earth day again

We had thought about doing big things for Earth Day but they didn't really pan out. We did take our reusable bags to the grocery store today, and we've sorted the cans to be recycled but haven't taken them yet. We watched some Earth Day programs on our television and have been conscientious about turning off all the lights we didn't need. Our biggest contribution to the health of the earth this year is potty training Dennis! He doesn't even need training pants any more. We still have a handful of them and will probably use those up, but after that I don't foresee buying any more and hope that I won't have to! There might be a bit of laundry increase, but no more landfill mess. We have made more smart choices in the past year as well. We don't drink bottled water, we have begun storing our food in glass containers instead of plastic, and we have REALLY decreased our paper towel use. My favorite toilet paper is the 100% recycled Scott tissue that comes in mega rolls--as soft and nice as the Angel Soft we used for years--but it isn't sold here in town so I only get it on trips to other places. All of our cleaning products are environmentally friendly now, and we've even planted our own garden.

This morning after I finished my breakfast (the usual healthy cereal and cranberries), David got into a creative cooking mood and made bacon wrapped egg rounds. He lightly sauteed bacon, put it in our muffin pan around the edges of the cups, broke 1 egg in each cup, baked this with herbs and spices, and served it on toast rounds that he'd made using a cookie cutter. I tried a bite of Dennis' portion and it was both attractive and DELICIOUS. The funniest thing about it--while the bacon was cooking, Dennis appeared from the other end of the house, sniffing the air and announcing "I smell good things to eat! What are you making for me, Daddy?". He pronounced it "tasty like ice cream" and ate a good bit of his portion.

Dennis got his own little watering can today at Wal-Mart and can't wait to start watering the plants. We saw our pastor at Wal-Mart as well, and Dennis walked right up to him and said "Hey, Brother Larry!". He knelt down to Dennis' level and asked him how he was doing, and Dennis said "I'm fine. You got me baptized when I was a baby--you put the water on my head!". Our minister agreed with him and told him how smart he was and asked him how old he was and he said "I'm three--it happened on my birthday, but now my birthday is over!". He's been talking about his baptism lately, and I find this amazing because it happened three years ago this month. He was a tiny infant. He has seen one picture of the event! It has meaning to him, though, that's for sure, and it was nice that he was thinking of it today especially since his Daddy and I learned about the sacraments last night in our 'What It Means to be a United Methodist' class at church. We didn't tell that to Dennis though. We sure are enjoying the class, which we thought we needed after both having been raised as Southern Baptist. As a matter of fact, our class is comprised of nearly 90% recovering Baptists like ourselves! In future years when Dennis takes confirmation classes, we'll have learned what they will teach him. Very nice. And very insightful.