I'm pretty sure I sucked down my fair share of formula from plastic bottles as an infant. But ever since I first heard the word leaching (as in toxins leaching from water bottle into water - shudder), I've been a little obsessed over cutting down on the plastic I have in my life. I use a BPA-free Brita pitcher every day, carry my Biter bottle with me everywhere, and definitely, always pass on the plastic bags at the grocery store. I'm forwarding today's tip (flagged "important") to everyone I know who has an infant...or a plastic water bottle. I even pop my Amy's organic frozen dinners out of their plastic dishes and nuke them on a real plate instead, and so far the only drawback is one more dish to wash, so I'm sticking to it.
-NY Editor Beth...off to pick up a glass storage container for my leftover beef and broccoli...
A few weeks ago, I watched a few of the undersea episodes of the amazing Planet Earth series, including the one where they happen upon a vampire squid. So there's a crappy YouTube video of it, but the proper footage from the DVD is far more impactful.
Anyway, it truly blew my mind, changed my perspective on the world just like the idea of black holes or the idea of gravity affecting time.
How does this relate to farm sanctuaries? Well, the fact is that animals are amazing - even the less exotic ones. They make the world more interesting. And it's worth taking the time to notice, even better if you can help them out in the process.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to take a gander at a goose...
My family's amassed a mother lode of perfectly usable basketballs, surfboards, and ski wear over the years.
Sooner or later, it'll get donated to Goodwill - and I was thinking: If I ever need to buy sports equipment for future kids in my life, used gear makes sense - and not just because it's cheaper. It took me a while to break in those baseball mitts, and whoever gets to them first is one lucky son-of-a, because like a good deck of cards, most sports equipment is best when it's already played a few games.
-Toshio...off to score some points...
A friend of mine is a wine broker. I recently took a bunch of one-more-year-and-it's-vinegar bottles off her hands. I've never seen her park in her garage, and I finally figured out why: It is bursting at its concrete seams with...stuff! You couldn't step inside if your life depended on it.
Well, well, well, look at me all smug and superior. All of my belongings fit into my humble city apartment-no storage space (OK, except for those two boxes of Star Wars fan club memorabilia at Mom's), not even a car.
But the fact is, if I had a garage to fill up, you bet I'd end up doing it. I'd hold onto things just in case...in case in 20 years, say, my niece will want some natty old coat I don't wear anymore for a Halloween party. By then, it will be misshapen from storage, possibly eaten through by moths, and weirdly discolored - but hey, you never know, right?
Well, in the meantime, someone could be using it, and I could have one less thing to keep track of. Same with all stuff that's seen its day - trade it, gift it, give it away.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to trade some stuff for more space...
P.S. Here’s that cute photo of the other Jen (Boulden) that we mentioned in today’s Personally Speaking…
Last week I went skiing in beautiful Lake Tahoe. And after reading a good chunk of global warming research last year, I took great joy (I mean, more than usual) in spending a week outside, surrounded by snow. It was just plain fun, totally rejuvenating.
It's great to see the National Ski Areas Association working toward making sure we can all continue shoop-shooping for years to come. Check out its Sustainable Slopes environmental charter. Tons of major ski areas have signed on, including one of my favorite little gems, Mt. Rose.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to indulge in a little après work cocktail...
While pasty-white, Cheeto-munching little Jimmy really
should get outside once in a while before his legs atrophy, in general I don't think people play enough games. Especially now, when there are great gaming systems that get people off the couch and interacting - namely, the remarkably entertaining
Nintendo Wii, where you stand up and move around to invoke game action (I've actually broken a sweat playing tennis and bowling). There are also fun games available that exercise memory (
BrainAge), and almost all games, including retro arcade games (hello, Pac Man!), are great for improving hand-eye coordination.
Queue one up if you're stranded indoors with the fam during the holidays - if for no other reason than to prove (once again) that you're the clever/agile/coordinated one.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to bowl another strike!...
