another article trashing trash

Hey all,
Here is another article about litering. I think we have to apply "love your neighbor" to this subject. Be thankful and care for the place God has given us to live. I want my kids to learn to be thankful and to care for others above themselves. What better way to show by example than to care for the gift of life and beauty of the place God has given us to live. It is so selfish to trash the area you share with those around you. I not talking wacky environmentalism. I am talking about basic concepts of Christianity here. Love God, love others. We are wallowing in the pigpen when we could be living in the green pastures. I don't want to go to the beach and have my kids see fast food trash, broken glass, and cigarette buts. Just the other day we walked around Lake Mirror and there was trash in the water and around the promenade we saw cans and Mcdonalds containers. It really took away from the beauty of that place.

Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Global Cleanup Reveals Filthy Shores; 33 Percent of Debris From Smokers
By H. JOSEF HEBERT THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


WASHINGTON The world's beaches and shores are anything but pristine.

Volunteers scoured 33,000 miles of shoreline worldwide and found 6 million pounds of debris from cigarette butts and food wrappers to abandoned fishing lines and plastic bags that threaten seabirds and marine mammals. A report by the Ocean Conservancy, to be released today, catalogs nearly 7.2 million items that were collected by volunteers on a single day last September as they combed beaches and rocky shorelines in 76 countries from Bahrain to Bangladesh and in 45 states from southern California to the rocky coast of Maine. "This is a snapshot of one day, one moment in time, but it serves as a powerful reminder of our carelessness and how our disparate and random actions actually have a collective and global impact," Vikki Spruill, president of the Ocean Conservancy, said in an interview. The 378,000 volunteers on average collected 182 pounds of trash for every mile of shoreline, both ocean coastlines and beaches on inland lakes and streams, providing a "global snapshot of the ocean trash problem. "The most extensive cleanup was in the United States where 190,000 volunteers covered 10,110 miles - about a third of the worldwide total - and picked up 3.9 million pounds of debris on a single Saturday last September, according to the report."It represents a general carelessness we have. ... We're the bad guys. Trash doesn't fall from the sky. It actually falls from our hands," said Spruill. The debris ranges from the relatively harmless, although annoying and an eyesore, to items that annually result in the death of hundreds of thousands of seabirds and marine mammals caught in abandoned fishing lines and netting. One third of the items found came from smokers: Volunteers cataloged 2.3 million cigarette butts, filters and cigar tips.

More recipes

I found another great recipe site www.myrecipes.com It is searchable by food or diet preferences. It has nutritional information on each recipe. Please let me know if you find great sites like this. Enjoy!

All parents should see this

A good friend of mine sent me this video. I have been really exploring how my words can hurt or heal and this video was another reminder of this. It is by makeadifference.com . Please watch it. We all have people who have made a difference in our lives. This is a very powerful example of the importance of acknowledging this.

meal planning made easy

I wanted to let all of you out there know about a way that I have found to save a little money. I have started planning weekly meals. This process can be tedious . One way I found to make it easier is by using several web programs for help. The first is free it is www.mealsforyou.com . This one allows you to search through meals or recipes and then print up a shopping list, recipes and save the ones you like. Also it has diet friendly recipes and you can search by ingredient. Nutritional info. is included. The next I like is e-mealz.com This one is base on diet, family size and sales at local grocery stores. Meal plans are not custom but the recipes, meal plans and grocery lists are printable. It provides 7 complete dinners. I save the plan each week and if there is a meal I don't like, exchanging is easy. The grocery list is numbered to go with each meal so that any ingredients you don't need are easily eliminated. This one is not free but it is only $15 for 3 months. The grocery cost is kept to $75 for 4-6 people and $35 for 2 people. I usually have food left over for lunch the next day. This type of planning helps so much with my grocery budget and I find that I am only going to the grocery store once a week. Time saved, money saved what more can you ask for! If any of you out there have great resources for meal planning or recipes please let me know. I can use all the help I can get:-)
Kira