A bird. Wow!

As, I was walking to the ATM today, I realized someting. Humans are not the only one trying to clean up more. As I walked towards the student union, I saw a little bird. This little bird was picking up little pieces of paper. Now at first I didn't find this too odd. I mean maybe it was using it to make a nest or something. Then I saw what the bird was dooing. The little bird was picking up the paper, flying over to the garbage can, and dropping it in! I was a big shcoked to tell the truth. I saw it do this a few more times with other little pieces of trash before someone walked too close to it, spooked it, and it flew away.

After witnessing little Fred....Yes I have named it Fred, because I once knew a garbage man named Fred, and he was pretty short. But yea, after witnessing Fred, I have become inspired. I mean, if a little bird, not even as big as my hand, can try and make a diffrence by cleaning up more. Why can't I.

But this bird made me think one more question....Could a swallow carry a coconut? I mean...could it?.....

Help Colby with a Paper Problem

Today was a HORRIBLE day for me in the sustanability field. I went to the library to print some notes for my class, and I had never done that before, so i ended up printing 165 pages! I was devastated!!!! I didn't't realize that it would come out to some many. I had asked why that happened, and it was because I din't have the page set-up correct. After a few minutes of dwelling and pouting, and came up with the idea to use the back of the notes as scratch paper for my math class. It's not the best idea, but at least its something!

Best Advice - Marry Someone Nice

As some of you know, I am officially a super sickie. Ugh! I did nothing for the environment today. I barely did anything for my own survival.

Fortunately, I am married to someone really wonderful who got me water and tylenol, did my errands, and even listened to my complaining. He has even agreed to talk to the incomparable Chef Brooke about how to eat more sustainably before he plays his weekly gig at Chef Brooke's Natural Cafe this evening. So hopefully I'll have something good to share tomorrow.

Also, when you are married to someone nice, you aren't super caught up in life drama. You are free to just have fun and think of good things to do for the planet.

Sick! Sick of Junk Mail

This has been a really tough week for me. I want to do some cool sustainability challenge stuff, like maybe go hiking at Lovers Key. I thought about making a video about Chip and his compost bin. But I am super sick - too sick to even think about these things really.

But always the sustainability fighter, I decided to do something I have meant to do for a really long time, which is take my name off of some junk mail lists. Check out this link where you can go and opt out of a lot of the direct mail that you get.

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs4-junk.htm#getofflist

I'm also going to make some postcards that say please take me off your mailing list - for any junk mail that I keep getting. Finally I'm going to e-mail my financial advisor and ask how we can get less mail from all the different companies that our mutual funds invest in and so on. So not super exciting, but not too bad either.

Hope you're all doing great. Enjoy your last week of sustainability challenge!

Beware - a note from Nicholas

I awoke dazed. My eyes could not focus. The sunlight, pallid and dim, showed me dense trees and bracken spreading out for as far as I could see. There almost seemed to be a fog; the air was thick, as if the humidity of summer could not escape trough the canopy.

I was also very naked.

I remembered nothing of how I came to be in the woods, and, well, nothing of the day itself. The last thing that I could recall clearly was cleaning Chestnut's ashes from the garage floor. Then... blinding light, pain, and no more.

I shivered. A chill ran down my spine. I was being watched. I looked around, aware of my vulnerability, becoming more and more frightened as the seconds lapsed. What if it was the owls? Was this their doing? Were they finally coming to take their vengeance upon me for all the years I had spent lighting them on fire (and throwing paper balls at them)?

There was a whispering in the brush nearby, then in the canopy above. Whatever it was, it could move quickly. With each rustle of leaves, it seemed to draw closer. I looked around frantically, always catching movement out of the corner of my eye. Why was it toying with me? Why didn't it just finish it?

Then it stopped.

“Wot you doin' naked?” a small voice behind me said. “Why's you city folk always gotta be so odd?” the tiny voice said, this time closer. “Oi, talkin' at you, biggun.”