My perfect nephew, Quinn, came to stay with me over the Thanksgiving break (his parents came, too, but they didn't give me nearly as many baby breath sloppy kisses, so they don't rank quite as high in my esteem). It was the first time Quinn and his mom had seen my house, and since said house is decidedly un-child-friendly, I was a bit nervous. Would he pull over my glass end tables and cut up his perfect alabaster skin? Would my hardwood floors conk his head and knees? Would my sharp-clawed cat get to his Sinatra-blue eyes?
And then even if he did manage to travel the pitfalls of my 100 year old house - what would he DO there? I don't have any toys. No cars to vroom-vroom, no stuffed animals or balls or even books that might keep a 16 month-old occupied for 5 minutes or so. Should I go buy books and games and trucks that beep?
Oh puhlease. Quinn did just what kids the world over do. He played. He ran and he played. He played with the cat (no scratching), he ran up and down the hall, loving the slidey-ness of the wood floors (not too much conking). He kept me company while I baked pumpkin bread and Thanksgiving side dishes, his little butt scooting on the kitchen floor, while he beat a cake pan with a wooden spoon.
And suddenly, I saw the world through his eyes - the newness of a place he'd never been, the noise of a makeshift drumset, the loud purr of a kitty. And you know what? That world is pretty damn good.
These little folks? They don't need all the "stuff" we think they do. Hell, at this age, they are never going to remember the things you get them - these items that end up in basement corners and landfills in a matter of years. Until Quinn will remember opening the present, he's gonna get three kinds of gifts from me: money for college, books to read before sleep, and donations to save the world so that he will always have places to run around.
-Heather... off to adopt a penguin...I was a champion babysitter back in the day. In a move that might seem strange today, I started babysitting a 3-month old for 3 full days a week during the summer when I was 11 years old. 11. For like 9 hours each day. If I ever have kids, I'm hiring a 65 year-old nanny and doing an FBI background check on the person before I even let them near my kid's juice bottle. But in Montana in the mid-80s? No problem - let the 11-year-old handle it.
And I loved it. Everything about it. The little jammies and red wagons and playing and nap time (and the fact that they had satellite TV when we only had 4 very fuzzy channels).
But the diaper thing? That wasn't so pleasant. And on the occasions when I babysat for people who used cloth diapers, I always swore to myself that there was absolutely no way I would EVER use cloth. It seemed so backward.
Yet now that I've seen the stats about the horrors of disposable diapers? No way. Rest assured, my kids are going in cloth diapers (it helps that there are now diaper services to do the really heavy lifting).
But I have a soft spot in my heart for babysitters. And I think that I'm probably going to let them use more earth-friendly, but still disposable diapers on the nights that they come over to sit. I have a long memory...
-Heather...off to clean house in prep for the nephew's arrival...
Beth
Elisa
Kay
Hilary
Brett
Hannah
Jenifer
Jen
Heather
Who's got the creepiest virtual representation of them all?
-Toshio...off to get over the flu before the weekend comes...Loosing helium balloons to the skies, note or photo attached, is just plain fun. As long as there's not a clown involved, balloon animals are a riot. I can't get over the
crazy lawn chair balloon guy.
Balloons are just delightful things...that is, until they deflate and make their way to the landfill.
Hope is on the way: We're keeping an eye on Ecovy Ltd., a UK-based company (what's with all the eco-party stuff coming from the land of tea and crumpets, anyway?) that's developing balloons that biodegrade faster than latex, including a paper-based version. While not currently available for general sale, the prototypes I have in my possession are promising.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to be delighted...I coveted my grade school friends' snacks - all gooey Hostess fruit pies and Ding Dongs and sodas. Daily, I‘d unpack my carrot sticks and apple, with the occasional chocolate pudding and a little note on a napkin from Dad, and I'd wonder how I could somehow cobble together the makings of a decent trade - my fruit leather for their Snickers bar, perhaps? Occasionally, Mom would make tuna salad sandwiches on whole-grain bread with sprouts, loaded down with pickles and hard-boiled egg, and a tiny bit of mayo (she called it "stretching" the can of tuna).
