Puddle Jumping in DC

If You Give a Mom a Muffin

The poem below was emailed to me this week.  If you are a parent who's read the "If you Give a Mouse a Cookie" book series by Laura Numeroff, this may strike a cord.

If You Give A Mom A Muffin

 by Kathy Fictorie

If you give a mom a muffin,

She’ll want a cup of coffee to go with it.

She’ll pour herself some.

Her three-year-old will spill the coffee.

She’ll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she’ll find dirty socks.

She’ll remember she has to do laundry.

When she puts the laundry in the washer,

She’ll trip over boots and bump into the freezer.

Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan for supper.

She will get out a pound of hamburger.

She’ll look for her cookbook (“101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger”).**

The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.

She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.

She will look for her checkbook.

The check book is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old.

She’ll smell something funny.

She’ll change the two year old’s diaper.

While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring.

Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.

She’ll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee.

Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.

And chances are…

If she has a cup of coffee,

Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

 ___

**Naturally, we'd be using a veg-friendly alternative around here.

I was unable to find the poem's original source or a website belonging to Kathy Fictorie, the credited author.

I did find creative moms out there turning the poem into a cute DIY gift. Pamela Donnis designed a 4x6" card (left) for the poem and attached it to a package of muffin mix with a bow.  She has shared the image file on her blog. I found alternative versions using homemade muffin mixes as well.

Maya's current favorite from the series is "If You Give a Pig a Pancake."  We don't own that one and she recently requested it at bed time. I found a version on YouTube being read by another fan. Enjoy.

Is a web video of a child reading a book aloud with copyrighted images an example of online piracy? Probably, but if either piece of proposed federal legislation known as the "Stop Online Piracy Act" and "Protect Intelectual Property Act" passes, a single complaint to my web hosting company could result in Puddle Jumping in DC being shut down over it, no due process, no notice.  Find out more. Contact your members of Congress.

 

Photo credit: Muffin by flickr user Nicola since 1972, used by Creative Commons license.

Gas in the water, toxins in the baby shampoo, coal ash in Lake Michigan!

Found myself writing about chemicals out of place. Recently on Care2:

My Water’s On Fire Tonight [Video]

Recent reports reveal that hydraulic fracturing, a form of natural gas drilling that involves injecting toxin-laden water deep underground, may have been responsible for earthquakes in England and Oklahoma and the Environmental Protection agency announced that it will investigate the drilling method’s impact on drinking water. . . Read more.

Toxic Chemicals in U.S. Baby Shampoo, Why?

It’s pretty clear that formaldehyde, used to embalm corpses, is not a health elixir. What’s less clear is why Johnson & Johnson thinks it’s a good idea to put this carcinogen in baby shampoo. . . Read more.

Powerplant Mudslide Dumps Coal Ash into Lake Michigan

Just weeks after the U.S. Senate voted to block the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate the disposal of coal ash, what’s left after coal is burned in a power plant, a mudslide on the banks of Lake Michigan sends tons of the stuff into a drinking water source for 10 million people. . . Read more.

Easy Homemade (Refridgerator) Kefir

When I embarked on making Kefir at home, I expected it to be an extension of our long-established habit of making our own yogurt. However, incorporating this fermented food into my diet took a little trial and error. In honor of Farmer's Daughter's Green Moms Carnival this month on preserving food, I'll describe lessons I learned making kefir, so that you might find your ideal routine more quickly than I did.

While kefir and yogurt both ferment milk, the process and our resulting routine are very different:

• Unlike yogurt, making kefir with live cultures does not involve heating and cooling the milk.
• Kefir ferments at room temperature (or lower, as I discovered) and does not require being kept warm over night.
• Kefir continues to culture until it is consumed, even if the grains are removed, so must be eaten quickly. (The same is true of yogurt, but the process is much slower.)

There are many websites with instructions for making kefir, and some of them make the process seem very complicated and involved. It doesn't have to be. My kefir routine involves just a tiny bit of planning and adds only a few minutes to my smoothie routine every couple of days.

