Happy Earth Day!

Growing up, my dad would often take us to pick up garbage on Earth Day.  Littering is one of his largest pet peeves and he cannot stand to see all the garbage left behind after the snow melts.  His truck always has some empty pop bottles or other items in the back that he has picked up.

What do you do to try to protect the Earth?

We could always do more, but a few things we have been consistent with are:

1. Shutting off lights.

2. Recycling

3. Using reusable grocery bags or not taking a bag for a small item

4. Using refillable water bottle, reusable lunch containers, and travel coffee mugs

Our grocery store has really been encouraging using the reusable grocery bags, in fact, the city is working on a plastic bag ban.  I would say we now use reusable 80% of our trips.  I've also been trying to carry a couple of pouch bags in my purse (the really thin bags that fold into a 2x2 pouch).  Eric got me a nice Dekalb one at a farm show this winter.  (It has a flying ear and everything!)  That way, if I forget our big bags or just stop after work, I still don't have to get a lot of plastic bags.  I reuse the plastic bags as garbage bags if we do get them.    I love using the reusable bags....easy to carry & can fit more into each bag.

A few goals to work on:

1. Use less water (take shorter showers).  Maybe the baby will force me into this anyway.  But then I'll be doing more laundry so it might just even out.  But the water usage per person might be better!

2. Maybe hand wash dishes more often as our dishwasher at our rented apt. runs for 97 min and it is as loud as a diesel engine!  It has to be a water waster.
3. When we get a house someday, I would like to have a rain barrel for watering.

Mushroom in New Zealand

Happy Earth Day!

Alberta Get-a-way

 

 Ikea & the West Edmonton Mall (the largest mall in North America) were our main attractions on our get-a-way to Alberta over Easter weekend. The big mall was built before the Mall of America, by the same guys, and is much more spread out compared to the Mall of America. They had a few stores that I didn't even know were in Canada, such as Victoria's Secret & Bath & Body Works, so I picked up a few things I thought I was going to have to wait until August to buy.  Overall, we didn't buy much.  As far as baby purchases, we've decided to just choose one item to focus on the next few weekends so we can stop looking & starting actually getting a few items. (!)  Everyone says a baby doesn't need much, but I would imagine it makes your life easier if a few items are ready when he or she arrives!

Rink inside the mall.  They also had a small water park and sea lion/penguin show area.  The place was a zoo...not because of these animals....it was just FULL of people!  I spoke with one worker who said it actually is much calmer than a few years ago.  I've never felt claustrophobic at a food court, but I was close at this mall.

Growing!  Almost 30 weeks or a bit over 7 mo.  Almost didn't get one of the boots zipped up; may have to retire them for the year.  
Eric thought it would be important that I was evenly posed with the lamp & ice bucket, I guess :).

Eric took this & then got nervous the elevator door would open & we would look like a couple of goofs, which I suppose we did anyway.

Like I said before, the drive was nice.  It was good to get out of town for awhile.  Earlier this week, I was talking with a friend (who is also 7 mo. along)  about the long weekend & our travels to Edmonton and she said their group of four actually drove to South Dakota spur of the moment to specifically go to Deadwood (because they liked the show?). They stayed 2 nights & then drove back!!  11 hours there & back!  Can you imagine?  This is a perfect example of what I was talking about...nuts!

Distance is Relative

In Wisconsin, I went to college 2 1/2 hours away from home.  I thought it was a good distance, not too far from home but not right down the road either.  I did think of it as a ways to travel to go home & I'm sure my parents thought it was a ways to go to see me too.  The longer Eric & I live farther away from family, however, distance or how far things are "a ways" to travel changes.

Distance is relative.

Saskatchewan is very spread out.  I'll ask patients if they have any family close by to help out if needed and they'll say "oh, yeah...my daughter just lives about an hour away, she can help."  Growing up in Colfax, I don't think I ever considered Minneapolis to be "just up the road."  While we've been preparing to shop for baby supplies, a lot of people have suggested that we go to Edmonton, because there is an Ikea and a large mall that is larger than the Mall of America and it is just a nice city with good restaurants.  They are saying we should go & stay a night one weekend.  Now, Edmonton is 5 1/2 hours northwest of here!!  And they refer to as "it's only about 5 1/2 hours....."  I just can't imagine being in Champaign, IL & saying "let's just go to Memphis for the weekend."  We actually always wanted to go to Memphis, but felt like we needed a longer weekend, heck we barely made it to Chicago or St. Louis that often & they were both "only"  2 1/2 hours away.

(I wrote the above post a week or so ago.  We are now in Edmonton, but we made sure to stay two nights to make it worth the trip.  I guess it was an easy 5 1/2 hours because we didn't go through any other large cities, traffic was very minimal and we had good weather).

Canadians Travel

A few months ago when I was leading an exercise class, one lady had mentioned that "Canadians travel and Americans just stay home."  At the time I thought there was probably some truth to that statement -- of course a huge generalization -- but it seems to become more apparent the longer we are here. 

Part of the reason Canadians travel is because they have more vacation hours to allow longer get-a-ways.  (in the health region, you get 4 weeks at 5 years, plus all statutory holidays...13 paid holidays in Saskatchewan).  Another is that they set aside money specifically for travel.  It's not that they have more money to travel, because the cost of living here is really high--and the salaries do not match--they just put more value in spending money on travel.  Most people sound like they go somewhere 2-3 times/year.  A lot of Saskatoonians also own a cabin north of here & spend almost every weekend there in the summer.

• Cuba is by far the most talked about destination. They say it is gorgeous, has beautiful beaches, and is safe.  
• I've heard a few Jamaica & Dominican Republic stories too; most sounding like they do the all-inclusive resort thing...Canadians love the sun.  
• Mexico is also another hot spot, and speaking of hot spots, they often go really far south in Mexico to some of the hottest areas.  I had never heard of many of the places they tend to go.
• Arizona is the snow bird location, and a lot of families own a condo or have extended family who own property in Arizona. 
• A quick get-a-way tends to be Las Vegas, doing package deals such as $600 for flight, hotel, and show for 4 nights (Tues-Sat), for example.  It also seems to be a long get-a-way at times, as my co-worker is going soon for 7 days.  I told her that seems quite long for Las Vegas, but she said they go for a relaxing trip, spending days by the pool or they head of of town a bit, not running around the strip.  They also love shopping, because everything is "so cheap."

Age and abilities do not seem to deter Canadians from travel either, which is quite inspiring.  Our friends Curtis & Gertrude from church, who are in their early 90s just returned from a 3 week trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico with their daughter & son-in-law.  Some of my patients have talked about just returning from a tropical "holiday," and they were clearly in pain or had decreased mobility on their trip as they were planning on having a knee or hip replacement in the next month.

Canada has been trying to encourage more travel within the country, but with their high flights, it just isn't worth the $1000 ticket to fly to Quebec, when you can go to Las Vegas or Mexico for a deal.  I found out that it's the Canadian flight security taxes that makes it so expensive.  The U.S. has increased security, but it is federally funded.  Canada charges security taxes on each flight, to charge only the users, so often $400 of a flight is strictly security taxes.  It's just a different system.

Our friend Brent came to speak at the university so he stayed with us Thursday and Friday night.  His wife was hoping to join to see us, but the ticket price was soooo high.  Brent had recently flown to Nairobi in Africa from Michigan and paid the same ticket price.  It's one of the downsides of living here, but I guess we are just going to have to adopt the Canadian mind-set & set aside more money for travel expense.
What do you all think?  Do Americans just prefer to have something tangible to show for an expense instead?