I'd gaze in envy at my tiny blonde Nordic-looking friends as they pulled out their thin little mayo-ridden, tuna-only sandwiches on soggy white Wonder Bread, wishing my lunches were more like theirs.
God, but kids are so stupid.
-Heather... off make a whole-grain sandwich...
The college I went to was pretty green. The administration paid to remove invasive English ivy from the lake on campus, there were recycling bins in all the dorms, and the cafeteria even offered a vegan option at each meal. But do those things qualify it as one of the greenest?
Recently, there’s been a commotion in academia surrounding the
US News and World Reports college rankings – and I think any green rankings that come out could be similarly controversial. How do you decide what counts for more “points”: invasive species removal or a recycling program?
The brave ones at the
Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education are gonna have a go at answering that question. And I'm so glad I'm not them right now.
-Toshio...off to relish never having to take another biology final again...Today's Guest Blogger: Jenny GrossenbacherInspired by a course on sustainability I took in Esalen, CA, I started working on an idea I had for creating a community sustainability center. The core focus kept coming back to food, and how we sustain ourselves and our communities at the same time. Coupled with that, I kept hearing my oldest daughter Mackenzie begging not to have to eat the school lunch. I finally put two and two together and realized how drastically we needed to change the system.
Another trip back to Esalen for a workshop with
Amory Lovins provided me with an arsenal of info and contacts. I was blown away by the enthusiasm and support that the Farm-to-School idea garnered when I first started talking about it in Bozeman. I don't know if I would have made it a step further if a handful of mothers at our elementary school didn't jump on the bus with me. They were right there to support and add great ideas.
One short email to farm-to-school expert U of MT professor Dr. Neva Hassanein and
Grow Montana, led to a community gathering of more than 65 people, and the program continued to grow quickly from there. The support of Bozeman School District's Food Service Director, Bob Burrows, was huge. Add to that the volunteer support that Grow Montana granted us (in the form of a full-year Food Corps volunteer), and we were off to a great start in a state where folks said Farm-to-School would never work!
School lunches often include fatty beef from industrial cattle operations, genetically modified corn and soy products, and heavily processed grains. Tell your legislators you want our kids eating healthier food. The Farm Bill, a massive piece of legislation that is reauthorized every five years and dictates what our kids eat for lunch, will be on the floor of the Senate this September. Call your senators about this very important topic - or visit
http://healthyfarmbill.org to send them an email.
-Jen's friend Jenny Grossenbacher...off to the co-op...
Thank God pencils haven't contained actual lead for a few hundred years now. Otherwise, Biter intern Hanah might not have lasted this long. A run-in with a conventional, wooden pencil caused her (not to mention the pencil) a whole lotta hurt, and she's got the war wounds to prove it.
I'm including these highly disturbing images with the hope that they'll keep you from making the same mistake (and to give you another reason to switch to mechanical pencils). Be safe out there.
-Toshio...off to warn the others...
Even after our school district started issuing kids two sets of textbooks (one for school, one for home, so we wouldn't have to lug them back and forth every day), the
too-heavy backpack issue was still a problem with me. I was too lazy to go to my locker between periods, so I regularly ended up carrying 20 lb or more around my high school campus.
One not-so-good friend made fun of me for it - he'd catch me bent over under the weight of my books and call me "hunchback." (And I had horrible posture even without the extra weight.)
There's a good solution.
Digital textbooks are becoming more and more common. Weighing in at around 5 lb (for the laptop you'll need to view them), not only are they lighter than paper textbooks, they're dogear-immune, and they're tree-free. A totally innovative way to end the textbook-induced hunchback problem...
-Toshio...off to walk with a textbook on my head...OK, so my friends are fun, interesting people doing interesting things. And most of my friends' friends are fun, interesting people doing interesting things.
So why are we all sitting around fishing diaper pins out of bowls of rice with blindfolds on?
