October Green Happenings!

In just a few more weeks GreenFest is coming back to DC! October 10th and 11th. See more at http://www.greenfestivals.org/
Also happening around the same time is the Solar Decathlon. See college students battle it out for the title of most efficient home. Students engineer and design a house, tear it down and then ship it and build it at the National Mall. Oct. 9-13 and 15-18, 2009.
More info at http://www.solardecathlon.org/

Meat Labels. What do they mean?

Read this interesting article on the 4-Hour Work Week blog site about different meat labels and what they all mean. Interesting. It really helps if you get to really know where the meat (and food) you eat comes from.

Health is skin deep....

So, now you're eating right, exercising, and have gotten rid of all the cleaning chemicals around the house. What else can you do? Well, how about thinking about yourself for a few minutes? What kind of toxins are you applying to your body? You say "I don't roll around in toxic dumps!" Well, what about the shampoo and bath wash you use on a regular basis? Well, what about it? The site Cosmetic Database a.k.a Skin Deep has a large listing of ingredients to shampoos and cosmetics. Each ingredient has a toxicity meter to show you the dangers of your shampoo. Ok, so now you know the information, what do you do about it? There are safe alternatives such as Dr. Bonner's Castile soap (which is 98% vegetable oil) and can be used as a soap, shampoo and many other cleaning uses! Or you can go VERY basic, like I have, and go "No-Poo" which is NO shamPOO! Use baking soda and water to remove the oils in your hair and then rinse out with apple cider vinegar diluted with water. Your hair will be oily for a couple weeks as it adjusts to not having to be overly dried out with "ultra-cleaning" shampoos. Then your hair will end up being soft and more natural, and also less TOXIC!

The Story of Stuff

We ran across the Story of Stuff a while ago, but never had the chance to post it due to an overly scheduled schedule (can we say too much stuff?). But for Earth day at Ark & Dove, the Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard was shared with all of the congregation. It's very well put together and it's easy enough for children to understand, but also informative enough for people of all ages to learn how much we are hurting our environment with our excessive lifestyles.

Welcome return!

Hello again, fellow blog readers! It's been way too long since we've last written. Now that things for us have slowed down, we might be able to get back into posting a little more frequently, as long as these beautiful days don't drag us away from the computer too often (wouldn't that be a shame!). Although we haven't been posting very often, we have still be keeping up with becoming more environmentally minded and have still been trying to obtain the always elusive "better eating habits." There have been other things that we've done that we'll be sure to post about in the up-coming weeks. So stay tuned, but DO NOT miss a chance to enjoy these great outdoors! We'll always be available for you!