Guest Post: Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation (With a GIVEAWAY!)

Today's post comes from the Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Delta Dental, which is on a mission to promote dental care for young children.  Illinois residents are invited to enter Delta's giveaway of an Oral B Smart Series 5000 electric toothbrush.  

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Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation “Dentist by 1” Electric Toothbrush Giveaway

 

Many parents don’t know that children should visit the dentist within six months of getting the first tooth – and no later than the first birthday. In fact, Illinois children don’t visit the dentist, on average, until they are 3 ½ years old.

A visit by age 1 allows you and your child to develop a relationship with a dentist, which can help set a foundation for good oral health and detect potential dental problems before they progress. Your little one could have pain in one of his or her teeth, but may be too young to tell you.

The Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation is kicking off “Dentist by 1,” a statewide public service campaign to educate parents about the benefits of taking their children to the dentist by age 1 and to encourage them to schedule a visit.

In conjunction with the campaign, the Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation is offering one of my readers an electric toothbrush ($160 value) to help promote good oral health! (Open to Illinois residents only).

To enter, tell me about something you remember about your early childhood visits to the dentist, your child’s first trip to the dentist, or something funny about your child's oral health care habits in the comments under this article. This Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation “Dentist by 1” Electric Toothbrush giveaway begins today and ends on Wednesday, May 16 at 12:00 a.m. CST.  

For additional entries:

• Pledge to take your kids to the dentist by age 1 or to regular visits at www.dentistby1.com and tell me in the comments below. When you pledge, Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation will donate an oral health kit to a local, underprivileged child and will also send you a kit! (Kits include a toothbrush, floss, toothpaste and a children’s oral health tip sheet.)

“Like” Delta Dental of Illinois on Facebook for more information about upcoming contests and tips on establishing good oral health habits for a lifetime of healthy smiles.

Review and FREE Download: Chalk Walk App for iPad

You all know that I'm in the education field.  Not only do I come from a long line of teachers and other school professionals, but I got a teaching degree myself and worked as a public school teacher for three years before getting involved in educational publishing.  On both a personal and professional level, I'm interested in trends and issues in education. 

So my friend Sara, co-owner of 2 Moms Media, LLC, suggested that I might be a good candidate to test and review Chalk Walk, a new educational iPad app that her firm is representing. 

I said I'd be happy to test it out, because what Sara didn't know is that, in addition to being a mom who is interested in education, I have a child who is ridiculously addicted to the iPad.  I figure if he's on there so many hours, I might as well have him doing something educational on the thing. 

Now, let me pause and say something about the myriad of toys, games, apps, activities, and television programs that are labelled educational, and here I'm referring specifically to products aimed at young children.  Most of the time I take one of two attitudes about these so-called educational products:

(1) It's not really educational, at least not in the academic sense, and that's okay.  I think it's fine if kids aren't having academia drilled into them all the time.  So what if they're watching TV for entertainment?  Do I watch TV to learn?  No, I watch it to escape.  And it's fine if my kid does. 

(2) All this so-called educational stuff is way overkill.  Just another example (or several) of how America has gone insane when it comes to early learning.  Why do we need our babies to read or our preschoolers to know their times tables?  Why, just the other day, I overheard a parent complaining about how she checked out XYZ Preschool for her two-year-old, and it just wasn't academic at all.  It is out of this sort of attitude that too many of these educational toys and workbooks are borne.  I feel like as Americans we've gone insane about early academic learning and kindergarten readiness, and that none of it is doing a dang bit of good for our children. 

So why did I agree to review an educational iPad app?  Because Chalk Walk is refreshingly different.  See, Chalk Walk actually does teach a valuable skill to young children, one that we have overlooked in our zeal for early childhood academic learning.

That skill is the pincer grip, a fine-motor skill that children need to master in order to hold a pencil.  Chalk Walk is the first app designed specifically to help young children practice the pincer grip.

