I hope everyone had a terrific, meaningful and joyous holiday, whatever your chosen holiday may be! I’m thinking about what I can do for our earth this coming year, ways to go beyond plain, old awareness to push myself to step ever more lightly. I want to be a better example to Georgia, and these are some ways I’m going to try.

• Spend more time in the great outdoors. We live in the glorious Pacific Northwest: natural wonders abound. There is a new campground 31 miles from my house. I can make reservations online and rent a cabin or a yurt. If we don’t go camping this year, we might as well live in a lawn-filled, gated community far from any natural resources.

• Make public transportation our first choice means of getting around. We don’t use the car much, but we haven’t truly embraced public transportation. Now that Georgia is older it’s easy to take the bus, but I’m not used to building in the extra time for daily things. I want it to be a habit so we don’t think twice when we head out the door.

• Use less water. This is my greatest sin against nature. I love a long shower, and it’s my usual way of calming down and getting some linear thoughts thunk. It’s hard to take water conservation so seriously when we have such endless bouts of rain, but I have to turn my mind around and make this an issue in our house. We’ve done a lot of the things on the tips list, like installed faucet aerators and not washing our car with a running hose (or, actually, ever!), but we can recycle rainwater for our garden, use a pan of water to rinse dishes instead of letting the water run — and take shorter showers. I’ve ordered a five minute shower timer to make myself aware!

• Eat less meat. It’s hard to believe Hova and I were once vegetarians. We do love us some pig, and other of our tasty animal friends have found their way to our table with more and more frequency. Georgia loves meat, and it’s the easiest way for me to make sure she is getting protein, but I need to explore other options. Especially now that she will finally eat vegetables. I know Jessica Harlan will have some great ideas for me in ’08!

• The hardest one, and the one where I don’t even know where to start: Try to organize and simplify. We still haven’t unpacked since we moved back to Portland four years ago. Some of it’s not our fault, most of it is, but we live a very cluttered, unorganized life. I recently told Georgia, “You know, just because Mommy and Daddy are messy doesn’t mean you have to live like this.” “I know,” she said, “I can go live with Wendy and Emily.” Those are her best friend’s parents, our dear friends, and yes, their house is cleaner than ours, but I wasn’t suggesting Georgia should move out if she is disgusted with our lifestyle. At least not at four! But clearly we need to do something about this. We always say we either need more time or more money. Well, Georgia starts school next year, and we’ll probably have a little bit more of both, so we’ll see if that theory holds.

So now I’m going to relax through the last days of 2007, knowing big challenges and exciting changes are in store. I’d love to hear your ideas for green resolutions. My awareness is raised, now I’m trying to raise the bar in our own lives to do our part to save this planet for my daughter, and her daughter. But I may take just one extra-long shower before that timer gets here!