Do You Realize?

Dying to be Green

One of my greatest pet peeves is the absolutely ridiculous misuse of land for people to be buried in metal boxes in the ground. I've always said I wanted to be cremated, although now I wonder about the air pollution caused by crematoriums.

The business of death is an incredibly wasteful industry. Tons of steel, wood, and plastics; massive amounts of chemicals; and millions of square miles of now useless land are just some of the hazards of dying the traditional way. However, there are all sorts of ways to divert our remains (or, rather, cremains) away from either the metal vault or the urn. We can be made into diamonds, added to coral reefs, launched into space, or made into fireworks to be shot at a memorial service. The inventor of Frisbee golf had his ashes made into Frisbees, and Marvel Comics editor Mark Gruenwald had his ashes incorporated into ink for the comic Squadron Supreme. Any of these options, in my opinion, are far superior to the common methods of burial.

Yesterday, in the newest issue of the pap that is People magazine (a total guilty pleasure, but one that is recycled after use, of course), I was reading about a greener burial process, as highlighted by Ramsey Creek Preserve, the United States' first green cemetery. I admit it: I am fascinated by this idea.

At eco-cemeteries, one's body is not pumped full of formaldehyde; it is simply refrigerated until interment. The body is not placed in a dizzyingly expensive wood, metal, and plastic coffin lined with pretentious shiny satin; it is wrapped in a simple cotton shroud and placed in a simple, biodegradable untreated wood box for burial. The box is not dropped into a huge concrete or steel vault in the ground, but into the ground itself. There are no outrageous tombstones; there are usually trees or bushes planted, or an indigenous stone can be engraved. The cemetery itself is more a nature preserve than morbid reminder of death; the cemetery celebrates the life surrounding it, rather than focuses of the dead. The whole process is designed to respect the whole ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust concept. (Regardless of this verse being read at almost every funeral ever held, traditional burials are designed to hinder this process as much as possible.) This, my friends, seems to be a fine and fiscally feasible alternative to traditional burial, and a beautiful dual use of land as well.

We're all going to die. But are we all going to continue our environmentally responsible attitudes into death? (This, of course, includes being responsible organ donors, which will be another topic for another day.)

Search for Prudence

I think I've already mentioned this, but I'm getting a Prius for my birthday. (It will replace my ginormous 16mpg seven-year-old Lexus as my daily driver.) What I might not have mentioned is that all of our vehicles have had names, just like children; they can be as frustrating and temperamental, but just as much fun and entertaining as children. We have had Tessie the Tercel, Lucy the Lumina, Emilio the M3, Paschal the Porsche, Lexie the Lexus, etc. Although we haven't found her yet, we've decided that the Prius will be named Prudence, for many reasons, both obvious or otherwise.

Of all the traits of my husband's that make him both endearing and annoying are his fastidiousness, his love of all gadgets-great-and-good, and his Virgo tendency to want to be in control. As such, car-buying with him can be an exercise in frustration.  If there is an option that can be added to a car, the man will have it. (I'm talking big options; he doesn't piddle with cupholders and doodads and such.)

We have been to the local dealership & driven the Prius. We both really liked it: the prescient way the motor switches from electric to fuel, the bright and pretty displays, the back-up camera, the eerie quiet at a stop light. Once we established that we did, indeed, like it enough to buy it, all that was left to do was pick one. Being the Great Red State, there were only a couple of available Priuses (Prii?) there on the lot. (there was un chingo of big ol' redneck, gas-guzzling pick-em-ups, though.). None were what we wanted.

The final configuration for Prudence is as follows: Barcelona Red, Touring Edition (cooler, larger wheels and sporty suspension...option$, anyone?), Package 6 (top-of-the line options), with Bisque interior. The only slight problem with that configuration? There are a total of THREE cars like that available in the entire country right now. Nevermind that if I were patient enough to wait several months, we could simply custom-order one; give me the challenge of tracking down this car like a bloodhound! (When buying Lexie, I tracked down a dealership in Fort Myers, Florida, that delivered her to my front door in Georgia for $6000 less than any dealership within a hundred miles would even consider.)

