Like many modern folks, I'm accustomed to seeing perfectly matched eggs. Even the organic eggs that I buy at the supermarket are uniform in size within the box, regardless of slight variations in shell tone. Recently, I decided to switch to shopping at the farmer's market, where I was surprised one day when I passed a booth selling eggs whose size varied among the dozen. I suppose that I had previously assumed that all hens of a certain type always laid identically sized eggs -- i.e., one sort would always lay large, another would always lay extra large, etc. But really, I hadn't thought about it too much. I've never seen a real hen laying real eggs.

I had no idea that hens might lay eggs of varying size. I then leapt to a conclusion that, perhaps, "organic" hens in the "natural" state must lay eggs of wildly varying size, like that ones I saw at the Union Square Greenmarket, in the same way the humans have babies of varying weights. Why were the supermarket eggs all the same size? Does this have something to do with agribusiness? What have we done to our fair chickens?

I shared these thoughts with my father over dinner one night not long afterwards. As I spoke, I saw the fear that he had raised an idiot flash behind his eyes.

"No, Rena," he said gently, "they sort the eggs."

Oh. When I ran this story past other people, including some of the farmers at the greenmarket, they all expressed amusement that I had not known that supermarket eggs achieve their uniformity through presorting. I must have looked like an idiot asking apparently obvious-to-everyone-but-me questions like, "Do different hens within a group lay different sized eggs?"

But seriously, how was I to know? I grew up in the suburbs, live in the city, and have never seen an egg in the nest. Aside from childhood trips to historical reconstructions like Colonial Williamsburg, I've never seen people interacting with live poultry.

I'm just one more urban girl with an imperfect idea of where her food comes from. And maybe, not knowing much about it made a fool out of me. But I'm nothing if not eager to learn. So I took the opportunity to poke around at the farmers' market and educate myself on the various kinds of eggs you might see shopping outside of a supermarket:

1. Chicken eggs are the old familiars. The ones you see in the photographs were purchased at a greenmarket and have bright marigold-yellow yolks.
2. Pullet eggs are smaller, laid by younger hens. They are a fun choice if you're looking for a way to control portion size.
3. Duck eggs are larger than chicken eggs, more oblong in shape, and their shells have a matte, parchment-like tone to them. They have a bright yolk with a more orangey color than you'd see in a chicken egg, and taste oddly egg-ier than chicken eggs. Bakers like to use them because they loft up higher in cakes.
4. The cute kid siblings of the egg world, quail eggs are considered a delicacy, although you might find them too pretty to eat. The insides of the shells are pale blue, and the outsides are speckled. Some confectioner's shops sell chocolate imitations, but there's really no risk of confusion.

Please rest assumed that every delicious egg in the photos was eaten. Yes, I had fun playing with my breakfast food all week.

Just try to watch this and not grin:

I’m pretty sure I went a little overboard buying seeds today. It’s another gloomy early spring day and the garden center had me under its spell—it was like grocery shopping hungry. Also, I had the girls with me and they kept pointing to seed packets and saying things like, “Look, they have purple carrots!” or “Can I plant these pretty flowers?” I don’t even know how big my garden plot is but I splashed out anyway. I did get mostly compact and container-friendly varieties of vegetables, though, so I could always keep some at home.

As I pored over the seed packets I imagined myself in my gardening hat gathering the harvest. I imagined Cheyenne and Isabella eating veggies straight from the plant. I imagined the luscious, amazing meals I would make from the bounty of my garden, and the tranquil peaceful setting the flowers would create on my patio.

Then I got home and all of my insecurity kicked in. I don’t know why, but I am kind of nervous about failing at this. Ever since I was a kid I have wanted to be good at gardening. The Secret Garden was my all-time favorite book when I was younger and I loved to imagine myself as Mary, coaxing things to life and caring for my “bit of earth.” I think I’m afraid I’m going to shatter that daydream or something ridiculous like that. I need to turn off my inner perfectionist on this project and just look at it as an experiment.