The app was developed by Frances Judd, a veteran Chicago kindergarten teacher and owner of Mrs. Judd's Games.  Judd saw that far too many kindergarteners couldn't properly hold a pencil, possibly due to our current society's interest in passive, screen-based activities.  If kids are plugged into video games all the time anyway, Judd reasoned, why not develop an app that helps them learn fine-motor skills? 

And so, Chalk Walk was born. 

Chalk Walk requires kids to grip a virtual piece of chalk, using two fingers like you would to hold a pencil, and trace a variety of different squiggly and jagged lines.  Each time a child traces a line, he or she is given a rating of one to three stars, and is allowed to advance along a virtual gameboard.  Each stop on the gameboard earns the child a new "prize" at the bottom of the screen (pictures of candy, toys, and the like). 

Nathan and I reviewed the whole game, and let me bullet point my pros and cons list.

Pros:

• As I said before, it's finally an educational app that teaches a useful early childhood skill, one that often gets overlooked.  It's great for at-home use, but would also be fun in a preschool, kindergarten, or daycare setting.  
• Nathan really enjoyed it.  Now, let me say, Nathan is not always easy to please.  His default opinion is I hate this, even when he secretly likes something.  (I have no idea where he got that from.)  But he actually said he liked Chalk Walk.  He even said he wanted to show it to his friend.  
• The little virtual gameboard with virtual incentives was cute, colorful, and age-appropriate.  
• I really liked that this innovative educator thought of a way to teach fine motor skills using a piece of technology that kids are already using anyway.  

Cons: 

•  It was hard for us to find the directions.  The game itself is relatively simple and self-explanatory, and there is a little diagram that shows you what to do (helpful for the non-reader), but I wish there were a section in the menu that spelled out how everything works in terms of advancing through the levels and earning prizes.  
• There's no way to save your game and the levels you've already completed. 
• I wish it were longer.  Nathan completed the entire game in the space of about half an hour.  Now, obviously he can go back and redo the levels again for more practice.  However, I wish they had developed more levels for a change of pace. 
• I would like to see a system where kids can get points/stickers/stars/coins and redeem them for virtual prizes.  Nathan has another game where you earn virtual coins and can then go shopping in a virtual store.  The virtual stickers or toys you buy are just the same as the prizes that Chalk Walk gives you at the bottom, but I just think it's more fun when you feel like you shopped for something, and when you get to choose the "toy" you get.  

All in all, I really liked Chalk Walk.  It teaches a useful skill in a fun way.

AND if you want to download Chalk Walk for free, it's free in the iTunes store all day Wednesday, May 2!  Here's the link!

Disclosure: I got to download the app for free.  

When Estate Sales Turn Awesome

This is meant as an equally pointless companion piece to my post from last summer, "When Estate Sales Turn Ugly."

As I've mentioned multiple times in the past, I have a sort of occasional hobby of shopping at estate sales.  I get email updates from estatesales.net about sales within a five-mile radius of my home, and I go to maybe 10% of them. 

I also set my account to send me email updates whenever there is a sale within a 100-mile radius that features Fiesta dinnerware.  Again, about nine times out of ten I don't go to the Fiesta sales, because they're too far away to drive for a sale that has, like, one or two pieces of Fiestaware. 

But then last week I received an email about a sale, and the sale's website featured this picture:

O ... M ... G.

Now, I have been after the lilac color for awhile now.  And I've been jonesing for the pink ever since, in an event that will live in infamy, I broke my only pink plate last summer and a piece of it got lodged in Bill's foot and he had to have it removed at urgent care.  I know!  Can you believe it?  I broke my only pink plate!  And that color, officially known as rose, is discontinued.  

I've made some very casual bids for both lilac and rose plates on ebay, casual meaning that I wasn't fully committed to the purchase and therefore didn't try all that hard to win the auction.  Why?  Because shipping for those plates on ebay is usually like $20 per plate, and that adds a lot to the cost. 