Let's get it out there: I hate going to baby showers. Call me crazy, but I would so much rather spend an afternoon with my soon-to-be-parent friends in the park, make dinner for them while they relax, or shuttle them to a day spa post-birth, than spend an afternoon seeing how adept I am at molding a baby bottle out of clay or guessing the contents of my purse for a slice of the diaper-shaped cake. Of course, baby still gets cute bamboo outfits from Aunt Jeni-I'll just pass on playing Pass the Dirty Diaper.
-Jenifer Morgan...off to take a shower...
Don't call me this weekend. Or email. Or knock on my door. Or try to make plans. Or expect me to workout, or even to sleep for that matter. I will be holed up in my room from Saturday morning onward, reading the final book until my eyes burn and pop further out of my head than
Dobby's, aimlessly reaching for salted almonds, probably drooling slightly. (OK, OK, I'll most likely have finished it by the end of the day on Saturday, and if he's dead, you can come over and save me from my wine-soaked angst over the death of a fictitious, teenage, um, wizard).
Oh yes, I am that much of a Harry-Potter-loving geek. The fact that the book's paper has a higher recycled content? Gravy.
For me (and my sister-in-law and about a million little kids all over the world), it's the end of an era. Never again will there be this point in time - a final day when we don't know what happens. Culturally fascinating, really. From here on out, the movies will be out on DVD, the stories will be told, everyone will already know if he's dead or alive at the end of the series. Poor, poor little future Harry Potter readers. (Does it make me even more odd that I am leaning toward having a kid
just so we can read HP together? Hmmmm.)
All right, I know, I know. "Oooooh-Kaaaay, Heather...It's. Just. A. Book."
Yeah, right. And Fox Mulder is
just a regular ole FBI agent...
-Heather... off to, well, buy some eyedrops...Today's tip reminded me of how when I was in third grade I used to put Elmer's glue on my hands just so when it was dry I could peel it off. Don't ask me for reasons why - everyone in Mrs. Zerwas's class was doing it. Turns out the stuff is non-toxic, which is good, because I might not be here to write this today if that weren't the case.
Safety scissors aside, a lot of the art supplies out there are far from safe, so always check labels. Then, when you're done with all the worrying, check out the Imagination Factory. It's all about teaching kids to recycle through art.
-Toshio...off to see what's showing at the MOMA...
I will admit something that I probably shouldn't: I cry when I see animals being hurt, but not humans.
Now that is off my chest, I will confess something else: I never had a crush on the zoo keeper as the tip said. Heather was just in a snarky mood and wanted to pretend that I like men that shovel shitakes.
Here's the rub: zoos do give children an experience with extreme forms of nature, and therefore hopefully an appreciation for it. But my god I do hate the look in the apes' eyes as they sit behind the glass. They are so FREAKING smart and we have them caged like a gold fish? I even shed a little tear for fish in small bowls too.
So I don't know ... where would a kid from the Bronx be able to see nature if not a zoo? And would it be fair to take that away from them? BITERS sound off.. I really don't know where I stand on this. Thanks for your thoughts. - JB
2 am in Paris, scheduling this blog, and while that may seem a little late to be up, truly, I live the life of a bat while here - nocturnal hunting and eating, radar signal communications in clubs and over glasses of wine...
Quite the different scene to my early-to-bed life over the Christmas holiday in San Diego, where I spent hours on end, staring at my 6-month-old nephew, Quinn, imagining the world he will inhabit (and - for whatever reason - picturing him becoming a rock star and letting me be the cool aunt who comes backstage after the show. Don't judge me - I have no idea where these visions come from).
But really, what world WILL he inhabit? And what role will he/you/I play in it?
I'd like to think that by the time Quinn is a rockstar, not only will we have solved the problem of climate change, but I will also be able to speak French. Seeing how completely, utterly, painfully shy I am about even trying (yes, me - shy about French, for whatever reason), I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
And in the meantime, we should probably read our kids some books on healthy living.
-Heather... off to pack for a marathon flight sequence tomorrow...
I'll admit it. I was that weird kid who LOVED school. Loved it. Loved the first day of classes. Loved trying out new schedules. I'm happiest in the fall, and I think a lot of that is due to the fact that it's back-to-school time and there's a chill in the air.
