These Balls Are The Bomb! - Wordless Wednesday

If I could only eat one thing for the rest of my life it would Averie's Raw Vegan Chocolate Sunflower Seed Butter Balls.

Now on Loves Veggies and Yoga these treats are actually called Raw Vegan Peanut Butter Vanilla Balls, but after adding cacao and sunflower seed butter (which tastes just like pb!) the above named seemed more appropriate.

I've been craving peanut butter lately so I thought I would give these a try since I've been so happy with every thing else I've made. These are by far my fave and I plan on making many, many more.


Wordless Wednesday

Have A Hopstastic Green Easter!

I love Easter. Maybe it’s because it’s in the spring, maybe it’s the egg dyeing or maybe it’s the fun of finding those eggs.

When I was I kid we lived 3,000 miles away from the rest of my parents’ families so every holiday was big. But there was just always something extra great about Easter. So when I had kids I was super excited to keep up with the super fun tradition.

First there’s dyeing the Easter eggs which is fun, messy and all around awesome.

Last year I read about making dye out of food, which sounded awesome and super green. Don’t recall me writing about that? Well that’s probably because I never actually made any food dyes. So this year I was so totally going to do it.

So I looked up how to make dyes out of food. I found that most anything that will stain would make a great egg dye; beets, cherries, blueberries, coffee and spices like turmeric and chili powder.

The process is simple enough: combine chosen food with 1 quart water, 2 tablespoons vinegar and simmer for 20-30 minutes. Then let the mixture cool and add your hard-boiled eggs and let them soak for about an hour. You don’t get that immediate satisfaction of conventional egg dyes, but you also don’t get all the weird ingredients like maltodextrin and yellow #5 either.

The natural process may take a little more time but I think it’s worth it. I like that the kids are involved in making the dyes and that they do have to practice a little patience, something every kid could use a little more of. ;)

Plus it always seemed like the egg dyeing went by too fast, it doesn’t seem like that will be a problem with this method.

Tyler and Dylan always liked the kit that came with the white crayon so they could draw on the egg before dyeing it. So I’m going to go through the huge collection of crayons we have so they can still draw on their eggs.

I liked this site and this one plus this video for more dyeing instructions.

So now that we’ve got dyeing done, onto filling up the plastic ones and the Easter baskets.



Tyler likes candy but not that much, Dylan could eat it till he exploded and neither one is the least bit interested in stuffed toys. So with that in mind I pretty much have just started skipping filling the baskets with stuff and have just stuck with the plastic eggs.

Over the years I’ve done little toys, a little candy and quarters. The biggest hit is always the quarters. Now that they’re a little older I do dollar bills. They love that they get to go buy a toy and I don’t waste money on “Easter” toys they don’t care about.

I still like to add a little candy and I’m really liking the Milk Chocolate Hoppy Treats from Endangered Species Chocolate for this year.

To be honest, I think the boys’ care less about what’s in the eggs as they do about finding them. Which is, of course, awesome.

Do you have plans for Easter? Is there anything you do to try to make it a little greener? If you don’t have kids, do you hide eggs anyways because it’s just fun? ;)

And don’t worry, I’ll be sure to let you know how our adventures in natural egg dyeing go!

And yes, the photos are from '06, but they're my fave!

And The Laundry Tree Winner Is...

This was probably one of my favorite reviews, is that weird? I bet that no one who does laundry actually enjoys it, at least I don't. So finding something that works really well, needs less steps (no added fabric softener) and is truly (in my opinion) green just makes me all kinds of happy. And it looks like a few of you felt the same way too.

Ok, so onto the winner.

Dylan helped today, he made sure that he wasn't looking. Or maybe he just wanted to keep watching the show.

And the lucky winner is....



#21, Ecocheapo, yay!

Congratulations Ecocheapo! Thanks so much to LaundryTree for hosting this great giveaway and to everyone who entered!

There's still time to enter the STAY VOCAL Love Mother Earth's Body tee and look for an new giveaway this Thursday!

What Happened To Last Week?!

Oy. That pretty much sums up last week.

Being a stay-at-home mom my days are generally not too hard to balance. I can usually fit in errands, blogging and helping at the boys’ school without too much difficulty. That, however, was not the case last week.

Every day was so packed with activities I was hardly on my computer at all. I did get a couple giveaways up (soapnuts, STAY VOCAL tee) and a post about my dislike of bottled water. But there was so much more that I wanted to do.