So when I had the opportunity to go to go and buy discontinued Fiestaware from an actual sale, I had to go.  Yes, I understand that driving a total of 2.5 hours (round trip) is its own form of a shipping and handling cost, because I used a quarter-tank of gas (approx. $11) and a full four hours of my time, when I should have technically been working.  

But ... I really just felt like I needed to go and do something just for myself.  Life has been so crazy lately with the triathlon training, the freelance work, the t-ball, and the community theater.  And I understand that those are all things I do for myself technically.  But they're all what my friend Dana referred to recently as self-actualizing, which I think is an excellent term to distinguish these endeavors from activities that you do purely for fun.  I needed something to do purely for fun.  (Do I sound spoiled?  I feel like I sound spoiled.)  

So I rearranged the rest of my obligations so I'd be free to go to the sale Friday.  And now I'm going to write a blog post about it.  

Now, I had intended to write a blog post about this experience from the get-go.  And then I had a brief thought that Nobody cares about your damn estate sale experience.  But then I thought about the recent popularity of TV shows about people who go and find secondhand gems at auctions or pawn shops.  Just off the top of my head and a brief Google search, I found American Pickers, Pawn Stars, Sold! Cajun Pawn Stars (umm, yeah), Storage Wars, Hardcore Pawn, Pawn Queens, and Oddities.  

Apparently people like shows about secondhand purchase and resale.  

Not that my efforts to purchase discontinued colors of mid-priced pottery really equal the excitement of finding the gun that John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln with, or whatever exciting things they find on those shows.  

Anyway.  

I set out for the sale at 8:00 in the morning, figuring that was ample time to get there for the 9:30 number distribution.  True rugged adventurer that I am, I began by setting my GPS:

 I guess I technically left at 8:08.

The sale was cash-only, so I had to make a stop at the ATM.  Which, I apparently had to photograph so you could get the whole story here.  There was a security officer stationed outside the ATM, and I wondered if photographing an ATM sets off any sort of mental alarm bells for a security officer.  I planned to tell him I have a blog as my explanation if questioned.  But really, at this point in the world, people take all kinds of pointless pictures to share with their friends, so photographing an ATM probably isn't all that out-of-the-ordinary.  

Then, there was traffic.  I was so bored that I apparently had to take this photograph (while driving, though technically while stopped) of the world's most pointless waste of fuel: 

Finally I arrived at the sale around 9:20.  But here's what I didn't realize about estate sales, or at least about the really popular ones: Yes, they give out numbers at 9:30, but before that you can write your name on a list to determine your number.  The guy who was #1 on the list got there at 6:00 a.m., and then just went home and came back at 9:30 for the number distribution. 

I live too far away to be getting there at 6:00 a.m., so I ended up being #24:

I considered it lucky because it was written on the back of a playing card, the 8 of hearts.  Hearts are my favorite suit, and 8 is my favorite number.  Though really, I probably could have found a way to justify a number of playing cards as lucky.  The ace of spades, for example.  

Now, the number distribution is serious business.  If you put your name on the paper but you aren't physically present for the number distribution, you lose your spot.  If you plead that you were sitting in your car the whole time, the woman distributing the numbers says, That's not my problem.  If you then ask to take another no-show's spot, you can go in, but your husband can't, and the number distributor will physically block him.  I heard from another estate sale regular that the number distributor's day job is as a Chicago police officer. 

During the half-hour wait between the number distribution and the doors opening, I chatted with the other people.  What do you collect? I would ask them, partially in the name of being friendly, but mostly to size up the competition.  Oddly, many people said they didn't specifically collect anything, they just liked to go to estate sales, which seemed like an odd reason to get up at 5:00 a.m., and also well on the path to Hoarders.  A number of people were there for the large collection of designer purses, and #1 on the list was after a bicycle.  Good, no Fiesta enthusiasts. 

Finally the doors opened, and numbers 1 through 20 were let in.  After #20 I guess the house was filled to capacity, so each subsequent number was only let in when somebody left.  That was tense. 

