simple.green.organic.happy.

Green living, playful parenting and the pursuit of happiness

Seven for Saturday: News You Can Use

By 3 Comments

purple crocus

If you’ve never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul
by a flower in spring bloom,

maybe your soul has never been in bloom.

-Terri Guillemets

Although today’s predicted is a mere 54 degrees (that’s 21 less than the beauty we had yesterday), I’m planning to spend as much time out in the sunshine and down in the dirt as possible. So here’s just a quick few of the links that caught my eye this week:

  1. PepsiCo announces 100% recyclable, plant-based bottle.

    pepsi green bottle“The bottle is made from bio-based raw materials, including switch grass, pine bark and corn husks.  In the future, the company expects to broaden the renewable sources used to create the “green” bottle to include orange peels, potato peels, oat hulls and other agricultural byproducts from its foods business.” An awesome example to be setting: a huge corporation taking a green initiative that presumably will also save them money. Can’t wait to see how this pans out, and whether other companies will follow suit. (Also, feeling a little less guilty about my daily Pepsi indulgence.)

  2. Agriculture Industry Pushes To Make Undercover Filming Of Farm Animal Abuse Illegal.

    In this corner: “Legislators and farming groups respond that they’re only trying to prevent people from fraudulently seeking jobs in order to shoot videos that may give an unfair perspective on livestock operations.” And in this corner: “They’re trying to criminalize someone being an eye witness to a crime.” I am so beyond biased against Big Ag at this point that I will refrain from comment, but I’d love to hear what you think about whistleblowers being prosecuted.

  3. Chernobyl photoreportage: Elena Filatova’s Ghost Town (via ReNest)

    This week I learned that nuclear disasters are rated on a scale of 0-7; Three Mile Island was a 5, and Chernobyl was a 7. (Last I saw Japan holds steady at a 6.) Just after this was reported (notable, I think, that France reported it quite a bit before I saw any US articles), the search term Chernobyl was trending all over the place, which made me wonder how much the average person even knows about the disaster. My brother and I have a particular fascination with Chernobyl, the depressing yet ethereal beauty of a land abandoned. There are over 2000 towns & villages within 250 kms of the Chernobyl reactor that are being reclaimed by nature. Elena Filatova likes to visit them on her motorcycle and take hauntingly beautiful photographs.

  4. Inside the multimillion-dollar essay-scoring business: Behind the scenes of standardized testing (via Twitter, from Kelly at The Centsible Life)

    I freaking loathe standardized testing, and lest you point to sour grapes, I consistently scored 99.9% all through my grade school career. You know what that means? Not that I’m smarter than the average bear. It just means I’m really good at taking standardized tests. Know how many well-paying jobs require you to take standardized tests all day? NONE. Those scores never did anything for me. But today, they take up weeks of my kids’ time, not to mention the god-only-knows how many hours of teaching to the test, not to mention the fact that school funding and teachers’ jobs depend on the outcomes. And according to this article, there’s no guarantee at all that the scores are even accurate. STOP THE MADNESS. No Child Left Behind hurts everyone.

  5. Why Preschool Shouldn’t Be Like School: New research shows that teaching kids more and more, at ever-younger ages, may backfire.

    “Direct instruction really can limit young children’s learning. Teaching is a very effective way to get children to learn something specific… But it also makes children less likely to discover unexpected information and to draw unexpected conclusions.” Love this article as a counterpoint to the woman suing a NY preschool for ruining her 4yo’s chances at Ivy League, but also as it points to the sagacity of the Montessori method. My question is, why are we limiting this discussion to young children? (Hat tip goes to my sister-in-law for finding this.)

  6. Supermoon.

    super full moonThe moon tonight will appear 14% larger and 30% brighter due to its relative proximity to the earth. It’s recommended that you check it out at sunset, as the horizon will make the illusion of super-bigness more intense. Make sure you include other elements in your frame to provide a point of reference— one full moon looks pretty much like any other hanging solo in the night sky (as evidenced by my attempts last night). Grab your camera and head outside!

  7. Pretty Neat Review & Giveaway.

    Blatant self-promotional link! Spring starts Monday: are ya spring cleaning, decluttering, getting your house & life in order? I’m giving away a copy of Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection; you should enter to win it. 

Bonus, apropos of nothing:

You may or may not have heard about the Rebecca Black “Friday” video that’s gone viral. I just wanna say I really like the Bob Dylan version.

Pretty Neat Review & Giveaway

By 12 Comments

pretty neat

 

Out of clutter, find simplicity.

Albert Einstein

Ever need to clean up a room right quick and just sort of sweep everything into a big bin, and throw it under the bed or in a closet?

But then forget about the big box in the closet, until one day you’re looking for something and you open it up to discover the huge jumble inside?

And it’s just too much for you at that moment, so you pretend you didn’t see it and quietly put it back?

