green is the new pink is the new black

wow. it's becoming trendy to be green. even walmart's doing it. and interestingly enough, with his $50 purchase yesterday, Matt got a reusable bag for free.

this is a good trend. some of them, like leggings and smoking and muscle cars might not've been, but this one is. :)

I am having a ridiculous time finding beer for my party. I would like a beer in a keg, please. It needs to be local, organic or made at a brewery that is eco-responsible (like sierra nevada, new belgium or brooklyn). And it needs to be a crowd-pleaser (i.e., not too hoppy, not too sweet). I'm a pretty easy-going beer drinker, but if I don't like it a lot of people won't, I think. Anyway, I am totally annoyed. I was also hoping that I wouldn't have to drive five hours to get it. Um, er, twenty minutes each way...but still.

And the dude at total wine is an idiot. I HATE it people are like "uh, ma'am, we don't know that kind of stuff." You work at a store that only sells beer and liquor. Get your sh*t together and become informed about your product. You don't need to know every single thing, but the very least you could do is not talk to me like I'm a moron or an alien.

Speaking of beer--for the first time Matt and I actually discussed what we'd want if we were living together. That isn't on the short-term agenda, but it's quite possible it'll happen in the future. Last night, while I made corsages for Marla's bachelorette tonight, Matt was getting me a beer and said "Carrie, if/when we live together, there's one thing I think we really should do..." "Keep the refrigerator organized?" I asked. "No," he replied. "Get a beer fridge."

:)

We both like having a variety of beer to drink, and we don't like to run out. So that's completely on our list. :)

Oh, and yesterday we watched this Ryan Gosling movie. I totally recommend it. It's a little weird and uncomfy at first, but it's an incredible story. At the end you will be glad you watched it. It's touching and there are parts that are ridiculous and I think it's worth the rental. Matt is pro Ryan's mustache though. I must admit I am not.

Today is the work plant sale, so I'm going to go pick up some herbs and tomatoes and stuff. Figure it's better to support our on-site childcare than to go to wally-world or the like, even if they're giving out reusable bags.

And here are some scary factoids for y'all.

-It takes as much petroleum to make 14 plastic bags as it does to drive a car one mile.

-It takes a tree-packed forest with an area equivalent to 500 soccer fields to absorb all the carbon dioxide produced by mobile phone chargers that are left plugged into outlets.

-It takes 28% less energy to recycle than to produce paper from scratch. If every household replaced one roll of regular toilet paper with one recycled post-consumer waste roll, 424, 000 trees would be saved.

-It has been estimated that on average a school-age child using a disposable lunch generates 67 pounds of waste per school year. That equates to 18,760 pounds of lunch waste for just one average-size elementary school.

-The annual amount of oil expended to produce plastic bottles sold in the United States is enough to fuel 100,000 cars for an entire year.

-During the time it takes you to read this sentence, more than 50,000 12-ounce aluminum cans were made. It's estimated that 97% of all soft drink cans are made of aluminum. Consumers and industry in the United States throw away enough aluminum to rebuild the entire U.S. commercial air fleet every 3 months. It requires only 5% as much energy to manufacture a can from recycled aluminum as compared to virgin ore.

-The Sierra Club did a study showing that if every New York resident reduced their bag use by just one bag per year, this would reduce waste by 5 million pounds!

-Paper bags have the highest global warming impact compared to other types of bags. According to the US EPA, paper bags emit 70% more global warming gases than plastic bags in manufacturing, and 50 times more water pollution.

So go reduce, reuse and recycle. And RETHINK. Maria is doing a fact o' the day and giving you links to do something (like opt out of mass mailings). Go check that out too. Four days until Earth day!