Happy Birthday Court!!!

Happy Birthday Kwan-Wei!  Hope it's a good one!

Going Green

(Soap box warning) Over the last few years I have done a bit of reading up on "going green".  I feel pretty passionate about trying to be a good steward of the earth.  I know that global warming and climate change are controversial and are merely political issues to some people.  I think whether or not we are changing the climate of the earth with our massive amounts of waste is irrelevant, we should still try to be less wasteful and more thoughtful. I think we need to get over looking at environmental awareness as a left wing vs. right wing issue and think more in terms of morality and ethics. We live in a culture of complete materialism and waste. It seems immoral to me to not to try and understand our impact upon the planet.  So I hope no one will mind, but occasionally I want to post a few things I think are easy and important to do to become less wasteful and tread a little more lightly on this planet.  I don't mean to be condescending, but I can't help myself.  Todays plea:

Use less paper and plastic.  (Just a little by the way; plastic is pretty darn toxic.  Google it)

1. Buy cotton bags or reusable bags (the super cute reusable Ikea bags were on sale for 50 cents a few days ago), stick them in your car (this is important or you will always forget them when you go to the store), and never again use paper or plastic bags.  Easy, easy, easy.  Cheap, cheap, cheap.  Way too easy not to do.

2. Don't use paper napkins, but switch to cloth.  It takes a lot of energy, water, and trees to make and ship napkins.

3. Instead of ziploc bags use tupperware or pyrex containers, over and over and over.  Or better yet, wash out your sour cream containers and use those.  It's not a pain, I promise.  We've only used a box of ziplocs this year and Lucy takes a lunch every single day.  Just do it, it is easy.

4. Instead of getting magazines and newspapers get online subscriptions.  It takes a lot of energy, water, and trees to make a magazine or a newspaper (plus trucks use gas to drive your magazine across the country and to your mailbox).  It creates unnecessary waste.  Use the Internet.  Get online subscriptions.  If you must, make sure you recycle. (Newspaper makes a fine organic mulch for your garden and composts well as long as it doesn't have a lot of colored ink).

5.  Stop using plastic utensils, paper plates, and disposable dishes.  Just use your regular plates, cups, and silverware.  Doing dishes is a lot easier than decomposing toxic plastic. For picnics go to D.I. or Goodwill and buy stuff you don't care if it gets lost, or at least reuse the plastic stuff you have.  Again think of the energy, water, and trees wasted on the production of these items that we use once and throw away.  

6.  Stop junk mail.  Google "stop junk mail" and you will find oodles of organizations that will help you do just this.  Some organizations charge a small fee but will also plant some trees as an added bonus.

7. Buy foods that are minimally packaged.  This will not only reduce waste, but help you eat healthier.  The healthier the food (i.e. the less processed) the less packaging it usually has.

8. DO NOT BUY BOTTLED WATER.  It is a huge huge waste of resources. Again massive amounts of energy are used to produce and deliver this product.  Municipal water is safe safe safe. (You are most often just buying municipal water anyway).  If you are afraid to drink municipal water than buy a Brita or Pur filter pitcher.  Use a reusable water bottle, preferably not made of plastic.

9.  Use email as much as possible for your communication needs.  It is easy and takes no paper.  Also if we all reduced our margins and used a smaller font we would use a lost less paper.  Check it out.

10.  Method products, which are sold at Target, makes a reusable cloth that can be used in lieu of paper towels.  Not too pricey, and much less wasteful, and again reuse, reuse, reuse, is key.

11. DUH--RECYCLE!!!!!!!

Thanks for listening.

Keeping Warm in Our Refrigerator House

Blogging is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

I swear it is uncanny how people I know are connected to each other in ways I never would have guessed.  A few months ago I was on a good friends blog and clicked on a link to a blog that happened to belong to a sister (which at the time I didn't know) of a girl (by the way, this girl happened to be a student of my Dad's when she was at BYU and has a very very popular blog, that I find a link for on most peoples blogs) who was married to someone from my High School.  Anyway when I went to that blog I found a link for a good friend who used to be in New York with me.  Then on that New York friend's blog was a link to a blog where in a photo the people were wearing t-shirts from my cousin's husband's new restaurant, Pizzeria 712.  Anyway, those people, who I don't personally know had a comment on that post left by a long lost good high school friend, so I clicked on that link and discovered that long lost friends blogs.  Hope you were able to follow that convoluted ramble.

