Park Geek Resources

Raleigh is SO blessed to have so many outdoor spaces and parks. There are everywhere!!

One of my favorite websites for finding outdoor events and locations is Park Geek. The website has a plethora of great resources.

Park Geek even has a parks database for our area. I looked under our zip code and found 40 (Yes! 40!) parks/outdoor areas within 5 miles of our house! Looks like we will start with these for our Spring Park Tour.

You can also sign up for their newsletter which goes out weekly and tells you what is going on around the area as far as festivals, outdoor events at the parks, state recreation areas, museums and more!

Don't you want to get outside!!

Starting to get Spring Fever!

It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.  And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!  ~Mark Twain

AMEN and AMEN!!

Water Conservation in Action

Another idea for how you can be globally mindful?

Blood:Water Mission is sponsoring a Forty Days of Water challenge.

They are challenging you to only drink water during Lent (Mar 9-Apr 23) and donate the money you save on other drinks to help build wells in Africa.

For us, that's when we go to Chick-fil-A, or out to eat. Could I manage to give up my morning coffee (even if it is decaf?)

Even if we decided to give $.25 or $.50 per drink every time we are eating out (since we normally get water anyway). Blood:Water says that it only takes $1 to give an African water for an entire year. $1.

Are you ready to do something?

Post a comment and let me know if you want to participate.

Water Conservation comes Home

In our house, we looked at our water bill and noted that in January, we used 206.3 gallons on average per day. Can we reduce that?

Here are 100 ideas for ways you can conservate water in your house. We are trying some of these and will let you know how we do this month!

Here are 5 quick ways that we are saving water:

1. Put the stopper closed when filling the tub for the kids.

2. Use the power of soaking dishes. A little water and 30 minutes can do wonders for cleaning dishes.

3. Stop the running water. Everywhere. We try not to let the water run. At all. Whether its washing hands, or washing dishes. You would be amazed at how much water goes just right down the sink.

4. Light load features on our clothes washer and dish washer get our clothes and dishes just as clean and take half the time and use half the water.

5. Reuse water that has been used. Especially when it comes to things like soaking, the water doesn't have to be perfectly clean to soak, since its a dish already dirty. So, if I have leftover pasta water, I'll pour that into a pot that needs to soak. The hot water breaks up the gunk and I've not used any extra water.

HERE are more ideas ....

Another idea? (To be continued)

Preparing for Lent

One week from today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

In my life, Ash Wednesday and Lent have been very powerful
times of rededication and commitment. Coming from a traditional upbringing in the Episcopal Church, I can distinctly remember going to church on Ash Wednesday and wearing the ashes home. Back in those days, I would give up things like chocolate or one year, oh how I remember, I gave up Dr.Pepper. I can still remember how sweet it was on Easter morning to have that Dr.Pepper with my breakfast. Let me tell you - I was celebrating for sure!

But in my youth, I recognized the value of giving up, but didn't really use as anything more than self-denial. I've matured a bit in my celebration of Lent and am looking forward to sharing it with my family this year as a time of returning, renewing, and refreshing.

Since I'm rather new to the Reformed Church, I've been interested to learn how it handles Lent. Here is a great article from a Presbyterian pastor in New York about Lent in the PCA.

As he says, "The point of Lent is not to give up chocolate; it’s to give up sin!" Thus, "What we do physically has an effect on us spiritually—and we neglect this principle to our peril."

Some of my favorite books to pull out for Easter:
Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
Henri Nouwen's Show me the Way (Lenten Readings)

Here are some helpful links:
A script for explaining Lent to your children. (Here)
Here's a calendar with readings and practices (from the Book of Common Prayer (Episcopalian)
Here's some tips on fasting from the same website
CatholicMom has lots of ideas (lesson plans, links, etc)

Water Conservation

Global Mindfulness in Action:

Fast Facts from World Vision

• Every 21 seconds, a child dies from a water-related illness.
• More than 2.7 billion people have inadequate or nonexistent access to proper sanitation.
• When a community gains access to clean water, its child mortality rate drops by half.

Something very simple for us here in America. Water is prolific. Cheap. Easy. You turn the faucet and water comes out. No questions asked. No walk. No bucket to get it to our house.

Watch this video from World Vision and it will remind you that for many in the world, it is not so.

So ...what can we do?

(To be continued)

Global Mindfulness

One of the priorities of both our family, and Lanham Academy (our homeschool) is global mindfulness.

What does "global mindfulness" mean?

We want to be aware of what is going on in the rest of the world.

We want to follow missionaries. Pray for them. Support them financially. We want to encourage them in any way that we can.

We want to be aware of situations around the world that reflect the hand of God at work. All you need to do is look at the Middle East right now and know that there is a lot going on.

We also want to be aware of how our choices affect the world at large. How does American consumerism affect the poor in Africa? How does my use of water here in Raleigh affect others? Where are others suffering? What can I do?

We want to draw our children out of their own little world into the bigger picture of what the Lord is doing. And in so doing, change a little piece of both our world and maybe somewhere else in the process.