A sharp finger jabbed me in my left buttocks. I spun around, and was confronted by a frail-looking, impish little figure. Horns on his head, an improbably stylish goatee on his chin, and wearing my clothes, he stood defiantly, even though he was only about two feet tall.

“Who-” I began. “I mean, what are you?” The little thing adjusted my far too baggy pants and stuck out its chest, seemingly offended.

“Who'my? Who'my?” It started. “I am Jabberwocky Jones, tha's who. And ya've been brought here to receive my message!” The forest suddenly darkened. Birds flew out from the trees, swarming about us, creating a dark, squawking womb. The little imp seemed to grow until he loomed several feet above me, rife with new sinew, ripping my clothes to shreds. A deep red light came from everywhere and nowhere, bathing him in an ominous glow. He laughed, deep and cruel, and it echoed through my skull. He bent low, so that his face was in front of my own; I could smell sulfur on his breath.

“What do you want,” I squeaked as cold sweat dripped into my eyes. “What did I do?" Jabberwocky Jones threw his head back and laughed once more; the forest shook with his contempt.

“You have done nothing, mortal,” he spoke. “ You have done nothing... of great affect to me. As I said, you are here for... a warning.” He spread his arms and looked about him. “Still, this is my kingdom. And you defile it. Heed my words and you shall not suffer my wrath.” Suddenly, he slammed his fists into the earth at my sides and put his head, once again, level with mine. He seemed to have grown even larger. Jones smiled, showing jagged teeth that had not been there before.

He paused...

“Stop littering, you sassy man! Or, I will eat your face.” Jabberwocky Jones screeched in a girly fashion, and he vanished into teensy cloud of smoke with an even teensier pop, taking with him all the baleful portent he had wished to impart upon me.

“That was anticlimactic,” I muttered to myself, confused. (I had thrown a McDonald's cup out of the window earlier.) “I guess I shouldn't litter anymore. Because he'll eat my face.” I resolved to be more careful. Because, if you litter, even once, and even if it is something so very small, Jabberwocky Jones will eat your face.

Seriously. He will eat it.

[Further notes on the dog: I noted scaffolding in the distance, from my window. The dog really is building something; and it is big...]

Check it out …

http://environment.about.com/od/pollution/a/litter.htm

Molly's New Bag

This afternoon I was running low on groceries and I had to go to Publix. I realized that bringing my recycle/reusable grocery bags would be a great way to help the environment. One of the bags has a picture of a basketful of fruit and the other is a brightly colored green bag from Publix. While in the store I saw a very cute PINK (my favorite color) recycle/reusable bag that was absolutely adorable! I thought to myself what a fashionable way to carry my grocery items, plus I'm helping out the environment by not using plastic bags!

Jessica is Doing Some Smart Driving

Today, I was going to drive to Chick-fil-A for lunch, despite having a fridge stocked with food. I didn't even have any other errands in that direction, so it would've been a drive just for the food. Instead I decided to cook my own chicken tenders - and not only did it manage save money, it helped to save the environment. I even looked up information on exactly what I was saving the environment from to find that combustion engines contribute to greenhouse gas accumulation in the atmosphere and are responsible for climate changes (Nutramed 4). And something that I never really put into account, as painfully obvious as it may be, is that pollution is not exclusive to the environment. As illustrated by Cronon in the Trouble with Wilderness, we are just as much a part of our environment as anything else, we simply don't see it that way on a day-to-day basis. But we can't live in a world seperate from nature - not really. Once a planet is damaged, its inhabitants will irrefutably face any negative effects that come along with it.