Field trip to San Francisco on Friday

Such is life though I suppose. I just feel like my green meter is a little on the low side and I wanted to bring it back up again.

And of course, the boys’ are on spring break this week so who knows what we’ll be doing. It is supposed to rain all week so we probably won’t be going anywhere. Now that will probably be good for getting some writing in, but will probably not be so good for the nerves.

So here’s what I’m hoping to get done this week:

• Greening up Easter
  
• Companion gardening
  
• A giveaway (Thursday for sure)
  
• And another review

I’m pretty excited about all the things I’m going to write about and I should have the time to do it. So I’m thinking there will be a lot up this week and my green will once again be flowing.

Does that ever happen to you, so many things you want to do but just not enough time? That’s kind of like asking do you breathe every day, isn’t it? ;)

Now that I've said all that and jinxed myself, stay tuned and wish me luck! ;)

Don’t forget to enter the soapnuts started kit giveaway from Laundry Tree; today’s the last day. And then go enter the giveaway from STAY VOCAL for a limited edition Love Mother Earth’s Body Already tee.

STAY VOCAL Loves Mother Earth's Body, Do You? {Giveaway}

You know I’m a big fan of STAY VOCAL (I’ve got 4 shirts, lots of bags and I’m making hankies with them) so when I was asked to do a giveaway for one of their brand new designs, you know I said yes!

STAY VOCAL is making a limited edition reuse tee called Love Mother Earth’s Body Already. Yeah it’s a long name, but it’s a pretty cool shirt. The artwork is by Rachel Caldwell and there will be a maximum of 200 of these shirts printed.

I just love this print! I can't tell you why, there's just something about it that makes me feel good.

All of the designs will be printed on the reverse side of brand new shirts that otherwise would have been destroyed. Can you believe that companies actually destroy shirts that they can’t sell?! It’s crazy!

As much as I love organic cotton or made from recycled material, you really can’t beat reused.

These shirts are all being done by pre-order until April 4th and only the number of shirts ordered will be made. This way there’s no chance of having unbought shirts lying around, that would just be wasteful and ridiculous.

This design was chosen for April because of Earth Day. STAY VOCAL lives and breathes the sentiment that “every day should be Earth Day” and would like to help us all remember it as well.

Oh and when you order the shirt, you are gonna love what they're shipped in!

Ok, onto the giveaway! This giveaway is for 1 Love Mother Earth’s Body Already shirt for 1 lucky reader and is open to USA and Canadian residents. Yay!


For the main entry go to STAY VOCAL and leave a comment here telling me what your favorite shirt is or go to the STAY VOCAL news section and tell me something interesting you found there.

As always there are additional ways you can enter:

• Follow @easyecotogo on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Follow @stayvocal on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Write a blog about the contest or email 3 friends & cc me on the email easyecotogo at gmail.com (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)
  
• Tweet about the contest (I love Mother Earth's body! A tee-tastic #giveaway from @stayvocal & @easyecotogo http://bit.ly/9BQDhi) (1 entry, can be done once a day. Please leave a comment for each tweet)
  
• Follow my blog in Google Friend (1 entry)
  
• Subscribe by email or RSS to Easy Eco To Go (2 entries, leave 2 comments)
  
• Add my button to your blog (leave your site with your comment so I can stop by and say hi!) (2 entries, please leave 2 comments)
  
• Add my blog to your blogroll (1 entry)

Separate comments must be left here for each additional entry!

Also, please include your email with comments or if you’d rather, after you leave your main entry comment, email me at easyecotogo(at)gmail(dot)com so I will have a way of contacting you if you win. You will have 48 hours after I contact you to send me your info or else I will choose another winner.

The contest will run from Wednesday March 24, 2010 thru Thursday April 1, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST.

And as always the boys will help me pick a winner which will be announced Friday the 2nd.

Springtastic! - (Mostly) Wordless Wednesday

Have I mentioned I love Spring? I swear as soon as spring started the weather changed and I couldn't be happier about it.

Monday was a minimum day and just beautiful so the boys and I took a walk to Gold Bug Mine which is just around the corner from us.

They thoroughly enjoyed hiking....



Clowning around....



And getting serious about nature. ;)



Wordless Wednesday

Reusable Water Bottles For All!

So you all know I'm a big fan of reusable water bottles and home water filters. I think one of the craziest things you can do is pay $2 for something that costs pennies from your tap.

I've written 1, 2 posts on why I think bottled water is bad; a post on the cost benefits of filtered tap water and 1 about water in general.