And there wasn't much that I loved more than brand new school supplies. The binders (I grew up in the age of Trapper Keepers) and pencils, the smell of new books and clean notebooks and crayons...
I wish we had "back-to-school: for work. A mandated "get a new notebook" time. A cleaning out and starting over, instead of just a sporadic dumping of the laptop email inbox into a folder that says "Old Emails" (that I never seem to revisit and answer)...
-Heather... off to order some eco-friendly office supplies for the new SF office...
My mom was (is) a great mom… she packed our lunches everyday. There was often a PB&J on wheat, and a piece of fruit, and for desert, a fruit roll up. I of course would consider myself incredibly lucky if someone would give me a bite of their cookie or Twinkie even.
Anyway, as you Biters have noted, we don’t have children, and so I will leave it up to you to use this forum to submit your own best options for packing a healthy lunch for little Tommy or Jane. And I must say – my hat’s off to you – there are soooo many temptations for kids to eat CRAP these days! Sparkly things, vending machines, and frankenfood that probably sings…
Off to “sample” more of those all natural iced animal crackers for part two of this tip topic… Jen
To join in the great diaper discussion, please visit a previous post at:
http://idealbite.blogs.com/ideal_bite_blog_about_it/2005/09/adventures_in_b.html
To see a pic of my GORGEOUS new nephew, click on the image below. Sigh...
-Heather... off to hold myself back from spending too much on Quinn...
1) Prune juice popsicles
2) Vegetable milkshakes
and for a special treat, a spoonful of peanut butter.
I used to have to sneak down to the neighbors to get some sugar or white bread. But I never got sick as a child, and have a pretty decent immune system to this day.
Any strange concoctions that you feed your babes or your mom fed you?
Off to try out this "just add water" all nat dry dog food for the Crick...
PS: big shout out to Happy Baby - friend of mine that I met three years ago at a Net Impact event in B-school... she now has a very cool all natural baby food company... Happy Baby - awesome concept, awesome product! go Jess (and Shaz).
Um, when I was a kid, according to me mom, my favorite toys were canning rings.
And if you think about it, they are pretty great toys:
Bang them together? Make a lot of noise.
Chew on them? They taste sort of metalic and make for good teething rings (OK, so I don't know if the metal is so healthy, but I turned out OK).
Throw them on the ground? Make a lot of noise.
Sadly, not many people these days are canners, so there are woefully few canning rings around. But the bigger point is this:
Toys are amazing. Toys can be educational.
But boxes can be toys. Do we really all need all this STUFF?
-Heather... off to try REALLY hard not to go completely broke buying toys for my brand-new, day-old nephew...
Why do we love baby clothes so much? Does it bring back fond memories of dressing up baby dolls? I don't know, but I have two things to confess to you Biters around this topic:
1) One day Heather and I, after a phenomenal business meeting took ourselves to champagne at Balthazar's and concocted a hilarious plan. It was based on one of your comments to us - "Hey ladies - why don't you have kids so we can comment with authority on baby-related tips." So we decided to have a sweepstakes around impregnating me so that you Biters would be happy. Is that wrong? I am starting to have "baby pangs" after all so this could work out great for everyone... especially if the winner of the contest is hot. Lol.
2) I love the Crick so much and do the whole goo goo gaa gaa with her a lot... so am afraid with a real baby I might be so obsessed that my life would change drastically... well I guess of course it would, but I mean, I might never let the baby out of my sight. How would I work? How would I ride? How would I run in the park with the Crick (oh yeah they do make those little jogging strollers but is it legal to ride a horse with your baby in a papoose?)
If you have any thoughts to share on baby clothes or any of the two confessions / questions, go for it.
Off to dress the Crick up ... kidding, I only did that once - Jen
A couple years ago, I was dating a guy around Easter. It was one of those crushes that causes your chest to implode and stops you from breathing, so nearly every interaction we had during those months is branded in my brain in permanent ink. (Sigh... you gotta love those).
