The EcoChic

…the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.  Psalm 118:24

Win It!!  Learn how to register to win your copy of This is the Day.  Details at end of post.  Congratulations to Megan, June, and PsuKlinke!  Watch your inbox for details on how to claim your book!  Thanks for reading!

While this may be one of my favorite Bible verses it is also a title of a new children’s book.  This is the Day is written by Seattle-based author, Nancy White Carlstrom and teaches children ages 4-7 to protect our Earth and its creatures.  This beautifully illustrated book takes you on a daily walk with God as you admire the ladybugs, eagles, and orca whales that He has created.  I had the pleasure of reading it with Big B last night and he really enjoyed the illustrations and couldn’t wait to see what each new day brought.  This is the Day encourages our children to recognize that creation-care is God’s calling for us to take care of the environment. 

I have often struggled with the controversy between evolution and creationism.  As a Biology student in college I was required to take a course in evolution.  There was a prominent line drawn down the middle of the classroom.  On one side there were those students who believed that creation is the only way and that by studying or believing in evolution they were betraying God.  On the other side there were those students who believed in the theory of evolution and the studies of Charles Darwin.  These students were typically not involved in church and didn’t believe in God…or chose not to follow Him.  There were also a few of us who thought the two ideas were separate and could both be correct.  I strongly believe that our God created everything that is in existence today but that doesn’t mean that our physical world cannot naturally evolve and change.  I still hold these thoughts and beliefs close to my heart today. 

The one thing I have learned from our current Pastor is that regardless of your thoughts, beliefs, values, and sins that we are all on this planet for one reason…to LOVE!  To love yourself, to love one another, and to love all the wonderful plants and animals that He has created. ” This is the day the Lord has made, rejoice and be glad in it.” 

Win it!  Register to win your own copy of This is the Day by leaving me a comment below.  Share with me how you are spending/spent your Earth Day. 

For extra chances to win; 1) subscribe to The Eco Chic by email, 2) link back to this post on your blog, and/or 3) follow The Eco Chic on Twitter.  Leave me a comment letting me know if you need to be registered for an extra chance so I can confirm your efforts! 

I have 3 copies of This is the Day to giveaway!  Contest is open to all residents in the United States.  Winners will be chosen using www.Random.org.  Contest ends next Wednesday at midnight (EST).  Good Luck!

And Happy Earth Day 2009!  Love to all!

With Earth Day only three days away my inbox is flooded with specials, sales, and events going on to celebrate the Earth. Today I will share just a few of my favorites.

If you live in the Tampa Bay area and don’t have plans for the day make your out to Honeymoon Island State Park for Island Earth Days. We went yesterday and had a blast. There were fun activities for the kids (all free) including face painting, paint a seashell, make a fossil, make a sock puppet, and more. There were also great festival food, good music, and eco-vendors. Some local agencies and environmental groups set up exhibits to help educate both the young and old on how to be a responsible citizen. I was a proud mamma when Big B asked a million questions about sea urchins to one of the Department of Environmental Protection employees. We are all looking forward to reading (and reviewing) our new books by Michael Sterns, Kokopelli & the Butterfly and Kokopelli & the Island of Change. What we expected to be an hour of our day turned into a 4 hour visit to the park and beach. I love Florida!

Painting Seashells

Ecostore USA has a FREE SHIPPING offer for all orders $25 and more. I need to order some more Baby Nappy Balmfor Little B. If you happen to be in the Cincinnati area on Earth Day join Disney as they promote Ecostore USA with Ecoman (Malcolm Rands) at his Meijer store tour. Listen to the Cincinnati Meijer Radio Disney to hear more. This promotion will coincide with the premier of the new Disney movie Earth. The first 25 moms or dads that ask Malcolm the Ecoman A question will receive an organic Ecostore T-Shirt. There will be entertainment for the kids while mom and dad ask Malcolm ( Ecoman) questions. (4/22 Cincinnati – Harrison Road from 4-6 PM)

Like I said, I have many more emails and specials I could share with you all but I’m going to go spend the rest of my day enjoying my family. Enjoy your weekend and enjoy your Earth Day 2009! I’d love to hear what you are doing to celebrate Earth Day. Just leave me a comment below!

Looking for something to do this weekend in the Tampa Bay area?  Then join me at Honeymoon Island State Park in Dunedin, FL.  Little B hasn’t experienced the Island yet so it’s perfect timing!  They are holding their annual Island Earth Days celebration this Saturday and Sunday from 10am-6pm. 

 This year’s festivities include music, entertainment, kayak racing and more.  There will be environmental vendors and artists, lots of food & drinks, and an environmental education area for the whole family.  I may even get the stroller out and take a guided nature walk.

ONE WEEK UNTIL EARTH DAY 2009!  How will you be celebrating the day?

UPDATE:  Due to lack of interest this event will be postponed!  More info to come soon!  Thank you for your interest; however limited it was. 