After not too long, though, my number was called, and I made a beeline for the kitchen.  Pretty much the entire Fiesta collection was still there, with the exception of two large serving bowls and the one Fiesta plate imprinted with Daffy Duck (which I did not want, and kind of makes me sad for humanity).

It really didn't matter, though, because there was enough Fiestaware to share, assuming you weren't a total douchebag who took the entire gigantic lot.  I even offered a woman passing by a crack at whatever she wanted, but she said she wasn't after Fiesta.

And OMG, you guys, the prices on these things.  It was $3 for a dinner plate, $2 for a salad plate, and $2.50 for a bowl.  Not even close to the astounding prices some of these discontinued pieces go for on ebay.

Behold, my haul:

 22 plates, 8 bowls, $86 total

I liked how they looked in my dishwasher, too: 

The rose family reunion:

 On the left is the one little rose salad plate I already had.  We never told Little Salad about the fate that befell Big Dinner.  We just told him Big Dinner went to live in the kitchen of a nice farm.  But now Little Salad is joined by 8 new dinner plates!

I have so many plates now that I have to rotate different color palates seasonally, while the out-of-season palates sit in the basement.  Really, isn't a variety of seasonally-appropriate plates all anybody wants in this world?  

For those who (gasp!) care about other things besides ceramic pottery, I will share with you my three other finds at the sale:

A random lavender purse, an $8 pink Coach wallet, and a KitchenAid skillet

It turned out that this sale featured a lot of unused designer purses, wallets, jewelry, and keychains.  And I should point out that this was actually a moving sale, not an estate sale, which means that the owners of all these items are still living and would technically have use for brand-new designer accessories.  These expensive items were just the woman's castoffs.  I mean, I have always considered myself incredibly fortunate, but I still can't even fathom being in a financial situation where you can afford several designer handbags that you never even use.  And if you are in such a financial situation, is the affordably-priced Fiesta dinnerware just like paper plates to you?  

Sorry we're using absolutely gauche disposable dinnerware, Muffy, but the maid insists upon taking one night off a month.

Do you like I how automatically peg these people as obnoxious snobs?  But I mean really, that's the only explanation I can think of for the wastefulness of having that many unused designer goods.  Either that or they're kleptomaniacs who stole all this stuff.  

No really, I'm sure the owners of this home are incredibly nice, generous people who share their ample wealth equally with charities and the handbag department at Nordstrom.  And I do appreciate these strangers, for without their excessive overspending, I would not have scored such awesome deals yesterday.  

And so, in conclusion, it seems that in the completely inconsequential, non-life-and-death world of estate sales, you win some and you lose some.  And when you win some, it's kind of awesome.  

Winner! Toydozer!

The winner of the Toydozer is ...

Maria the Mum!

I have already gotten Maria's address, and her Toydozer is on the way.  Thanks to all who entered! 

And tune in next week for my next giveaway, which will be a super awesome household gadget!  (Here's a hint: It's electric and you can brush your teeth with it!) 

I Survived the Past Week, and Here's Why That Amazes Me

I begin with a classic Morton Salt ad because last week was definitely a When it rains, it pours kind of week.  Also because I love driving by the old Morton Salt factory in Chicago, which has this little girl and her umbrella painted on the roof.  Reminds me of a time when Chicago was actually a major hub of food production.

But mostly I include this picture for the slogan: When it rains, it pours.

We've all had weeks like this, where it just feels like everything is scheduled at once.  Where you just wonder how it is that everyone in the world forgot that any other day existed besides that one day they decided to schedule their events.