ANYWAY - one of those conversations that stands out: he was telling me about how his mom was this totally all-natural type, and made all his baby food from scratch and how every year, she even made all-natural Easter egg dyes. Of course, this just chalked him up one level in perfection in my estimation (and I promise the guy was far from perfect - even if he HAD trained as a chef - sigh, again), so I probably batted my eyelashes and tried to say something without stuttering - something smarter and more engaging than "C-c-cool. She s-s-s-sounds great."
Needless to say, that crush ended (can't keep a flame like that going for long without it exploding and singeing your eyebrows). But the thought of all-natural Easter egg dyes remained. Thus, we find ourselves with today's tip.
(And here you thought they ALL came from your tip submissions. Sometimes they just spring from old dates and childhood memories).
-Heather... off to boil some eggs...
Do you blogging biters know that we now have 37,000 Ideal Bite tip subscribers? So let me preface this with, “I am not complaining” (and then of course I will go on to do just that). Some of our more vocal subscribers keep us in stitches… my favorite email responses to the various tips are:
1.“Resend me the tip now. I lost it.” (Um, sure, okay… if you want to start paying a subscription fee so we can hire a customer service department there, Larry old pal.)
2. "Die! How dare you recommend anything that used to have a head." (This in response to animal-food related tips. Funny thing is… Eric wants humans to die? Last I checked, we have a head too. Good one, Eric buddy boy.)
3. “You two should have kids so you could talk with more authority about kid issues.” (Okay, Betty, we will get right on it so as to please your free subscriber ass. Just kidding, I love you Betty.)
Anyway, turns out my skin is maybe less thick than I thought, as I am maybe scared of you boisterous Biters and don’t have much to say about cribs, except, totally do it if you can afford it. I don’t need to be a mother to know the importance of off-gassing during formative years (not talking about the baby’s butt off-gassing here, talking about the particle board that makes up most furniture.)
Off to procreate… dinner - with my love of chips and beer. Jen
Lunch time was never a time of joy for me. Ever since I had this awful experience at a YMCA camp at 8 years old, where I was running a fever and ended up peeing my pants on a white linoleum floor at lunch time, I never really thought it was the party other kids thought it was. Plus, in high school I did this dichotomous thing - I was both bad and good: I was either illegally off campus smoking cigarettes with my best friend Kristin, or I was in the library studying.
So anyway, would kids today even be open to taking a lunch pail or reusable sack to school, AND remembering to return it? I used to have one when I worked at IBM and started to get chubs from the cafeteria food... it was insulated and had Velcro at the top, and I packed cottage cheese and carrots and nuts, instead of the fully loaded backed potato with roll, followed up by 100 candy corns from the bins in our cafeteria.
So if your kid is too cool for lunch pails, and/or too irresponsible to bring it home, would your significant other or you be open to it? Seriously, digame!
Off to make burritos for weekly lunch staple... Jen
Clearly, this is one of those days where I should have had a guest blogger write the blog. Given that I have never breastfed, I'm not sure I have something to add to the conversation. Still, if intent matters, perhaps that is as good an authority as any.
Essentially, breast milk is the best nutritional bang for the buck that nature has to offer. Perfectly designed for humans, it takes and concentrates all the nutrients into one powerful package (we can talk about the allure of breasts for non-babies at a later date, during our Valentine's week of tips. Ahem). In fact, mother's milk changes to meet the needs of the baby - reacting to modifications in the child's saliva and pumping out what is missing at a faster rate - changing fat content and antibodies according to the child's age and needs. Turns out that music isn't the food of love - breast milk is.
But as with anything, there is always a rub (ah, Shakespeare allusions abounding today. Free Biter tee to the first commenter who names all three and what plays they came from. But I digress...).
The controversy over breast milk today stems from the fact that many of the major toxins that take up lodging in our bodies store themselves in our fat tissues. And breast milk not only concentrates the nutrients, it tends to concentrate the other stuff as well. Sadly, this includes the gunk.