Protecting nature is like free life insurance - keep the environment healthy, and you keep yourself healthy. I wanted to learn how I could make a difference not just on a local but a global scale. I found that global air pollution would be reduced if people spent 30% less time driving than they do normally (Nutramed 5). I now plan to cut out running little errands on a daily basis and instead, wait a few days to make the trip. I couldn't tell you the number of times I've gone to publix just for a snack or two. By keeping a 'to do' list and buying all of my items at once, I'm certain that I could reduce my driving by 30%, if not more.

http://www.nutramed.com/environment/cars.htm

Go Ficarelli Family!

To my surprise it seems like my dad is having to much fun with our sustainability challenge. Yesterday he had all the window's around the house tinted to keep heat from getting inside. So now we are are saving money on the air conditioning bill as well. Also my mom and I decided to stop buying plastic water bottles because they say it is very bad for the environment and non biodegradable. The Ficarelli family is officially owning this sustainability challenge. :)

Survival Mode

I have to admit that I have spent a lot of this semester and what I call survival mode - basically so busy that if one little thing goes wrong (like my kid getting sick or having an unexpected meeting to go to) that I'm suddenly totally behind in every area of my life.

I generally know when I've slipped into survival mode when certain things aren't getting done like making the bed, sweeping out from under the kitchen table, keeping my toenails painted. You get the picture.

Some things are rarely the victim of survival mode for me. One of them is food - as you can imagine. No matter how bad and disorganized things are, I generally manage to have a pretty tasty and nutritious dinner prepared for my family. I guess what's really important to you are the last things that you let slip.

I also have a really kept up with most of my sustainability efforts too - not only because they are important to me, but because I set up my environment so they are pretty easy to maintain. I have paper recycling bins stashed away in almost every room of my house. I have a little recycling bin right outside the kitchen door, in case it's raining, or it's hot, or I'm just grouchy and I don't want to walk the extra 10 feet to the big recycling bin.

Today I set up my office to be a little bit more environmentally friendly. I used the water fountain like I said I was going to. I brought some cloth napkins like the kind I use at home. I even brought home some of the leftovers from my lunch so we could put that in the compost bin

More on survival mode to come. I am noticing a lot of our posts have to do with organization!

Green Pants

Yesterday I did three things with our sustainability challenge in mind. Two of them were really successful, and one was not that successful.

First I went to the Green Market at the Alliance for the Arts in the morning. I got some vegetables and some new plants and even a beautiful ceramic mug that I'm going to start using to drink my water when I'm at home.

Then in the evening, Josie and I planted the plants and cleaned up our porch. I hope this will encourage us to spend more time outside now that the weather is cooling down.

I felt good about both of these things, but honestly sometimes I want to feel even better about the sustainability stuff. The market didn't have all the vegetables I wanted, and Josie crabbed a little bit about the planting. I guess it's important not to romanticize (you guys know that word) sustainability too much or it can be kind of a disappointing experience when we work hard to change our habits.

Oh - Here's the thing that was not successful. Josie picked out a Back to Nature T-shirt to wear to the Green Market. And we thought I should wear something environmentally related too. But the only thing I had was a pair of green pants. When push came to shove I could not bring myself to wear the green pants out in public. I haven't looked it up, but I think I'm officially 10 pounds over the green pants wearing limit. Photos available on the blog.

Clean Clothes and Good Ideas from Mandy

I woke up this morning and realized that I had absolutely no clean clothes. Usually when this happens, I sort them all in my living room and spend the entire day washing my clothes on the warm water cycle. Today was different though, I went to the grocery store (in my pajamas since I didn't have any clean clothes) and bought this special laundry detergent that works just as well with cold water as normal detergent works with warm water. At first I thought this was kind of a gross idea since cold water doesn't sanitize, but it has a SAFE chemical in it that sanitizes your clothes in cold water. This is such a great idea, and it doesn't cost a cent more than my usual detergent. I was very happy with this discovery, and continued my day washing all of my clothes in cold water. It works very well, and is very environmentally friendly!! I just finished my laundry a few minutes ago by the way. Yikes!

