Saturday, March 27, 2010

earth hour tonight!

just a reminder to everyone to participate in earth hour tonight!
earth hour is a movement where everyone in the world is urged to turn off all of their lights for one hour to help bring awareness about the impacts of climate change our earth is facing.
this happens at everyone's 8:30pm local time.



last year, i was in beijing for earth hour and they seem to make a way bigger deal about it over there.
it was amazing because there are so many city lights in china and to see so many go out for one hour was really cool. the hotel i was at had an "earth hour party" in their bar complete with "earth hour" cocktails.
Here's a grainy photo of mine.  :)



so do your part and celebrate earth hour tonight at 8:30pm wherever you are!

for more info visit the earth hour website here

p.s. - i won't be able to make the brunch tomorrow, but i hope to make the next one. i look forward to hearing what you girls discuss. 
cheers! 
-taryn

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Food Bank Options

Hi Ladies! After much research on the best way to give back in feeding the homeless or donating food I came upon this site..http://www.lafoodbank.org/get-involved/volunteer/volunteer-opportunities.aspx.. This is a great way to give back and we can do as a group or individually.. The next event is on April 4th..Not sure if all of us can make it on that day but they also have shifts we can sign up for.. I thought this might be a great way to get together by setting a date on a weekend morning and give back.. I can also take any canned foods that we collect to the food bank.. For every dollar donated they distrubute $5 worth of food.. Awesome!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Girls' Brunch - Sunday, March 28th @ Katie's House


In an effort to keep things centrally located for most of the girls in our lovely little group, I decided to continue hosting our get-togethers at my house for the next few visits. Our next "meeting" will be over brunch on Sunday, March 28th @ 11am will be @ my house again!



If you can, please bring (feel free to choose 1 or 2 of the options below if you do not have all to donate):
  • A pair (or more) of shoes to send to Malowi

  • Any clothing you would like to donate

  • At least one can of food or any other food-related product that is not quickly perishable

  • $10 per person for brunch, shipping costs for shoes...and any $ left over will be donated to the International Medical Corps, which is one of the main organizations helping those suffering in Haiti.

We will be chatting over mimosas and bagels...YUMMY!

XOXO

Surfrider Foundation St. Pattie's Day Shin-dig!!


Hi lovlies!
l hope you can join us for the Surfrider Foundation South Bay Chapter's St. Pattie's Day party at Waterman's (on Pier Ave) in Hermosa Bch...next Wednesday, the 17th, from 5pm-9pm. Come support your local Surfrider chapter while enjoying great food and drinks with friends :)
Many thanks to Brooke for sending the info!
xoxo


Senior Smiles Volunteer Training Next Monday

Hello Friends.

I just signed up for a training orientation with Senior Smiles, an organization that pairs volunteers with lonely seniors in need of a friend.

I have no idea what to expect, so I think it will be good to get some info about the program to make sure it's something I can commit to.

The training is next Monday, the 15th at the Santa Monica Home Care Center on 910 10th Street, Santa Monica, CA 90403 at 7:00 pm.

If anyone else is interested, go to the website to sign up http://www.seniorsmiles.org/ and send me an email so we can coordinate!

Love and hugs,
Annie

Friday, March 5, 2010

Paperless Post


Does anyone use the Yellow Pages anymore (other than grandma & grandpa)?!?! The gigantic, plastic covered books that land on our doorsteps much-too-often, take up 10% of landfill waste...and I am going to go out on a limb and say that, out of all phonebooks delivered, perhaps only about 10-20% of people actually use them - ouch!

I found a fantastic website (below) that helps put a STOP to delivering phonebooks to your address. Just click below, type in your address, and POOF! No more wasteful phonebooks! Please forward to friends :)

http://www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.org/stop-yellow-pages/

Go Green...Today!

Go-Green Tips that are soooo easy, you can implement today with minimal effort!


courtesy of The Green Book http://www.amazon.com/

Recycle - if everyone in America separated paper, plastic, glass and aluminum products from the trash and tossed in the recycling bin, we could decrease the amount of waste that we send to landfills by 75%. Currently, it takes an area the size of Pennsylvania to dump all our waste each year!

Reusable shopping bags - use them for all shopping trips- groceries, Target, mall, etc. Help cut down on the 100 billion plastic bags that US households dispose of, annually. If you don't have your own bag and have to choose paper vs plastic, choose paper. If only 5% of US households would reuse the paper bag at least three times before recycling, you could save a forest the size of Manhattan NY.

Water bottles - 1.5 million tons of plastic is used in bottling the 89 billion liters of drinking water each year. You can save a lot of money over time by installing a water filter for tap, and the tons of plastic we could save each year if all Americans did this could make two water filters for every household on the planet – one billion people around the world lack access to clean drinking water.

Flush less - you can save 4.5 gallons of water if you just flushed the toilet one less time a day. The average person in Africa uses only 4.5 gallons of water a day for bathing, cleaning, cooking and drinking, total.

Brushing teeth - turn off the water while you brush and save 5 gallons of water. Throughout the US, the DAILY savings could add up to 1.5 billion gallons of water saved.

Shower - take a shorter shower. 10 gallons of water is used in every 2 min of showering. If everyone in US saved just one gallon from daily shower, over the course of a yr it would equal twice the amount of freshwater taken from the Great Lakes every day – the world’s largest source of freshwater.

Washing dishes - turn the water off while you scrub. The water going down the kitchen drain is not reusable and if often carries toxins from food and cleaning products that ends up in the ocean, polluting the environment for our ocean wildlife . We get our fresh water from the mountains and Great Lakes, so the water we use in our house is simply waste.

Lights - change to CFL (compact flourescent lightbulb) when your regular bulbs run out. If every American home changed just five regular lightbulbs with more energy-efficient compact fluorescent ones, we would keep 1 TRILLION pounds of greenhouse gas out of the air.

Washing machine - wash all of your clothes on cold...they will be just as clean as if you wash on warm or hot. Together, if all US households washed their clothes just on the cold cycle (instead of warm or hot), we could save the energy equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil a day, and would save 90% of the energy used.

Napkins & Papertowels - buy recycled napkins and papertowels, and simply use less. On average, each American consumes 2,200 standard two-ply napkins per year. If everyone in US used an average of one fewer napkin per day, more than a billion pounds of napkins could be saved from landfills each year.

Electicity/energy - turn off the lights when they are not in use. Also, 10% of electricity used in your home is burned my communication devices and appliances, when they are turned off! If every US household unplugged computers, cell phone chargers, coffee makers, toasters and TVs when they are not being used, we would save over $100 million a year – enough to provide free health care to every low-income child under the age of 5 in CA.

Energy -the fridge is the biggest energy consuming appliance in the kitchen and it accounts for between $30 to $60 of a typical family's electricity bill each year. Keep the door closed!!!

The bottom line - please just do your best to be less wasteful. Be consious of the water, paper, plastic, electronics and energy that you use...help Mother Earth get healthy again!! I encourage you to pick up a copy of The Green Book for many, many more easy tips on how you can do your part to heal our environment :)

xoxo