And so. When you breast feed, you are not only giving your little one the most absorbable vitamins around, you may also be giving her a power-packed version of the phthalates from your nail polish and the pesticides from your garden.
Still, all things considered, there is still nothing that beats breast milk - toxins and all - and studies prove that children raised on breast milk fare better and have healthier immune systems and brain development than those on formula. Of course, you should work to avoid toxins as much as you can. But even with the studies, when I have a kid, I'm feeding it myself.
-Heather... off to cringe over the fact that we used the phrase "Pump and Dump" in the tip...
Can we talk for one second about what a scam text books companies are? They update 3 pages and call it the next edition, thereby forcing the students to keep buying new ones instead of just letting a second market for the old ones prosper.
When I was in undergrad I thought about the waste from the money perspective, since I would always walk out of the bookstore with a $500+ bill each semester. Then more recently while getting my “green” MBA I thought more about the resources to produce these 300 page behemoths and where all these books went at the end of their short lives, killed for being a meager 3 pages different than version barely-different-but-$10 more edition.
During my MBA, I remember actually taking my $200+ managerial accounting book to the bookstore to sell it back, and they could only offer me $20 since a new edition was coming out. So I took matters into my own hands and went to eBay (which merged with Half.com). So with a few keystokes (typing in the ISBN numbers) the book cover popped up in my eBay listing and I was in business. I sold that book for $65 – somewhere else in the country another university wasn’t going with the latest and greatest version I guess. Sure, there are shipping charges, but you can ask that the seller pay, and with books you can ship media rate… like a buck or two a book.
Need to buy a book? Sometimes you can even figure out which pages were updated, and if not significant, you can buy the older version for much less. Do you know sometimes all they change is the coverdesign and maybe a few illustrations within??? Urg. Anyway, highly recommended, and just say no to those book highway robberies by doing the eBay / Amazon.com thing. Both buy and sell. You and your wallet will be very glad you did.
Off to dust off some of my old MBA books… definitely not to read (I have too many damn emails – who needs books?) to ship off in brown bag wrapping to the next aspiring green business exec –
Jen
THEN: they have kids.
And it is ONLY the best and the greenest and the most organic for their little precious angel. Then they start to think about the future, and want little JR to live in only the best world.
Honestly, having kids is a great point of entry for many to come into the world of healthy, balanced living, and showing concern for something outside of yourself.
What are some other points of entry that you Biters have noticed?
I have to share a quick story / give a shout out / pay homage to my friend Rikki. Rikki recently had a little girl. She couldn't sleep in the final month and spent all hours of the night reading through Ideal Bite tips in the Tip Library. She left this great message on my cell on a hard day for us... so I played it on speaker to Heather (we were on business travel together) and it made us remember what we are doing this for. Thanks Rikki. ;-)
One more shout out: a student started this site that is really impressive, and he sent us some products to inspect... and damn they are impressive! I couldn't imagine starting a company while in school.... I barely have time to pee as it is!! Go Michael go! (And Biters, check out his company: http://www.organicwearusa.com/)
Off to see why the smoke in my wood-burning stove is going into the room, and not up the chimney (seriously, and yes I opened the flue.) Don't think I could handle kids quite yet, but soon - Jen
In a previous life, I am quite sure I was Picasso. He died the same year I was born, so I'm certain that I am his reincarnation...
As Picasso, I was a genius. My art was groundbreaking and astonishing and worthy of reverence (and I could make people swoon by drawing on the back of napkins).
Sadly, in this life, I spend a lot of time with grand acrylic plans that start off as lovely brushed paintings of flowers and eventually devolve into mad finger painting that I pretend is purposeful, modern "art." What I draw on the back of napkins is usually a map of the US where I try to explain that Montana is not in the Midwest. Sadly, no one swoons.
One Christmas, I actually painted all my own holiday cards. When I needed glitter, I dug into my makeup bag. I'm sure I had more fun painting than anyone had fun receiving the cards. When they were done, I sealed them over with a fixative. I'm relatively certain I took a few good years off my life with that one.
