Happy (One-Day-Out-of-the-Year-that-People-Pretend-They-Care-for-the) Earth Day!

I'm going to admit, that I'm not the most earth friendly person in the world.  I have been trying to get better, but my first motivation, for the most part, isn't to help save the earth.  Haha.  Great way to start an Earth Day themed blog.  My first concern is keeping my family and I healthy and maybe saving some money.  I do get satisfaction knowing that some of the things we do help the environment.  We recently bought a hybrid SUV, but our motivation there was to save money.  Our old one only got about 13 mpg and the new one gets 30 mpg, which helps us so much!  We do recycle, so I guess that is one thing that we do that is for the earth.  Now I don't feel so bad!

Since its Earth Day, I have a couple of sites that I wanted to share to help celebrate.

First, my friend, Rebecca, showed me a site called The Perennial Plate.  It is a website with about 10 minute webisodes from Daniel Klein, an experienced chef, all about all kinds of good food and exactly where it comes from.  Not from a factory, but from the farms and people that created it. 
The first season, Klein went around Minnesota visiting different people that practice sustainable living.  The episodes were posted every Monday for a year.  He visited a woman who gave up her career in corporate America to raise her own sheep and make her own cheese, a man that goes through the process of making your own maple syrup, and a couple who converted half of their garage into a green house (I want to do this!!!).  These are only a couple of the 52 that are posted. 
The second season will be starting on May 9th.  In this season he will be traveling all over the country to different places with the same sustainable philosophies.  If you know of any farm or person in your area that would make a good story, you can email the site and they may consider stopping!

If you live in Raleigh, or will be there this Saturday (like me!), the Handmade Market will be in downtown at Cobblestone Hall in City Market.  There will be 50 different vendors selling all their awesome handmade stuff!  It starts at 11am and goes till 5pm.  Admission is free, and if you are one of the first to arrive you get a free gift.  They are holding the market to raise money for Toxic Free NC, which is an organization that is fighting pesticide pollution in North Carolina.  If you give any kind of donation you will get a raffle ticket for a chance to win a gift basket. 

Blue Rose Reusables

My friend, Nikita, started a small business selling eco-friendly snack and sandwich bags.  They are adorable!  She has found some incredibly cute fabric!  You can buy a couple of these for Earth Day to help celebrate.  I'm getting the purple ones!  She doesn't have a website, but you can like her store by going to Facebook and putting Blue Rose Reusables in the search bar.  Or you can just click the link above.  Here's some info from her site and some pictures of the bags:

"These adorable and stylish snack bags are completely environmentally friendly! Stop using all those plastic snack bags! Fill these bags with your kids edibles and when you are done simply turn them inside out for a quick wash in the sink. For heavily soiled bags simply turn them inside out and throw them in the washing machine! Hang dry."