Here's what we had going on last week:

• Tech Week for my community theater show, Jack and the Beanstalk.  Tech Week refers to the last week before the show, when you have rehearsals every night, and everything is being figured out in terms of the sets, costumes, sound, lighting, and so on.  We had rehearsals Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights of last week, which just conveniently happened to be nights when Bill had to work late.  So I had to bring Nathan with me to all those rehearsals.  Additionally, I had to make my own costume.
• Baseball Opening Weekend.  Now, I know to some of you this doesn't sound like a big deal, but if you live in the same town as I do, you know little league is huge here.  Also I'm the team mom, so I had a lot to do in terms of making packets, collecting money, picking up treat tickets, and reminding everybody to be at pictures and the opening day parade on time with all the right stuff.  
• Some serious triathlon training workouts.  Like, workouts that were an hour and 15 minutes long and had to happen before Nathan woke up.  (To be fair, he does sleep until like 9:00 most days.)  
• Two paying work projects for my freelance work.  

Meanwhile, there was of course the usual with laundry, groceries, preschool, housework, and caring for my kid.  And caring for my kid, with all that other stuff to do, felt like ... well, I wouldn't say the last straw, because the last straw implies something minor and light that just happens to knock you over ... more like the last brick.  It was like, Seriously, I have to find a way to entertain you?  I have to come up with some way to wear you out, when I'm already so worn out myself? Honestly, if it were at all justifiable (monetarily or otherwise) to hire a full-time, live-in nanny just for a week when I'm frazzled with what essentially amounts to a bunch of hobbies (some of which are actually done for the benefit of the child I'd be pawning off on somebody else), I would have done it. 

It all came to a head Friday and Saturday. 

Friday I had to get up early for an hour and 15 minute bike ride, get Nathan to school, lift weights with Trainer Jill for half an hour, write a paid blog post that was due that day, work on my freelance stuff, pick up Nathan, get the house ready/groceries purchased for a babysitter to come, and then perform in the opening night show.  

Saturday we had t-ball pictures bright and early, followed by the opening day parade and ceremonies.  Then I had one play at 2:00 and another play at 7:00. 

I suddenly felt like I was in high school again, rushing from one extracurricular activity to another.  So on Friday morning I posted this Facebook status update:

It got 14 likes, which is a personal record. 

Anyway, we survived those two days, and here are the pictures to prove it. 

Here's a self-portrait cell phone photo of me on opening night of the show.  Everybody had really wacky hair, makeup, and costumes:

Here's Nathan at t-ball pictures:

Here are a few shots of the opening day parade, where the kids march down the street and throw candy:

And this is the opening ceremony, where they get everybody pumped for the season and talk about how wonderful baseball and America are:

Here are some shots from my Saturday show, taken by Bill:

 "If those three kids are too stupid to figure out that the way to get back home from climbing up is to climb back down, then they don't deserve accurate directions."

The play went ... okay.  As you can see from a couple of the pictures, I had to sing in this show.  I sang a version of "I Dreamed a Dream," but with new lyrics specific to the show, which I had written myself.  Now, singing isn't my strongest suit.  And while it was okay if my character was kind of a bad singer, I didn't want to embarrass myself.  At Show #1 I screwed up because I had practiced with a different version of the music than the one they played at the show.  I was so embarrassed and sad, even though it's only community theater and nobody cared besides me, that I just wanted to duck out and hide after the show.  I did better on the song at Show #2, and so-so at Show #3, although by #3 I was so exhausted I didn't care.  Which was fine because there were only like 20 people in the audience anyway.  Also by that point at least 4 kids were either sick and/or crying, so Show #3 was kind of ... whatever.  

So, all the excitement was over by Sunday.  All I had to do Sunday was go to the gym and swim for half an hour, because triathlon training waits for no one.  While it was refreshing to have so little to do for a change, and while I could never keep up last week's frenetic schedule on a long-term basis, I admit to feeling a bit of a letdown Sunday.  Because you know what you have to do on your first free day after a crazy week?  You have to catch up on all the chores you ignored during that crazy week.  Suddenly I had no excuse not to clean my kitchen and do a bunch of laundry.  Bah. 

Fortunately, this week is sort of medium-grade busy.  We had t-ball practice Monday night, and we have our first game tonight.  The triathlon training schedule has some hard workouts on it this week, and I'm meeting Trainer Jill for two sessions.  I have freelance work.  Nathan's school has a field trip Thursday.  I have some blogging gig irons in the fire. 