I came across this video called the Story of Bottled Water yesterday (World Water Day) and I absolutely loved it. It's from the same people who brought us The Story of Stuff.

If you still aren't convinced that bottled water is really no better than tap water and just a huge waste of money, watch this 8 minute video.

If you, like me, have already come over to the tap water side, watch it anyways, you'll just enjoy it. ;)

Can't Get More Green Than Dried Fruit {Giveaway & Review}

So remember when I wrote about laundry detergent alternatives a little while ago? Well I recently heard that the term “derived from coconut oil” is a fancy way of saying “now it’s really a chemical”. This article goes into more detail on that.

Great, so the detergent I was all excited about isn’t really all that great. Well, there were other things that I found so maybe I should revisit them.

One of then was soapnuts. Now as far as I can tell there really isn’t anything fake about them. Soapnuts are a dried fruit, that’s it.

Soapnuts are supposed to be great for people with allergies and skin conditions like eczema, are biodegradable, are antimicrobial and low sudsing, which makes them great for HE machines (that’s what we have).

I also mentioned trying them once before and not having the best of luck. But seeing as I’m too lazy to make my own laundry soap, it seemed like a good idea to give them another try. Hehe

So the best thing to do, I thought, was to go with a different brand then I tried the first time. I found out about LaundryTree online and really liked their site.

They have different package sizes you can buy from trial sizes to stocking up, there’s lots of info about soapnuts, how to use them, how to tell good ones from bad ones and other cleaning uses for them.

I also really liked that you can get scented oils that you can add to your wash, my mom’s a big fan of scented laundry.

So I contacted LaundryTree about their soapnuts and they sent me their starter kit, which contains a 100-gram bag of soapnuts, wash bags (to put the soapnuts in for washing), a 1oz bottle of essential oil (I chose the Energy Blend) and an extra sample bag for you to give a friend to try.

>

LaundryTree says that’s enough to wash about 40 loads (not including the sample bag I would think). Not bad, I thought.

Seeing as I have 2 boys and a husband, I always have lots of laundry to do, so I was ready to put those babies to work as soon as they came. So I opened up the kit and checked the back of the bag to see how many I would need and how to use them. It said that all you need to do is put 3-5 soapnuts in a bag and toss into the machine…unless you want to was on cold. Well you know I wash (almost) everything in cold so I went to LaundryTree’s site to see what I needed to do to wash them with cold water.

It turns out I had to make soapnut soak which is very easy but takes a full night, so no laundry the first day. This oddly saddened me.



So now that I had my soapnut soak ready I was set to go. The directions say to use between ¼ and ½ cups of soak per load. I split the difference and went with 1/3 cup. Now, LaundryTree also says that soapnuts don’t require additional fabric softener. Hmmm….now I’m starting to get skeptical. But I want to be fair and try them the way they are intended to be used.

So I pour my soak into the detergent dispenser, add a couple drops of oil and hope for the best.

Now before I say anything else I think I should make it very clear that I like soft clothes. I hate crunchy towels with a passion and would never wear a stiff shirt. And don’t even get me started on static! *shiver*

With that being said, I pulled the first load out of the dryer, my husband’s work clothes and a couple of my shirts, just in case and……. they were soft without a bit of static to be found!

It was incredible, jeans, soft; towels, soft; everything, soft! So not only are soapnuts really natural, by using them I no longer need any kind of extra fabric softener. Love!

I did 5 loads of laundry and have at least 5 loads left with the soak I made. I tell you right now, I will never use anything else, I love these so much, I don’t even have words.

Actually I have the perfect word: Giveaway!

That’s right; LaundryTree is giving one (very) lucky reader a SoapNut starter kit!

For the main entry go to LaundryTree and leave a comment here telling me one thing you learned about their soapnuts.

As always there are additional ways you can enter:

• Follow @easyecotogo on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Follow LaundryTree on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Write a blog about the contest or email 3 friends & cc me on the email easyecotogo at gmail.com (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)
  
• Tweet about the contest (Get naturally clean with @LaundryTree & @easyecotogo! http://bit.ly/9N1Wcg #giveaway) (1 entry, can be done once a day. Please leave a comment for each tweet)
  
• Follow my blog in Google Friend (1 entry)
  
• Subscribe to Easy Eco To Go (2 entries, leave 2 comments)
  
• Add my button to your blog (leave your site with your comment so I can stop by and say hi!) (2 entries, please leave 2 comments)
  
• Add my blog to your blogroll (1 entry)

Separate comments must be left here for each additional entry!

