Check out the stuff added above

Go to the section entitled The World is Changing (above) and check out the different links. We've added some new cool stuff.

Also, we've added some donation site links in the right hand column. You can visit these sites once a day and your visit alone generates a donation to a worthy cause. Not much effort to make a difference in the world!

Get Ready for Earth Hour - 8:30PM Saturday 28 March 2009

To find out more about Earth Hour 2009 and what you can do, click on link above.



This is a great overview of what can happen when a few people turn off their lights!

National Volunteer Week is April 19-25, 2009

What are you going to do Leave a comment and let us know. We'll share soon what our plans are.

Some New, Some Old, Some Different Green Ideas for the New Year

In 2008, we tried to be more green. We installed 2 rain barrels, installed recycled wood flooring in the house, purchased and used an indoor composter, installed dual flush toilets and tankless water heaters in our home, stopped purchasing plastic water bottles, purchased glass containers and eliminated all plastice in the kitchen, purchased banto boxes to use for travelling and lunches instead of plastic baggies, switched to compostable garbage bags, switched to recycled toothbrushes and razors, switched to using only recycled paper notebooks, joined freecycle, and donated to carbonfund.org to offset our airplane travel and energy consumption to make us carbon neutral.

We have made a commitment to be more green again in 2009. In addition to following through by using some of our Christmas gifts such as reusable produce bags, reusable drycleaning bags, and a dry cleaning rack for towels (which we use a lot at this house), we want to be better activists for the environment. So, we're starting by sharing some ideas for a Green 2009.

1. Stop using ALL plastic bags (grocery, department stores, produce, laundrymat,sandwich bags, etc). You can even get reusable vegetable bags here and biodegradable trash bags here.
2. Recycle number 5 plastic by sending it here.
3. Recycle your Brita filter here.
4. Send your wine corks (not the plastic ones) here.
5. Compost at home by using this.
6. Freecycle rather than throwing things away.
7. Replace your paper towels with these.
8. Save your Christmas cards and reuse them next year by pasting a label over this year's text (we are still working on this project for our 08 Xmas cards).
9. Get a rain barrel and use the captured water in your garden.
10. Recycle your shoes here.
11. Find out what other things you can recycle here.
12. Buy recycled and recyclable toothbrushes and razors here.
13. Stop using plastic at the drycleaners, by getting reusable drycleaning bags here.
14. Buy ecofriendly products ranging from toilet paper and detergents to eye glasses to clothing and paper made from poop.

Free Rice -- More options

We all love this site. You can practice your vocabulary and contribute rice to hungry people at the same time. Well, guess what? They just updated the site to include other study options as well:

ART Famous Paintings; CHEMISTRY Chemical Symbols (Basic), Chemical Symbols (Full List); ENGLISH English Grammar, English Vocabulary; GEOGRAPHY Identify Countries on the Map, World Capitals; LANGUAGE LEARNING French, German, Italian, Spanish; MATH
Multiplication Table

Check it out!

Blog Blast for Peace

We'll be joining in on Nov. 6, 2008. Hope you do too! For more information, go here.

More from Collage Class

So, these are the remaining pieces from students in the girls' collage class -- fish, birds, bugs, etc. All of the children created a house after the girls talked about the artwork of Leo Leonni, Eric Carle and Lois Ehlert. They talked about texture and materials and then the students each created their own house. Many students also created a face. Although the girls encouraged them to try using torn paper for this, most were reluctant and they used other collage materials. The girls also reviewed the works of Mattisse and Romare Bearden and the students were encouraged to create their own piece. I also thought I'd post a picture of the space the girls set up for the class.

Collage Class

The girls taught their collage class today. There were about 14 kids from ages 5-11. They taught the kids about 5 collage artists and then helped them all create some collages. Here are some pictures from the class. Below are two collages of the students' collages.





I'll post the other pictures of student work tomorrow.

The Power of Politics

Yes, I know many of you who follow this blog either a) don't engage in politics, or b) disagree with my political views. But, indulge me. The beauty of our country is that we can agree to disagree and still reside in this awesome country -- the United States of America.

I don't think anyone can be part of a crowd of 20,000-30,000 and not be inspired.
Yesterday, we were part of such a crowd. We left the house at 8:00, reported to our volunteer locations at 9:00, and proceeded to meet thousands of people from all walks of life as we handed out tickets to get in to see Barack Obama's Change We Need Rally in Charlotte.

When we arrived, there were several hundred eager attendees in line already. As we awaited our volunteer instructions, a quiet unassuming woman approached my mother. She was wearing a pink shirt with some lesser known words that MLK spoke in Washington in 1963. She spoke softly to my mother and said that she felt that this day was a day to be remembered at that it reminded her of the March on Washington. Slowly, a tear dripped down her face. As I listened and watched, I was moved by the power of her feelings. My mother chatted with this stranger about the March and how she had been lucky to be there to witness history. It was as though they were best friends sharing a story over coffee. They were comfortable with each other despite never having spoken before. Quietly, we all nodded our heads in understanding, for it was clear that we all pondered the opportunity to witness history ourselves.

