I hope everyone had an amazing Mother’s Day! We were lucky enough to spend most of the day outside, enjoying the beach and family. As my older daughter told me when I kissed her goodnight, “Every day should be Mother’s Day” (no really, she did!), I remind myself how my healthy, curious, enlightening children have become the best reason to help the planet, even through this little blog.
As many of my days wind down, I end up thinking about parenting, which eventually leads to thinking about writing and being green and on and on and on (insert smiley face here). I guess since I advocate for nature above all else, I talk to my kids a lot about planting trees, which leads me every time back to Eco-Libris, the green business that works with publishers, bookstores, even readers, to help the book industry balance out its paper use.
In April, Eco-Libris teamed up with Kedzie Press, an independent, “green” publisher that prints all books on post-consumer, chlorine-free paper, for Kedzie’s Million Tree-A-Thon! Kedzie Press is aiming to plant one million trees by December 2009. All you do is purchase any Kedzie Press title from their website, and Eco-Libris will match each purchase with a tree, and a pre-printed sticker on each title. Use the code “milliontrees” for 10% off any book!
This week, I’m thrilled that Kedzie Press is so generously giving away 10 copies of their latest release, The Green Parent. The Green Parent is a comprehensive guide to help ease your family into being cleaner and greener. It tackles topics such as money-saving, practical efforts for eco-ing your home; educating your kids and how to teach them to spread the eco-word; and green products you can use (and afford!) For each copy of The Green Parent sponsored for the giveaway, Eco-Libris will double the trees planted. This means a total of 20 new trees from this giveaway alone are going into the ground! So, get those thinking caps on, and enter - this contest will be open until midnight, PST on Friday, May 16th. Please leave a comment with an answer to this question - what do you think is the most important eco-tip to share with your children (or grandchildren, nieces and nephews, etc.)? Good luck, and I hope the winners enjoy the book!
My girls are big artists, and the concept of an “art contest” was intriguing and had them scribbling for a long time. One of the most beautifully globalized clothing companies, Tea, is hosting a contest for their Spring 2009 “Little Citizens” line for babies and toddlers. Tea is asking kids to draw their interpretation of what they believe a “citizen of the world” would represent. When I spoke with my girls about the contest, it led to some interesting questions about what a “citizen” is, especially one of the world. We talked about all the different kids around the world, how people look, dress, and play differently, and if there can really be a picture of one person to represent all of them. Kind of deep for a Monday morning, but it was nice to have their brains working to start the week!
The winner of Tea’s contest will have onesies and tees printed with their design, as well as a $200 gift certificate to Tea. As with the current collection, up to 50% of the sales from the onesies and t-shirts will go to The Global Fund for Children, an organization that provides grants to community groups helping venerable children worldwide.
Entries must be sent in by May 8th, so have your kids whip up their best drawings ASAP! The contest is available to children eight years old and younger only, and all contest details can be found when you scroll down here. Good luck!
One thing I absolutely love about writing teensygreen is the amazing amount of moms (and some dads, but mostly moms) I’ve been meeting, either through working with eco-products; communicating with readers who make comments; or being directed to other bloggers. Social media networking has blown up this past year, expanding well beyond Facebook into much more mature, intellectual realms that people can really share with. Here are just a few social networking sites I can’t go without on a daily basis! Let me know if you’re on them too, would love to connect with more readers!
Twitter - You’re a parent, so you have plenty of time on your hands to communicate with thousands of people at once, right? Yeah, right. Twitter is the ultimate ADD outlet. Write thoughts, post a link, vent, have a conversation - the catch is, you only have 140 characters per tweet to do it. Sounds complicated? It takes some getting used to, but once you get the hang of it, Twitter can be highly addictive. You can “follow” what other people are saying, and vice-versa. I’ve met people from all over the globe, and for many interests - going green, parenting, love of cereal - seriously. There are tons of Twitter tricks that I won’t get into, but believe me, you’ll either be thanking me or hating me. If you need a place to start to find friends, Wendy Piersall of Sparkplugging just posted the “Ultimate List of Moms on Twitter” - and received over 200 more moms who commented with their Twitter names! Dads, we didn’t forget you! Here’s the “Ultimate List of Dads and Husbands on Twitter,” just for you! PS - my Twitter name is ‘teensygreen’.
Hot Moms Club - If you haven’t clicked through the big pink button on my sites column, go now! Hot Moms Club is the newest and hottest mom-only social networking site buzzing everywhere. Put up pics, videos, links, join groups, make friends, show off your kids…all with the HMC magazine providing you with amazing articles about being a modern mom in an upside down world.
Blogher - “You say it. We share it.” Blogher is a deep, vast website for women who want to write, learn how to blog, or simply read from the 10,000 other blogs to discover. Get political, find a book club, or even going green - Blogher is the grandmommy of blogging sites, and is well worth exploring. There really is something for everyone here, as well as a calendar of conferences and BlogHer events to meet up with other women who have lots to say!
