Earth Hour

I was doing a bit of idle surfing on the old 'net last night and stumbled across Earth Hour. Earth hour is an initiatie that started in Sydney, Australia last year with people wanting to do something to bring about awareness of our massive use (and waste) of energy.

"On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year."

That's quite an amazing fact, just by switching off one light! Just think of all of those lights that you leave on when you're not in the room because you can't be bothered to switch them off, all those phone an laptop chargers left on constantly even when not in use.

I make no secret of the fact that I started using cloth nappies on J because I just couldn't see how we could afford to have two babies in disposable nappies, the enviromental benefits, to start with, weren't as important to me at the time.

Well, maybe if people thought the same about leaving lights and other electrical appliances on when they are not being used; make the issue more personal, forget about the enviromental issues for the minute, if you like. What about the effects on your pocket; imagine the old electricity meter spinning around. Maybe that might make you stop the wastage and stop standing with the fridge door open (my pet hate in our house!) while you see if there is anything good to eat.

I'll be switching the lights off tomorrow night. Who's in?

Easter Sunday fun.

I woke up yesterday morning and in the half an hour that I spent dozing in and out of sleep, I kept looking out of the window, seeing how bright the sky was and thinking it would be a great day to go out and do something (and, more boringly, how the washing would dry!). When I eventually dragged myself out of bed, I couldn't believe that it had snowed!

OK so we live in the east, we live where all the weather warnings of heavy snow had been for the past few days but that means nothing, right? Well for once it seems the weather men were right.

After breakfast L, J and I went out and built a mini snowman. I like to think of it as a joint effort, not like the ones we used to make with my dad where we watched and Dad made huge men; much more impressive than our little man though but ours wins the best dressed snowman award, I think.

The scarf, is the first thing that I ever knitted but is Js fav scarf in the world. In fact when I suggested that we use it for the snowman, he got a bit worried that it would be ruined so I said I would put my hat on him if he put his scarf on and my hat is my woollywormhead marble muffin using babylonglegs handspun. Unfortunately, Buzz Woody Tinkerbell (as the snowman was named) had a bit too big a head for the hat but it stayed on for photo taking.
We had a really good day yesterday doing nothing much. M did an Easter egg hunt in the garden, hiding eggs in the snow, quite novel! I was so proud of myself because I hid his egg somewhere where it took him much longer than the usual two minutes to find and more importantly, I found my egg that he hid even though J and L tried to throw me off the scent by telling me that he had hidden it in the attic!!

Today I am up early after having a spat with M about putting the bins out...domestic bliss, eh?

I realise that I haven't updated for yonks and knitting content has dissappeared even though I do actually have stuff to show, like my marble muffin so I will be back......

Must have of the week......

I blame Sarah for this completely. Now, a while back I did find myself getting lured into perusing E-bay for must-have bargains wasting hours looking for nothing in particular on that lovely website that is Ebay but I would like to think that I have grown out of that hobby now.

Sadly, Sarah keeps sending me links to stuff on Etsy and now I am well and truly hooked. Its like Ebay for crafty people. Everything you could possibly need in your crafty little world, made by independent bods, all with the added advantage that the prices are in US$ so when you convert it to £, it sounds like a 50% sale all the time (I'm easily fooled ;o) ).

Last week it was the funky ladybird stitch markers (that sadly M and little people in my house didn't buy me for Mothers day), this week I present you with the thing that has been missing from your life for all of these years, better than the banana protector, it is in fact the apple protector. I laughed at it to start with but now I am sitting here thinking what a cool idea it is and how J would be the talk of his class if he had one of those in his lunch box at school.....not sure it would be talk in a good way though; his friends might all think him/me a bit odd. It looks so funky though and is available in different colours.....maybe I could make one and reserve it for picnics or when I want to take an apple out and don't care about people laughing at me.............