Day 13 - Poor Ed

Mall Mom is tired out today, with all the end-of-the-school-year running around. It's easy to take short-cuts when things are crazy. Grabbing a water bottle from the fridge instead of filling a thermos. Running through a fast food place. Grabbing small packs of snacks for the car.

We've managed to (mostly) avoid these things for the sake of this project, but I know there will be times in the future when life will get in the way of good intentions. When convenience or desire will win out over Earth-conscious behavior.

I think it's important we don't beat ourselves up when we can't always be as good as we'd like to be. There will always be days when it will just be too hard to be Mother Nature’s best friend.

I was flipping through the TV channels today, and found a new station called Planet Green (www.planetgreen.com). At least, it’s new to me. There was a show on there called "Living with Ed," about Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife.

Now, Ed is an eco-maniac. He was giving his wife a terribly hard time about wanting to update the kitchen (too much waste in a landfill). No new appliances, even though you couldn’t even see the numbers on the dials of the stove anymore, because they were worn completely off. The man was saving some really gross, mold-infested bathroom rugs because he imagines someone, somewhere, might use them. NEWS FOR ED: NOBODY WILL WANT YOUR SKANKY RUGS.

His wife jus rolls her eyes. It must be painful for her. I know it was painful for me, the whole half hour I watched. I realized that, while I admire Ed’s fervor, I will never be that manic about all of this. I care, I really do. But I just can’t live my life that way, agonizing over every little thing.

I do know my family and I are going to try a lot harder, though. And I hope your family will join us. I can’t help but think that if we all just gave a little more, maybe Ed and his wife could relax a little.

I’m going to reiterate my hopes for this effort. We’d like to get 100 families to take the challenge to reduce their post-consumer waste by not buying anything you don’t need for at least one week, some time between June 1 and September 9.

If you’d like to take the challenge, email me at MallMom@live.com so I can add your family’s name, or nickname, to the list.

Let’s not make poor Ed Begley, Jr. and his wife do it all!

Tip for Day Thirteen – Commit to just one small change today.