Green Parent Chicago™

One Seed Chicago debuts with Sunflowers

Here's a great idea for a family project. You can request a seed packet here. You can also request a larger packet for classroom or group projects. The newly launched One Seed Chicago, is inspired by One Book One Chicago and the creation of Chicago's Greening Network. One Seed Chicago debuted this past weekend at the Garfield Park Conservatory.

Pondering the hows and whys of going car free in Chicago

We know several families and couples who are car free in our circle of friends and relatives living in Chicago. Some have chosen this option because of the high costs of owning a car, parking it, insuring it and maintaining it, others choose it to help reduce the amount of pollution they add to the environment, and some because of both reasons.

Many come to the decision to reduce their number of automobiles altogether due to a car accident that renders their only car unusable.

We've been the owners of one car since the earliest days of our marriage, but were recently given a second car by my mom who was looking to replace her 12 year old car. This arrangement helped my husband get to work and the kids and I get to our classes and outings much easier, without having to make double trips to the suburbs to drop him off and pick him up. It also allowed us the ability to see plenty of museums we hadn't gotten around to lately, since it was quite a cold spring. We've certainly taken the CTA and Pace buses in warmer months, but colder weather made us feel much more lazy about braving the elements to wait out the irregular timing of our nearby bus routes.

But since an accident on Friday, the old second car that was given to us is for the time being unusable and will most likely stay this way. This has forced us to return to where we were only a few short months ago back to one car. We will certainly spend less on gas, insurance and maintenance and have considerably less worries about finding a space to park it.

For our budget, it could be seen as a blessing in disguise. Of course, we won't be going completely car free until my husband finds a job in the city or a suburb easy to get to by public transit, but we've been discussing it as a possibility should that occur.

Online I didn't find too much about car free living in the city, but a couple of interesting stories popped up. Most notably two about some car free lows described by local Green Mama as she totes her tot by taxi and on a comprehensive list by Seattle dad Alan Durning, who has made his family's experiment of going car free for the past several months, the subject of an online series at Sightline Daily.

Tell us, are you car free in Chicago? What are your thoughts on it, things you love, things you don't and the unexpected.

 

Alternatives to the toy deluge of birthdays and holidays

This list (courtesy of Green Mom Finds,) comes from the New American Dream, an organization that describes their mission as "helping people live consciously, buy wisely, and make a difference."

On their list you'll find lots of fun, timeless things to do with kids that don't involve spending.

Especially appreciated is how they include instructions for making your own playdough, felt boards and wooden blocks. Check out some of their other gift registries too, for weddings and baby showers.

What to do with rice bags

I've been wanting to recycle the plastic handled rice bags we are left with after we polish off a 10 lb. bag of rice (we eat lots of rice, we're Filipino!) and though I don't own a sewing machine (someday hopefully) I would love to recycle the strong sturdy bags into new ones with a strap, in the spirit of these pictured from locally based Reusablebags.com.

Of course they're available for purchase, but since they're already bags to begin there's got to be an easy, thrifty pattern to transform them into a tote.

I did find some nice ideas for recycling them into other items on this site, but no pattern for a tote per se.

 

Tell us, know any good ideas or links to recycled rice bag crafts? Send them our way and we'll be sure to feature them in an upcoming post.

TV turnoff week ends

Well we survived TV turnoff week for another year without any arguing or fighting. My 8 year old didn't seem to mind it one bit and my 3 year old had to be reminded only a couple of times that it was TV turnoff time.

Since we don't have cable and haven't had it in years, we don't watch much TV, except a few PBS kids shows here and there and rented DVD's.  I think the kids enjoy being able to select the shows we rent from Netflix and get more excited when they come in the mail.  The only problem is they each want to have their own selection, which makes sense since they're in such different age ranges, however, it makes it difficult when my husband or I want to add ours in.

As far as projects and being more creative during this time, we went about our normal routine, but I think we all just read more, talked more and the day generally seemed longer. For a while now, I've been wondering how to make the most of my time, now that the day is longer and it's warming up, less TV fit right in.

I asked my son if he wanted to have skip TV altogether at home, but he suggested having a TV free week at least once a month.

Local station fined for kids programming commercial conflict

Reportedly local station WCIU has been fined by the FCC $16,500 this past month for allowing two character-linked commercials to air within the same half hour as a broadcast of the Pokemon kids show, making the 30 minute slot essentially one long commercial for Pokemon.

According to an article in Media Daily News, the FCC rules protect young children who may be unable to distinguish between advertising and a program.

The station heads claimed to be unaware of the conflict, however, the tactic of inserting program tie-ins at commercial breaks is something networks and stations have already been experimenting with.