicals. (for info, see: Darth Vader, Dora the Explorer … or Dioxins? ) So if you buy these, make sure to not use the masks. Be wary of “Halloween makeup” also, especially with little children. Use your own make-up instead.

Of course, it’s friendlier to the environment if you don’t go out and buy these costumes!
For kids, the best costumes are found in Dad’s closet anyway! Be careful that nothing is a tripping hazard, and let them put together something. Dress them up as doctors, lawyers, mechanics, construction workers, waiters, pirates, gangsters, Napoleon, it all depends on what Dad (or Mom!) has in his closet!
Some of the best suggestions I found here.

Technorati Tags: costumes, eco, environment, Halloween

I am sad that I found this too late, but let’s all try to remember for next year!

Trick or Treat for UNICEF

Think “March of Dime” type of grass-roots fundraising by kids, for kids.

Fabulous idea!

There’s this old-fashioned flower, called “Butter n Eggs”…
Can you guess what color it is?
Nope, it’s not yellow and white–it’s yellow and orange! (see it here)
When it was named, people weren’t all color-blind, they just had better eggs.

If you guessed white and yellow–get ye to a farmers’ market! (find one near you here)
At the very least, buy eggs laid by free-range, vegetarian-fed chickens. They’ve been proven to be more nutritious!
You are what you eat…and apparently whatever it ate, too.

Feed yourself and your family right!
(Plus, kids looove to go to farmers’ markets, even older kids who don’t like the grocery store anymore!)

Technorati Tags: eat well, eggs, farmers markets, kids, nutrition

My daughter was upset.

We had gone to get the Halloween decorations out of storage (or as my husband calls it: “the money pit”**) and had left the gate code at home. And we wouldn’t have time to retrieve the decorations for a couple days.

We stopped at a drugstore on the way home, and I had an idea. Escewing the double-wide isle full of Halloween decorations in the middle of the store, I spent around a buck for a bag of jumbo-sized cotton balls.
Because, of course, cotton balls are the backbone of Halloween decorations. No, really!

Add a tissue and marker in some eyes, and you have little ghosts. String them together for ghost garlands, or just place them strategically all over the house.

Stretch out cotton balls for spider webs: add to mirrors, mantles, candle sticks, and wherever they will look spooky. If you have any plastic spider rings, bugs, etc you can tangle them in.

Paint or marker them black, and add little legs made out of black paper or twist ties and you have little spiders.

Orange paint and a bit of black marker and you hace mini jack-o-lanterns.

Stretch them over wire and add glitter and you have fairy wings.

Grab some gold paint and pretend you’re Martha Stewart (What would Martha do?)

Make the kids exercise their imagination, and let them do whatever silly craft idea they come up with. Hang it up proudly.

We didn’t get back to the storage unit for over a week, but my daughter didn’t notice, because we had already decorated.

**Storage units are a bad bad bad bad bad idea. Bad for the environment, bad for your wallet. We have plans to not have one anymore by the end of the year. Reduce and reuse! Or, in this case, donate.

Technorati Tags: children, crafts, decorations, Halloween, kids