Stories

Shopping eco friendly is easier than you might think, even at a bargain focused store like Grocery Outlet. Recently Grocery Outlet gave me a $30 gift card to see what great eco friendly bargains I could find for Earth Day. Here are my top picks:

Eco Friendly Shopping Tips

1. Buy fresh produce

The less processed and less packaged, the better. Grocery Outlet sells some beautiful greens, I found these greens for just 99 cents a bunch. 

2. Choose recycled chlorine free paper products

Recycled paper products are better quality than you might think these days and using them is an easy way to go green.

Every time I see a naked mannequin, I just want to stick one finger out, point, and yell “NAKED MANNEQUIN!”

I can’t be the only one, and I certainly can’t be the only one who has wanted to dress that naked mannequin up in a summer outfit just so I could invite him or her—or it—out for tea time in Central Park.

Yes, certainly, we’d have a tea party as lovely as the Mad Hatter’s on a blanket spread out on the Great Lawn. Although, I’d leave the invite for the Red Queen behind, because she’d surely be too delighted with how easy it would be to “be off with it’s head—that is, if the mannequin I window shopped for on 5th Avenue had a head at all!

But we’d sit for hours in the sun…me the Mad Hatter, and the mannequin, the Alice to my imaginary Wonderland-ah yes, it’d be the perfect tea party for two. Both of us, pale, and in serious need of SPF 50, we’d sprawl out across my blanket, and we’d laugh about the kids swinging and missing in their game of wiffle ball, and we’d compliment the jazz performers we could hear off in the distance, and above all, we’d share stories.

I'll never forget my first trip to Maine. My husband (then boyfriend) spent his boyhood summer's at his family's camp on a lake. Driving from Chicago to Bangor every August with his dad, they'd meet up with his older brothers along the way to this sweet spot right at the water's edge. It's nothing fancy. Hasn't been updated or changed in any major way since they bought it over 35 years ago, but it satisfies my basic requirements for "camping." It has real beds (no sleeping bag on an air mattress or cot for me) and indoor plumbing (you can't drink the water but that's a small price to pay for being able to pee inside). Electricity is also key, but up until a few years ago and the invention of wireless HD receivers there was no phone service or television. This was and is a place to get away from it all and reconnect with nature 24/7…whether you want to or not. We spent our first few days hanging about on the dock, reading and listening to the baseball game, occasionally taking a dip in the clear, shallow water. Nothing too strenuous. We were here to relax.

That he was bringing me to this place 6 months into our relationship was important. He had family who lived up there I was meeting for the first time. His Aunt Dot and Uncle George also had a house on the lake, about a 1/2 mile down the dirt road. Their place is much larger than ours and is more house than camp. It's two stories with several bathrooms, laundry facilities and cable TV. So when they asked us to dinner, after a few days of "roughing it", we were thrilled, though I was a bit nervous. He'd never brought a girl to the lake before. I wanted to seem cool and interesting and fun. So I suggested we take the canoe over to their place instead of walking. I thought it would be nice to get a little exercise and a funny story to tell our friends back home that we canoed to dinner. Fueled by a few beers, the lovely view and gross naivety, we got a better story than we bargained for.

It’s officially less than one week until a global earthquake causes the entire world to shatter into pieces. I thought we had another year and a half, but subway signs—and sign holders have informed me that the true end of the world is not in December of 2012, but is creeping up on us quickly. According to subway posters and people raising awareness outside of City Hall earlier this week, the end of the world is really May 21, 2011! So now it’s time to grab your parachute and your bungee chords and try something you’ve never done before! Or, in my case, eat all types of food that I’d like to smother my taste buds with before this global earthquake officially hits. Because while some people like to live like they will be dying—I’d much rather eat like I am dying.

So let’s say this hypothetical earthquake does hit. What’s on the final week’s menu? In any ordinary situation where life didn’t have an expiration date shorter than the one printed on my recently purchased gallon of skim milk, I would be exchanging out my sweets and diving into a vegetables, taking out the juices and drowning myself in water – but this week—this hypothetical last week of life – no way.