I've talked to salespeople in Georgia (where my family lives), in Missouri (where hubby's family lives), in Tennessee (where we'll be going on vacation in July), and in Oregon (where my friend is spending the summer in Blue-State Bliss). I figured, if any state will have a plethora of Priuses (Prii?) to choose from, it would be somewhere like Oregon or California.  So far, my  man Rex in Oregon has worked himself like a dog trying to find this car. He is negotiating a trade with another dealership for this car (fingers crossed, everyone). If he is able to get it, I will fly out to visit with my friend in Oregon (and maybe drive up to Portland to meet Molly for drinks one night?), pick up Prudence, and drive back home.

Now, try not to think too hard about the leather interior, which hubby insists on because he doesn't want to replace cloth seats every year because they get stained and spotted and generally gross. I tried to explain that it just doesn't feel quite right to be driving an environmentally friendly car and be sitting on a dead cow, but utility plays a lot into the choice, and like most things, I can see both sides. And try not to think about the flight to Oregon to pick up the car; Toyota won't deliver the car to me, like Lexus did. And try not to think about the fact that we could go for fewer options; that Smart Key System will save my ass, I know it will, and the high-intensity discharge headlights are far superior to Lexie's piddly lights, and everyone knows that cooler wheels will make all the difference, right?

(NOTE: Please excuse any typos you may find in today's post. Hubby's display was struck by lightning last night, and I can only see about 50% of anything. Of course, he will now replace it with a 30" monitor.)

A Berry Good Saturday

Twelve-year-old son and I got up at 6:00 am today and headed to our local pick-your-own berry farm. (They are not certified organic, but in an email she sent out, she says we need to soak the berries for a couple of hours to get rid of bugs b/c they don't use pesticides! Yippee!) We picked about a gallon each of blackberries and blueberries. It was a perfect day for picking: overcast and temperate. Toward the end of our last gallon, the sky opened up and we got soaking wet. I figured, "If we're gonna get a little wet, we might as well get a lot wet," and so we continued to pick until we filled the bucket.

While at the Green Market, they had just gotten in a load of local organic (again, not certified, but in practice) red plums (and green beans... I've been waiting not-so-patiently for local organic green beans). Since hubby loves red plum jelly, and I'm planning to make jelly of the berries, I decided to add plum jelly to my list.

And so, now we soak the berries, and after a nap, we'll start making jelly. Beautiful batches of local, mostly-organic blackberry, blueberry, and red plum jelly (even the sugar and lemons are organic). I am so excited!

Family Circus Redux

Since my Family Circus post went over so swimmingly (i.e. drawing my first truly negative comment... woo hoo!), I thought I'd post another, equally controversial opinion (hey, no guts, no glory, right?).

If you thought the Duggars were crazy (and you know you did), I can't wait to tell you about the two families I read about today! After stumbling about in the blogosphere and coming across another post about these people, I was inspired to look up their webpages. (And before you get all flamed up about my lack of sensitivity, I do realize these babies' lives hang in a delicate balance, and I can't imagine the pain the parents are feeling right now. I truly hope everything works out for them, but I still hold the same opinion regarding the circumstances of the pregnancies.)

We'll start with Jenny & Bryan (age before beauty, Brianna & Ryan... you'll have your turn). Jenny is 32, Bryan is 29. Jenny just birthed their six babies almost 10 weeks early, and all but one weighed less than three pounds. Taken from their website (we're all invited to come & help them raise their kids!): "The doctor simply gave Jenny the drugs to increase fertility... and then they took Bryan's contribution, and a turkey baster... and voila... God decided to make six babies." You have got to be kidding me, right?!?! What was God deciding when he let her miscarry the two previous pregnancies? If you're going to give God the credit for making these babies, why not give Him the credit for taking the others? Maybe God was telling her that her oven might not be especially good at baking buns, so quit trying to stick one in there. And while we're giving God all the credit, why did He decide to let her deliver 10 weeks early, to buns that were only partially risen?

Next up is Brianna and Ryan. Brianna is just 24 years old, and their website leads me to believe that Ryan is just 22 years old. Now, I can almost see Jenny, at 32, feeling the urgency of a ticking biological clock, but at 24, you've got plenty of years left (just ask Michelle Duggar, who's 40!). Some tidbits from their website are a little more disturbing than the others (especially considering that she delivered at only 22 weeks): "He will bring the lives of these babies to full health and fruition and everyone will say, “Look, God has done something amazing!”" Also, their doctors strongly urged selective reduction, which they summarily dismissed: "the risks of carrying and delivering six babies are too great. They said that reducing the number of fetuses now would increase the chance of survival for the the remaining fetusus as they develop, and would decrease the chance of long-term health risks for the babies that were carried to term. However, we knew right away that this is not an option for us. We understand that the risk is high, but we also understand that these little ones are much more than six fetuses. Each one of them is a miracle given to us by God." Now, somehow, they will find it necessary to search and find reasons that God gave them their miracles at the wrong time.

