Greening the Mother

Sunday, July 27th, 2008, 4:42 pm

So Mom just left and we had a wonderful time together. Although rather unintended, we spent a good deal of time talking about how she could live a greener lifestyle as I showed her my life in NYC.

After taking a shower in my bathroom and seeing personal care products she didn’t recognize, Mom asked me about my natural beauty products. I introduced her to a few of my favorite brands: Pangea Organics, Dr. Hauschka, Nature’s Gate Organics and John Masters Organics. 

Last Christmas, I had showed Mom my new natural mineral makeup from Jane Iredale. She wanted to buy some so we walked to Cambridge Chemists, one of the few places in NYC that sells Jane Iredale’s fabulous products. We bought her Dream Tint tinted moisturizer and Just Kissed lip plumper.

Then we had lunch at Le Pain Quotidien - an organic café that supports sustainable farming and has several quaint, communal restaurants throughout the city.

Even our ritual trip to Bloomies included buying an organic cotton dress from Eileen Fisher.

Mom and I had dinner with my husband at Josie’s East, an organic restaurant with a wide range of yummy food such as organic brown rice sushi, organic grass fed rib eye steak and eco-friendly wild salmon.

We came home to find our weekly box of Urban Organic’s produce at our doorstep so my husband made us fresh organic carrot, apple celery juice.

On our last night together, Mom showed me how to cook rosemary and garlic crusted, grass fed, organic lamb.

When I found Mom painting her nails with chemical, toxic nail polish, I raced to open the windows, turn on the fan and show her my non-toxic, eco-friendly, organic Priti nail polish.

Since I know you are curious, Mom commented on how clean the apartment looked which prompted me to give her a tour of my Shaklee eco-friendly cleaning products. I think I may have even convinced her to switch!

My Mom has lovingly taught me so much about life over the years, and I got such pleasure out of giving back to her in just a few, simple green ways.

Mary Beth Gonzalez

Tags: organic, mother, natural beauty products

The Green Glove

Sunday, July 20th, 2008, 8:54 pm

My mother is coming to visit. I love my Mom. I love her abundant ideas for how I can improve my home, my job, my life. I love them so much that I’ve spent the last few days re-evaluating everything, stressing out and improving as much as I can, in advance, so I can be ah…flawless.

Mom has a bionic eye for dust bunnies and smeared glass, so the main focus today (and more tomorrow when the real cleaning lady comes) is deep cleaning my home. Thank God for Shaklee!

After trying many different eco-friendly green cleaning products over the years, I switched to Shaklee green cleaning products about 6 months ago and will never switch again. It was such a relief to find a line of products that are truly natural, eco-friendly, non-toxic, plus they are easy to buy online and they really clean well.

Friends tried to steer me towards simple homemade cleaning concoctions of vinegar and lemon juice, but I found that they didn’t work well on tough cleaning chores and left a lemony scent. I think clean should smell clean – like nothing. Just fresh air.

Shaklee’s Get Clean Starter Kit includes everything you can possibly need to clean every aspect of your home. Most of the products are highly concentrated, and the kit provides lots of mixing bottles. Retail price for the kit is $170.40 (but just $149.60 is you are a member). Their website states that the Starter Kit is equivalent to $3400 worth of standard cleaning products! I believe it, since in 6 months the only products I’ve had to re-order have been the laundry soap, dishwasher powder and dishwashing liquid.

So I need to cut this short and go back to washing the base boards, vacuuming the lamp shades, and polishing my brass guest bed, so by tomorrow night I’ll be ready. Except this time, Mom and her inspection glove will find my green clean home flawless.

Mary Beth Gonzalez

Greening the Family Reunion

Sunday, July 13th, 2008, 4:10 pm

My family reunited over Fourth of July weekend to celebrate Pop-Pop’s (my dad) 70th birthday. Seventeen Pryors from all across the country gathered together at my parent’s beautiful home on Sanibel Island on Florida’s west coast. My parents, three brothers and their families joined mine for 5 days of eating, laughing, swimming, kayaking, photo taking and story sharing of our past, present and what we each want for our future.

Since we hadn’t all been together in over 7 years, the occasion served as an interesting benchmark for how differently we all think about green today versus 7 years ago when I was first starting on my green path. I found that nearly every aspect of our weekend related somehow to our greener values and lifestyles.

- The fabulous Certaintees custom tee shirts I had produced for this special occasion were all organic. Lee Tracy, Artist and Founder of Certaintees, did a wonderful job with the special design and provided superb customer service. We made adult crew neck, women’s v-neck and children’s tees. To my delight, everyone loved them and wore this wearable art throughout the weekend.

- Most of the delicious food my mother prepared was organic. Organic hamburgers for the grill, organic green salad, fresh organic and local fruit, organic corn, milk and eggs and even organic coffee! And key lime pie with local limes from their key lime tree in the front yard.

- Our core family activities focused on enjoying the beautiful nature around us. Ten of us kayaked for hours one morning through the mangroves of Tarpon Bay part of Jay Norwood Ding Darling’s Natural Wildlife Refuge; a photographer took our group photo on the shell lined beach at sunset; we all enjoyed an evening boat cruise to play with and appreciate the local dolphins.

- The Sanibel summer sun is quite strong. We brought Dr. Hauschka’s powerful, holistic sunscreen, SPF 30 for Children and Sensitive Skin – a certified natural product made with organic plant oils and extracts. My young nieces and nephews slathered it on without fussing and without being told. That never would have happened when we were kids! In fact, my brothers and I were the only ones to get sunburned…

- One night, the little “no-see’ums” were out in force when we were on the beach waiting for the sun to set. Fortunately I had packed PatchCare – a box of 12 all natural, deet-free, very effective, mosquito repellent peel-stick patches. We quickly patched up and huddled together for maximum protection.

- As Dad’s birthday present, we gifted a set of special processional torches for his beloved local church, St. Michael and All Angels, in his name with an inscription. We thought it most fitting to give back to this special Sanibel Episcopal community that has brought him and my mother much joy and enlightenment.

- After church, a family trip to Noah’s Ark – the fabulous second hand store my mom managed for the church this past year. Everyone picked out one thing (a pair of shorts, a golf shirt, a Batman video, a china creamer, etc…) and I think the total bill was $38.

- And of course, no family reunion would be complete without the endless ‘recycled” stories of our youth, favorite Pop-Pop memories and 97 recycled photos on a custom DVD created by my sister-in-law.

Our reunion weekend wasn’t about being Green. It was about celebrating my Dad, reconnecting with each other and sharing with the youngest generation of Pryors what it means to be a part of our family. I loved how it was just natural to teach them how we care for ourselves and each other in organic ways while we appreciate our local community and the bountiful nature of our planet. The reunion became a remarkable, teachable moment for us all.

Mary Beth Gonzalez

Tags: family, organic, green, reunion