Happy New Year

It just became 2008 here. My first act of business was to do a crazy dance while the ball dropped, then high-five my brother... and then to blog, naturally.

It being just past midnight in a small suburb of Cincinnati, it's probably not practical to run out and try to find a homeless man to give money to or something. But I want to talk about something now, at the stroke of 2008, so I'll mention some stuff that's been in the works for a week or so now.

A large part of my project-- which I completely forgot to mention in my last post, because I was in a hurry-- is being more eco-friendly. Is that philanthropy? Probably not, by traditional definitions. But I guess one could argue that helping our environment helps people in the future... alright, so it's a stretch, but shuddup. 'S'my project.

Yesterday I bought a separate trash can for aluminum cans, which we hadn't been recycling until now. (Bradley drinks like two cases a week on his own, so it's kind of a big deal.) Also, kind of a bigger step-- I've weened my family off of paper towels. We are paper towel whores, but I've purchased a bunch of cloth napkins, washcloths and kitchen towels, and for the past couple of weeks we've been managing on those without horrible withdrawal symptoms. ;) Finally in recycling news, our church recycles paper-- I normally wouldn't make this effort because of an episode of Bullsh*t, but I believe our church actually makes some money off of recycling paper, so I'm all for it. There's a box in our kitchen now, which actually fills up quite fast (well, wrapping paper and stuff from the holidays helps), and this past Sunday was our first drop-off. Yea, less waste!

To some degree, I think my brother and my dad think I've gone slightly crazy for the green bandwagon, but they don't give me grief about it. We've been using the energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs long before they became The Household Thing that they are now, but now almost every light in our house uses the bulbs. That was mostly dad's doing. Bradley's mere participation in the paper towel experiment speaks volumes. It's a much more fun endeavor with the two of them. I don't share a house with my mom, but she's been instrumental in getting me off of plastic bags-- I now take canvas totes to the grocery store, and use brown paper bags, which we reuse in garbage cans. It's one part green-ness, one part family solidarity. I love it.

Also, our church has been driving some of these points home like mad. My brother and I attend a Universalist Unitarian church, and most of the congregation is absorbed with the green movement. There's a committee dedicated to green-ness, actually, and they've done things like set up the paper recycling bin and a compost heap. So again, it's more fun together-- it's something I'm doing as part of a community, not just as one person.

Alright, so what else am I doing right now, for green-ness' sake? I'm trying to be more energy efficient: turning off my computer when I leave work, turning off lights behind me (I am SO bad about leaving lights on-- it's a security thing), using more efficient settings on the dishwasher and washer/dryer, stuff like that. This year I want to ride the bus more-- I rode it a few times last year and LOVED it, but it doesn't always work because I can't guarantee I'll leave work in time to catch a bus back home. But I want to make that happen more this year. Wish me luck.

This post is getting lengthy. Let's cut it short for now... happy New Year, everyone! I'm thrilled to get this underway! Anyone have any goals or resolutions they want to share?

Year of Philanthropy: Inauguration

Actually, this project doesn't kick off until January 1st, 2008... but that's no reason to hold up the admin, right? I'm setting up this blog prematurely so that all my ducks are in a row for 2008-- I've also set up a Google Calendar (see link, top right) in case anyone wants to follow stuff that way-- I just thought it'd be another interesting way for me to chart what I'm doing.

So let me talk about this project for a few minutes. I've been really, really excited about it for a few weeks now. Every year, instead of a "resolution," I choose a word that I want to apply to the entire year. Last year it was "balance," and before that, "stability." Both of those words served me very well, but I'm looking forward to acting on something more concrete this year.

I chose to focus on philanthropy this year. It's more specific than "balance," but it's still very open-ended, allowing me to interpret it in a ton of different ways.

This year is not about writing checks to charities, although hopefully that will be an element. It's more about person-to-person goodwill. Some ideas of how I want to attack this:

* Helping out/supporting my friends more. (I have a track record of putting work ahead of friendstuffs. That sucks.)
* Participate in more charity events, with a special focus on Relay for Life (which I've been a part of for the past two years, walking and performing).
* Become more involved in my church, which I've been holding at arm's length for a while.

Do you have any suggestions for me? Please leave them here in the comments, or email me at redrabbit [at] gmail [dot] com. I blog because it's collaborative and that inspires me.

Alright, well that's enough for now, especially since I'm a couple of days ahead of myself. Come on, 2008!