Earth Hour

This weekend, thanks, I'm sad to say, to the technology of my iphone calender, our whole family spent 8:30-9:30 Saturday night with all the lights out, celebrating Earth Hour.

Last year I totally forgot which is terrible because it's exactly the kind of thing I want to experience with my kids. And of course, I could celebrate an "Earth Hour" any time I wanted, but I'm a writer, I like deadlines. Or maybe I should say I NEED deadlines. So last week when I came across an article about Earth Hour, I put it in my iphone, with an alert (ok, two) so that this year I would not forget. And whew, it actually worked.

When the beeper went off I started grabbing candles while trying to hurriedly tell Will (oops, forgot to do that before too!) what I wanted to do. Lights out, stove off, quiet in the house, at least as much quiet as is possible at the end of a busy, sunny Saturday with two bouncy kids.

So we started a fire, because it was a little chilly outside and the light and warmth from the fire was calming and peaceful. I popped candles into old jars and new votive holders made last week. Briton got out the cards and Will brought slices of the pizza he had just finished on a big plate to the coffee table. We spent an hour, a real, honest to goodness quiet hour, playing "Go Fish" and coloring and reading to ourselves by candlelight. And it was bliss. True bliss. Which makes me realize that, as simple as our lives generally are, there is room to grow. There should be more days with candlelit card games and quiet hours. More family coloring time, which we also tried out this weekend. More together-with-no-distractions moments. Because when the TV and the computer and the lights and the stove and the house as a whole turned off, our family turns on in the most wonderful way. So here's to more Earth Hours. May the come more often and without the need for an iphone alert!

And if you like the votive candle holders, they were ridiculously easy and inspired by these vases.







Evie and I picked out a bag full of old cut glass potluck cups and funky jars and I sat out at our picnic table one afternoon while the kids played, swirling various shades of leftover yellow house paint (adding more or less white to change the tone) around the sides of the cups then left them to dry.


I love the way they glow, like little pots of sunshine, even when it's dark.

Why Didnt I Think of THAT Before?

Ever have one of those moments where a suggestion to someone else's problem pops out of your mouth and you think, "Uh, why didn't that come to me before?" Well, I don't have them very often, those moments of brilliance. And this probably doesn't quite qualify as brilliant, but it was fun.

Last week our school had it's first "Go Green Night."

Wait, I should back up and explain a little.

Last year, a group of moms (myself included) started an effort to green our school. We made up posters with simple things to do - reusable lunch containers, no idling at drop off and pick up..things like that, and we bought sandwich wraps from Wrap-N-Mat to sell at a school functions. This didn't go over well with some of the PTO who thought we were a bunch of eco-snobs and it led to some ridiculous drama that I wont go into. But it also led to a lot of people buying the Wrap-N-Mats which is great because if you really thought about how many plastic bags go into the trash in school cafeterias, I bet it would make you sick.

So fast forward a year and the PTO is now selling them at the school store and school events. And this spring the idea of a Go Green Night was proposed and approved. Now I can't tell you much about that because I didn't go to that PTO meeting, but when the night came around I volunteered to man the Wrap-N-Mat/no-waste lunch table with a friend.

The idea of the night was great. Reps from the power company came to answer questions about eco-power. Reusable shopping bags were given away. Farmers Market stall holders came and set up their stalls. Fantastic. Except it was a beautiful sunny day after a long dreary winter and there wasn't a lot of information out to the parents about it in general, so no one showed up. Which was good because then just about no one saw that they served pizza on Styrofoam plates.

At Go Green Night.

But it was also bad because now I'm sure the farmers will never come back. And like I said, the idea was great.

Anyway. As we were standing there at the Wrap-N-Mat table talking about how many wraps we would need to buy ourselves so the night wouldn't be a total bust, my friend Melanie noted that most of the good colors had been bought up over the year, leaving just plain white wraps to buy. And that's when my (somewhat) brilliant thought popped out.

"You could color them with fabric markers."

Oh my gosh, you COULD color them with fabric markers. Seriously, why didn't I think of that before. I've been making Briton's sandwich wraps since he started school three (yikes!) years ago but I bought one last year that he promptly lost because it looked like all the other wraps people had. Well duh.

So yesterday Evie and I decorated a (newly purchased at the failed Go Green Night) Wrap-N-Mat for Briton's lunch. And it totally worked!

Today I sent him off with his new wrap in a make shift lunch bag in a make shift book bag because someone walked off with his backpack when we were downtown after school yesterday. (Sucks, but he's been asking for a new backpack anyway and after three years of the same LLBean one, I guess it's time. Not that the backpack was ready to go, seriously, those things
last!)

So there you have it folks. Probably the easiest craft ever, which I should have though of before but, well, didn't. Have fun!