Which is good.  Now I have some excuses to get out of vacuuming. 

Review and GIVEAWAY: The Toydozer

If you're like me, and I hope that you are, you live with one or more children who just love to dump out a bunch of small toys, but are decidedly less enthusiastic about picking up those small toys.  I wish Nathan was one of those kids who just naturally enjoyed things clean, but, alas, he is not. 

So, more often than not, I just end up cleaning up the toys myself.  Recently during my toy clean-ups, I have found myself feeling nostalgic for Nathan's baby days, when he owned a few large toys that were too big too choke on, rather than the piles of tiny toy rubble we have now. 

So I was pretty excited when I was offered a free Toydozer to review on my blog.  The Toydozer is a new cleaning device invented by Amy Bradley, a mom who was tired of cleaning up her son's toys every single day. 

The Toydozer comes with two parts: the scoop, which is kind of like a large dustpan, and the gatherer, which is a plastic piece you can use to shovel toys into the scoop.  The two pieces connect with Velcro for when you aren't using the Toydozer.  Observe the Toydozer in action:

This is a photo from the Toydozer site.  That is not my own kid.  

A couple of days after I indicated my interest in the Toydozer, I found myself in a situation where I really wished I already had it.  We had guests coming over in about 15 minutes, and my living room floor was strewn with the contents of different storage baskets: trains, tracks, cars, action figures, and various unidentifiable accessories.  How I wished I had my Toydozer to just scoop all that stuff up and dump it back in the baskets. 

The next week, my Toydozer arrived, relieving me of this burden of picking up small items by hand.  The Toydozer package included a hand-written note from inventor Amy Bradley, which I thought was a special touch. 

But, as eager as I was to try it, I admit to being a little bit skeptical about the thing.  Would a fancy dustpan really make my kid interested in cleaning up his own toys? 

I tried out the Toydozer myself before having Nathan try it.  I used it to pick up some Legos.  Sort of like this lady here, except she is thinner and prettier than I am:

Now came the true test: Would Nathan enjoy using it?  

He actually did!  I forgot about the power of fun gadgets to motivate children (slash husbands) to complete chores!  Nathan enjoyed using the Toydozer to clean up his own Legos.  An invention that eliminates battles over cleaning?  I'll take it. 

It's like the Toydozer's slogan says: Less Cleaning.  More Playing! (TM)

We also used the Toydozer to clean up the multiple sets of live-action Angry Birds that Bill bought for himself Nathan. And then we used it to doze a big pile of action figures. 

You can also use the Toydozer for blocks:

Puzzle pieces:

Or any other small toy!  I'm told it's good for Polly Pocket and her accessories, though of course we don't have any of those lying around. 

The Toydozer retails for $18.99 at the Toydozer site, and it comes in blue, yellow, or purple.  And right now, you can save 20% off your Toydozer using code BLOGGER20. 

Or, do you want to enter to win a free Toydozer?  The Toydozer people have given me one free Toydozer to give away.

Here's how you enter:

Leave a comment that includes your name somewhere, and that answers the question:

What was your favorite toy to play with as a kid?

(Mine was Cabbage Patch Kids, and dolls in general, really.)

Contest is open to all residents of the U.S. and Canada, and ends Wednesday, April 25 at 12:00 a.m. CST.  At that time a winner will be chosen at random, and I will notify everyone of the winner on my blog. 

Good luck, and happy playing!    

This post is part of a Toydozer blogger outreach campaign. Participating bloggers have been provided with a complimentaryToydozer to review and have been compensated for their time. 

Year of Less Consumption: Report #3

Outside the Box
(Or, Yep, I'm Still Doing This ... Sort Of)

In case you don't remember, or you never read it in the first place, back in January I declared 2012 The Year of Less Consumption. 