What Would You Do?

Our house is currently a balmy 50 something degrees.  A part on the furnace is broken.  We could wait until Monday and Rob could easily buy and replace the part for $50 or we could have someone come today (Saturday....of course) and pay $300+.  Have I ever mentioned how much I love home ownership?

I am FREEZING!!!!

Mom and Dad, you may have some weekend visitors.

Anyone But Hillary

I've been abnormally apathetic to the presidential elections this cycle.  This year I have been annoyed beyond belief at the press coverage of the elections.  "Giuliani wore red and sneezed three times last week, what does this mean in Iowa to black fundamentalist sushi eaters?" "Mitt blinked more than average, so will this affect his chances with the moderate Republican women who like carpooling but hate root beer?"  Anyway, I've been pretty unconnected.

 In '04 I practically could think of nothing else.  I know, it was annoying, but I couldn't think, read, or talk about much else  Perhaps it was because of my very very strong dislike and distrust of Bushie and his cronies and I was so anxious to see him lose power.  It was a bitter disappointment when he was reelected.  I think I sort of forced myself to tune out after that.

 Last night when I heard that Hillary had come in 3rd I actually felt a rush of excitement over the elections.  I still don't know if I will vote Democrat or Republican on this one, and I think we have a pretty poor selection of candidates but one thing I know: I want anyone but Hillary.  Lets end the Bush/Clinton era.  I can see Jeb and Chelsea running next time....Heaven help us.  Now that she doesn't seem quite the inevitable candidate she was portrayed to be maybe I will be able to tune in more.

So here is to anyone but Hillary in '08!!!

Christmas 2007...Sadly Now Just a Memory

It's back to real life I guess.  Our tree is still up, and fresh as ever (in fact it is growing new shoots!!!), and I am not ready to take it down or admit that Christmas is over.  Usually I really am good and ready for everything to wind down, but not this year.  Oh well.

It was a very nice Christmas around here.  Rob's family was in town and my parents were back from London, my sister and her family up from Arizona, my cousins here from North Carolina, and my other sister back from her mission.  I wish I had taken pictures of everything.  Briefly, here are some of the highlights:

• Cousin Candybar swap for the kids at Mom and Dad's.
  
• A good old fashioned Taylor style slideshow with the "Taylor Tiger" cousins, where we got to watch and comment on our lives from birth through childhood etc. (We used to gather spontaneously almost every Sunday for these slideshows as we grew up, but haven't watched slides in years...so this was great fun).   
• Yummy Christmas Eve dinner at Mom and Dad's with the Taylor cousins. After dinner a brief portrayal of the nativity by the kids.




The Kids in their Christmas Eve P.J.'s


• Turkey Dinner at Todd and Courts with Tutu/Papa/Whit in town. Yummy.
• A fun Christmas day with puzzles, games, legos, chocolates, and a lot of lounging around.





• Ice Skating for the kids with Tutu and Papa and Whit and Dad.



• Sister/Mom day out.  We went to lunch and to see Juno (which was GREAT).
• Hastings Family Party (I stole this pic from Bill's blog...thanks)


• Pizza, playing in the snow, and some old fashioned slides of our time in London way back in 1978 with my family here in the WVC.
• A trip down to Pizzeria 712 for delicious food with the Hastings.
• A visit from Rob's cousin Danielle on New Years Eve.
• A day of skiing for Rob, Court, and their Dad.
• Kids playing and playing with Tutu while Rob and I shopped.
• Lucy's baptism.

Here are the kids in their new Christmas clothes...Clara was being very photogenic!

I guess it is now back to carpooling and homework and not being able to sleep in.  I love holidays!  I hope you all had a great Christmas as well.