Now, even if you are all on-board with the Duggars' philosophy of "letting God decide" the number of children you will have, can you at least see the fundamental difference in these cases? If they were "letting God decide," why start fertility treatments? God apparently DID decide; He decided not to give them biological babies. Perhaps the early deliveries are just reinforcement of that decision.

Family Circus

Yesterday, I read an update on the Duggar family. In case you've never heard of them (and you don't follow links in my posts), Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar are 8 months pregnant... with Kid #17! They used birth control for four years, had their first child, then resumed The Pill. They got pregnant again, & she miscarried; blaming it on The Pill, they asked God to forgive them, and promised they would accept as many children as He saw fit to give them; they certainly now have a quiver full. They live in Arkansas in a 7000 sq. ft. home, built by Jim Bob & the boys, debt free. Both Jim Bob & Michelle are real estate agents, and Jim Bob was a House Representative for Arkansas from 1998-2003.

Please realize, there are certainly some things that I really admire about these people. They own 9 vehicles and a 7000 sq. ft. home, all paid for in full with cash; they are debt-free (their previous home had all of 2200 sq. ft. for 18 of them). They run their household on about $5000 per month. (Granted, this is a figure from 2006, when the currently in-utero Jennifer Danielle was only a sparkle in Jim Bob's eye, so it may be a little more now.) They buy almost all of their clothing from thrift stores or eBay (although they will spend $70-$80 for each girl for Wholesome swimsuits). Plus, their website was created on a Mac; they automatically get points for wise computing choices.

All the good things aside, though, I can't help but be really miffed at their choice to populate a small country of resource consumers (maybe that miscarriage was God telling them that one kid was enough). While some of us are doing all sorts of things to reduce our footprint, here come the nineteen Duggars; nothing about a 19-member household's environmental footprint can be small. Although they were all paid for with cash, they still own 9 vehicles (not one of them is a Prius). Yes, they buy their clothes from thrift stores, I get the distinct feeling from articles and Discovery Channel specials that it's more from monetary frugality than concern for the environment. They wash more than 60 loads of laundry a week! Doing the math, that's 3 loads per person, per week; that's upwards of 10 loads each day (assuming, since they are so religious, that they won't do laundry on the Lord's Day)... more than I do each week. There are 4 times the number of people in their household, but somehow they manage 6 times more laundry; I'm not sure how that works.

Maybe I'm just grumpy from lack of sleep last night, or maybe I'm channeling my inner Andy Rooney, but this just twists my knickers a little. Michelle Duggar has been pregnant for a total of 133 months, the equivalent of six elephant gestations; I think six elephants might tread lighter on the earth.

Slow & Steady

I've decided that "slow & steady, steady & slow" is the way to approach most things, including our "better world" impacts. If I go in with guns blazing, I tend to burn myself out fairly quickly, then go on hiatus, then go back in (whether or not I learned anything, and go back in "steady & slow" varies greatly). Vanessa, over at Green as a Thistle, knows this; it's the whole premise of her blog!

I've covered some of my S&S actions in posts already, but most of these are things I've not talked about or I've just done this week, and I feel great about them!