Reuse Baby! Thanks Megan

My mom just moved into a new house down here. She has been so busy unpacking boxes and trying to get everything settled in at the house that hse hasn't bothered to recycle the boxes she unpacks. she just puts them in the dumpster by her house. We were unpacking some last night and she told me to go throw the boxes out, but i thought why not recycle them?? so i flattened them and put them under the recycling bin when i took it out for pick-up this morning.
I also went online and found some different things tha can be done with cardboard boxes other than just getting rid of them!
some of the ideas they said were to make them into under- the -bed storage by cutting them shorter. Also they can be made into beds for small animals. The best one was making individual recycling boxes for the different rooms in the house.

http://www.world.org/reuse/boxes

Extra Credit

Send some pictures of your SC!

Coffee!

One bad habit I need to break going to Starbucks for coffee. I don't even have a reusable mug because every time I'm about to buy one, I just think I'll stop going to Starbucks for coffee instead. But I need coffee at work. A few weeks ago I bought myself a little hot water pot and some instant coffee. This worked out great until my jug of water that I had ran out. I kept forgetting to get another one. Then yesterday I was about to go to Starbucks and thought "Maybe I'll buy a bottle of water and use that for my coffee instead." On the way to the vending machine, I passed a water fountain. A water fountain! I feel like such a dork that I had never even thought of using water from the water fountain. I don't like how it tastes, but it was fine to make coffee with. I am definitely going to use the water fountain for my coffee every day and maybe even drink some water out of it.

So in addition to the paper I am saving by not getting Starbucks coffee, I am saving myself about two bucks a day, which is pretty huge.

But I know I can do more in terms of drinking my coffee responsibly. I used to only drink fair-trade coffee. Then my doctor said I needed to switch to low acid coffee, which is gross but you get used to it. I need to find a source for fair trade low acid coffee. What a nice extra credit opportunity it would be for someone to find out for me where you can get fair-trade, low acid coffee. Of course that person would also probably want to write a short paragraph about what fair trade coffee is and maybe the benefits of fair trade and/or low acid coffee

Eden Did Nothing and Something!

Today I will admit that I have been very lazy. I have not done much of anything. :( BUT, with this being said, I automatically saved energy due to the fact that i was NOT on my laptop, I did NOT have my TV or lights on, I did not use ANY gas, ETC. To top it off, instead of using paper towels when I washed my hands, I reused a towel, so I did not waste paper. Who would have thought I could save so much energy, etc without even trying!

Tayelor's Deed for the Day

The other day I was running late to my Archeology class and on my way I went to throw away my iced tea bottle, right above the trash can there was a sign that read " If you walk only a few more feet, you can recycle". So I looked around and noticed that there was a recycling bin for cans and bottles not far from where I was standing. Since I was running late I was pretty tempted to just throw the bottle in the garbage and continue on my way. For some reason my comp teacher came to mind and I remembered what we've been talking about in class so I decided to backtrack a couple feet and throw my bottle in the recycling bin. Each day I want to do something that I wouldn't normally do, to help the environment. Which most of the time will require me to go out of my way. So today I'm making the commitment to myself and to this class to try and make a difference, regardless of how small it may be. Everyday I'll log on and give an update on what my good deed of the day was. I thought about picking one thing to do over the course of the 2 weeks but I get bored easily. I decided that if it was different every day it would keep me interested enough to continue doing it.

Vini is Recycling

My roomate and I decided to recycle EVERY empty can instead of just throwing them out with the rest of the trash. I did some research and each can is worth 1 cent. When we throw away cans, its not just throwing away 1 cent. Recycling empty cans ultimately conserves energy. Thanks to this webpage I found, I convinced my roomate to help me to better the environment by recycling empty cans and hopefully it'll make you think as well.

