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Moms are a wonderful thing, and since they only get one day a year for acknowledgement, you better make sure that you don’t forget. Mother’s day, on May 10th this year, is coming up rather quickly, and before you know it, you’ll be standing in a card aisle at Hallmark with about a half hour until Sunday Brunch. Well not this year friends, because you are about to get some advice on how to show your Mother how much she means to you, without trashing Mother Earth in the process.
- Flowers - Flowers are a traditional standard, and it’s hard not to please with the proper bouquet. But make sure the flowers you purchase have not been treated with pesticides or other nasty chemicals, and are grown in a sustainable way. If possible, pick your own, but remain respectful of people’s gardens. Try to find out if your mom has a favorite flower or color that can be featured dominantly in the display.
- Veggies O’ the Month - If your mother is into organic foods send her a vegetable or fruit of the month from a community supported agriculture group. This way, she can be surprised on a monthly basis by a new food, and then use it to cook great, healthier dinners with locally grown, organic products. The community supported agriculture directory can be seen here: Local Harvest.
- Chocolate - And now that you’ve thought about eating right, why not support eating a little wrong. It’s hard to deny chocolate as one of the tastiest snacks in the world, but now you can have your chocolate, and protect the planet at the same time. Make sure you look for organic, and fair trade chocolates, and in specific, check out TerraPass’s Climate Change Chocolate, whose wrapper comes with 15 tips to help you live more sustainably, as well as the offset of 133 pounds of CO2, or a person’s daily average emissions.
- Solar Gadget - For the outdoorsy mom, who would rather go on hikes than read a book, think about getting her a neat solar gadget, or a water bottle with the filter right in it. You can find solar powered flashlights and purifying water bottles everywhere on the web.
- Carbon Offsetting - Some moms are way ahead of the curve on sustainability. There the ones who’ve been telling us for years to turn the faucets off, to turn the lights off when you leave a room, and the ones who installed Carbon Fluorescent Light Bulbs before they were in the news. For these moms, consider buying them a Renewable Energy Credit to offset their carbon emissions for a certain amount of time. I’m sure most moms would love to live carbon neutral for a year, just to take one more challenge off the table.
Don’t forget, you could also simply make your mom a gift, a la the 2nd grade macaroni on a string necklace. You can also draw her a picture or write her a letter or note to let her know what she means to you. Just don’t forget that it’s her day, and the other 364 are all you.