from Roots come in lots of fun color combos. 100% of proceeds go to the Stop Global Warming Fund.

Junk mail wastes tons and tons of paper each year. If you find that you’re getting too many catalogs, credit card offers or other junk mail, take some time to resolve the problem.

• Call mail order companies and ask them to remove your name from their list. If you like receiving catalogs, check to make sure you’re not getting multiples.
• Opt-out of credit card offers. Call the toll free number,1-888-5OPTOUT and request to have your name removed from the credit card offer lists for 5 years or permanently.
• Opt-out of Magazine Offers by emailing optout@abacus-us.com with your name and mailing address.
• Opt-out of generic sales junk mail, by completing this form with the Direct Marketing Association. There is a $1 fee for this “service”. https://www.dmaconsumers.org/onlineform.php. If you don’t feel comfortable giving your credit card online, you can print and mail this form (along with a $1 check or money order): https://www.dmaconsumers.org/mailform.php

Too busy to do all of that yourself? 41pounds.org can do it for you. The service costs $41 (according to their website, more than 1/3 of that is donated to an environmental charity) and will last for five years. Honestly, I’m not sure why their service would be any better than paying the DMA $1 and donating the money yourself, but that’s your choice!

Take some time today to fix leaky faucets, replace lightbulbs with energy efficient versions, and educate your kids about turning off lights to conserve energy. Every little bit helps!

Kiwi Magazine is dedicated to helping families live organic, earth-friendly lives. Their website has recipes, crafts, and even a section just for kids. Check it out!

Today we’ll dedicate MoreThanMommy to green practices and awareness. Proceeds today (7/7/07) from any purchases at Barefoot Books or BabyCrazy will go towards environmental efforts.

Please share your favorite green practices in our comments and stop back throughout the day for mini green updates!

Live earth has started… don’t miss the show!

If you’re a supporter of environmental efforts and you like a great concert, check out Live Earth on 7/7/07. You can watch the concerts on streaming video.

In the meantime, check out the cute Barefoot Books ecard below. It’s a snippet from our new book, Whole World.

Apparently it was a bad winter in New England for swimming pools. Have no idea what that means? I’ll tell you. It’s supposed to snow before it gets really cold. The snow insulates the ground and keeps the ground from getting especially cold. If it doesn’t snow early enough, the ground gets cold and creates frost heaves. The frost heaves rise up and attack your pool liner. Your pool liner tears and pours gallons upon gallons of murky, smelly, greenish water into your yard. The water rises up, finds a crack in an old window that doesn’t ever even see daylight, and pours into your recently remodeled basement. Your husband assumes that the water is due to melting snow, so the two of you (note:one of you is pregnant) spend half the night mopping it up, digging a trench, and trying to seal the aforementioned window. Meanwhile, the missing water in the pool is no longer available to hold up the pool cover which is heavily encrusted with ice (which I insisted would be a problem last fall and which my husband insisted wouldn’t). The pool cover pulls down on the pool walls. Since they no longer have water to hold them up, they buckle and the whole less-than-two-years-old-multi-thousand-dollar-pool collapses.

Here’s another lesson. Pool warranties don’t cover damage due to ice. Oh, and another. Insurance companies (at least the one we bleed money to) also don’t cover damage due to ice. How do they know the damage was caused by ice if no one has come out to see the pool? Good question. Apparently, mentioning “ice” in a conversation with your insurance agent is enough to remove any chance that you’ll see a penny from them.

After much debate, we bought a pool from a different company. If you’re in Massachusetts or New Hampshire and looking for a pool company, drop me a note. I want to tell you one specific company to avoid (for more reasons than a collapsed pool).

Anyway, the pool was installed last weekend and I can’t wait to swim., First we have to get the pump up and running before the mosquitos permanently take up residence in our back yard. Hopefully between Little Guy and Little Gal, I’ll have a moment to take a dip. And hopefully, this winter is a better one for swimming pools.

You may at times feel that my blog is all over the place and ask yourself if one person can possibly have so many interests. The fact is that I do have more interests than the average person, so I thought I’d take a moment to prove it to you. If this is too much info for you, don’t read on!

Domestically speaking, I’m a mother, a wife and home owner. I am owned by two cats.

My formal education consists of a B.A. in Anthropology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (and with a minor in Computer Science – I also attended Stevens Institute of Technology). I have my M.Ed. in Technology in Education from Lesley University.

My hobbies and interests are varied. I love playing with my kids, singing with them, and just watching them grow and learn. I enjoy all manner of paper arts – papermaking, bookbinding, marbling, rubber stamping, collage, and I could go on and on. I dabble in some other things as well (jewelry, clay, digital artwork, . I read, read, read… some of my favorite authors include Laurell K. Hamilton, Rumer Godden, Maya Angelou, J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Diane Dreher, Erich Segal, Shel Silverstein, and Ambrose Bierce. Jennifer Weiner, and Pearl Cleage. Basically, I’ll read chick-lit, horror, romance, sci-fi/fantasy, self-help, business, historical, instructional, general fiction (adult and young adult), and probably some other things I can’t think of. I’m a TV addict, and I enjoy catching a movie now and again. I love traveling, but don’t do it much as I got a bit burnt out in my last job (oh, yeah, and now I’m a MOM). I like surfing the web and videogames, as well as board games. I write, do projects around the house, bake, hang out with friends, and am a champion napper.

I am currently a writer with 80108 Media and Suite 101, and I am also a sales rep for BabyCrazy (toys and gear for kids from birth through pre-school) and Barefoot Books. I mystery shop when the mood strikes me and I have some other projects in the works.

In past lives I worked in a video store, National Park bookstore, and greeting card shop. I worked with a high-end front-projection TV company, for Exxon (ack), a non-profit database analysis company, Peace Games (a violence prevention/safe school non-profit), and the Museum of Science in Boston. I also did a year of AmeriCorps with the NCCC in Aberdeen. I have worked and volunteered with young people in various settings from after-school, to in-school tutoring, to mentoring. I have written and managed grants, managed volunteers and staff, designed HR policies, planned and run training sessions, conferences, and retreats for adults and teens, designed an organizational technology plan, done some software coding, and more. I love having work to do that’s varied and ever-evolving. I do not handle boredom well!

Since this is more than you could ever want to know, I’ll stop here. If something interests you and you’d like to know more about it, give me a shout!