When we got home I sorted the seeds by when they needed to be started. The anaheim peppers, black cherry tomatoes (I know, I already said I had too many tomatoes), violas, delphinium and some white flower I got for free needed to be started today. A few others like the zucchini and basil need to be started a few weeks before the last frost and the rest can be planted directly in the ground. I also got some cat grass for the kitties that can be started indoors at any time.

The violas were Cheyenne’s pick. She is obsessed with the color purple. They are an edible flower, which makes me happy. We found a pretty yellow flower pot in the garage and together we planted the seeds. I think the purple flowers will look very cheerful in their yellow pot.

I planted the black cherry tomatoes, anaheim peppers, and delphinium by myself as Cheyenne had run off by then. I used the electrical tape marking system I came up with on Sunday. The white flowers were Bella’s choice so I waited for her to wake up from her nap, then we planted them together.

Finally I planted the cat grass. the package said to plant it in something flat like a bowl, so I dug out an old roasting pan that we found in the garage. I’m not comfortable using it for cooking, but it made a cute container for the cat grass. I considered getting catnip too, but my cat Anakin is a recovering catnip junkie and I was pretty sure it would be destroyed almost immediately.

In case you are curious, here’s a list of the seeds I got that haven’t been mentioned already: Cucumber, Lemon cucumber, Summer squash, Basil, Thai basil, Mesclun, Italian Parsley, Cilantro, Mint, Chives, Two kinds of nasturtiums, Leeks, Snap peas, Carrots, Purple carrots, Daisies, Forget-me-nots, Marigolds—I told you I went nuts!

Some are for the community garden and some are for the house. There are a few more plants I want to get—a type of pumpkin meant for smaller spaces, tomatillos, purple curly leaf basil, chervil, and more flowers and herbs that I won’t know I need until I see them. I’ll probably hit the farmer’s market for some plants later in the spring.

As everything in my apartment is being torn apart and packed into boxes, I have been thinking long and hard about this organization challenge. I’ve decided that for me this is going to boil down to three major points: my habits, arranging my physical space in an efficient way, and getting my family on board.

Adjusting my habits will help keep laziness and poor planning from derailing my efforts. This is a problem for me. When the girls were babies I fell into some bad habits out of exhaustion and they need to be broken.

Arranging my physical space in an efficient way will make it easy to do the things I need to do. Having things laid out poorly wastes time and effort that could probably be spent more efficiently elsewhere.

Getting my family on board is crucial. My girls are old enough to put things away and help with chores. The responsibility is good for them and I have better things to do than pick up their toys all the time or put away clothes they pulled out of the drawer for no reason. Zach is more than willing to help, but when things are disorganized he gets overwhelmed. Having him help with organizing things he uses everyday will make the system work for both of us, not just me.

Deciding which to tackle first feels like a chicken-or-egg sort of question. All of these factors are very much intertwined. I have to start somewhere though and I am starting with my habits. I can’t tackle the new space until my dad has moved out of it and I think the kids have enough on their plate right now just adjusting to the idea of moving.

I’m going to start with three simple things this week.

• First, I am going to make sure I put the cloth grocery bags back in the car when I’m done. This will prevent me from getting to the store and realizing that they are still at home.
• Second, I am going to rinse out my travel coffee mug when I am done with it and stick it directly in the diaper bag so I don’t forget that either. I always have the diaper bag with me, so that should prevent me from forgetting it.
• Third, every time I leave the house to go somewhere I’m going to ask myself if there are any other errands I need to run that are on the way there or back. I got a good start on this today. I planned ahead and did my grocery shopping after work.

How are you doing this week?

I recently watched The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard, a 20 minute film about consumerism, its destructive effects, and a little eensy bit at the end about what we can do about it.

It is good—very well thought out and clearly presented. One thing I loved hearing about was how consumerism was designed into our economy as its driving force after World War II. This quote by economist Victor Lebow is astounding:

“Our enormously productive economy ... demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption…. we need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate.”