Recycling takes 95% of the energy it takes to produce a brand new can from raw materials. Twenty recycled cans take the same amount of energy that 1 new can takes. A recycled can saves enough energy to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 3.5 hours. Recycling 7 cans keeps that light bulb going for the entire day Throwing away an empty can is equivilent to throwing away half a can of gasoline

(http://ezinearticles.com/?Recycle---Dont-Throw-Away-that-Empty-Can&id=636690)

Chris is Growing Veggies

I recently moved to a condo in Cape Coral and have started to get to know my very close neighbors. When each building is separated by approximately 40-50 feet you begin to learn the schedule and lifestyle of your neighbors. When I first moved in my complex the neighbor directly across from me had a plastic pot with a tomato cage in the center. It was obvious that she was not growing tomatoes and was collecting an assortment of weeds. I decided to take the large pot and purchased two tomato plants and a pepper plant to grow some vegetatables. I just started a week ago and have two of the three plants flowering. I am using worm poop compost and mulched the top layer to conserve water. I will keep posting on the progress of these plants.
Today (21OCT09)
I picked up some trash that was around me while filling up my vehicle.
I returned any extra sauces or napkins that I was not going to use from Chickfila.
I have continued to keep the A/C off at my condo. This is a little annoying in the morning, because the neighbors leave to work before me and hear their car start each morning.

Sustainability Sucking

Well, I, Miss Sustainability Challenge is the Greatest Thing on Earth, have to admit that the first day of my sustainability challenge was pretty horrible. I had a really crazy day that started off with a parent teacher conference, and my daughter was home sick from school, and I needed to get a lot more work done than I had time to do. So what happened? I didn't recycle a ton of things that I probably should've recycled. I used enough paper towels to last the normal person a year, and I even threw away food instead of putting it in the compost bin.

But on the other hand, at least I was aware that I was doing these things. And maybe if we weren't doing the SC right now, I wouldn't even have been aware. I tried to make up for it later in the night. I cooked some tacos (with organic ground beef of course.) After dinner when I looked at the taco pan, it was the one of the greasiest most horrifying sights I have ever seen. And so I thought “okay I’ll just get a roll of paper towels.” Really I was going to use the whole roll. But I didn't! I cleaned the nasty pan up with a spoon and put the leftover grease inside the taco seasoning packet and threw it all out. There are some lovely photos on the blog for those of you who are reading this on ANGEL.

Also I brewed some delightful hibiscus tea for me to drink while I have my conferences with my beloved students tomorrow. (So I don't pound diet cokes all day, get really agitated, and throw a bunch of plastic bottles in the garbage.)

Hope you did better than me today. Just keep being aware!

My First Post

Here is how I'm starting out. My students see this on our LMS, by the way, and so they are posting there. You get to see my posts and the posts of our daily winners.

Everyone seemed to be pretty on board yesterday. My students are generally adventurous this semester, so I know they will come up with some cool stuff!

My First PostWell I'm ready to start my sustainability challenge.

Over the past few years I've gotten really good about recycling about not using very many paper products, but it always seems the busier I get, the more I let these things slip. So I’m going to really slow down and watch what I'm doing in these areas.

I think I need to pay more attention to the food that I buy and what we eat at my house. Ideally I like to eat as much organic food as we can and as much locally grown food as we can. Again, it gets expensive. You get busy, and suddenly some pop tarts have found their way into the cupboard.

I probably need to admit that I do too much shopping and that I could spend a couple weeks only buying things that I really, really need. For example, yesterday at Target I bought some bright red plastic reading glasses for a dollar, and I don't really, really need those.

Did not need


Okay well I'm sure I'll think of lots of other things to do, and I bet you will too, and I'm excited to see what happens!

Sustainability Challenge Day 1

Today is the toughest day for me the teacher of a class doing the Sustainability Challenge. I have to get them to understand it, buy in, and start blogging. I know my students will rise to the occassion. (Though they may be a little weary of having me push them out of the comfort zone.)

Once it gets rolling, we will all have lots of fun and hopefully some new ideas and insights. More to come!