Also, please include your email with comments or if you’d rather, after you leave your main entry comment, email me at easyecotogo(at)gmail(dot)com so I will have a way of contacting you if you win. You will have 48 hours after I contact you to send me your info or else I will choose another winner.

The contest will run from Monday March 22, 2010 thru Monday March 29, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST. Sorry, but the contest is only open to US residents.

And as always the boys will help me pick a winner which will be announced Tuesday the 30th.

Spring Time At The Market

It’s the second day of spring and off to the farmers market we went. Todd and I have been trying to go most weeks since we found out that there is a year round market in Sacramento. Usually we leave the boys with my mom so we can pretend we’re on a date while we shop. Ah, the dates of parents.

But as happens in life, we haven’t made it there in a couple of weeks. So since the weather was so nice today we decided to make the time and go. This week the boys came with us because my mom’s out of town at a line dancing get together.

The boys were happy they came since they got goodies. In a place full of fresh fruits and veggies, they went with a cinnamon roll and soft pretzel naturally.

They did break into the strawberries once they were done so I guess that’s something.

I loaded up on spinach for smoothies, avocados for guac and chocolate mousse and dates for (pitless) caramel nut bites. Plus lettuce, mushrooms, apples, kiwis and the weirdest looking tomatoes I’ve ever seen.



There was tons of asparagus there too but I had just stocked up at the store so I passed at the market. I also usually get carrots but had just bought those too.

I try and get at least one new thing each time we go. The last time I got brussel sprouts and found that I do not in fact like brussel sprouts. *shiver*

I also saw lots of veggies like, lettuce, spinach and herbs for sale to grow at home. Which got me thinking, even though we're doing a garden at my Grandparents I'd really like to grow some things here. My Grandma has a container that would be perfect for growing lettuce and spinach in so I think I'm definitely going to do that.

So that was our trip to the farmers market. What’s your favorite thing to get at the market? Do you have a year round one near you or do you have to wait until the summer markets start?

I Love Spring!

Today is the first day of spring. I love spring; it is definitely my favorite season. The weather starts to warm up (I do not enjoy being cold as everyone who has ever met me can tell you) and the days stay light longer (means I can keep the lights off even longer).

The start of spring also means the start of gardens. We made a small attempt at gardening at our old house and I really wanted to do more this year. The problem I was running into this year was that we rent our house, have dogs and lots of deer, so I wasn’t really sure how to make it work.

I thought about doing containers but they’d have to be tall enough that the dogs couldn’t “water” them. Containers that size are not cheap so I wasn’t really excited about going that route.

I had talked about this with my Grandma and she told me that she would happily share her two raised bed gardens with me to plant in. This sounded great to me and I knew Dylan & Tyler would enjoy a real garden as well.

So today we went up to visit my Grandparents and my Grandma said that she had just read that this is the perfect weekend, since it’s started warming up, to get the soil ready for planting.

She said that we needed to turn the soil and add fertilizer and that in two weeks we could start planting. Aside from the fact that neither Todd nor I were dressed for gardening, this sounded like a plan.



So out we went to get the gardens ready for planting.



I was really happy that boys wanted to help out. I’m really hoping that by growing our own vegetables the boys will be more likely to try them. Tyler looks at me like I’m crazy when I say that, but hey, I can dream.



Grandma and I decided that next Saturday we’ll go to a local nursery (they’re rumored to have heirloom tomatoes) and pick out our veggies.

We’re starting with lettuce, carrots and tomatoes and then later in April we’ll add peas and strawberries.

I’m actually really glad that we’ll be doing the garden at my Grandparents house because it means getting some great tips and hopefully it will also mean that the garden has a better chance of surviving. My heart may be green, but my thumb, not so much.

The thing is, there's no better way to know where your food comes from or how it's grown then to grow it yourself. Plus, you can't get much more local then your own backyard, or your Grandparents as the case may be.



I’m hoping that this will be the start of a great new tradition and I cannot wait to get planting!

Do you have a garden, what do you grow? Are you starting one this year, what do you plan on growing?

Do you have any tips for me, I’d love to hear what worked, and didn’t work, for you!

Nothing's Better Than Dessert For Lunch

So you know that I’ve given up meat and that I’m adding more raw foods into my diet.

Well I was a little worried about this initially seeing as I’m also gluten, corn and soy free for allergy reasons.

So now that I’ve taken all those things out what the heck am I left with to eat?

