Carbon Footprint

Although I truly believe that "carbon footprint" is an over-used, dirty buzz-word, marketing ploy to try and scam the common person into feeling guilty and buying supposedly "good for the environment products", I do think that everyone should do their part to be more responsible for their individual impact on the environment.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not intending to sell my car and take to flapping my arms really really fast to get to work each morning (but the traffic benefits might be worth it...). But, when possible, I think everyone should think twice about the products they purchase and the items they use on a daily basis and evaluate if it is the best option available. If you've been reading my blog lately, you are already aware that I get local (when available, please end soon winter!), fair trade, organic produce delivered and I'm loving it! Seriously, the fruits & veggies do taste better, but primarily I did it to support local producers and to save myself from having to go to the store and sort through the crappy stuff that I always dread doing.

Anyway, getting to the point...I read an article about "green shopping" in Toronto and followed a few links through the various sites until I came upon some info for the Green Spring Market in May. So I thought I would spread the news...I'm interested in attending, and was wondering if anyone else would care to join? There are quite a few mom & baby companies that are attending, but I found a few other interesting vendors that I wouldn't mind checking out:

http://site.eco-me.com/wordpress/
http://www.cheekybee.com/index.html
http://www.greenbeaver.com/
http://www.kleankanteen.com/index.html
http://www.laptoplunches.com/
http://www.organiclifestyle.ca/public/index.html
http://www.organicallygifted.ca/index.php
http://www.simplybyamanda.com/index.html
http://www.soleadocasa.com/Main.html
http://www.sweetsfromtheearth.com/main.htm

Most of the items I was looking at were reasonably priced, I guess I often figured that organic and "green" products would always cost more, but they aren't too bad.

Please let me know if you're interested in attending this market, I'd love to have some company!

Hope everyone is well,
C.R.

Disgusted!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/080325/world/britain_internet_health&printer=1

I don't even know what to say about this article other than I'm disgusted and seriously hope that it disappears before warping the minds of young girls & boys!

Week 1

We're closing in on the end of week 1 of the organic produce basket. So far, I'm pretty impressed. It looks as though I may have to suplement a few fruits and some salad fixins throughout the week, but in general, I am quite happy. On Monday, we received the following:
3 Gold Blush Apples - large and VERY tasty
1 lb. bananas - fair trade - quite flavourful
3 Cara Cara oranges - don't taste like a typical orange, colouring closer to a blood orange, but interesting and tasty
2 yellow onions - looking forward to using this weekend, but they smell good
2 lbs. red potatoes - also looking forward to using this weekend - Irish stew anyone?
1 avocado - pretty good once I figured out what I should do with it
1 lemon - MUCH better than the crappy ones you buy in the grocery store - it was soo juicy!
1 tomato - lovely flavour I haven't tasted in a while
2 small zucchini - will cook up this weekend

This coming week's basket is featuring:
3 Braeburn Apples (BC)
1 lb Bananas (Fair-trade)
1 lb Carrots
1/2 lb Baby Bella Mushrooms (ONTARIO)
1 pt. Grape Tomatoes
1 Spinach
1 Boston Green Lettuce (ONTARIO)
2 Bartlett Pears

If anyone in Toronto is interested, the site is http://www.mamaearth.ca/index.php

Hope everyone has a good weekend - enjoy the break from the cold for a day or two :)

C.R.

On a brighter note...

I received an award at work the other day. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to sit back and truly appreciate it due to other events. It was a big surprise on Wednesday afternoon to hear that I had been nominated by another team at work to receive this award for helping them out when they were down a resource for a month or so. Honestly, I don't know that I did anything spectacular, it definitely wasn't anything I thought twice about doing. I think that's what makes it all the more special for being recognized for "Picking up the workload/sales for *** and Leadership in doing the right thing for our customers, for *** and putting that ahead of her own personal measurements".
Working in a large organization and going through re-orgs is not always the fun that it sounds like. The questions of where you're going to be placed, if the funding for your job will remain or if you're one of the unfortunate that gets kicked to the curb leads to uneasiness which I have been feeling for the last 3-4 months. Receiving this vote of confidence really touched me and made me feel like I have a place and people see the work I do. Personally, I don't think it's that hard to see things from the customer's perspective. If someone has been waiting for a response and there's no one around to answer, you've got to take the time to say something, even if it's just "I don't have the answer, but I will find the answer for you". And weeding the way through processes in a large company can be tricky, if you can find a work-around solution that allows the customer to even have a partial answer, it just makes sense to me to do it. Enough of my "do the right thing" rant.

On a side note, I have put my name forward to volunteer helping to open a summer camp for children and families dealing with cancer. For 2 days in May, the volunteers will be getting the camp ready for summer, painting, landscaping and doing general repairs, etc. I think it will be fun and am looking forward to hearing more about the opportunity.

Good luck with the snow this weekend!

C.R.

