Earth Day 2009

**HUGE UPDATE**

Do you have any financial questions about starting your own business, investing, and saving in our current economy? Well I am excited to share that TOMORROW from 10am to 11am EDT I will be part of a team that gets to interview highly respected financial advisor, Suze Orman!! You can submit questions here and I'll ask as many as I am able, or you can submit questions via Twitter by following Suze @suzeormanshow! Suze Orman's financial advice and the Q&A session I will be a part of will be turned into an infomercial for AVON, so go ahead and ask your personal finance questions, and who knows, you might be just a few adjustments away from financial freedom.

Follow me on Twitter as well, @MicheZ. I will also be Twittering the audio cast live and submitting my (and your) questions.


It is Earth Day! I love Earth Day; it is like Valentine's Day and Mother's Day wrapped into one for our lovely Mother Nature.

Since today is for celebration of the Earth, there are a lot of fun activities to join in! Baskin Robbins usually gives out a free small cone of ice cream, too; however, I haven't found any information on whether they are doing it this year. It is still worth the drive to go see though, because, hey, it's ice cream! What better way to celebrate the Earth than by eating some ice cream on a lovely spring day? UPDATE***It seems I have Baskin Robbins and Ben & Jerry's mixed up-Ben & Jerry's gives out the icecream for their birthday(yesterday), not Earth Day, so no wonder I couldn't find anything when I tried to look it up...lol)**

What am I the most excited about this Earth Day? The movie, Earth. It is a heart warming story that follows three animal families as they journey across our planet, brought to you by the creative minds behind Planet Earth in a fashion of emotion, beauty and intrigue that only Disney can do. And if you go see the movie in the theaters, the amazing Disney company will plant a tree for each ticket sold during opening week!

Have kids and don't think you can go to the movies? Well, never fear, a lot of movie theaters have summer programs that will be starting soon where kids of all ages (babies too!) are welcome. The movies are usually free or a few dollars, and they play movies that have been out for a few months (so by the time the programs start, Earth should be one of the movies showing! Whoo hoo!)

Here are a few of the sites to check out:

Regal Entertainment Theaters
AMC Movie Theaters

Ask your local theater, too. They may have a community kid time they offer and you just don't realize! And a great activity to get some energy out after the movie? Plant a little garden with your kids! They will love digging in the dirt, and Bonnie Bell has eco friendly, bio degradable containers, so you can introduce your children to caring for our Earth.

Happy Earth Day!

Make A Bird Feeder

I love hands on activities for kids, and I was so lucky to work in a fabulous day care where we did all kinds of creative, fun, learning activities with the children. So, I have been excited to start doing a lot of the ones I especially enjoyed with my own children. This one is easy, simple, and environment AND budget friendly since everything is edible or out of the yard. Without further ado, here is how to make a bird feeder with your little ones:




Now that spring is here, I hope you guys have lots of fun with this activity; it can be done outside or inside and has minimal mess involved. Also, find a great place near some of your windows, if possible, to hang the feeder, then you can enjoy watching the birds with your child! This activity can also be a more involved learning activity for older kids, as you point out different kinds of birds, their colors, what kinds of homes they make-you can take this as far as your child shows interest and even make a great homeschooling lesson on birds out of it. Super fun, super easy, and that is what Works For Me Wednesday! Check out We Are THAT Family for more great tips!!

Scrub a Dub Dub..

I am turning into an eco conscious person. It didn't really hit me until yesterday when Bill and I ran to the store for hand dish soap and dishwasher soap. (I don't know what else to call them, so I hope you know what I am talking about: Palmolive vs Cascade...) But although I have always been concerned about cleaning up trash from the roads, since becoming a parent I have started becoming concerned with the chemicals I use.

Anywho, as I started reaching for the Cascade, my eyes feel on Seventh Generation. I had heard a lot about it from some of my favorite bloggers out there, but had never actually seen it sold in any of the grocery stores near my home. Thus, I didn't really think about it anymore.

But yesterday, as my eyes fell on a wide range of Seventh Generation products, all the good things I had heard came flooding back. So I put down the Cascade, and picked up Seventh Generation's dishwasher soap.

And I have to say, I am VERY impressed, not only did it get my dishes just as clean as Cascade ever did, but ALL the ingredients are listed, along with explanations of what they are for:

Aqua (water), sodium silicate (protection agent and alkalinity builder), sodium polyacrylate, sodium citrate and sodium carbonate (water softeners), ppg-6 C12-15 pareth-12 (cleaning agent), xanthan gum (thickener), essential oils and botanical extracts* (medica limonum peel (lemon) and citrus aurantifolia (lime)). *d-Limonene is a component of these essential oils.

Our Phosphate- and Chlorine-Free Automatic Dishwasher Gel gets your dishes sparkling clean. Chlorine-free and phosphate-free (to help prevent algae blooms).

So I am impressed. And you know what else? Once per ounce, Seventh Generation dishwashing liquid was cheaper than Cascade (at lease at the Win-Dixie near our Alabama home). Cascade was 9.90 cents per ounce, Seventh Generation was 9.50 cents per ounce. The Laundry detergent was more expensive, at 13.1 cents per ounce vs. the store brand I usually get at 9.1 cents per ounce. I have not tried the laundry detergent yet; however, I will be. Even at the extra cost, it seems worth it because of this list:


* Non-toxic and biodegradable
* Hypo-allergenic
* Free of phosphates & optical brighteners
* No enzymes
* Safe for septic & greywater systems
* Not tested on animals
* Kosher-certified

Non-toxic? Biodegradable? Free of phospahtes? I'm sold. And for the concerned parent in me, this little tid-bit that I found on all their products in the Win-Dixie (Yes, I stood there looking and reading all about all the products, then comparing them to all the products I usually use...Bill was getting annoyed with our "quick stop for soap" turning into a marathon of reading..)gave me a piece of mind should our little Houdini channeling Toddler decide to stack chairs in the pantry and get to the cleaners:

From the Dishwashing Gel:
"Please keep all cleaning products out of the reach of children. Seventh Generation products, although not intended for consumption, aren't poisonous...."

And looking around on their website, you can print out coupons for their products when you register AND there is one for a $1 off laundry detergent. NICE.

You know what else I love? Their mission statement:

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations-From the Great Law of The Iroquois Confederacy"

I think this Mama has found a new way to clean my home, and without the worry of causing fumes to build up in the bathroom as I scrub soap scum away. For once, I am excited to clean.