Here, have some pants!

Alright, some stuff's going down.

First off, Bradley and I became members of our church on Sunday! Maybe that doesn't strike you as relevant, but it's part of this project. Now comes the donation of time, talent and treasure to my beloved Heritage UU Church.

And today, I gave away some pants! There's some back story, so bear with me.

In early February, there's a big advertising party and the theme is Party in Your Pants. (Yeah yeah yeah.) Most people from my agency are going, and crazy pants are required. This weekend I went to the Salvation Army to find my crazy pants (mission accomplished), and I found another pair of pants that were too crazy to be ignored, but they weren't even close to fitting me.

Well I bought them anyway, and today I found a coworker who I thought might be able to fit into the pants. (They were too small for me, so it wasn't insulting to her, haha...) She tried them on and voila, a match made in heaven. She's excited to have crazy pants (I'll take pictures at the party... for now I'll just say there are fish involved), I'm happy that the pants have a home. Score one for the YoP!

Also, just shopping at the Salvation Army counts, in my opinion. Patronizing thrift stores is something I already love to do, but I'm counting it as philanthropy also, what with it being a good cause and all. (Although lately I've been hearing bad things about the SA-- are they really anti-gay? Maybe I'll Goodwill it up next time.)

Oh! And! WVXU (my NPR member station) is having its fund drive right now. I'm way too strapped to donate much, but in exploring their site I found a form where they can contact me for volunteer opportunities (answering phones, data entry, etc) for their next pledge drive. That would be really fantastic... I hope I can work it into my schedule when it rolls around again! (And it feels like these things are every other week, sooooo...)

Tannenbaum, bulb, bulk

I helped take down our church's giant Christmas tree today. Normally I would leave right after service, but I'm looking for small windows of opportunity.

Also, I asked a few members of the church's Green Team about fluorescent bulb disposal. If you haven't been keeping up with the YoP comments, Lewis asked how to properly dispose of a fluorescent bulb, because they have small amounts of mercury in them. I found a guy at church who has some information that he's going to bring next week, so tune in for that. He says there are a few facilities around here that are specifically designed to handle them, but they have very limited hours.

For now, check out:
* Relevant FAQs from General Electric
* Earth911.org, where you can search recycling facilities by zip code
* LampRecycle.org

So I hope that answers your question, and maybe next week I'll have a few more pearls of wisdom for ya. ;) I wonder if I can create a place at Heritage where members can drop off bulbs, and then drive batches of them to the facility myself? The things never die, so it's frustrating to drive one bulb out to some recycling center, but if we collect them at church and periodically drive a batch over... hmm...

Bradley and I also did another paper dump (ew) at church-- the paper dumpster (as in a dumpster for paper, not a dumpster made of paper) was almost full. Such a small, easy thing to do-- and it's great to see our efforts adding up like that. I'm still a little skeptical about recycling things like paper, but I've already noticed that we have less trash at home.

Oh! And I wanted to mention that my friend Alison gave me a belated Christmas present: she sewed me some canvas shopping bags! She knows I'm "off" plastic bags, and has even witnessed me trying to juggle things in my arms as I walk to my car. (I'm horrible about remembering my totes.) The bags are gorgeous (brown and sparkly!) and I love them to death. :D