Dessert, that’s what, especially chocolate!

I’ve come down with a total blog crush for Averie’s blog Loves Veggies and Yoga. She has the most amazing dessert recipes and because they’re made with healthy foods the only thing “dessert” about them is the taste.

So far I’ve made 4 of her treats, 3 of which were chocolate, and I only injured myself once. Yeah, you read that right.

My first treat was the previously mentioned chia seed pudding. It was so good and so easy I just had to try another one.

My next attempt was the vegan chocolate mousse. This one was a little more complex since it required a blender. You could probably make this without one but I don’t think it would come out as smooth and creamy. Oh, and this is the one I injured myself making.

How could I possibly hurt myself making chocolate mousse you ask? Well the main ingredient, besides chocolate, is avocados. You can’t taste the avocado after you mix in the chocolate (or raw cacao like I did), I swear! However getting those pits out can be a pain, literally. I know, I’m special.



Oh, and I managed to splatter it across my cupboards. Luckily it was really good and the whole thing was just too funny to be upset about it.



After trying to lop my thumb off I thought I’d go back to no-sharp-tools-required recipes so I chose the raw vegan caramel nut bites. These require all of 3 ingredients, dates, pine nuts (really a seed), vanilla and a blender. What could be easier right? Well that’s what I thought, right until I put the dates in the blender and it made this crazy, crunching noise. It turns out dates have pits. Who knew, well, it turns out everyone but me. So then I got to pick ground up pits out of my caramel nut bites. Fun. Hmmm...do you see a pattern here?

Now considering these don’t have any chocolate, they are really good! Averie adds nut butter to hers so I thought I would give it try too. I used cashew butter because it’s the only nut butter I can eat. The caramel bites mixed with cashew butter were just ridiculously good.



And finally I gave the raw vegan chocolate coconut oil bars a go. I know what you’re thinking, chocolate and coconut how could I not have started with these first?

Once again these are ridiculously easy; chocolate (raw cacao) powder, coconut oil, agave, vanilla, mix, freeze, done. I used silicone heart cups to freeze them in so they would be easy to remove and because I heart chocolate. Sorry, I just can't help myself sometimes.



Why do I use raw cacao? Raw cacao is full of antioxidants, essential minerals like magnesium and neurotransmitters like serotonin and endorphins. So by using cacao powder I get the yummy taste of chocolate with lots of health benefits that actually make it good for me.

Here's my main criteria for trying a recipe, since as you may have figured, I am no master in the kitchen; it has to be easy. Meat is pretty easy to make, it comes in many pre-made varieties (sorry, I think I heard some of you gag) so I need easy, healthy, filling and most importantly, delicious foods to take it's place. These fill those requirements for me so I've been very happy.

And in case you're wondering, the caramel bites and vegan chocolate mousse have often been the main part of my lunch. And any time I have dessert for lunch (or dinner) I’m a happy little greenie.

Which reminds me, I need to make more caramel bites, minus the pits this time. ;)

I'd love to know if you decide to make any of these and even better, if you have some super easy recipes to add. Preferably ones that don't involve knives. ;)

The Good, The Bad & The Green - Wordless Wednesday

What could Alex (STAY VOCAL), the boys and I be doing?

Wordless Wednesday

And The Project GreenBag Winner Is....

I love that so many people wanted to win a reusable bag! Yay reusable!

Both boys helped choose the winner of the Project GreenBag Recycle bag and even got a little help from Bud. ;)

And the winner is….



#37, Vegan Valerie!

Congrats Valerie, the boys’ couldn’t be happier for you! And of course a big thanks to Project GreenBag for hosting this giveaway and to everyone who entered!

Strep Throat, T-Shirt Hankies And A Little Giveaway

Ok, so it’s Monday and lately Monday’s have meant giveaways.

However, there’s a lot going on around here right now and trying to do a big review/giveaway with everything else just wasn’t in the cards.

Friday I took Dylan to the doctor because he had a rash that looked like a heat rash on most of his body. It turned out to be strep throat, which apparently can cause a body rash. Fun.

Then Alex (STAY VOCAL) came up to deliver the t-shirt hankies so I could get them finished and mailed to the lovelies who ordered them. Now that was fun; we shot some great pics and ridiculous videos. So we’re both working hard on getting these totally desirable hankies out. We’re also trying to come up with a better name then the current, extremely long Easy Eco To Go/STAY VOCAL hankies. Suggestions are more then welcome!

Now with all that being said I do have a little somethin’, somethin’ to giveaway today.