How about that time your house got robbed, and the fingerprint guy was totally overwhelmed by all the stuff falling out of the bedroom closets and said, “Whoa. They really tore this place apart, huh?”

And you just looked at him, slack-jawed, and then nodded yes, totally blaming the robbers for your unholy mess?

No? Just me?

That day with the forensics team was a turning point for me. It was, quite simply, the most embarrassing moment of my life, on an already difficult day.

I am physically incapable of leaving the house a mess now. Rooms need to be picked up, laundry in baskets at the very least, beds made. You just never know when your house might get robbed and people are going to be asking you, “Was this here when you left?”

I dug in, buckled down, and ruthlessly decluttered. I was flyin’ with the FlyLady. (That was short lived. Too! Much! Enthusiasm! for! Me!) I set up daily chore lists and enforced nightly ten-minute cleaning drills. I was a lean, mean, housekeeping machine.

Only… that was over five years ago.

And… then I got a job working from home full-time.

And also… I started a blog, in my “spare” time.

And did I mention… my brother and his family stayed with us for a few months, while they settled on a house for their growing family. So everything that we used to store in those rooms… came to live upstairs with us for a while.

Yeah. Somehow the clutter has crept back up on me. And set down roots.

You know when the clutter has grown out of hand and you don’t know what to do with it? And you go to the store and you buy all these fancy organizers that you think are going to solve the problem, but they don’t fit in the drawer right or you just don’t get around to using them?

You know how you empty three rooms of craft supplies and Christmas decorations and never-used wedding china and handed-down-waiting-to-be-grown-into clothing into a corner of your office and you have no freaking clue where you’re going to put it all?

So your husband builds a loft in your bedroom?

No? Just me?

DIY stairs

The stairs are twisty-turny

loft in bedroom

view from bed

One day there will be a door to the attic, but for now it's a fancy piece of foamboard

So. I have this loft. And I know it was very handy and nice of my husband to build it, but… I feel like we have turned into crazy people, suitable for reality tv. I call it Elton’s Folly.

And I have all this STUFF. Most of it is stuff I actually need to keep. It was semi-organized when spread out over three rooms— I knew where to find things, even if it looked messy to the casual observer— but when Jeff moved it, he just dumped it all into one big pile on the floor.

And I don’t know where to start. I have an extra room and I still don’t know where to begin.

I just keep thinking of The Cat in the Hat.

And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We can not pick it up.
There is no way at all!

Well, I don’t know about you, but when I’ve got a mess that’s staring me in the face that I can’t quite deal with, what I like to do is… read a whole lot of books about decluttering and organizational techniques! I’ve become quite a connoisseur over the years.

Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection by Alicia Rockmore & Sarah Welch is a fun-to-read, practical, usable approach to getting your life in order. First of all, the authors get the mom schedule, how we have to work in ten-minute increments around the rest of our lives. They get the fact that no matter what we do, our houses are going to look lived-in, not like a magazine spread. And they are OK with that, and that is the place we begin from. Amazing!

Their first pieces of advice:

  • develop your own meaning of organized
  • prepare yourself for imperfection
  • prepare rebuttals in advance

Can I get an amen?

The following family-friendly chapters include tons of personal anecdotes from women who have been there, done that, and found a working solution; as well as helpful tips for delegation of duties, learning to say no, mastering your to-do list, settling schedules, taming toys, winning the battle of the overflowing inbox, and mastering home-cooked meals.

This last chapter covers picky eaters, menu planning, the issue of time, and “how to hit the trifecta: healthy, good, and easy.” One of my favorite passages points out that processed food does not reduce average preparation time, it just gives that illusion since it reduces prep work like chopping.

This chapter all by itself is worth it. This is news you can use, friends.

And you can win it!

All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me something embarrassing that’s happened as a result of a cluttered house, a cluttered schedule, or a cluttered mind, so I don’t feel like the most disorganized slob in the world. (I didn’t even tell you about the day I missed my son’s parent-teacher conference.)

Or, an extreme you or someone close to you has gone to to try to overcome the clutter.

Or, if you can’t think of anything that fits, you can just tell me why you’d like to win this book. I’m flexible like that.

This giveaway will end at 11:59pm on March 20. One U.S. commenter will be chosen at random to receive a copy of Pretty Neat: the buttoned-up way to get organized & let go of perfection.

————————————–

And that’s not all! Know what else is pretty neat? Several other bloggers have also posted reviews and giveaways of this book. Once all the giveaway winners have been reported, one will be chosen at random from across all blogs to receive a $200 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50) to be used towards her own reasonable organizational goals for her life.

Yeah. That’s awesome. I totally hope you win.

————————————

Full disclosure: I received no compensation for this post, but I did receive a copy of the book to review (and highlight and dogear and otherwise get full use of). My participation in this Global Influence campaign puts me in the running for a $100 gift card (same as cash) plus a selection of Buttoned Up products (ARV: $50). I hope I win, too!

———————————–