This Earth Day you are invited to join The Eco Chic and other families across the United States as we celebrate this wonderful planet that we live on. The goal of this swap is to 1) meet other eco-minded families in a different state, 2) send an eco-friendly care package to one family, 3) find creative ways to REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE, and 4) share creative ways to educate our children about how to take care of the planet Earth.

Ideally the care packages would be made up of items that are found (from nature), handmade, reused, or recycled. Your care package might include a short lesson related to the environment. You can be as creative as you like. If you choose to purchase items (eco-books for example) we encourage you to purchase gently used items. Please keep your total investment under $10 plus shipping.

We will accept a total of 50 families for this swap. Families of all sizes are welcome to participate. We will make our best efforts to partner you with a family of similar size and age. This swap is best for families with children from ages 0-10.

Your commitment for this swap:
1. Post information about your family and how you will celebrate Earth Day 09 on the Kids Eco-Swap blog site.
2. Email your swap partner and introduce your family and share any special considerations (vegetarian, BPA free, no plastic toys, etc) that you would like your partner to know about you and your family.
3. Ship one small package to your swap partner by April 22 (Earth Day) 2009.
4. Acknowledge receipt of your package with either an email or Thank You card/letter.
If you choose to do more that is great but this is the minimum requirements for this swap.

To join in please send an email to theecochic@gmail.com. Please include your name, name and age of your children, their ages and genders, your location, and any special considerations that may be used to help partner you with the perfect family. Also please include how you heard about this swap. The deadline to sign up is Monday, April 13th, 2009 at midnight (EST) unless we receive our goal of 50 participants prior to that date. In order to keep our environmental footprint small I will try to partner you with a family in a nearby State if possible. At this time this swap is only open for residents in the United States for this same reason.

Please feel free to post this information on your blog to help spread the news of the swap. We look forward to celebrating Earth Day 2009 with you and your families. Email me with any questions.

Welcome to April…Earth Month!  With Earth Day quickly approaching we are all encouraged to act daily and not just one day a year. 

This week is National Cell Phone Recycling Week.  EPA and cell phone companies have partnered together to raise awareness on the importance of recycling your cell phones and other electronic devices.  Cell phones have become very disposable.  Every 1-2 years customers upgrade to get the next great phone and only about 17% of old cell phones actually get recycled.  Why do we need to recycle cell phones?  They contain metals and plastics that can easily be recycled to make new phones.  Recycling phones will save energy used to manufacture them in the beginning.  According to EPA, ”if Americans recycled the 100 million cell phones that are no longer being used, enough energy would be saved to power more than 18,500 homes for a year.”   Do some spring cleaning and recycle (or donate) those old cell phones you have stored away in drawers. 

Many retailers have already started to advertise Earth Day/Month specials.  As I find new products, great sales, offers, and more I’ll share them with you.  

ECO Store USA is offering FREE shipping with any purchase of $25 or more during the month of April. 

Wal-Mart is advertising earth-friendly products to their 200 million shoppers by offering easy ideas to help the planet AND save money. 

Marcal is introducing a new line of paper towels, toilet paper, tissue paper and more called Small Steps.  Why all paper products aren’t made of recycled content is beyond me!  I try to purchase the recycled stuff when it’s available but not all stores carry it. 

If you have a product or Earth Month special you want to share please post a comment or send an email to theecochic@gmail.com.  Check back often to see what other offers I find.

Well it’s been a very productive week!  The event I was coordinating went very well; despite some pretty major problems with the printers.  Even with all the problems I don’t think anyone higher up in the company realized anything was wrong.  It looked great.  The employees loved our handouts.  They loved our theme.  Did I say it looked great?  And the rain stopped late the night before!!!  It was a little windy and chilly in the morning but the sun shined down on us in the afternoon. 

I was asked by a very few (concerned citizens) about the actual impact on the event.  My response is hopefully very insightful on why people host events such as this.  Our environmental management system (EMS) requires all employees to be familiar with the environmental policy, environmental impacts, targets and their individual responsibilities.  Our handouts for the event had to meet many criteria.  They had to be educational, carry a message, and/or be usable.  We ended up handing our CFL bulbs, reusable shopping bags, awareness bracelets, and brochures (printed on 100% recycled paper).  We did have posters printed for the event but like I said, they had to be educational.  I believe that training people is worth the minimal impact on the environment.  We can also reuse the posters at other events too.  We got lots of compliments from the employees on the event and I think they appreciate the handouts not being junk.

I missed spending Earth Day with my son but it sounds like his teacher has been very productive this week.  My 5 year old was telling me all about the water cycle and evaporation today so I feel pretty confident that she’s doing her job well.  Today they had a guest speaker from the local Keep America Beautiful chapter and he told the kids all about litter.  He also taught them about storm drains and how the wildlife is affected by litter.  Tomorrow is my turn to talk to them.  I’m a bit late in coming up with ideas but my topic is energy!  I have a few good ideas so I’ll write about those tomorrow. 