Not long ago I was sent some coupon booklets from Mambo Sprouts which is an online site about basically making your grocery shopping a little (or a lot) greener. They’ve got e-coupons, recipes, giveaways and lots more.

Now, I’m generally not a big coupon person only because I can never find coupons for the foods I buy. So when I got the Mambo Sprouts coupon book and found things like almond butter, rice pasta and Equal Exchange coffee I was stoked!

Mambo Sprouts sent me 3 coupon books so I’m giving away 2 of them to 2 of you!

Entering this giveaway couldn’t be easier, just leave a comment about what green product you wish they had coupons for.

As always there are additional ways you can enter:

• Follow @easyecotogo on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Follow Mambo Sprouts on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Write a blog about the contest/blogiversary or email 3 friends & cc me on the email easyecotogo at gmail.com (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)
  
• Tweet about the contest (Yay, coupons for organic goodies from @easyecotogo! http://bit.ly/a9ssZu #giveaway) (1 entry, can be done once a day. Please leave a comment for each tweet)
  
• Follow my blog in Google Friend (1 entry)
  
• Subscribe to Easy Eco To Go (2 entries, leave 2 comments)
  
• Add my blog to your blogroll (1 entry)
  
• Add my button to your blog (leave your site with your comment so I can stop by and say hi!) (2 entries, please leave 2 comments)

Separate comments must be left here for each additional entry!

Also, please include your email with comments or if you’d rather, after you leave your main entry comment, email me at easyecotogo(at)gmail(dot)com so I will have a way of contacting you if you win. You will have 48 hours after I contact you to send me your info or else I will choose another winner.

The contest will run from Monday March 15, 2010 thru Monday March 22, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST. Sorry, but the contest is only open to US residents.

And as always the boys will help me pick the winners which will be announced Tuesday the 22nd.

And don’t forget you can still enter to win an amazing Recycle bag from Project GreenBag.

Earth Hour = People Power

Shortly after starting this blog last year I heard about an event called Earth Hour. Earth Hour started in 2007 and happens every March (this year it’s the 27th). For one hour starting at 8:30 local time you turn off all your lights, TV’s and computers.

For one hour millions of people around the world will be doing one small act to say that something needs to be done about climate change.

The Earth Hour web site puts it this way: The movement symbolizes that by working together, each of us can make a positive impact in this fight, protecting our future and that of future generations.

You know I’m all about little changes so last year I was all about participating. So for 1 hour we turned everything off. This was an especially big deal for our computer loving family. The boys weren’t too sure about it at first and then I got the board games out.

We sat around the kitchen table and played board games by candlelight. Tyler and Dylan loved it. When the hour was up and I told the boys it was time to get ready for bed Dylan told me that he wanted to dark night again the next night too. And then asked to do it every night for a week.

I don’t know if Earth Hour will change the world but I know it did have an impact on me. I’ve always been super conscious about turning lights off when I leave a room (and making sure everyone else does too!). After participating in Earth Hour I made more of an effort to not turn lights on during the day. I mean, isn’t that what we have windows for anyways?

If every person left the lights off during the day (even over cast days), just imagine how much electricity we would save and how much less fossil fuels we would consume.
Because the less we use, the less we consume.

So you may have guessed that once again we will be participating in Earth Hour or Dark Night, depending on whom you ask. We’ll light candles and play games and make our little voices heard, if even for just an hour.



If you want to learn more go to My Earth Hour.

Did you participate last year? Will you this year?

You Know You Want One! - Wordless Wednesday & Giveaway

That would be the lovely Project GreenBag that you could win in this weeks giveaway.

I love this one because it's simple, classic and anyone can carry it.

So just click on the photo and be swept away to this weeks stylishly ruesable giveaway.


Wordless Wednesday

And The TerraCycle Winner Is....

Wow, you guys have done some great stuff this last year! I loved reading all the changes you’ve made, big and small. Thanks so much for sharing and especially for reading along about my families green changes.

So this was another one of those totally nutty mornings, slept in late, had to take Tyler to the Orthodontist before school, helped with the spring fundraiser at school and then to the store to stock up on brown rice tortillas (me) and razors (Todd). Oh yeah, and I’m having computer issues, good times.

Well as exciting as that was, onto the great part of my day....announcing the winner of the awesome TerraCycle gift pack!

Seeing as I didn’t get this done before the boys left this morning it was once again up to the dogs and me to pick a number out of the box.