Standard Homemade Kefir Instructions

1. Put your grains into a clean glass jar.
2. Add milk.
3. Cover jar with a clean towel, not a lid (it carbonates), and store at room temperature.
4. 24 hours later, or when the kefir reaches the desired sourness, strain kefir grains.
5. Drink kefir.
6. Go back to step 1.

That system didn't work for me in the warm climate of Washington, DC, mostly because I found I was making a quart of kefir every 12 hours. Even when I reduced the amount of grains in the jar, I simply couldn't keep up. I had to figure out a way to slow production, and since I had been storing extra grains in the refrigerator, where they still fermented the milk in which they were stored, I decided to try putting the whole process in there.

Tornados, Fish Farms, and Barbie vs Orangutans - Recently on Care2

Don't Make Connections Between Extreme Weather Events (VIDEO)

. . . because that might might lead you to conclude that global warming is already happening, warns Bill McKibben in a Washington Post oped.

In the wake of the devastating tornado's in Joplin, MO, and a record year for tornados, floods, and wildfires worldwide, author and environmentalist Bill McKibben makes the case that the extreme weather patterns predicted by climate science models look awfully like what we've been experiencing . . . (more)

June 12, 137 comments

NOAA OKs Factory Fish Farming for the Gulf of Mexico

That the U.S. government agency responsible for managing the nations fisheries falls within the agency responsible for international trade is painfully clear with Thursday's announcement that NOAA will finalize regulations for open ocean aquaculture in the Gulf of Mexico. The press material accompanying the announcement leads with the Commerce Department objective of closing the seafood trade gap, not with the importance of managing a stressed natural resource, fisheries, or ensuring the health of an ecological and biological wonder, the world's oceans . . . (more)

Jun 10, 62 comments

Ken Dumps Barbie to Save the Rainforest, Protect Orangutans and Tigers

Would you ditch your girlfriend of 50 years if you discovered she was complicit in the deaths of endangered orangutans and tigers? That's the call Ken made when he discovered the boxes in which Barbie dolls are packaged contain mixed tropical hardwood from Indonesia's rainforests. At least that's back story to a campaign stunt by Greenpeace on Tuesday calling on Mattel to set corporate policy eliminating rainforest sourcing of paper for packaging . . . (more)

Jun 7, 70 comments

 

 

Internet Silence

It's not just here. I've barely been posting to twitter and only sporatically posting at Care2.  I've simply found myself busier than expected in 2011: managing the day to day, but also figuring, planning, and dreaming.

Your best bet for keeping up with me lately is Facebook. I even have a page for yoga, check it out.

Make a Difference Monday: News in Sustainable Shopping and Hydrating

If you missed any of my recent Care2 posts, you can catch up here.  Follow me on twitter @studiojmm and I'll let you know when a new causes blog is posted.

Probable Cancer-causing Chemical Found in Drinking Water of 31 of 35 U.S. Cities Tested

Hexavalent chromium, the chemical made famous by the 2000 movie Erin Brockovich, is in the news again because a U.S. environmental organization detected the probable carcinogen in 31 of the 35 cities where it tested the drinking water. Environmental Working Group found concentrations of chromium in public drinking water supplies that ranged from 1/2 to 200 times what would be allowable by the state of California if a proposed chromium safety limit goes into effect . . . (more)

Is Your Holiday Shopping Exposing You to Dangerous BPA?

Every time you handle a store receipt that was printed on thermal paper using bisphenol-a (BPA), a little bit of this estrogen-mimicking chemical rubs off onto your fingers. When you put it in your wallet, it rubs off onto other receipts and onto your money. Some scientists theorize that exposure from powdery residue off store receipts may be a more important pathway of exposure than the much more high-profile presence of BPA in plastic drinking bottles . . . (more)

Misleading Eco-labels on Seafood Muddy the Waters on Sustainable Fishing

Looking to buy a filet of fish for your evening meal but forgot your wallet guide to sustainable seafood? Well, don't depend on the labels at the seafood counter or on the package to tell you if your dinner is environmentally-friendly or not, says Food & Water Watch in a new report on seafood labeling . . . (more)

Make a Difference Monday: Factory Farms and the 40th Anniversary of EPA

That's what I was blogging on at Care2 this past week.

