I thought I had posted this on Tuesday, but I guess it never made it out of the drafts. Enjoy the belated post! I'm going to try to post again today.

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Happy Earth Day! It's a beautiful day here in Yankton to be outside, so we'll be able to get out and actually do some things that help the earth. When the weather is nice, we usually go for at least one walk a day, and Accalia and Cole suggested bringing along bags to pick up garbage we find along the way. We are by no means the most earth friendly family out there, but we do try in a lot of small ways to make a difference. We've always recycled, and we'll bring our glass to Mankato when we visit because there is no glass recycling here. We also have cloth diapered since Accalia was around 9 months old, although we have used disposables when we travel. We've also switched over all lightbulbs to compact fluorescents, and since we did that we've only had a couple CFLs burn out. There isn't a local place where we can recycle them, though, so we're hanging on to them until we do find one. Don't want to add any extra mercury to the water and ground! I guess we also try to make sure that we buy phosphate free cleaning products (laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, etc.) And, while none are us are vegetarian, we usually eat at least one meatless meal a week. A book I love that has great ideas for greener living around your home is Better Basics For The Home.

One thing I'm absolutely horrible about is making sure I have reusable bags along when shopping. I need to just keep them in the van, and I need to get more so I'd have enough for our big grocery shopping trips. While we don't throw away the plastic bags (we bring them back to the recycling bins at stores), that still means we're continuing to encourage the production of those bags. I've also read that the bags in those recycling bins are just thrown out, so that doesn't do much good.

What sorts of things do you do to help reduce your carbon footprint?

Cory is up in Sioux Falls today for a conference, and I'm not sure if we'll even see him before he returns home and has to go to work delivering pizzas. This is his last Tuesday doing that, though. He decreased his availability there because he needs to make sure he has more availability for private counseling. They've finally gotten in with several places as network providers and have already been getting more calls as a result.

Yesterday we our appointments at the dentist. We go twice a year since our insurance covers most of it. Accalia loves going to the dentist, which Cole is a little unsure yet. He hates toothpaste and doesn't want them to use it on him, which they were fine with once I explained his hesitancy. We all had good visits. No cavities except for Cory having one small one between his teeth. Cole's six year molars are coming in, and I wouldn't be surprised if he starts to get some loose teeth in the upcoming months.

Cory took off yesterday since the dentist took up most of the morning, but he spent nearly all afternoon working on brochures to hand out to these new network providers. Then he had a couple appointments. Accalia had her last regular ballet class last night. Now they'll just have rehearsals for the recital.

The summer rec schedule came out today, which I have to tell Accalia about since she was so excited about seeing the offerings for this summer. Now I think we're going to head out on that walk. I have to check with Ella to see if she wants to keep on the Spiderman costume or change back into her regular clothes.