Comments melanie has made

  • Great ideas!

    The FlyLady idea is very cool -my mom does it and she loves it, she's had a lot of success with it - without all the guilt. ;)  The thing is, I think, not to get discouraged by how big their site is.  We don't have to start out all-encompassing - after all, this will be a spare time volunteer effort, at least for now.  At the moment, I think we could do a monthly newsletter, that way it's not too taxing on all of us busy moms, and then we could move to weekly once we really got swinging and got more volunteers.  Encouragement and support of small changes would be huge - I'm sure we all read the article about our environmental guilt, and that's not helping us any!  We need to feel good about we DO do, not bad about what we don't do - because you can't do it all, right?  Anyway, I'm so excited about this, and I can't wait to get started!  Now, what should we call it - and do ya'll want to start a yahoo group or something, to talk it over a bit more?  On Are greens overlooking a key constituency? posted 4 years, 6 months ago 40 Responses

  • oops!

    whoops, my email is: moosegirl55@yahoo.com  (please don't spam me LOL)On Are greens overlooking a key constituency? posted 4 years, 6 months ago 40 Responses

  • my board

    It's not an enviro board, just a mommy board.  If it's okay to post it, here's the link: http://www.mumsonthenet.co.uk  Mine's the What Makes the World Go Around board (but it's pretty crappy, I've half given up on it by now, sorry.)

    Sorry about the lack of paragraphs - I tend to be on here at work and so try to write FAST to get off fast. ;)  So I didn't bother with editing!

    And I LOVE the MAM idea, that's cute... now, who wants to really do that?  Somebody email me, I'm SO down with helping to start that group!!On Are greens overlooking a key constituency? posted 4 years, 6 months ago 40 Responses

  • I don't know about this battle

    It's sad, but I think a lot of mothers really have no idea how terrible some things are - blue ketchup, anyone?  They don't even stop to think, not even if you say "eeewww, that's really NOT good for you or your kid or the enviornment".  They don't want facts and they don't want healthy, they want easy and fun and kid-friendly.  They're not bad mothers, they love their children and care for their welfare, they just can't be bothered.  Besides, the environmental movement is a bunch of hippie weirdos, right?  I have a parenting website I post regularly on (yes, I'm a loser, I know it!!) and I moderate a board there on environmental issues.  I've tried everything under the sun to get these women interested, and I get a reply every once in a while to one of my posts.  Things that show me that no one read past the first paragraph, or maybe even the title.  They think it's cute that I'm so concerned, and I'm kind of the token outspoken pseudo-hippie, you know?  I think that the amount of work it will take to show mothers how detrimental these things really are is phenomenal, because they are not about to agree that maybe, in the future, all that Comet is probably going to come back and bite them on their butts.  It has to be that right now little Johnny is getting sick because the Comet coats the bathtub where he takes his bath.  And if there's not a direct link, it will be discounted.  We all know how tired and harried and frazzled mothers are.  Even enviro mothers get tired of trying all the time - imagine if you're not all that concerned how much you want to go out of your way to scrub with baking soda?   Heck, I admit it, we gave up on "natural" shampoo and we're washing with Pantene at my house.  I feel guilty as hell, but the natural stuff made my head itch, and it was the only natural one I could find.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's going to be a long uphill battle where you have to really scare the bejesus out of these mothers to get them to join in.  Drunk driving feels real and immediate, we all know so-and-so who died because of a drunk driver.  We don't all know someone who got mercury poisioning, and so we figure it happens to other people, sometimes, if it's even a real threat.  On Are greens overlooking a key constituency? posted 4 years, 7 months ago 40 Responses

  • I confess - I'm an awful environmentalist.

    The list is long, so this could take a while...
    1)I drink takeout coffee every weekday.  The coffee at work sucks, and all my travel mugs make my coffee taste funny.
    2)I run the water when I do dishes, and use lots of soap.  The person above who also does that is my new best friend, because it's nice to know another water-waster.
    3)I use plastic baggies.  I have a million plastic containers, but sometimes I run out, or sometimes baggies work better.  And then I throw them away.  We get plastic grocery bags, too, but I recycle those - which is surely a step up from just tossing them, but a few steps down from buying those cute little hemp bags or whatever.
    4)I drive a lot.  I can't help it, I live in a rural area with no public transportation.  And if I could afford it, I'd get a hybrid or biodiesel, but I can't so I have an awful gas-guzzling (but smallish) car.
    5)I work at a job where I have to a)waste paper by printing out useless paperwork to be briefly filed before tossing (and I don't think we recycle, even though I've protested), and b)have to often ship things 3-day air, or next-day air.

    There.  I'm glad to get it out.  I really do feel better now.  Thanks, Grist - now, how many hail marys is that?On What's your secret eco-sin? posted 4 years, 7 months ago 84 Responses

  • I confess - I'm an awful environmentalist.

    The list is long, so this could take a while...
    1)I drink takeout coffee every weekday.  The coffee at work sucks, and all my travel mugs make my coffee taste funny.
    2)I run the water when I do dishes, and use lots of soap.  The person above who also does that is my new best friend, because it's nice to know another water-waster.
    3)I use plastic baggies.  I have a million plastic containers, but sometimes I run out, or sometimes baggies work better.  And then I throw them away.  We get plastic grocery bags, too, but I recycle those - which is surely a step up from just tossing them, but a few steps down from buying those cute little hemp bags or whatever.
    4)I drive a lot.  I can't help it, I live in a rural area with no public transportation.  And if I could afford it, I'd get a hybrid or biodiesel, but I can't so I have an awful gas-guzzling (but smallish) car.
    5)I work at a job where I have to a)waste paper by printing out useless paperwork to be briefly filed before tossing (and I don't think we recycle, even though I've protested), and b)have to often ship things 3-day air, or next-day air.

    There.  I'm glad to get it out.  I really do feel better now.  Thanks, Grist - now, how many hail marys is that?On So tell us ... what's your dirty little environmental secret? posted 4 years, 7 months ago 84 Responses

  • Apparently, not so well

    Or Bush wouldn't have won.On How is environment going to play on Tuesday? posted 5 years ago 2 Responses

  • UGH!!!!

    This just makes me sick.  Those poor kids.On Pete Myers posted 5 years ago 5 Responses

  • It's so depressing

    I have moral values!! I am raising a 2 year old to have manners and morals - he says please and thank you, he doesn't hit, he is sweet and well-behaved (mostly)  But I'm pro-choice, I think gay marriage is a great idea, and I'm an atheist.  I wish that I could be myself and feel that other people (read: conservatives) considered me a good, moral person, even without god coming into play.  I think it's more about actions (being kind to others, having manners and respect) then about beliefs in so many ways.  It's better in my mind to be a truly good person than to be a pseudo-Christian who attends church and doesn't actually do anything he preaches. On Moral values posted 5 years ago 7 Responses