Too bad Lebow’s predictive powers didn’t follow all the way through to how future generations were supposed to deal with the mess created by this idea ... but I digress.

It seems to me that this film was made to introduce people to the concepts of sustainability, and it mostly does a very good job of that.

But there is a bit in the intro, about 2 minutes in, where Leonard says “The government is there to take care of us. That’s its job.” That statement right there just turned off about a hundred gazillion people, including me. And most of the people who would be turned off by that statement? Are probably the ones who most need to watch the rest of this video, which really is excellent.

There’s also a bit where a diminutive government stick figure shines the shoes of the big fat corporation stick figure in a top hat, which made me giggle, but I’m not sure how many conservative types will stick around after that.

Maybe Leonard doesn’t care, but she should. Isn’t it possible that there are people who identify more with conservative, small-government values but still are interested in a better environmental paradigm? The choir understands the sermon already. It’s time to widen the circle.

Besides turning off non-liberals, I also don’t think it’s particularly useful to cast corporations in the role of villain. We are all in this mess together. Every person and every organization has a contribution to make.

In fact, giant corporations have the biggest potential to turn things around. I and everyone I know can be yurt-living vegans and still never have anywhere near the impact of Wal-Mart increasing the fuel efficiency of their truck fleet by 25%, as they are on track to do by the end of this year. Any solution for our future is going to require the full participation of industry, so why antagonize?

So much environmental rhetoric is full of this venom for corporations. I believe it’s a huge failing on the movement’s part for many reasons, but none more important than this: people do not respond as well to anger as they do to encouragement and inclusion. Ever have a boss who yelled at you vs. a boss who was nice to you? Who did you work harder for?

Corporations are made up of people, and people can be reached if you approach them in a way they can respond to. Accusing them of killing babies is probably not the most effective tactic.

What do you think about The Story of Stuff? Let us know in the comments.

Inspired to daydream by the snowiest Easter I care to remember, I began my community gardening adventure by starting some seeds. I picked the girls’ room at the new house to be my potting shed because until we have entirely moved in it is the least disturbed room in the house. I didn’t involve the kids in this part, mostly because they were so sugared up on Easter candy they couldn’t stay focused long enough to be useful.

I used one of those plastic “greenhouse” seed starter kits. I know, I know. It’s not the most eco-friendly way to start seeds. You’ll have to forgive me. I’m nervous about this gardening thing and the last time I was able to grow some really solid plants from seeds was in elementary school using one of those seedling kits. You have my word. When I get more experience and more confidence at this gardening stuff I will find a better way of starting seeds.

After I had planted the first row I realized that if I didn’t find some way of labeling them I’d never remember which plants were which. I improvised a labeling system using some of my husband’s electrical tape. It comes in several colors to help you to tell electrical wires apart. I taped a different color on each row according to the type of plant and made a key using a sheet of notebook paper.

I planted two rows of a compact sort of tomato I am hoping to grow at the house, two rows of mixed heirloom tomatoes and three rows of mixed bell peppers. I was going to plant the packet of cucumber seeds that I had until I read the seed packet and realized they didn’t need to be started indoors. I was also going to plant the rest of the Early Girl tomatoes we used at my daughter’s birthday party until I realized there were none left.

It’s probably just as well that I was out of the Early Girls as I think I probably have more than enough tomato plants already. Of course I could always give away the extras. That would probably be a nice way of meeting the neighbors I don’t know and reconnecting with the ones I do.

I took a photo of the birthday tomatoes we planted last week. As you can see we have a couple of sprouts. Hopefully that is a sign of things to come.

Half of the greenhouse kit is still empty so sometime this week I am going to take Cheyenne seed shopping. If she’s come down off her sugar high by then I will even let her help me to plant them. Wish us luck!

Every four years, as potential presidents vie for the support of the electorate, we hear a lot about hope. Candidates wax rhapsodic about it for days on end, and we eat it up with a spoon and a cherry on top.

It’s not surprising. In an increasingly insecure world, hope gives us something to hold on to. We might not be able to see very far into the future, but we can at least hope that it will be good, which makes us feel a little better.