From 9-1, we walked the lines that formed for admission to Obama's speech that would be given outdoors on a beautiful 80 degree sunny day under Carolina blue skies. We distributed tickets, gathered volunteer forms, and registered new voters (17 of them!). We split up. And, all 6 of us (the girls, my parents and D and I) had different conversations with different people about all sorts of things, not just politics. The diversity of the group was striking. There were single fathers with young children, old women with walkers, disabled people in motorized wheelchairs, babies in strollers, student volunteers, black people, white people, fat people, skinny people, toddlers with signs, sick people, citizens, non-citizens, Hillary supporters, McCain converts, churchgoers, gay people, Hispanic people, Asian people, Muslims, Jews, Christians and atheists. On several corners, opponents gathered and hollered at the crowd. Soon, some college students moved in next to them and shouted their message of HOPE. Everyone was respectful. Some tried to persuade the dissenters. Others just ignored them. But, in the end, everyone had the freedom of choice.

What was abundantly clear yesterday was that Obama was right when he said, "there is not a liberal America and a conservative America -- there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America .. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America."

The crowd at the Obama event was not selected. People from all walks of life got up Sunday morning and made their way to see a man in America speak about his HOPE for our country. Some drove hours to get to the event and many were left standing outside the gates. But they all came. They came because they believe. Like Obama, "they believe in the things unseen. They believe in the better days ahead. They believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity. They believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair. They believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us."

When the girls and I were discussing what moved us most during the day, each of us had a story of someone who touched our heart like the autistic 12 year old girl who begged her mom for money so that she could buy a ticket (the tickets were free) to meet Mr. Obama. All of us have been moved by a "skinny kid with a funny name" who grew up to lead America. That is what America is all about. I am happy that I got to shake Obama's hand yesterday, but I am thankful that my children witnessed firsthand America's greatest asset -- our diverse hopeful patriotic people.

Volunteering

Yesterday the girls went to a local elementary school and painted a wall for them. It wasn't as fun or as elaborate as they had hoped, but it was a nice way to spend the morning. Here are the before and after pics. The "stage" is going to be used for karaoke during lunch.

Swim Against Malaria

So, for school, our mom told us we had to figure out a way to do something positive with our skills that would help others and then, miraculously our Aunt Debbie sent us this cool email about swim for malaria.

Malaria is the largest killer of children in the world. 1 to 3 million people die from malaria each year. 70% of the deaths are children under 5 years old
One child dies of malaria every 30 seconds. That’s equivalent to seven jumbo jets full of children dying from malaria every day. Malaria kills so many because...
Over 60% of the world’s population lives in malaria infected areas. Malaria-carrying mosquitoes feed on human blood. That’s how people get infected. People living in malaria regions cannot take malaria-protecting drugs. The drugs taken by travellers are too strong to be taken for any more than a few weeks. Malaria is preventable and treatable. The best prevention is to avoid being bitten at all. Sleeping under a bednet is the single most effective way of preventing malaria. Bednets protect people at night when mosquitoes are most active. We can help by supplying and fitting bednets (mosquito nets). Every £ 1 million we raise can help to stop almost 20,000 people from dying. U$ 5 buys one bednet, U$ 100 buys twenty mosquito nets and saves 1 child's life. Every net matters.

More than 250,000 swam on 3 Dec 2005 for the first World Swim Against Malaria. It is already the largest participatory swim ever. 100% of the money raised so far will buy 300,000 long lasting insecticidal nets (LLINs) costing US$5 each. 600,000 (mainly) children will now be protected at night from biting insects. This will save the lives of 15,000 children. The first 175,000 nets have been or are being delivered and 125,000 are on their way.

So, in the month of April, we are swimming 100,000 laps (2,500,000 yards) for malaria.

We hope you'll swim too and get others to sponsor you or just donate some money to help kids in another part of the world. If you'd like to sponsor us or you just want more information, click the title above or go to www.worldswimagainstmalaria.com. If you want to see who has sponsored us or how many nets our sponsors have paid for, search for swimmin twin 1 and swimmin twin 2.

Update: We finished our swim and we raised $625 for 125 nets!!! Thank you for sponsoring us.

Posted by T and H

Earth Hour

Last night, we spent an hour in total darkness. We played Blokus and enjoyed the quiet. Click on the link above to read about Chicago's celebration of Earth Hour. After we wrote our Mayor and Town Board our town also signed on to Earth Hour. Next year, we hope they'll publicize it more. Next year, join us for EarthHour 2009.For more information go to www.earthhour.org.

Update: Our family near Toronto joined the celebration and here is what they had to say: Our neighbourhood was almost completely in darkness, just a few houses with lights on – 90% off. We had dinner and arrived home by 8:10 p.m. and enjoyed our family time in the darkness. As we drove home we saw industrial, business and residential buildings participating in shutting off the lights. I would say that 60% were off. In some high rise buildings with the exception of the stairwell areas up to 80% were off, it was quite amazing to see the unity.

Check out the pictures of Toronto too!

Free Rice

We just "donated" 450 grains of rice and made it to level 39 on this vocabulary game. Just click above and play. See how you do!