Data Shows 20 Percent Growth in Factory Farming In Past 5 Years

A new interactive web tool from Food & Water Watch provides a dramatic illustration of the increasingly consolidated animal agriculture industry in the United States. The advocacy group mapped USDA livestock census data from 2002 and 2007, providing a new way for concerned consumers to explore the origin of meat and dairy foods in the United States. (more)

10 Ways EPA Has Improved Our Lives, An Anniversary Retrospective

To mark the 40th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Aspen Institute convened environmental thought leaders to develop a report on 10 ways EPA has strengthened America. (more)

 

Transition

In her #reverb10 prompt this morning, Gwen Bell asked participants to define 2010 in one word. Mine is "transition."

While 2009 was actually the year in which I left my full time job, it was in 2010 that I really attempted to figure out what that meant. I began a yoga teacher training program and teaching kids yoga weekly, and I began to explore a new identity, separate from full time environmental advocacy.

The year involved a lot of casting about and feeling somewhat lost, not unlike a certain polliwog in one of Maya's favorite library books: The Caterpillar and the Polliwog. He learns that, like the boastful caterpillar, he will transform into something else when he grows up, but nobody tells him what.

The word I will project on 2011 is "focus."

transformation photo © 2005 Noyes | more info (via: Wylio)

Make a Difference Monday: From Tigers to Triclosan

If you missed any of my Care2 posts from last week, you can catch up here.  Follow me on twitter @studiojmm and I'll let you know when a new causes blog is posted.

Hope for Tigers and Tree Frogs

When the International Council for Science listed observing and innovation among their top 5 challenges to sustainability, they may not have been thinking specifically about tigers and tree frogs. It's hopeful, however, that scientists this week announced innovative tracking and captive breeding breakthroughs for those two species respectively that offer hope for their survival. (67 comments)

Chesapeake Bay Polluted by 568 Million Chickens

According to a report by Environment America, the 568 million chickens raised on the Delmarva Peninsula — many of them owned by Perdue — generate an estimated 1.1 billion pounds of chicken litter every year. That manure in rainwater runoff was cited as a major contributor to the Chesapeake Bay's pollution problems in a report that explored how giant corporate factory-farms pollute waterways in the United States. (140 comments)

Natural Gas Fracking Threatens Drinking Water (Video)

This weekend 60 Minutes aired an investigative story about the dangers of a largely-unregulated method of extracting natural gas from shale miles below the Earth's surface – known as "fracking" – and the dangers it poses to drinking water, our health, and the environment. (36 comments)

Georgia-Pacific Commits to Protecting 11 Endangered Forests in the U.S. Southeast

Several environmental groups are cheering today over paper giant Georgia-Pacific's commitment not to purchase timber from environmentally sensitive areas and to discourage landowners from clearing hardwood forests to plant pine plantations. The commitment comes after a multi-year campaign by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Dogwood Alliance, and Rainforest Action Network. (47 comments)

Science Shows Antibacterial Chemicals are Dangerous to People and Environment

Triclosan and Triclocarbon are killers. That's their job. The antimicrobial chemicals are added to thousands of consumer products – from soap to toothpaste, public changing tables and even shoes – specifically to kill bacteria and viruses. Unfortunately, when the soap and other products wash down our drains, Triclosan and Triclocarbon end up in the aquatic environment and even on farms around the country where they keep doing their job, killing things. (140 comments)

Greening the after-life

Is it ghoulish to talk about death at Halloween? Well, Crunchy Chicken of Green Moms Carnival is asking carnival bloggers to consider the environmental impact of the after-life. If your end-of-life plans don't involve becoming one of the undead, one option to consider is donating your body to science.

When I was a teenager, a budding environmentalist learning about ecological science at a suburban high school across the street from an enormous cemetery, I decided that I wanted to be buried in a burlap bag under a tree. Two decades ago, that probably wasn't possible. The proliferation of green burial providers in the last few of years though, means it probably is now.

I've since become less sentimental about what actually happens to my body when I'm done with it, but I would still like to reduce the environmental impact on the planet and the financial impact on my family of dealing with my remains.