The dogs probably would have been more helpful if they hadn’t been holding me down.

And after all that, the winner is…..




#54, Susan! Yay!

Congratulations Susan! Thank you so much to TerraCycle for hosting this awesome Blogiversary giveaway and thanks to everyone who enter and shared their greenness with us!

And don't forget to stop by TerraCycle's Facebook fan page to see who won the juice pouch prize pack!

That Bag May Not Be As Green As You Think {Giveaway}

Ah, the reusable bag, one of the first changes I made on my road to greenness. To me, it was a small change that could have a huge impact. And to help you along Project GreenBag is having a giveaway for one of their awesome bags, but more on that later. hehe

First, did you know...

…that each year, approximately 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide. That’s over one million bags per minute.

…that the petroleum used to make only 14 plastic bags could drive a car 1 mile.

So why not just use paper bags instead? Well, they have just as high of an environmental cost and may actually be worse then plastic:

It takes 91% less energy to recycle a pound of plastic than it takes to recycle a pound of paper.

Paper sacks generate 70% more air and 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

The worst part is that just a tiny percentage of those plastic bags are recycled; 10-15% of paper bags and 1-3% of plastic bags being recycled.

However, not all reusable bags are created equally. Those nylon, polyester or polypropylene bags are not good for the environment. For one, they’re made using oil, a non-renewable resource that kicks off some pretty funky chemicals into the air during production.

Now I admit (and you already know if you’ve been reading my blog for a while) that when I started my reusable bags journey I started with the above mentioned not-so-green bags.

I have however, started switching over to greener reusable bags, like the previously mentioned Green Eyed Monster bags, as well as ones made right here in California in San Francisco by Project GreenBag.

The bags from Project GreenBag are made from 100% organic cotton, use eco friendly inks and are sweatshop free. And did I mention made here in Cali, oh I guess I did. It just deserves to be said twice. ;)

I bought two of their bags, Clean Energy and San Francisco, some time back and absolutely love them.



They’re a great size, sturdy and too cool looking! Plus since they’re cotton they’re also super easy to clean, just toss them in the washer and dryer.

Besides their awesome bags, I also love all the great info that they have on their blog (that’s where all the plastic, paper, oil-made bags info came from). And on top of that they also use minimal shipping and never uses any plastic, which you know makes me happy!

Right now you can stop by the Project GreenBag site and tell them what type of bag you would like to see them make next. Wouldn’t you love to see your green idea on an awesome waste reducing, reusable bag?

If you'd like to check the info out yourself, here are the links for the plastic bags info and the paper bags info.

Ok, so onto the giveaway, Project GreenBag is giving away one Recycle bag to one lucky reader. Yay!

For the main entry go to Project GreenBag and leave a comment here telling me one thing you learned about them.


As always there are additional ways you can enter:

• Follow @easyecotogo on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Follow Project GreenBag on Twitter and leave your @name (1 entry)
  
• Write a blog about the contest/blogiversary or email 3 friends & cc me on the email easyecotogo at gmail.com (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)
  
• Tweet about the contest (Reuse in style with a fabulous #giveaway from @ProjectGreenBag & @easyecotogo! http://bit.ly/98eoeC) (1 entry, can be done once a day. Please leave a comment for each tweet)
  
• Follow my blog in Google Friend (1 entry)
  
• Subscribe to Easy Eco To Go (2 entries, leave 2 comments)
  

Add my button to your blog (leave your site with your comment so I can stop by and say hi!) (3 entries, please leave 3 comments)

Separate comments must be left here for each additional entry!

Also, please include your email with comments or if you’d rather, after you leave your main entry comment, email me at easyecotogo(at)gmail(dot)com so I will have a way of contacting you if you win. You will have 48 hours after I contact you to send me your info or else I will choose another winner.

The contest will run from Monday March 8, 2010 thru Monday March 15, 2010 at 11:59 pm PST. Sorry, but the contest is only open to US residents.

And as always the boys will help me pick a winner which will be announced Tuesday the 16th.

Viva La Revolution!

So I’ve been seeing these tweets for Food Revolution with Jamie Oliver for a while now but haven’t really paid much attention to them. Then I saw I post on Recycle Your Day where Leslie has a clip from the t.v. show (I didn’t even know it was a t.v. show) and in the clip Jamie is asking first graders if they know the names of different vegetables are. They don't by the way.

Seeing that one got me curious, so I went over to YouTube to see what else I could find, and I also googled it, of course.