As is the case with most New Year's Resolutions, the ideals of the Year of Less Consumption have been slightly worn down by the details of reality.  But I like to think that it's the details of reality that help shape a goal into something that you can live with long-term.

Let me give an example.

Back in February, Nathan went to a joint birthday party for two different birthday kids.   As per one of the Year of Less Consumption tenets, "Emphasize experiences over material goods," I bought each kid an experience-based birthday gift.  Let me show you what the gifts looked like, and then explain the contents and wrapping:

I got both kids gift cards.  The top gift was a McDonald's gift card.  (I know some may question the environmental-friendliness of McDonald's itself, but, dude, I'm trying here.)  The bottom one was a movie gift card, hence the clever tag, which I actually cut out of an invitation to another kid's birthday party.  That was one of my finer Year of Less Consumption acts. 

I attached each kid's gift card to a box of candy to add extra weight and hopefully prevent the gift from getting lost.  For the wrapping paper, I used packing paper that had been used as stuffing in a package Bill received earlier that week.  There were yards and yards of the paper, but they were wrinkled, so I actually busted out my iron and smoothed them out.  Nathan had all kinds of follow-up questions about ironing, suggesting that maybe I don't iron at all enough.  Then I tied each package with Martha Stewart baker's twine I got at JoAnn.  I thought the packages had a sweet, understated simplicity that Martha herself might approve of. 

Then we got to the birthday party, and I realized that understated simplicity is not the aesthetic most people go for when it comes to the wrapping of children's birthday gifts.  I deposited my sad brown packages among the sea of brightly-colored balloon- and animal-printed gifts. 

It didn't help that the next day one of the birthday kid's moms called to inquire about my gift, which had accidentally been taken home by the other birthday kid.  "Did you give us a package wrapped in brown paper?" she asked, an innocent question that nonetheless made me feel like some kind of a dumbass redneck who doesn't own proper wrapping paper. 

So for the next birthday party, I abandoned all my environmental ideals and bought a gift bag with matching tissue paper and tag from Target.  Actually, the main reason I went that wrapping route was that by that point I was busy and frazzled from my work and other endeavors.  I didn't feel like I had the time--or, more accurately, the desire--to spend half an hour ironing paper and making homemade gift tags.  Which led to some guilt because, Am I too busy to care about the environment?  

But this is where the details of reality come in to shape ideals into something livable.  Maybe I can't always be ironing out packaging paper and making tags out of old invitations.  But I did still get the kid an experience-based gift, and I like to think that a gift bag is at least a form of gift wrap that can be reused. 

Bottom line, I had arrived at a level of environmental-friendliness that I could actually live with.  And I think that pretty much sums up where I am with the Year of Less Consumption.  I have established practices that I can live with. 

For example, I always bring my reusable bags to the grocery store or Target.  I have become comfortable toting my change of clothes to the gym in a cloth bag--even though I have to then put my sweaty clothes in the bag after the gym, because it turns out the bag is washable.  I'm totally cool with cloth napkins now, even for wrapping my breakfast sandwich to eat in the car.  (I like to think my sandwich feels all cool and artisan wrapped in cloth, even though it's just two misshapen fried eggs on a piece of toast.) 

And I'm pretty good about washing out empty food containers (sour cream and the like) for food storage.  I'm like your grandmother over here. 

So, in conclusion, I think that the Year of Less Consumption is still alive and well, albeit in a slightly different incarnation.  I think my Year of Less Consumption practices have instilled an awareness in me about what we buy and what we throw out, and this awareness has shaped my everyday practices. 

I also like to think I've made a tiny impact on others.  For example, recently Nathan was invited to a birthday party for my friend's twins.  I emailed my friend and explained my whole Year of Less Consumption thing, and I asked her what kind of experience-based gift the twins might like.  She replied with an I love this idea and suggested bowling gift cards.  And maybe now she will go on to give experience-based gifts, just as I have seen other parents do after I gave these types of gifts to their children.  And so, in that way, maybe I can start a tiny movement here.