Happy Earth Day!

I think every day should be Earth Day, but, I will use this opportunity to remind you to do your part in helping to slow down climate change.  Maybe today is the day to make a resolution to beef up your earth saving habits.  

Some of the things I try to do on a regular basis:

• Use reusable bags, not just at the grocery but at all stores.  Decline a bag when I can place an item into my tote.  I even have a reusable bag that rolls up into a small ball that I always carry around in case I need an extra bag.
• Don't drink from bottled water.  And I'm trying to expand to other plastic bottles
• Reduce the amount of energy used by always turning off lights, electronics and appliances and using power strips to reduce phantom power.
• I recently started growing my own herbs to use in my cooking (I'll be sure to post about this soon).
• Recycle as much as I can

One thing I would really like to be better at is to be a better consumer.  I'm going to try to not buy so much stuff.  Not that I already buy so much, but I figure if I buy just a little less, and focus on products that are more sustainable such as cleaning products with less toxins and items that will last longer and need to be replaced less frequently thereby reducing our waste (which may be more expensive, but if I buy less in general it will even out).  

Do you have any Earth Day resolutions?  Shariously let me know of any of your Earth Day suggestions!

Bye Bye Google Reader

If it weren't for google reader, I probably wouldn't be blogging to you today.  And now it's going away.

I know this news has been out for some time, but for the first few weeks after it was announced I was in denial.  Then I was determined to find a replacement.  I read a bunch of articles that were written within the first few days about where to turn and tried Feedly, The Old Reader and Bloglovin.  Feedly is pretty good.  The Old Reader took like a week to import from Google and then I wasn't impressed.  And Bloglovin needs a lot of work to catch up.  I'll stick with Feedly for now, it's growing on me.

Back in the summer of 2009 (I think) I saw the usual options at the top of my gmail page: search, images, calendar, documents; then over on the right I saw "Reader."  It probably had been there for a while, but I never noticed it.  I noted it and kind of forgot about it since I didn't really have any blogs that I followed.  My routine pretty much included checking NYTimes and Gothamist on a daily basis.

Every now and then I would get forwarded posts from failblog and When Parents Text, so a couple of months later I opened up reader again and decide to add those to my Reader.  It was so easy to use I decided to add gothamist, some friends' blogs and search some of the "recommended" items.  From there I learned about some of my favorite blogs and the list kept growing.  Then when NYTimes switched to a subscription mode I found out I could add NYTimes and all my favorite columns (and not have to pay).  Reader makes it so easy to scroll through and read so much so quickly!

As I started to follow personal bloggers, I learned about more and more of them/you and starting thinking about blogging, but never really acted on it.  Then, my blogging hobby started the same way my Reader obsession started; I clicked on the "more" button atop gmail and discovered blogger and created a blog!

What feed readers do you Shariously suggest I use?

PS - failblog and WPT like sites have migrated off my reader.

LED Shoelaces

A deal for these Light-Up LED shoelaces showed up in my inbox today ($10 for 2 pair if you're interested). I was intrigued.  Not because light-up shoelaces are super practical, but it got me wondering what else could technology like this be used for?  Or are we really headed into the future where are clothes look like the movies predicted (you know with all the lights and wires).

• Are these any different from L.A Lights (or whatever they are called now)?  Kids running around with shoes that light up
• Are the laces flexible or stiff like those glow necklaces you have to "break" to work.

What do you guys think?  Anything more practical that these could be used for?