If you were staying at a Anaheim California hotel and wanted to find a playground where would you look? Just moved and looking for a great place to play? One place to check is KaBOOM! KaBOOM! Is a national non-profit organization that’s trying to make sure that all children have access to a place to play. Their stated mission is “to create great playspaces through the participation and leadership of communities. The non-profit believes that by getting a diverse group of volunteers within the community to create a playspace it will also foster citizenship. Besides the terrific work they’re doing, they’ve also made available a Playspace finder, which is custom map of places to play that can be searched by zip, equipment and user ratings.

Some people don’t realize that they can have a positive effect on our environment by changing their grocery shopping habits. Here’s five tips you can use for greener shopping.
1. Buy locally and you’ll lessen packaging and transportation costs.
2. Buy concentrated forms and stop paying for packaging water.
3. Buy in bulk and lessen the amount of packaging of lots of smaller packages.
4. Using reusable cloth bags when you go grocery shopping.
5. If you use plastic bags, or even paper ones, be sure to recycle them.

Over the past few months I’ve noticed some makeup in the Avon book that accepts refills. At first I didn’t really understand why, which says something about the text and description in the book. This week I realized that these refillable products are basically a partially green product, because the packaging gets reused. Consider the countless amounts of people that use cosmetics daily for all sorts of reasons – beauty, work, even an alternative to acne scarring treatment. Imagine the impact this could have if all cosmetics companies did it. Some companies like MAC offer a free product when you turn in six used ones. So next time you’re buying cosmetics, look for something with a container you can refill.

Many people don’t really know how many ways there are to be green and help the environment. Here are tips to a greener house.

• Turn off the water when you’re brushing your teeth.
• Rearrange your furniture to make better use of natural light.
• Switch to compact fluorescent lightbulbs and keep them dust free to increase efficiency and output.
• Keep heating and air vents clean so that systems run efficiently.
• Make sure gaps are caulked and rooms are insulated to make sure you aren’t wasting the heat and air you use.
• Wash clothes in cold water.
• Use a clothesline to dry clothes whenever possible.
• Keep the dryer’s lint filter clean.
• Refrigerators are more efficient full than empty because they hold the cold better. Keep your refrigerator full without overpacking it, which causes poor circulation and makes it hard to control humidity.
• Store your food in glass or porcelain containers instead of plastic. It’s less recycling and chemicals don’t adhere to those surfaces as easily as they do to plastic.

Dry loads of clothing one after another to make use of leftover heat. Loads will dry more quickly this way.

Don’t add wet or damp clothes to a partially dry load already in progress.

Make your own fabric softener. Add a teaspoon of fragrance free natural conditioner onto a cloth and place it in the dryer with the clothing.

Clean the lint trap in the dryer after every use to keep good circulation and reduce energy usage.

Remove clothing from the dryer before it’s completely dry and let it finish drying on a line.

Use a drying rack or a clothes line either inside or outside of your home instead of using the dryer.

Don’t underfill or overfill the washing machine. Make your loads of wash close to machine weight capacity, which you can find either on your machine or in it’s documentation.

Separate colors before washing. Wash like colors together.

One half cup of baking soda added in with your detergent will help boost cleaning power and will neutralize odors.

One quarter cup of white vinegar added during the rinse cycle will reduce static cling, removing the need for dryer sheets.

Wash clothes in cold water wash unless they are heavily soiled. All detergents work in cold water.

If you don’t know how to prepare yourself and your home for the first 72 hours after a disaster, you should visit 72hours.org. 72 Hours is a website run by the City of San Francisco but offers valuable planning tips that would be useful to anyone.

There are two main areas to the site.  The first area is How To Prepare. This area teaches you to create an emergency plan, and what you’ll need ready and waiting for you to get through the first 72 hours after the disaster strikes. For each of the different topics discussed there are helpful tips included on how to help make your home safer on a day to day basis. The different topics include home safety, children, seniors & the disabled,  pets, utilities, food, water, first aid, go bag, phone, volunteer, training and community. I never realized how helpful it could be to have an out of state emergency contact in case of a natural disaster. The suggestion there that I want to do in our home is to create a “go bag” for all of the members of our home.

The second area of the site is the What To Do If section. This area instructs you on what to do in certain types of potentially disastrous situations.  The different topics included here are earthquake, storm/flooding, terror, contagious disease, transit safety, evacuation, fire, no power, tsunamis, sirens and shelter in place. I found the evacuation tips very helpful.

I found this site to be a very valuable resource that anyone could benefit from visiting. Are you and your home ready if a natural disaster strikes? Would you be able to get through the first 72 hours? Check out 72Hours.org and see if you’re ready. Let me know which idea you found most helpful.

I keep all of the plastic bags that I get when I go grocery shopping. I put all of the bags into one bag and keep that bag in a bottom kitchen drawer. Here are some ideas on how to resue those bags.

Some stores, like Aldi’s and Costco, offer no bags. That’s when the plastic bags come in handy. Bring them with you and bag your items for easier carrying.

Line your small garbage cans at home with them, rather than buying bags. I actually always have one in one of our bathrooms, so that after I clean the cat box I can get rid of the waste neatly.

Put one in the car for trash. I hook mine over the inside latch of the glove compartment, so if we have trash while driving it goes right into the bag.

We take them with us when we go camping, and dispose of dog waste in them.

We always keep a bag in my younger son’s backpack, in case he has an accident there is something to put wet clothing in.

Do you reuse plastic bags? Feel free to share how you reuse them.

Many people have things in their homes that they no longer use but aren’t sure how to get ride of properly. Old computers for example. No matter if you’ve upgraded to a newer one or are just a pack rat like my Dad, if you’re a hard core computer user chances are you have a computer, laptop or monitor that you can’t or don’t use anymore just sitting around. You can’t just throw them in the garbage, so they sit in your house, attic or garage. I have a possible solution for you to check out. It’s a site I found today called MyBoneYard. This is a new site that accepts many used electronics for recycling. Just fill out the form online and it tells you if your item qualifies. If it does you’ll be sent a prepaid shipping label to use to send that item to them. Some qualified items will even earn you some cash back. Sounds like the perfect way to get rid of old electronics. Visit MyBoneYard today to learn more about recycling your old electronics. And when MyBoneYard receives your qualifying recyclable item, you will receive an entry into their sweepstakes for a $2,500 home entertainment system.