This, of course, is a necessary thing. God only knows where humanity would be if we didn’t have this capacity. In our darkest times, hope keeps us going.

My problem with hope is that, on its own, it’s inherently passive—nice and warm and fluffy, but ineffectual. If we were sitting inside a burning house, hope would have us looking round at each other and saying “I hope the firefighters get here soon” when we could be gathering up the children and pets and getting ourselves out of danger.

Even worse is when hope is an enabler, when it gets pinned like a pathetic little tail on the donkey of postmodern cynicism. When we look at life through a fundamentally pessimistic lens, we are magically relieved of our responsibility to change anything.

Meanwhile, as we bitch and moan about the sad state of things, the state of things gets ever sadder. So do we—cynicism begets more cynicism. And our small allotments of hope just encourage us to wait, blindly, for something better to come along.

One recent example of this dynamic: The Secret. Millions of people saw and read it, hoped for things, then sat on their arses waiting for those things to materialize out of thin air. But—seriously—has anything ever materialized out of thin air? Has any desire come true with absolutely no action on the desirer’s part? Do we really believe that Santa Claus is going to give us everything we hope for, even if Mom and Dad are broke?

This hope-and-wait act is so childish, so rife with dodgy thinking about how things work, it’s no wonder we are cynical.

And what are we waiting for anyway? Who’s going to save us? The government? Global free markets? Barack Obama? Maybe. But in the meantime, we risk a LOT by sitting still. In fact, we risk everything.

We at The Sunny Way hereby propose that all such flaccid waiting and hoping come to a full and complete stop right now. We’d like to add the concepts of action and responsibility to the mix.

Instead of using hope as a band-aid to soothe the sad cockles of our cynical hearts, let’s allow it to illuminate possibilities. Instead of vague optimistic platitudes, let’s make our hopes specific. Let’s imagine a future we can be hopeful about, then actually take responsibility for making it reality.

Hope is a gift, but if we are to succeed, it must be the star we navigate by, not the drink we drown our sorrows in.

Birthdays are a wonderful rite of passage. The joke in my house is that my birthday lasts the entire month of October, with the exception of the 13th, which is my husband’s birthday. I love a good party. Life is a gift to be celebrated. Eat, drink and be merry, I say.

Still, the reality is that kids birthday parties can easily turn into stressful, bloated affairs. Between the junk food for 20 kids, the disposable, licensed character cups and plates and the blinky-light toys, birthday parties can be more of a paean to the Gods of consumerism than a celebration of the life of a child. The first time I went to Chuck E. Cheese as an adult I felt an immediate urge to call my mother and apologize for ever dragging her there. As long as I can, I am going to try to avoid that kind of birthday party, if only for the sake of my sanity.

Up until this year my kids’ birthday parties have been family affairs. Last year I asked Cheyenne what she wanted for her birthday and she told me, nearly bursting with excitement, “A birthday cake and a birthday hat!” I knew I was getting off easy. This year she has friends and ideas of her own and I can tell we have entered a whole new ballgame. My challenge this year was to come up with a birthday party that was fun, but still as simple and eco-friendly as possible.

After some discussion Cheyenne and I came to an agreement on the theme of Garden Tea Party and a guest list of a few kids. Especially at four years old, I think a small party of children helps to keep things simple and fun. The guest list was small, so I didn’t really bother with formal invitations. I have a casual circle of friends, so e-mails, word of mouth and scraps of paper with my address written down were my preferred means of communication. Little kids really don’t care about the invitations anyway, so why waste the paper?

For the menu I decided to stick with easy, homemade foods. By skimping a little on convenience I could afford to use higher quality organic and local ingredients. Considering there were only six kids, including mine, it wasn’t much trouble. To make the menu more fun, I made everything bite-sized—kids love that. We had bite sized tea sandwiches, cheese and crackers, cookies, banana bread bites, fruit, gingerbread orange tea and bite sized cupcakes with white frosting and sprinkles. We would have had scones with homemade jam, but I forgot they were in the oven. By the time my nose had reminded me they were literally toast. Still, we ended up with a pretty great spread:

I used real plates and cups instead of disposable. I found some old demitasse cups at my parentss house that worked as teacups. We spread a picnic blanket on the floor of the living room and served the kids there, so there wasn’t much chance for them to break anything.

