Wednesday Thoughts

When I was in high school, I was in a group called HOPE, which stands for Helping Our Planet's Environment. We had t-shirts that said "I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree," which is from the poem "Trees" by Alfred Joyce Kilmer. In honor of both earth day and National Poetry Month, here's the whole poem:

Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

I don't remember all we did in that group (I think I joined it for mostly social reasons). I know we planted some trees and talked about the environment. We recycled and probably judged people who didn't recycle. We talked about reusing paper and most likely shook our heads in disgust when others didn't use both sides of the paper. Without a doubt, we made a difference.

Now, all these years later I wonder what I'm doing for the environment. My efforts are about the same: Recycling, judging people who don't recycle, refraining from littering, shaking my fist (from the privacy of my car) when I see others litter, and pretty much just hoping for the best as far as the earth is concerned.

But today since it's Earth Day, I thought it would be nice to do something for the earth. The only problem is, I can't decide what to do. I tried calculating my carbon footprint, but it was really a lot more work than I'd anticipated. Another option is to join my company's commuter challenge, but that doesn't start until May and I want to do something today (besides simply joining). The third thing I came up with is to recycle my pop bottles after work but that's kind of self serving because of the $ refund.

In my brainstorming, I came across this fun website with ideas that I'm pretty sure are geared towards children but since I'm an Earth Day beginner, I think it's a good place to start. It even has this great quiz. I got 9/10 right. Top that!!

Anyway, I'm debating between two projects on that website, one is the compost bin (is it ok if I don't decorate it the way they've shown? I'd prefer to decorate mine in a more adult way - like with Spongebob stickers or something) or the eggshell planter (but I'm pretty sure you have to have the hands of a surgeon for that one). If you have any Earth saving tips for me today, I'd love to hear them. Happy Earth Day!