Birthday, Earth Day, & The Wild Kingdom

Today is The Man's birthday and I got to see him for a whole 15 minutes before he trotted off to work this afternoon. He's turning the big three five this year and he's looking quite dapper for his old age, if I do say so myself.

Today is also the eve of Earth Day. Last year I went all gung ho on the Earth Day front and I figured it might be about time to reflect on the big changes I made to The Spaz household a year ago in honor of our planet.

Recycling bins. Yes, we got them. I even placed them in my kitchen when they arrived and lectured the kids on how to separate the plastics from the papers and which bin to place them in. Oh how much fun we had separating and filling up our bins which were to be collected once a week on Wednesday mornings.

After three Wednesday mornings had gone by and no one had taken out the bins, they were a little full. And stinky. And then one Friday night while everyone else was sleeping I threw everything in a garbage bag and put it out on the curb for Saturday morning's regular pickup. And that is how our recycling bins became acquainted with the back of our garage, never to see the light of day again.

Maybe I'll dig them out this year and try again.

Eco Friendly Lunchboxes. I'm actually doing great with this because now Goober is in kindergarten and therefore eats school lunch. So I haven't had to pack a sandwich in a ziploc bag or buy a box of Capri Suns all year! Score one for The Spaz!

I did, actually, have to pack Bug a lunch today for a field trip and did utilize a sandwich container and reusable plastic container for applesauce. That was more of an avoidance of the grocery store, though, than a real attempt to save the earth. I was out of ziplocs and only had a giant jar of applesauce. I did, however, save gas by not driving to the store.

Buying jugs of water. I can honestly, and not sarcastically, say that I've done really great with this. We still use our Brita pitcher and I haven't bought any jugs of bottled water. Seriously, I'm proud of myself here. Score another one for The Spaz!

Reusable shopping bags. Let me just tell you how much I use these bags. They're great for packing a kid up for a sleepover. You can send kids to school with all sorts of stuff in them. In fact, on the first day of school all of those supplies went to school in reusable shopping bags. They work great for bringing gifts to parties, sending stuff home with guests, the uses are endless!

If only I could remember to bring them with me to the actual grocery store I might be saving the earth.

I don't feel too terribly horrible about my Earth Day Failures, though, because I read a blog post today that let me know how much I do for the earth every day that I didn't even think of. Water conservation? Big giant check!

In other news, I have managed to keep Felix, the kitten, alive for over 7 weeks now. He's quite the feisty kitten these days so I guess I did a pretty good job. Cause The Spaz and wildlife go together like PB&J, y'all.

In fact, I saved a turtle crossing the road just this afternoon by standing in the middle of the road and motioning to cars to go around. Pick him up? No way. Those things can bite your finger off!