I wanted to come up with party favors that were a little less disposable than the average bag of cheap plastic toys. Since the theme of the party was garden related, I decided we would all plant our own tomatoes or lettuce. I found some white ceramic pots at IKEA for $.50 apiece and bought a package of Early Girl tomato seeds and a package of French-style salad mix seeds.

It was actually above freezing that day, so we bundled up in our coats and headed outside. The kids were really enthusiastic about planting. “So this seed is going to become a tomato? That’s awesome!” Even the little ones were excitedly scooping dirt into their pots. Who doesn’t like playing with dirt? When we were done we wrote each kid’s name on their pot with a dry-erase marker. Here’s the birthday girl with one of her garden tools:

The whole thing cost me about $50. Most importantly, it was a hit. The kids loved the novelty of having something “grown-up” like tea and they really enjoyed the food. Surprisingly, the cucumber sandwiches went as fast as the cupcakes, so I at least feel like the kids got something healthy to eat that day. They had a blast planting their seeds and I felt good about sending them home with something that would remind them of the party for months to come.

Everyone had a lovely time. It wasn’t a big, noisy stress-fest, but a simple celebration of my sweet little girl. The focus was on the people, not the event. I like that. At the end of the day that is what memories are made of.

I am in the midst of my 11th move in the last 12 years. It’s been a fun and crazy 12 years, as your late teens and twenties often are, but I am ready to be settled. This will be the last move for quite a while and Zach and I are very excited. As we box up all our worldly possessions one more time, we have been talking and daydreaming about our life in the new house.

It’s funny how many small details come up in our conversations. “Just think, Stella, you can put a laundry basket right under the laundry chute off the kitchen and finally have a good place to put all those cloth rags,” or “I want to put the bikes somewhere out of the way, but easy to get down so we will actually use them.” “Maybe we should put a little chalkboard or whiteboard in the kitchen to write down stuff we need as we realize it so we don’t have to make so many emergency runs to the store.”

We believe that every little action helps, but, like most of us, sometimes we lose focus. One of the big obstacles to living more in line with our values has been organization. I start out with the best of intentions, vowing to bring my stainless steel water bottle, my cloth grocery bags and my travel coffee cup everywhere. I resolve to ride my bike for errands and only use paper towels for really yucky cat or baby messes. Then life intervenes and I am dashing out the door forgetting my water bottle, or taking the car because I’m 5 foot 2 and my bike is hung too high for me to reach, or reaching for a paper towel to clean up a juice spill because I haven’t washed the cloth rags.

I suspect that I’m not alone in being derailed in my efforts to be green by disorganization, so I want to invite you to join me in The Sunny Way Organization Challenge. Spring is a perfect time to do this. It doesn’t have to be big. Maybe you’ll resolve to put the cloth grocery bags back in the car when you’ve unloaded the groceries so you don’t forget them, or maybe you’ll streamline the laundry so it’s easier to line dry it. Whatever it is we want to hear from you. For those of you who are already super-organized, tell us your secrets. I’ll be chronicling my efforts as best I can during the move and I’d love to hear more about yours. We’re all in this together.

We talk about it as though it’s a princess in a tower that needs defending. The poor environment—it needs help! We must protect it from the big evil corporation! Let us chain ourselves to trees to save it!

I’m poking fun at some very dedicated people here, and I don’t mean to show them disrespect. But the idea of the environment as something to be shielded from the evil impulses of humankind is both antiquated and completely inaccurate.

Where is this “environment” of which we speak? Where would you draw a line between it and anything else? Put in a bit of thought and the environment soon reveals itself to be literally everything—by definition there is nothing separate from it. From strip-mining to socializing, every thing and every action is part of it. Business, culture, nature are all fused into one reality. We breathe it, eat it, are actually made out of it. There are no outlines to be drawn.