When writing their wills last year, my parents chose to have their bodies donated to science. Not giving that much thought to it, I assumed that meant medical school anatomy class or something similar, complete with formaldehyde or other embalming fluids to enable a months-long class to study their bodies. What research for this carnival taught me is that the term is actually much broader than that.

Without getting too graphic, whole body donations allow medical schools and research institutions to teach anatomy and surgery and perform experiments that would be impossible with synthetic or animal alternatives. Importantly, many tissue banks serve researchers who don't actually need whole bodies (despite the term for the donation) and can easily accommodate lifesaving organ donations prior to accepting the rest of the body.

The ecological impacts of body donation are unclear because of the diverse possible uses of the cadaver, some of which involve preservation fluids, and final disposal of the remains, which will depend on state regulations and the requirements of individual tissue banks.

Whole body donation certainly avoid several environmental hazards of the traditional funeral industry:

• According to Green Burials Association, cemeteries have gobbled up 2.2 million acres of land in the United States. To increase their customer base, those grassy expanses of mostly treeless lawns peppered with headstones must expand.
• Planet Green reports that 1.6 tons of reinforced concrete, with its associated energy use and carbon emissions, is buried in the United States each year in the construction of cemetery vaults.
• According to the Green Casket Company, the traditional funeral industry buries 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 90,272 tons of steel and 2,700 tons of copper and bronze annually in the form of caskets.

The real benefit of whole body donation, though, is its service to people. Science Care, the first non-transplant accredited U.S. tissue bank, reports contributing to medical research and training in cochlear implants, coronary artery disease, spinal injuries, osteoporosis, paramedic training, and many other medical specialties.

When we went to China a few years back, we started our trip with a couple days in New York. One of the things we did was visit Bodies: The Exhibit. My husband, the self-described anatomy geek, was in heaven.

We wandered multiple rooms of silicone-placticized cadavers dissected to display various anatomical features and often arranged in life-like poses. The effect was mesmerizing. The dissections illustrated the amazing complexity of the human body. The posed cadavers, with their skin and racially identifying features removed, clearly sent the message: these were people, beautiful people, people just like you.

If he so desires and is done with his own body, Mac could decide to join the exhibit.

For more details on anatomical or whole body donation, see my article
Donate your Body to Science: Burial Alternative Saves Lives.

Should We Put a Price on Services Rendered by Nature?

Started a new conversation over at Care2 this week. Check it out.

Valuing Green in Greenbacks: Should We Put a Price on Services Rendered by Nature?

"According to the United Nations Environment Programme report "Mainstreaming the Economics of Nature," failing to value the Earth's natural services, such as bees pollinating the world's food supply or forests filtering clean drinking water, is a problem. Their solution: put a dollar figure on it. . . " (more)

Cleaning up Industrial Boilers and Preventing Oil Drilling in the Rainforest

For your Make-A-Difference Monday action pleasure: 

Tell EPA to Clean Up Polluting Commercial and Industrial Boilers, Deadline Monday

In the basements of office and apartment buildings, and in pulp and paper plants, chemical refineries, and other factories across the United States, tens of thousands of commercial and industrial boilers burn natural gas, wood, or coal to produce steam for heating or to pressurize machinery. In the process, they emit mercury, lead, cadmium, hydrogen chloride, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, dioxin and furans, nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposed a regulation this spring to reduce those pollutants by 50 percent. You have until Monday, August 23 to weigh in.

Read more at Care2 . . .

Ecuador's Yasuni National Park Preserved from Oil Drilling in Historic UN Agreement

In a first-of-its kind agreement, Ecuador has pledged to not to develop the 850 million barrels of crude oil under Yasuni National Park for the next 10 years in return for $3.6 billion from the United Nations. The park is one of the most biodiverse expanses of rainforest in the world, a single hectare of which boasts more species of trees than in all of North America.

Read more, including a petition calling on Chevron to clean up decades old pollution in Ecuador, at Care2 . . .

Easy Homemade Yogurt

Ages ago, I created a bunch of posts for another site about making yogurt.  I'm planning to revise and move all that content to Puddle Jumping in the next few weeks.

To get notified of new blogs as they are posted, subscribe to the feed, either by email or in a feed reader.

