p.s. our plants look like crap

it's true. gotta love april for 30+ degree temperature swings - and my antigreen thumb. (dare i call it my "wilted-and-keeled-over thumb?" just give me time.)

it was so pretty before.

and what the hell is that? mold?

check out this little eco-system. this is what remains of the basil. lame.

at least belle is cute.

new greens

we were (and constantly are...) inspired by our green-thumb friends, and have made some additions to our sad little collection of plants. our only requirements: easy to care for and hearty. VERY hearty. and pretty, of course.

twin "assorted houseplants"
(if you know what these are, please comment)

this lovely mandarin
(pot from big lots - $16, hello?!)

we officially chopped the basil. it made a valiant effort to survive the winter, but everything that lived was pretty droopy.

i'm kind of anxious about these stumpy remains... we'll see. it comes from a very long, wise line of basil.

it ain't easy

I don't know how many of you caught Oprah's "How to be Green" episode last week, but it was great. I remember when 'being green' meant you had to be a hippie. So, I'd like to extend a big thank you to Oprah for making it okay to like the environment. Here;s a list of the stuff that we are doing here at our house:
1.) We recycle. You can too!
2.) We are going to be buying Compact Florescent lightbulbs and replacing all of our crappy, inefficient incandescents.
3.) We will be insulating behind all of our power outlets that are on an outside wall. (This one is pretty amazing - go put your hand in front of any outlet on an outside wall. Feel the breeze?)
4.) We own a couple of reusable grocery bags - looks like its time to start using them.
5.) We do our best to only buy Fair Trade coffee. If you don't think it matters, read this: http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/
6.) We use cloth napkins. This also really makes a difference - If you are a paper napkin user, at least try to use one less a day.
7.) Purchasing of low-flow diffusers for all of our faucets. If you get the laminar flow variety, you won't even notice the difference. Most household faucets run at 2.5 gallons per minute and up, with a low-flow diffuser, you can get good water flow at rates as low as 0.75 GPM.

Here some resources:
1.) watch "An Inconvenient Truth." Even if you don't like Al Gore, the information is really solid, and really important.
2.) Check out sites like http://www.treehugger.com

So, I think what I'm trying to say is that 'being green' isn't actually very hard at all, and if everyone who reads this blog did their thing, it just might help to make sure that Kermit doesn't end up like this:

christmas vaca: day two

oh, i know what i want for christmas:

so much so that i can't really think about it anymore, lest i suffer a small stroke out of jealousy and excitement and resentful poverty. though the starting price of about $12,000 could be a whole lot worse for a mercedes-benz product.

check out the website