Getting Married? Going Eco? How to Plan a Great Green Wedding

Me on my wedding day...20 pounds heavier than I  am now but much less wrinkled!

When I got married almost 20 years ago, I don't think I considered greening anything.  I was too freaked out by the seamstress who destroyed hundreds of dollars worth of hand made lace, the Isleworth Country Club wedding planning witch not wanting to provide spoons and my soon to be husband's friends stealing glasses for party favors and talking about how the houses in the club were really just big apartments...to worry about greening anything.

10 Ways to Reduce Cancer Risks

Click on the picture above to learn more
about the components of cancer prevention.

Apparently the American Institute for Cancer Research has kindly pulled all of their research together on preventing cancer plopped it into ten easy recommendations. All of the recommendations can be boiled down into three areas: weight, diet and physical activity.  This is really amazing information and we can all take part in greening our lives in these ways to reduce our cancer risks!

The following ten recommendations for cancer prevention are drawn from the WCRF/AICR Second Expert Report and each recommendation links to more details.

How Green Is the New 2011 Ford Explorer? I Called Them and Asked

Yea so I spent a good part of my time today helping out my husband after he rear ended a lady at the intersection of Orange and Michigan.  Ooh how fun and inexpensive this was and will be!  Today in sunny O-Town it felt as if it was 120 degrees in the shade and I was not too happy to be dealing with my hubby's latest driving incident.  This accident is a follow up to a $300 speeding ticket he earned last week. Can you say aggressive driver?  I think I can!

Design Squad on PBS Kids GO! is Calling all Creative Kids and Young Inventors to Recycle their way to Stardom!

Calling all creative kids and young inventors!  Leading up to National Inventors Month this August, PBS KIDS GO!'s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning series Design Squad is challenging kids aged 5-19 to spend their summer vacation recycling, reusing, and re-engineering everyday materials to create the next great green invention. With the nationwide Trash to Treasure competition, three young innovators will win a trip to Boston to see their designs built and may appear on the Design Squad show and/or website.

This is your child's chance to appear on TV and help save the planet!

We're Living Green...Do You Want to Live Green Too? Fun and Easy Ways You and Your Kids Can Help Gulf Coast Wildlife, Habitats and Communities Affected by the BP Oil Spill

If you follow me on Twitter you were probably inundated today with updates about my three daughters and their lemonade stand to benefit the NWF's (National Wildlife Federation) gulf coast oil spill restoration fund.  Too bad, so sad, here is some more inundation...you see I just cannot get enough of helping my kids find ways to help our planet. 

My girls love to spend time on the coast and in the Gulf of Mexico.  Reece, Lex and Hay-Jay love our beach excursions which always seem to involve wildlife.  We love our Moochie dolphin and I remember an incident that happened when we were in the Gulf which has made it into the Shirley-Smith family memory book.  Once, when we were boating way out in the Gulf of Mexico, we decided to get out of the boat, hang out on the sandbar and go swimming.  My husband stepped on a conch.  When he it up picto show it to all of us, the silly thing spit on us!  As you can see, The Gulf of Mexico is like home to my family and it breaks all of our hearts to think of what the BP oil spill has done (and will do) to our Gulf Coast wildlife friends.  My kids felt like they had to do something to help out in the Gulf Coast restoration and I was ready and willing to help out.

Tell Congress to Fix our Nation's Broken Toxics Law Today and Support The Toxic Chemicals Safety Act! We're just 5,000 signatures away so please tell your friends and family to add their names today!

Hey peeps, you know toxic chemical reform is one of my passions and we are soooo close this time to really reforming the laws which will make us all healthier but we need your help.  I am passing in the following message (I rearranged it a little) from the EWG (Environmental Working Group) which came into my inbox today...

We have huge news.
The toxics reform bill, H.R. 5820, the Toxic Chemicals Safety Act, has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Chairmen Waxman (CA-30) and Rush (IL-01). Toxics reform is now moving through both houses of Congress. It has never been more important for Congress to know that we want the strongest and most effective toxics bill possible -- we need companies to prove that chemicals are safe before they hit our supermarket shelves.