Human Powered Transportation

Photo: Oil continues to gush into the gulf at a rate of
5,000 barrels a day. See more from the Washington Post.

With the nation watching in horror as an offshore oil disaster the U.S. Department of the Interior thought was so unlikely that it didn't even require the drilling company to file a full environmental impact statement threatens to contaminate wildlife sanctuaries, oyster reefs, shrimp beds, and more along the gulf coast, the Green Moms Carnival turns to the topic of transportation.

The United States consumed not quite 3 gallons of oil per person per day in 2007 with about 70% of that fueling transportation.  In that same time period, Japan consumed 1.6 gallons per person per day and Great Britain consumed 1.2.  Our lifestyle choices, including how we plan our communities have a huge effect on our energy consumption.

When Mac and I lived in Massachusetts for college, we were a two car household.  After college, living in Newark, NJ near bus lines, the Path train into the city, and NJ Transit, Mac decided the insurance and maintenance on his car wasn't worth the cost, so we were quickly down to one.  Just after we were married in 1998, my car threw a rod (long story involving the water pump, timing belts, and finally the oil pump) and we were thrust into car-free living in New Brunswick.

We quickly learned to do grocery and laundry mat trips with a bike trailer or push cart, but generally found it hard to do other errands in a very urbanized but very car-centric community.  There were no bike lanes and shopping was centralized in malls off very busy roads not terribly close to housing.  Still, we biked to the transit station every morning and hopped trains and buses to our various destinations.

Moving to Washington, DC the following summer was a revelation: subway trains and buses galore, shopping on public transit lines, and grocery stores within an easy walk from our house!

Eleven years later, we do own a car specifically so Mac can commute twice a week from our home to Towson University north of Baltimore, MD, where he did his graduate assistantship and now teaches as adjunct faculty. 

The trip of 59 miles takes about 3 hours by public transportation (one way), mostly because the public transit options for getting to Towson from Penn Station in downtown Baltimore are limited.

Still, we use human powered transportation an awful lot and our health is so much better for it.  I bike to work, we run errands on foot, and we combine foot and public transportation for most other trips.

One of the things I have found incredibly useful is our double stroller (yep, we've only got one kid).  I use it for play dates so I can take the kids to the park (walking two toddlers 1/2 mile to a park is a truly ridiculous proposition), but I also use it for errands. Maya sits in one seat and I pile stuff in the other.  Yesterday, we used it to buy a wading pool. 

While hybrids and electric vehicles offer a lot of promise in reducing our transportation-sector oil use, reconsidering how we plan our communities in a way that gets us out of our cars is going to need to play a big role as well.  That's going to take some time, unfortunately, and there may be more gulf-like spills in the interim. 

While we wait, use this Google Earth application to superimpose the gulf oil slick over your hometown and don't miss the other Green Mom Carnival posts on the topic of transportation.

The elimination communication photo I didn't use on examiner.com

Earlier this evening I happened to notice the following keywords on Google trends, meaning that were among the top 100 searched terms on Google:

* elimination communication (#1)
* baby wearing
* attachment parenting
* elimination communication potty training

Sahara eliminating
Originally uploaded by sigkyrre.

Huh? This is not the stuff of mainstream web searching on the average day.

Processing ... processing ... Ok, what celebrity just made the news about this stuff?

Answer: Mayim Bialik, former child TV star a.k.a. Blossom, now doctor of neuroscience and mom. Bialik was just named celebrity spokes mom for the Holistic Moms Network and has done a couple recent interviews on attachment parenting with celebrity baby blog.

Anyway, since I know a bit about the #1 search term, I wrote a little article on my DC Green Living Examiner page. I did not, however, use the great image I found of Sahara eliminating because I'm pretty sure it would get me flagged for inappropriate content. I prefer it, however, to the shot of Maya that I did use (What were we doing that we have so few good potty photos?).

DC Green Living Examiner post:
Elimination communication can lead to fewer diapers in landfills

Friday, August 28th, 2009
Elimination communication is popping up all over the internet since Mayim Bialik was named celebrity spokes mom for the Holistic Moms Network. Also...

