My Earth Day, 2010

Happy Earthday! For those of you who read this, follow my Tweets, or have friended me on Facebook, you should know by now that I'm a treehugger. So, even though when I said, "Happy Earthday" to a customer, and they replied, "Oh! How old are you?", I put my best green footprint forward today.
When I first started commuting to work on my Trek FX 7.3 last August, I figured it would replace maybe 3 car trips per week. Over the past 2 months, I've driven to work three times, cycling the rest!

The one thing I haven't gotten comfortable doing yet, is cycling in foul weather, so when it started to downpour an hour before I was finished my shift, I glared at my phone, wondering if I'd chicken out and call my mom to pick me up. I paced in the breakroom for a few minutes before changing into my cycling jersey, and putting my phone into it's home on the bike (the under-seat bag). I rode. Not only did I ride, but I rode to Home Depot to recycle the dead CFL that was sitting in my 15 year old JanSport Bag.
I was worrying that finding a safe place to lock my bike up at Home Depot would be difficult. Not only was it pretty easy, but an associate even offered her assistance! (The gesture didn't go unnoticed, guys, thank you.)
I recycled the CFL, unlocked my bike, and continued to my last stop of the day.

While eating gourmet ice cream isn't environmentally friendly, doing some fundraising for the MS Foundation, and having fun with my new friends and teammates was just as important as me honing my treehugger lifestyle (such as it is). Again, finding something to secure my bike to worried me earlier, but managed to be a pretty easy task again.
While bike racks aren't widely available in Warrington/Warminster like they are in more bike-friendly cities, there are plenty of signs, poles, railings, and other immovable objects with which I could lock up against.







All-in-all, my EarthDay wasn't too eventful, really. While I would have loved to plant some trees, build composting bins, start a garden, or any of a million "green activities" I could have done to celebrate our planet, in the end, I did what I've been doing for awhile now. Now, back to tackling my "Boulder List".

Awakening (my trip to Boulder, CO)

After my recent trip to Boulder, Colorado, to visit my girlfriend (she's currently attending Naropa University), I fell in love (with the city) and it's environmental consciousness.
One night, I took out my 2 year old moleskine, and made a list for myself. It was a list of environmental and health goals that I'm currently doing and want to do more, or goals that I haven't tried yet, but want to.

I'm currently:
-Recycling (plastics, glass, and metal as directed by the township)
-Cycling (7miles roundtrip to work in fair-weather)
-Unplugging (vampire adapters, unused appliances, lights, etc)
-Laundry (using Tide Coldwater, full loads)

I want to:
-Begin composting
-Take shorter "Navy" showers
-Cycle more (grocery trips, visiting friends/family, etc)
-Mowing using my reel mower (consistently instead of when I feel like a workout)
-Laundry (hang drying whenever possible)
-Gardening (at least a few vegetables, maybe get involved with a co-op garden)
-Spend more time outdoors

So, there's my list. I definitely consider myself a tree-hugger, but by no means are any of these things "ridiculous" for the average person to at least try...right? My gameplan over the next few weeks is to tackle each one of these. Some I'll start immediately, while others I will have to ease into. Also, while I don't want to inconvenience anybody with my new environmental awakening, I do want to influence people to try living more sustainably in their own rights as well. I'll be thinking about how to do that as I go.

Now I ask, "Am I nuts? What do you do that's Earth friendly? Any tips for me as I begin to whittle down these goals while making them habits?"