Happy Earth Day and One Small Change Wrap-Up

Happy Earth Day!

What do you do to celebrate? I hope to get out for a walk at the Arboretum at lunchtime, if it's not raining.

The Motherhood Muse Subscription Drawing Winners

That's right. It turns out I have two subscriptions to give away after all. And the winners are:

Jaimie from Two Chicks and a Hen

and

Lone Star Ma

Congratulations and please send me your email so you can get your subscription.

In the meantime, be sure to check out the rest of The Motherhood Muse blog tour for more chances to win a subscription. There's an interview with me posted at Blogging Mama on April 6 (I thought it was going to be on the 19th so I didn't check! Oops!).

One Small Change Wrap-Up

My April Change--realizing that Hoarding is Not the Same as Recycling--has been slow to take off. So far I have:

--taken a huge bag of plastic cutlery to work where it will actually get used (then thrown away). Ok, I admit it was still March when I did this, but it was the inspiration for April.

--finally convinced C to take our ancient late-1980s Macintosh computer (a.k.a. The Big Mac) to the E-waste recycling dropoff at our transfer station--after I got it out for M to try out and the screen just showed a little frownie-face icon and it coughed out a pile of rust.

--put three pairs of old glasses in the Lions Club collection box at the optometrist's office.

I still have several more things (or categories of things) I want/need to find ways of recycling in the next couple of weeks. It may not happen before April is done.

I really liked the One Small Change challenge. It's given me an opportunity to focus on things I've been "meaning to do" one thing and one month at a time. Here's the low-down on my changes this year:

January--Buy Nothing and Wrap-Up

February--Getting the Plastic Out, Stage One and Wrap-Up

March--Getting the Plastic Out, Kitchen Edition, Week One and a Half and Wrap-up

April--Hoarding is Not Recycling

There are always so many little things we can do to reduce our personal impact. I plan on keeping it going right through the rest of the year. For May, however, instead of a new change, I'm going to keep going with Hoarding is Not Recycling in the hopes of getting rid of most of the stuff I have piled up in the basement, waiting for new life. I also plan on doing a major clean-out and re-org in the kids' room (in time for their birthdays), and I would love it if I could find new homes for about half of their clothes, toys, etc (not sure if that would actually be good for THE environment, but it will help our personal--and my mental--environment); along these same lines I plan on cleaning up (and moving out) some of the white-trashiness in our yard. And speaking of birthdays, I'm going to try to keep it simple--follow that "something to wear, something to read, something to play with" rule, perhaps. I'll keep you posted, and remember, it's never too late to make One Small Change!