Keep Reading »

Green Moms Carnival assembles impressive eco-schools resource

My Green Moms Carnival: Back to School Edition post on energy and water saving school buildings in the area was one of thirty-one (31!) posts by moms on the interwebs about how to have a more environmentally friendly back to school season. 

Whether you want to negotiate with your daycare provider to use cloth diapers, work with your school board to put solar panels on the school roof, or find truly non-toxic school supplies, you will find resources in this month's Green Moms Carnival.

About the Green Moms Carnival - We are a group of green women bloggers, united by our desire to protect and preserve Mother Earth. Once a month or so, we share our thoughts on a common theme, so that together our environmental messages are heard by more people than we could possibly ever reach on our own. You can read more about us here and you can subscribe to all our blog posts automatically through Twitter at @GreenMoms.

Green Moms Carnival: Back to School Edition

Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. population spends 6 hours of every day in a school building.  As the summer rapidly comes to a close, millions of students are preparing to go back to school.  Some of those students will attend schools with environmentally-friendly features that reduce energy costs to the school district, reduce the pollution and carbon footprint of the schools, and improve learning environments for the kids.

Greg Edmundson, the principle at Maryland’s first certified green school in Germantown, wrote that there is a “powerful culture and social climate that can be built in such a school. Human beings thrive on enthusiasm, motivation and a naturally stimulating physical space in which to work.”

In this video, Lily, a 5th grader at that school, Great Seneca Creek Elementary, talks about what it’s like to learn in a green school.

On Conference SWAG and Babies: My Take on Two Blogher Controversies

I attended my first Blogher conference over the weekend, something I've been itching to do for about three years. Like many participants, I've been struggling with what to say about it.  

Jen's complete pile of Blogher swag.
More by Flickr user Studiojmm.

Tuesday night, after reading a dozen rants (some of them very good) about selling out, offensive sponsor- and stuff-related behavior, and laudable new reviewer policies, I dug through my backpack and purse and piled up all the stuff I brought home from Blogher 09:

That's it (not including the kiwi and piece of candy that I ate and a couple of missing pens). 

I did bring home a few things (not SWAG) from Blogher that I'm really pleased with:

• a little stack of business cards of bloggers I met,
• I kid-size I-Love-Canada t-shirt and a jar of honey butter (OMG that stuff's good), a gift from my lovely roommate,
• and, a book that will be great fodder for blogging and frugal living which I was given by another blogger after we discussed my new adventure.

There are some interesting definitions of SWAG or schwag over at Urban Dictionary, but however your spell it, it and behavior at Blogher regarding it are all over the twitter-verse and blog-o-sphere this week.

links for 2009-07-16

• The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
  Good fun for grammar geeks.
  (tags: fun blog english humor words grammar quotationmarks punctuation)

Problems viewing columns in Firefox 3.5?

You may not be alone.  This blog is not appearing correctly in the newest Firefox browser for the Macintosh.  I've got a support request into Typepad.

links for 2009-07-08

• The Inigo Montoya Guide to 27 Commonly Misused Words
  You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. ~Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
  (tags: blog reference tips writing language humor list online useful words english copywriting grammar)

The Cousins Descend

Most of the Mueller clan is in town this weekend (seven adults, three toddlers, one preschooler). It's pretty much mayhem of toys, tots and ratatouille from an abundance of CSA vegetables– but fun.

Folklife Festival 09 - 02, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

More Folklife Festival Cousins

www.flickr.com

And . . . photos from Human Landscape Dance's London premiere.

www.flickr.com

Mac vs. PC Debate Ends Once and For All

Can your PC do this?

(h/t @problogger) - Don't worry about the french, mine isn't good enough to Follow the commentary either.

So, I tried to follow the url posted at the end which took me to the page in the video.  What do you think the advertisement is for?

Google Translate clumsily saved my poor neglected French on that one. It's an online alternative to sending letters at the post office (second time I've heard of this idea but first time in French; will have to investigate). Fun marketing idea, no?

Need Blogher Conference Advice

Ok, I just got off the Blogher waitlist and have a ticket!

(let's say that again "!")

