Some Great Green Things

You have heard of green bath mats that are made out natural fibers like hemp and bulrushes but how about a mat that is also an aromatherapy dispersment device. This is now possible thanks to the fact that a bathmat is now being made out of a combination of vetiver and cotton fibers that have been twisted together.

 

Vetiver is a very old plant that is native to India. All parts of the plant are used to make quality fragrances and in fact vetiver is used in many different types of designer perfumes. To release the scent of this mat all you really have to do is simply have a shower. Heat and moisture release the scent that lies dormant in the fibers.

 

These objects also smell great in humid climates and could be used to perfume a house that tends to smell dank on hot days. Vetiver is also used to keep away moths!

 

Green manufacturers are getting better and better at making gorgeous paints from vegetable and mineral bases. A good example is the paints that are being made by Green Planet Paints.

 

The base of these paints are petroleum free and they have a soft sensual finish because technically this is a clay paint. It is applied like conventional paint with brushes or rollers.

 

These are the same paints that were used by Mayan Indians over one thousand years. There are many warm reds, deep greens, lush violets and caramel colored tones in the Green Planet Paints.

 

The Mexican palette of colors is great. You will absolutely love the adobe browns, greenish grays and tomato reds that this paint company makes.Green Planet Paints are also made by hand which means that there is no big plant behind the company's operating polluting the air or water and if your kid eats the paint the kid is not going to get sick!

 

If you want to give your child a fantastic green gift then consider buying them an organic pearl mushroom growing kit. You can get these for about twenty five dollars at Green Living Now. Chefs will enjoy this nifty way to participate in an organic gardening project and so will kids or anyone interested in maintaining nifty little gardens.

 

This is a bag that is moist that is filled with pasteurized straw that is impregnated with the mushroom organism known as mycelium. All you have to do is place the bag in a place with low light and cut a few slices into the plastic bag. Sometimes when you order the bag you can already see the oyster mushrooms trying to poke through the plastic.

 

After the indoor kit stops producing mushrooms you can use what's left in the bag to spawn new fresh mushroom growth in your garden.

Microsoft Vine for Worried Moms

Earthquakes, volcanoes and floods. It makes a mom wonder what theworld I is coming . Microsoft has come up with a program that keeps ordinary citizens in the loop when it comes to emergency response. You won't have to rely on tweeting, cell phones or Facebook any more to find out what is going on in the world. By the way if you own a Mac this is not a blog you are going want to readas it Vine does not function well on Macs.

 

Microsoft Vine can be described a new social networking tool, designed to help its users keep tabs on people and places during any kind of emergency situations. Currently in a beta test in Seattle, the service lets you enter a location and see news reports gathered from twenty thousand places including United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. This can help you get updates from other big organizations.

 

For example let's just say that there is a worldwide flu pandemic. Still you want the kids to go visit grandma. You could get updates directly from the World Health Organization about where the worst cases of the epidemic is, about school or road closures or about the number of people affected by it so that when you put them on that train you know they will be safe.

 

You can enter the people you want to be in contact with on Microsoft Vine. You can then receive an email message about them on the Vine dashboard. It is the ideal way to keep in touch with someone in case of a disaster. I think every woman's babysitter sould have this.

 

There is a map overlay in the program that allows you to track where everyone is online. You also have a status update like Twitter does and it also can feed your Facebook account. This could be valuable for your friends who are not on Vine like you are but still need to know where you are and where you might be going in the event of a disaster.

 

You can also use Microsoft Vine to let people know where you are and you can issue a report with emergency contact information. This is a good way to let people know where you are going and how long you will be gone.

 

The great thing about this program is that it cuts the tweeting and gets down only to the bare basics of where you will be during an emergency. There is not casual talk allowed on this thing. It is a good thing for you and your teenager to have.

 

People are already using Twitter to let friends and family know about big emergencies. Vine does not use traditional GPS based location awareness. This makes it less than ideal for critical emergency communications but it is better than maybe trying to navigate solely through Twitter or Facebook because there is not a lot of casual talk in the way.