1. I used some old pillowcases to sew cloth napkins this week. None of them are the same size, mind you, but at least the seams are pretty straight and the thread matched. I'm now contemplating how to use the sheets to make some sort of shopping bags, unless someone has another suggestion for their use. I could give them to Goodwill, I suppose, as it was only the pillowcases that had an unrepairable hole.
2. I pitched all my mop water yesterday out on the hostas and the jasmine plants. (I use safe Method products, so I'm not trying to kill them with Lysol or bleach.)
3. I gave my Better World Shopping Guide to my mother. I know I am buying another copy, but I knew she probably would never get around to it. I do have her word, though, that she will use it to make her purchasing decisions.
4. I found & ordered some environmentally friendly nail polish and remover from a company called Acquarella. It is water-based, non-toxic, and phthalate & formaldehyde-free.
5. I'm saving all my MAC cosmetic containers. I'm almost up to the six required for their "Back to MAC" recycling program. In order to encourage recycling, MAC takes back all of their containers, and when you bring in six of them, you get a free lipstick (not including the Viva Glam line, since 100% of those profits go to AIDS relief, and they won't cut into those profits)! How cool is that?!?
6. I always have a box by the front door somewhere, designated for Goodwill stuff. Once every blue moon or so, we will have a yard sale (okay,only twice ever). Even though the last one made us over $700, I would mostly rather send my stuff to Goodwill to free my space up a little more; yesterday, two boxes went.
7. I inspired my mom & sister to try reusable bags (she now has five from One Bag at a Time) and all-natural pet food. Telling them about the pet foods that use euthanized pound animals as protein sources, plus the recent pet food nightmares, did the trick.
8. I was thrilled to discover that Performance Bicycle, where my hubby buys all of his cycling gear and supplies, uses CornCard  gift cards instead of plastic, and they use 100% renewable energy.
9. I have my own personal boycotts that I am fairly rigid about. I need to post about them, like Shawn over at Kowai, and I still need to write to them & let them know why I won't buy anything from them, but the boycott is a start, right?

Making the world a little better place is not that hard. Especially if you take it "slow & steady."

NOTE: I've neglected my Better World Handbook Quote of the Day. A new one is up.

Entomological Update

After a truly traumatizing night involving our guinea pig, rabbit, and thousands of our unidentified Nasty Buggers, samples of the offending critters were sent off to Texas A&M to be identified by an entomologist. The verdict is that chiggers are not, indeed, our culprits. No, it couldn't be anything that mundane. Noooooo... We have Ornithonyssus mites. Depending on the species, their hosts are either wild birds or roof rats; the two look so much alike, it's very tricky telling them apart (the mites, not the birds & rats).

So, using common sense, remembering our roof rat revelers that stayed around for 3 weeks or so, and utilizing the knowledge that the mites had attacked the guinea pig, but not our birds, I believe we are looking at an attack of Ornithonyssus Bacoti, the Tropical Rat Mite. According to Texas A&M, one usually notices the mites once the hosts have died or left the building (the rat bastards left after they finished off all the kitty treats in the TV cabinet). Although they can't live off human blood, they will readily bite them, causing all sorts of hellish itching. And apparently, they aren't terribly uncommon... then why haven't I ever heard of them?!?!?

Anyway, armed with pyrethrin and diatomaceous earth, I'm off to war. Any other suggestions welcome.

Seven Random Facts

I am confiscating hubby's computer while he mows the lawn, so as to try to catch up some blog entries that are swimming around.

I have been tagged by Chile for a meme (Yes, Chile, I can tell you how to custom-make a banner for your blog, but I'll be damned if I can pronounce "meme" either!). I have been instructed to present to you, dear readers, Seven Random Facts about me (as if you haven't been subjected to enough Random Facts about me already...). Yes, I know, I've been gone for a week, and you all expect something Of Substance... HA!

1.  I like to color, but I am an elitist. I use only Crayola; there is no crayon that can compare, either in saturation of color or smell. I was the only kid in my kindergarten class that colored shadows into my coloring sheets (my great-grandfather was an artist).

2.  I can cook a tasty apple pie, but can't make it pretty to save my life.

3.  If I could be anything, I would choose to be an ornithologist. Something about birds just fascinates me beyond all reason. Beautiful, ugly, common, unusual, colorful, drab, doesn't matter... they all have something I find just magical.

4.  I taught scrapbooking classes at a local scrapbook store for 2 years. I have completed (full to overflowing) more than 20 scrapbooks.

5.  I have a rabid aversion to houseflies. They really truly gross me out.

6.  One of my favorite places on earth is Varenna, Italy, on Lake Como. This is where we ate breakfast every morning, and fed the ducks.

7.  I'm a horribly indecisive person. I think. Maybe not. Well, I know I can be...sometimes. (Sorry for stealing one of yours, Alina... I just couldn't decide what my #7 should be!)

Now, the rules say I have to tag seven other bloggers for this, but honestly, all the blogs I read have been or will be tagged by other blogs I read, so I'm skipping the tagging part. I forgot....

8.  I'm a party pooper.

Out of Commission

My laptop died. It's very sad. I think the internal connector for the power cords is to blame. Since repair is over an hour away, it will have to happen sometime this week.

I am trying to catch up on reading everyone's blogs today, and will post when I can.

Happy Sunday!