It looks to be show about making better food choices, what food really should't be served in schools and getting the whole family involved in meals.

I went to see Food Inc and I watched The World According to Monsanto online. While both of these movies, like Food Revolution, are primarily about food, I think they are also very much about the planet.

For me, going green and trying to keep the planet healthy led to learning more about food which led to getting myself, and my family, more healthy. So maybe if people start in the other direction, getting themselves healthy, it will lead them to want to get the planet healthy as well.

Well that’s my hope anyways.

And besides, any revolution that involves spontaneous dancing can't be wrong, right?

Happiness Is At Hand - Wordless Wednesy

Fine, it's not a new picture, but I'm dang excited about these hankies! You know you want some, just click on the photo and be swept away by hanky happiness.

Wordless Wednesday

Reducing Waste In A Disposable World – Easy Eco To Go/ Stay Vocal Hankies

So you may recall that back during Ditch the Disposables I did something that I never thought I would do and gave up facial tissue for reusable hankies. Why was this so un-thinkable? Well at the time when I thought about hankies I thought of the big bandanna sized ones that after being used would be stuck into a back pocket to be used again, a la my dad and brother. What’s so wrong with that you ask? Well, how should I put this, oh I know; THEY’RE COVERED IN SNOT, that’s what’s wrong with it!

So instead, we (my mom) made them small so they were really only good for one use, which was perfect for me. And it turned out a lot of people really liked the idea of single use hankies as well. I got quite a few questions asking if we planned on selling them. At the time the answer was maybe, but I really didn’t know how to go about selling them.

Well lucky for me, one of the people who loved them was Alex from STAY VOCAL and he knows a lot about how to sell.

Alex came up with the idea to make hankies that combine both of our logos that would be made from rescued t-shirts. Now, these aren’t shirts that are made from recycled materials and then turned into hankies. They’re shirts that would have been destroyed by companies or thrown out and ended up in landfills. So better then recycled, they’re reused.

I was so thrilled that Alex thought me of to do this project with. One of my unspoken hopes with Easy Eco To Go was to make a great reusable product. I had originally thought of trying to make bags, but everyone is doing that. ;) But how many cool hankies have you seen out there?

These awesome hankies will have our logos on one side and be blank on the ‘blowing’ side. The edges will also be hemmed down (by me, I swear!) so that you can get many, many uses out of them and will be the perfect size for onetime use. I keep a basket on the dryer that we all toss them into after they’ve been used and then I just toss them in with whatever load I happen to be washing.

Now the hankies don’t have to used solely for blowing, they’d also be great for small messes around the house or out on the road.

You can find these lovely hankies over at STAY VOCAL for $3 each or if you buy 4 or more $2.50 each. Because really, who needs 1 hanky?

The hankies will be printed by STAY VOCAL and sewn and shipped by yours truly. They’re currently listed as for pre-sale right now and will be shipped out next week.

So needless to say, I’m pretty excited about this new chapter for Easy Eco To Go and I want to thank all my greenalicious readers for taking this journey with me.

We're only making 40 for our first test run to see how they'll do. Wouldn't it be cool if they all sold today?

So please support my dream of reducing waste with Easy Eco To Go/Stay Vocal emblazoned hankies! Too much? hehe

And The Green Eyed Monster Bag Winner Is......

Ah, and so ends another giveaway. But before we get to the winner, I have some pretty cool news. Green Eyed Monster is offering Easy Eco To Go readers 50% off all their tote bags! All you have to do is load your shopping cart up and enter ‘easyeco’ in the discount box. That’s so awesome! Now you know I’ll be taking advantage of this offer and I promise to try to leave a few bags for you guys…maybe. Hehe. The discount is good until Earth Day, April 22nd.

Oh, and a little FYI; the graphic designer and artist behind the Ponder Monster bag and Green Eyed Monster logo got a shout on Dooce.com's Daily Style section last week.

Ok, so now onto the winner of the Ponder Monster bag.

Today it was just Dylan helping out and we had some serious photo editing complications, hence the one photo sent from my iPhone. Ah life.

Anyways, after much coaxing I got him to keep his eyes closed while he stuck his hand in the box.

And the number he chose was…..

29 which belongs to Heavenly Savings, yay!

Congratulations Heavenly! Thanks so much to Green Eyed Monster for hosting this giveaway and the awesome 50% discount code (easyeco)! And of course thanks to all of you who entered.

Don’t forget to enter the Awesome Blogiversary giveaway hosted by TerraCycle, it’s a big one!