As I sit here and write this I am plagued with so much stress of the day it’s hard to describe.  The big Earth Day event has had it’s share of obstacles along the way; I’m not sure why I expected things to go well today.  They certainly didn’t go well.  My journey began at 4am this morning as I left my house headed for the airport.  On Friday we were plagued with one of our handouts not arriving until AFTER the event was over; so my first challenge for the today was to make that happen.  That was resolved by 4pm!!  It was a stressful day waiting on those.  The next challenge was with the printers.  We were scheduled to pick up the displays today; there was no estimated time frame…but they were promised today.  After several converstaions with the printing department we were still hopeful that they would actually arrive before we left for dinner.  By 5pm we decided to stop in and see what the hold up was.  The lady we had been dealing with…well she had just left to go home.  She didn’t leave a message with anyone about our stuff so it took us an hour to somewhat resolve the issue.  They are reprinting as much as they can tonight and will arrive at 6am tomorrow to complete what they can do in-store.  The one over-sized piece may or may not arrive in the morning…we’ll leave that in God’s hands!  I called the manager a few minutes ago and they were about 1/3 of the way through the reprint.  Last problem or issue was with the display tents.  They began setting everything up at 4pm and at 6:30pm they were still there and my coworker was headed home.  That meant we had to go back to the office to see the set up to completion so we could sign that they were delivered and installed.  Well….as with everything else today there was a problem along the way.  One of the six tents was the wrong size.  The tent and the tent poles didn’t match so they had to go back to the store and get the replacement parts.  At 8:30pm they finally finished the installation and we were free to leave!  It’s 9:30 and I have been up for way toooooooo long now so I’m signing off and going to bed.  My Earth Day starts at 7am when I will be standing outside of the printers waiting and praying to pick up everything we need for the day.  My boss is not going to be very impressed if this falls apart now.  UGH…I hate depending on others to make me look good! 

I hope you all have a wonderful Earth Day and do something green!  As soon as my event if over I’m jetting off to one more location for a late Earth Day celebration at one of the field locations on Wednesday.  By the time this is over I’m going to need a few days to recover!  Enjoy you day!

Earth Day is one week from today; what are you going to be doing to help celebrate?  Is your city planning any special events?  How do you find out?  The first place to look is Earth Day Network; where you can search by your zip code for events in your area.  You can always search your local newspapers for happenings in your area too.  Did you know that most cities are celebrating this weekend?  Our local beach and State Park is holding an Earth Day festival over the weekend.  Wal-Mart is celebrating on Saturday with 1 million free reusable shopping bags to give away.  Publix is celebrating by focusing on their GreenWise Organic line. 

 So what is the Eco Chic doing for Earth Day?  Actually quite alot.  I have to travel for work again so that’s on negative impact I will be making while trying to eductate others; but it is absolutely necessary for me to be there.  We’re having a big outdoor Earth Day festival for our employees at the headquarters.  As part of our environmental program we are promoting ways employees can become better environmental stewards both at home and work.  We are really trying to show how the little changes they can make (turning of their computer monitors when they walk away) really do make a difference.  Not only to the environment but also to the overall operational costs of the organization.  I will be spending three days celebrating Earth Day for work; one setting up and two days for the actual events at two locations. 

When I get home I’m going to finish celebrating with my sons school.  Thursday I arranged for someone from our local Keep America Beautiful office to come in and talk with the pre-K classes.  Friday I am going to go and talk to the kids about energy.  I have no idea what I’m going to talk about yet; I guess I’ll figure out a short lesson for them over the weekend.  I do have one good book (see yesterday’s book review) that I can read them but I want to come up with a great project I can do with the kids to really get them thinking about energy. 

I would LOVE to hear how you will be celebrating Earth Day this year.  Leave me a comment.  Whatever you do try to make a pledge to yourself to change one thing in your life.  I’ll let you know next week what my pledge is. 

P.S.  Since I’m on travel next week I’m not sure if I’ll get to actually wish you all a Happy Earth Day!  So I hope you all have a great day! 

This Earth Day it looks like Playhouse Disney is going green for our kids.  They are advertising for their website already on the tv so go check it out.  While there isn’t too much information on the site I think it is a great place to start with the younger kids in teaching them about the environment.  The printable tips and coloring pages are fun things for any kid.  I know my little one loves to color so I’ll take some of my old work papers and print these on the backside.  The Three-in-a-Row Earth Day Show game is really cute too.  You can play it with your child since it’s a 2 player game.  The questions are easy but it will reinforce why we do some of the green things we do everyday.  Go check it out with your child today.

Also on the site is a listing of the green themed shows they are playing on April 22nd for Earth Day.  It looks like they have environmentally themed shows from 6am until noon.  That’s great!  Guess I better set my DVR to record those while he’s at school that day.