Seen from this point of view, we can begin to understand that our debtors’ economy, social issues, and even the wars we fight are all environmental problems. They are signals that the way we interact with capital, with the physical world, and with each other are all in need of sorting out. The same limited thinking that causes environmental devastation also causes social injustice, economic confusion, and widespread isolation. (These destructive thought patterns and how they are changing will be a hot topic here on The Sunny Way in the weeks to come.)

Our saving grace is this: a problem with many facets also offers many solutions, and every small change has an impact on the health of the whole. In this way, improving your relationships and saying “good morning” to your neighbor are eco-friendly choices, which pile up and eventually reveal themselves to be building blocks of a cleaner, friendlier future.

Thinking about the environment in this way, I’ve come to feel that we need a better term to get all this across. Maybe we could replace “the environment” with “everything” ... As in, What are your plans for making “everything” better when you are president, Mr/Ms Candidate? I suppose it works okay, but it lacks a poetic ring.

Could we try “the totality”? In a sample sentence: Wow, rampant consumerism sure has screwed up “the totality.” I do like how it sounds all sci-fi, but people who support “the totality” might have to be called “totalitarians,” and that is not at all what we are going for.

The simplest term—“life”—might turn out to be the best. “Life” must be supported in everything we do.

Can you get behind that slogan? Let us know in the comments.

Does thinking about the environment make you depressed? I think it does for most of us. The news is overwhelmingly bad, and way too much for any one of us to deal with on our own. Plus we’re busy anyway, going to work, running our lives. We know the environment is important, but so is everything else we have to worry about. So, even though we feel awful when we think about the bigger picture, still we soldier on, working, parenting, driving around. What else can we do?

What we’re lacking is a sense of possibility. Our problems are impossibly huge, our lives are impossibly busy, and suddenly the future seems dark and inevitable.

But we must remember that it is not.

The Sunny Way is here to shine light through the chinks in that dark, foreboding future. The fact that we made the world the way it is means we can make it again as it ought to be: clean, fair, humane, abundant, fun, beautiful ... No law says that sustainability has to be ugly or boring. It’s up to us to make it as we want it to be.

So ... here’s what we are about:

• taking on new, greener habits and sharing our experiences (and asking you to do the same via our group challenges)
• reporting from the front lines of change
• exploring the relationship between our social and physical environments
• understanding and transforming the way we think about ourselves, each other, and our wee planet
• building community around possibility and responsibility

It’s true we’re in a pickle, and it’s overwhelming and terrifying in turns, but if we work towards a better future, who knows? We may actually have one! Certainly nothing good will come of giving up.

I’m not a dope. I know the problems are immense, and that there’s no guarantee we’ll be able to solve them. Lots of estimates say we have maybe 20 years until things fall apart. But if that’s the case, then I have 20 years to do everything in my power to sort it out out. I’m not going out like a punk, and neither should you.

So that’s what The Sunny Way is—a site for people who are sick of being depressed about the environment, not because our situation isn’t depressing, but because depression doesn’t get us anywhere. It is simply not sustainable.

We have a long road ahead of us, but our hope is that a bunch of us can walk it together, help each other out, and, with example and inspiration and good humor, encourage everyone else to do the same.

And when I say everyone, I really mean everyone—people who don’t believe in global warming, corporate officers, George W. Bush, the anti-Christ—everyone! We’re all in this mess together, and we don’t have time to squabble. Let’s get moving.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll start to get a feel for what we are up to. Some articles will be essays, some will be based on personal experience, and others will take the form of profiles. We’ll have a wide field of play, but the intent behind all of it is the same: to explore the terrain between where we are and where we want to be. As we get going, it will all become clear.

Then, in the coming months, we’ll be adding new features to The Sunny Way to help us along the path—tools to challenge us, track our progress, and build our community. Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you’ll continue to join us.