But I'm traveling solo with my toddler and am weighing the value of staying for the keynote and a few minutes of cocktail party with getting the babe home into her own bed late Saturday night and spending Sunday morning with Daddy (that one is nice for me too).

testing mobile blogging features

testing mobile blogging features, originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

With this cell phone photo of Maya doing her best buddhist monk impression.

How to Lose Time

Have someone send you a link to failblog.org

see more Fail Blog

I choose to share this image because it could easily have been taken around here this week. Hopefully we'll get a good crop of tomatoes this season. Unfortunately, it seems inevitable that we get a good crop of mosquitos.

15 Books That WIll Always Stick with Me

Reading with Dad aka passing on
the obsession.
Originally uploaded by Studiojmm.

Subjecting the blogosphere to another Facebook meme: Fifteen books you've read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

1. The Cheneysville Incident by David Bradley. No relation to our recent VP.
2. The Stranger by Albert Camus. Definitely read for college not pleasure but made quite the impression.
3. O' Pioneers by Willa Cather.
4. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow.
5. Birthing from Within by Pam England and Rob Horowitz. If you read one birth preparation book . . .
6. Marathon by Jeff Galloway. Not a particularly literary reference but that wasn't the criteria.
7. House Like a Lotus by Madeline L'Engle. This one was kind of earth shaking at thirteen with some pretty adult themes.  (Hate the cover image, btw. Artist obviously hadn't read book.) 
8. Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen. Which I read backstage during rehearsals of an Amherst community theater production of The Sound of Music (I wasn't in it).
9. The Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell.
10. The Yoga Sutras by Patanjali
11. Jacob I Have Loved by Katherine Paterson.  Apparently, I was so struck by this one that I gave it to a young friend for her birthday two years running (oops). 
12. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig.
13. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser. Unfortunately.
14. Eco-heros by Aubrey Wallace.  Given to me by my campus organizer after my sophomore year in college.
15. Native Son by Richard Wright. Read at 15 and haven't had the courage to pick up another Wright book since . . . powerful. 

News Round-up for 2009-05-19 aka Things Keeping Me Too Busy to Blog

• House Committee Begins Debate on Historic Energy Bill
  “Now is the time for bold and meaningful action on clean energy and global warming. We look forward to working with Congress to strengthen and pass the American Clean Energy and Security Act," says Federal Global Warming Program Director Emily Figdor.
  (tags: green news energy globalwarming pollution congress environment)
  
• GOP looks to expand renewables mix, stress economy during climate bill fight
  In case you are wondering, "expand renewables mix" means coal and nuclear. "'Bring a sleeping bag,' [Representative] Barton [R-TX] said yesterday after a relatively brief, three-hour session for opening statements."
  (tags: green politics globalwarming congress environment pollution)
• Cleaner Cars to Hit the Fast Lane, Obama and States Lead
  "President Obama is proving himself behind the wheel in the race to a clean energy economy. This historic action will reduce our nation’s dependence on oil, save consumers money at the pump, and cut global warming pollution. This is what leadership looks like,” said Environment America Federal Global Warming Program Director Emily Figdor.
  (tags: environment green cars global warming)
• Obama regulates tailpipe greenhouse gas | MNN - Mother Nature Network
  The Obama Administration announced May 19 tough new standards for carmakers to meet by 2016: 30 mpg for trucks and 39 mpg for cars. Why go after fuel economy when the target is climate emissions? There is virtually no other way to reduce tailpipe greenhouse gas.
  (tags: environment cars globalwarming)

Help the Earth or We Eat Your Brains

Stolen from Inspired by @lonesoph1st from her friendfeed

Zombie Letters from e-zombie.com

Ed note 4/28/09: Just noticed the April 09 Zombie theme, hence the new category.

links for 2009-04-22

• Web Designer Wall
  Design Trends and Tutorials
  (tags: webdesign css tutorials blog tutorial web)

links for 2009-04-21

• Awake At The Wheel | Blogging | Self-Improvement | Marketing
  Tagline: Tips strategies and conversations at the crossroads of life, work, entreprenuership, & play.
  (tags: blog business health culture writing career exercise communications lifehacks personal freelance self-help productivity)
• Zen Habits | Simple Productivity
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