Gratitude Sunday

What a week! I visited a wonderful and local botanical garden, took alotta photos of my beautiful Annabelle and the great outdoors, learned about water treatment plants, organic gardening and composting, and am working towards creating a pesticide free home (I plan to share more about that later this week). So, let’s see, where do I begin?

1. National Park Service and State Park Authorities. In Northern Virginia we not only suffer from major traffic but we also are becoming urbanized, which means land is hard to find and what we have left is expensive. I appreciate the state and national parks and the workers who maintain them because being able to get outside and share in nature’s beauty with my family doesn’t mean that we need to make an hour’s drive out to the country to do so. This past week, Annabelle and I visited Meadowlark Botanical Gardens with our friends Melody and Aryana. Not only are the gardens and displays an aesthetic indulgence but while sitting in the grass watching my dear one clap at and talk to the geese, my mind felt at ease too.

2 . President Richard Nixon. Did you know that he founded the EPA? The same year, 1970, Gaylord A. Nelson founded Earth Day, which is celebrated on April 22. Whether or not you care(d) for Nixon, he influenced greater environmental awareness in the U.S.

3. Ideal Bite. Every morning I wake up and learn something new about how I take action, just one small step, for the good of our environment. Between April 14 and the 28th, Ideal Bite will be featured on Rachael Ray and on Good Morning America with more information about this wonderful, informative, and free subscription about helping to protect the environment. Oh, and did I mention that their writers are hilarious?

4. Environmentalists with a sense of humor. Click here to see what I mean.

5. Christopher Gavigan’s new book Healthy Child, Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer, Home. See my sidebar for more information. Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home is must have for every environmentally minded and health conscious parents’ bookshelf. The chapters are organized into short segments allowing for readers to put down and pick up the book at their convenience (parents know what I’m talking about–anyone else constantly interrupted while reading?), include interesting commentary from celebrities such as Tobey Maguire, Kate Hudson, and Brooke Shields, and is basically a straightforward guide that teaches families how to create healthy and environmentally friendly homes. In the coming week look for more about Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home.

And so that about sums it up. I mean, for the most part, I’m thankful for so much more than I sometimes share here at Green Mamma, and some weeks, I find it hard to pull together even five reasons to feel grateful. My feeing is, though, that as human beings we should be grateful to experience gratitude (and anyone can, if they try). What greater happiness is there than to know you have some luck, happiness, and that, gosh darn it, someone or something loves you? Okay, enough of my philosophizing, but really, it feels good to have gratitude. Well, happy Sunday, and I hope to see you in the coming week!

Cheers,

Green Mamma