Problem Neighbours - Update

So last night was definitely interesting.
After contemplation and discussion, my mother (home owner), called the neighbour to try and talk about the situation and see if they could help resolve answer our questions. Well, this did not go over well at all. The 83-year old neighbour proceeded to scream and yell profanities at my mother prior to hanging up the phone. In addition, she commented that all we ever do is complain, and they didn't complain to us about the hole in our front lawn last year.
**SIDEBAR** The hole in the front lawn was dug by the city in response to the neighbour's complaints about water pressure, and we had no say in the matter because the waterline ran up our lawn. For months my father called the city, the contractor who was supposed to repair the lawn, local MPs, and the response was always "it will be fixed by the end of the week". NOW, the neighbour's son claims to have been the one who called the city and got it sorted out for us **anyone else notice that his comment about him calling the city means that they must have known that it wasn't our responsibility to repair the lawn?**
Perhaps we wouldn't need to complain to the neighbours if they were respectful of our property. In the past, we have complained...about the neighbours parking on our lawn, throwing their cigarette butts in my gardens (including cigarette packages, wrappers, etc.), about finding 12 empty cans of coke thrown into the backyard over their fence, about finding a large lump of ice salt in the backyard beside their fence that has caused a bald patch in the lawn, and about the grandson bouncing a ball off the side of my house. I try not to take it personally, but I find it hard.
Back to last evening, after the phone call where my mother was verbally abused, the neighbour's daughter came over yelling at us for upsetting her mother. After a 15 minute discussion about our simple, reasonable requests that cause no hardship on them, but prevent hardship for us, she seemed to calm down. I advised her that if she contacts her contracted snow removers about the problem, and if they ever decide that midnight is the optimal time for snow blowing, I will phone the police to file a complaint. I do not wish for there to be bad blood, I don't want to have to call the police, but if I have to resort to that measure, I will.
After the conversation with the daughter, my boyfriend went to take the dog out and the neighbour's son decided he wanted to start bitching at us as well. I wasn't privy to all of the details, but understand he was rather jerky about the situation (which I really believe was blown out of proportion due to the reaction of his mother). We have been warned not to speak with his mother ever again. He made the previously discussed comments about the hole in our lawn, which is such a stupid and irrational argument on their part, so was not discussed further by us. And the only saving grace was a comment that he made, "Don't worry, when she dies, we're out of here!". That was a surprise comment, kind of startling, but at the same time is a light at the end of this dark tunnel.
I still sleep uneasily as I fear retaliation for our requests of consideration and respect. Only now, I'm fully prepared to contact the authorities if they harass us in any manner. I have been nice, tried to give them the benefit of rectifying the situation without intervention, but so help me if they pull any crap, I'm calling them on it. And I'm pretty sure that I would have full support of the neighbourhood if needed.

Fingers crossed,
C.R.

Problem Neighbours

Does anyone have a good idea on how to deal with problem neighbours?

I understand that everyone is suffering from the massive amounts of snow that we have received in Southern Ontario this year. However, there is a decent way to deal with it, and then there is my neighbour's way to deal with it. For some reason the individuals to the north of me, have decided that our lawn is to be the dumping ground for ALL of the snow from their driveway. The mountain that they have created on our lawn has covered and seems to have killed one of the trees at the front of the house, as it is bent literally in half and buried in the massive mound. Due to the size of the snow pile, a few storms ago there were several "avalanches" - i.e. the neighbours continued to pile the snow on the pile closest to the house and the snow came crashing down covering our steps and front landing. A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to ask for some consideration from the neighbours and perhaps they could start moving their snow onto their own (virtually empty) lawn or at a minimum, take it further down the driveway so our front entrance wasn't blocked from their deposits. My plea was met by bitching and whining about "what are we supposed to do about it". I left, came home and had a break down. The next day, I was looking in the backyard and found that they decided to shovel the snow over the back fence and dump it into our backyard now. That's the neighbourly thing to do isn't it?
Frustrated and upset, I have been trying to be civil...my only saving grace being not seeing their faces outside for the past few weeks. That was until last night...
Exhausted for not having slept well over the past week, I went to bed early - 10:30 pm and managed to fall into a deep sleep. In the middle of a dream, I was interrupted and had visions of a snow plow driving into the house. Startled, I awoke to determine that it was actually someone using a snow blower in the driveway next to the bedroom. Snow and ice pellets were being blasted directly at the bedroom window. What time was it? 12:10 AM!!!
Angered, I took the time to put on my robe, flipped on the light and proceeded to the window to open and scream a piece of my mind to the ass doing the snow "removal". My plan was interrupted by the ass in question shutting off the snow blower prior to me making it to the window. By the time I had the blind up and the window open (was a challenge as it was frozen shut by the ice and snow from previous snow blowing instances), the mystery ass was making a quick departure down the driveway.
Quick to move, I bolted for the front door, but wasn't quick enough. The ass had made it to his truck and was driving quickly up the street. BUT, he backed into a driveway about 4 houses up and turned off his lights. I was shocked now thinking that this was another neighbour of mine disturbing my sleep and contemplated throwing on some boots and hiking up to have words. Perhaps a minute after the truck backed into the driveway, the lights were back on and he bolted up the street and out of sight.
Blood boiling and having been jarred from an unconscious state, I had some difficulty wanting or being able to fall back asleep. I was lying in wait for the clown to return so I could pounce and phone the police for noise violations, but the person never returned. After a brief, uneasy sleep, I awoke and peered outside. The snow blower remained in the same location in the middle of the driveway as where it had been abandoned less than 7 hours earlier.

What is the cause of some people being so ignorant and inconsiderate? And more importantly, does anyone know how to reason &/or deal with people like this? Ideally, I would like to have a civil relationship with them, and avoid any sort of bad blood or potential retaliation...WHAT CAN I DO?

Tired and defeated,
C.R.