Did you know that companies can continue receiving mail for employees for five or more years after they've moved along? This adds up to a ton of waste and a huge headache for mailroom staffs. Entering old employees names into the database of the Ecological Mail Coalition is free and solves the problem.

So, I challenge you: If you have a business, take advantage of this service. If this isn't your area of responsibility at work, pass this information to someone who can handle this. :)

Ugh..I know, it's Tuesday. I meant to write this on Sunday, but I've been sick since last Wednesday. So sick that I missed classes on Thursday and I'm home again today. My Irish instructor is going to throw a fit and no matter how I feel tomorrow, I'm going to have to drag myself down to the Irish center. So..what does this all mean? I didn't do so great on my challenges for last week. I did manage to get one or maybe two boxes of books packed up and out of here, but my dishes..well, actually, while they're not all caught up (or probably even found), I did actually get the clean ones put away and some more done up. I'm going to try to drag myself to the kitchen today to work more on that.

So, for me, this week's challenge is the same as last week's challenge. Why? Cuz I clearly still need to do it..heh. For all of you, I'm going to issue a clean car challenge. Yep, the weather is getting nicer so how bout all of you go out, clear out the trash and whatever else is hiding in your cars and get them all swept out and shiny. For any of you where the weather is not cooperating, how about a nightstand challenge? Check out those night stands for things that just don't belong and throw it away, give it away or put it away.

As always, let me know. I love the comments and I love hearing how all of you are doing.

As some of you have seen, I'm participating in the Earth Hour 2 Earth Day Challenge. As part of that, I've said I'll post things here to help educate you and me about ways to go green in our lives. Since I'm one of those that always seems behind on the vocabulary of things, I decided to start out by posting a vocab lesson. Don't worry, there won't be a spelling test or anything later!

So, today's term is....

Half-Life : The time it takes for a half portion of a substance (any substance, but the term is typically used in reference to drugs, radioactive materials or pesticides) to be eliminated or disintegrated by natural processes from an organism or ecosystem. Some simple examples: The half-life of water in a human body is about 7 to 10 days; the half-life of lead in animal bones is about 10 years.

So now we'll know what they mean when they say the half-life of something in a landfill is x amount of time!

I know I've been missing for a while. I spent a week in Michigan and school has been a bit nuts. I'm back now though and what better to come back with than this week's challenge! The challenges for a bit are going to be two part..one part cleaning, one part organizing. I'm down to less than 2 months before my move and I swear you can't even tell how much work I've done. It's amazing how much I've crammed into this place.

Cleaning : Ok, my focus for this week is dishes. Since I need to start packing them soon, I ought to track them all down. With the boys, you just never know where you're gonna find a spoon. So, the challenge is to find all those dirty dishes and to get them all washed up.

Organizing: Well, I know we've already done bookshelves, but since that's my packing goal right now, I'm going to be focused there. For all of you, how about board games? I'm going to challenge all of you to go through those old games, find out which are missing pieces, which you just don't play with and which ones you just could never get rid of. Then, freecycle, thrift or donate those that you don't want anymore.

Please let me know if you're participating! I'd love to feel like I'm not in this alone.