Still, Picasso lived to be 90, so all this art stuff can't be all bad. And I apparently have very good Shirley-MacLaine-style "genes."
-Heather... off to unearth my old paint sets and toss the chemicals (responsibly, of course)...
When I was a kid, I tried out for a part in a play about Johnny Appleseed. I didn’t get the part. I was bitter. It utterly destroyed my designs on being a famous movie star. I haven’t looked at an appleseed in the same way since. (This is all for the best, as I am a truly horrendous actress).
Still, I love apples. And nothing is better than an apple in the autumn. My parents have a mini-orchard at their place and when I was recently home, I returned to NYC with about 30 apples stowed away in my suitcase.
Of course, I didn’t pick them. My dad did. But someday, when I have babies other than this Biting one, I plan to take them picking… it’s amazing what happens to one’s attitude toward food when you actually connect to where it comes from.
-Heather… off to eat some orchard apples… Scene: Halloween in Northwestern Montana, circa 1978. One 5 year-old gypsy and one 7 year-old pirate are running around in the dark, no parents in attendance. Each is carrying a pillowcase (the only thing big enough for all the loot expected) full of candy in one hand and a flashlight in the other. They are alone, trick-or-treating, a little excited about the fact that they don't have to wear snowboots this year and ruin their costumes due to an early winter as they did in previous years.
Later, returning home to unpack their treasures and tell breathless stories to their patient parents ("The grocery store people were giving out two WHOLE big-sized candy bars each!" or "The crazy lady's house has a stuffed witch out front"), it never occurs to them (or their parents) to check the candy for razors. They never think it's weird to eat the homemade caramel corn, even though they couldn't remember for sure which of their friends' moms had made it. They never think a thing about the fact that they (and every other kid in town) were just running around without supervision, in the dark, barely able to dress, let alone defend themselves.
Years later - on the other side of years of stories of razorblades and Tylenol-recalls and too many real-life boogeymen - it's kind of nice to focus on finding organic candies instead of mourning the loss of an innocent childhood that I can't imagine will ever happen for my kids.
-Heather... off to pretend I didn't just write a really serious blog instead of something breezy...
I was a champion babysitter back in the day. In a move that might seem strange today, I started babysitting a 3-month old for 3 full days a week during the summer when I was 11 years old. 11. For like 9 hours each day. If I ever have kids, I'm hiring a 65 year-old nanny and doing an FBI background check on the person before I even let them near my kid's juice bottle. But in Montana in the mid-80s? No problem - let the 11-year-old handle it.
And I loved it. Everything about it. The little jammies and red wagons and playing and nap time (and the fact that they had satellite TV when we only had 4 very fuzzy channels).
But the diaper thing? That wasn't so pleasant. And on the occasions when I babysat for people who used cloth diapers, I always swore to myself that there was absolutely no way I would EVER use cloth. It seemed so backward.
Yet now that I've seen the stats about the horrors of disposable diapers? No way. Rest assured, my kids are going in cloth diapers (it helps that there are now diaper services to do the really heavy lifting).
But I have a soft spot in my heart for babysitters. And I think that I'm probably going to let them use more earth-friendly, but still disposable diapers on the nights that they come over to sit. I have a long memory...
-Heather... off to look through the booty I scored at GreenFest DC...
It never ceases to amaze me. All throughout my 32 years of my green existence, some people would make fun and say I cared too much, and why did I waste time trying to change the world since it was impossible.
THEN: they have kids.
And it is ONLY the best and the greenest and the most organic for their little precious angel. Then they start to think about the future, and want little JR to live in only the best world.
Honestly, having kids is a great point of entry for many to come into the world of healthy, balanced living, and showing concern for something outside of yourself.
What are some other points of entry that you Biters have noticed?
Speaking of points of entry, that was a topic in a magazine article in PLENTY magazine where a Biter (moi) was interviewed. On newsstands this month, very back page article.
Off to the newsstand for my 10 minutes of basking in green vanity...
Jen
