its been a while, hasn’t it?!

guess who was asked to be a contributor in volume 2 of the amazing magazine THE SANDBUCKET?!  oh yeah baby thats chubby cheek photography of course!!!!  leave a little blog love here and at 5:00 central time this afternoon i will use random.org to get a winner of WIN A FREE DIGITAL COPY of this magazine [...]

4:04 am – may third - two thousand twelve i sat upright in bed startled…by something?!  by nothing?!…a sense of uneasiness sitting in the pit of my stomach like a rock. i layed back down and closed my eyes willing my mind to go back to sleep, trying to ignore whatever it was that woke me [...]

i truly believe that each of you, no matter what kind of camera you have or dont have, no matter how perfect or imperfect our days can be, it needs to be captured…LIFE needs to be captured.  As a group we hope to inspire you to take out that camera, capture a full day of [...]

sorry to post and run and but y’all know how many sneak peeks i am down right now and i will be unavailable later this week from wed-mon…but honestly this family’s love for eachother is pretty evident I’m not sure there are enough words anyways i loved loved loved meeting y’all!!!!!

in case you missed part one if this super sweet all about me session you can check it out HERE and read all about how we got from point a to point b a few details that are super duper important: pig planter, initial towels, butter dih cinnamon shaker marshalls homegoods small pink milk glass pedestal tomkat [...]

AND YES she has glowsticks around her neck in the middle of the day oh and yes they both have cherry snowcones messy faces it is was it is people…we are def a disaster, hahahaha

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the last 12 months have been the warmest in the U.S. since record keeping began in 1895, averaging 55.7 degrees Fahrenheit — nearly three degrees warmer than the average May-April, and depending on the numbers for May 2012, the June 2011-May 2012 period will likely surpass [...]

The wildfire season has started in Texas as two large fires rage in Jeff Davis County.  The Texas Forest Service, working with Texas A&M University, has developed a website that can provide some information about your area’s risk of wildfire and also tells you what you can do to diminish your risk. Click here to [...]

By Michael Tahmoressi, St. Edwards student and Public Citizen intern Texas can be characterized as a pay to play environment.  Politicians bend to their districts business interests and gubernatorial appointees seem to be selected based on the amounts they contribute to the governor. Contributions Equal Access and Appointments Rick Perry has taken this to a [...]

According to the Fort Worth Weekly, the Keystone pipeline company wants to run roughshod over Texas landowners – and maybe Texas law. When someone from the Canandian company, TransCanada, asked the Crawford family in 2008 about an easement to lay pipeline across their farm on the Texas bank of the Red River, the family wasn’t interested.  [...]

Harold Simmons built a West Texas dump for radioactive waste that is bigger than 1,000 football fields, paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions and got a permit for it in Texas, and is now working to fill it. To turn it into a profitable enterprise, the Texas billionaire has now hired lobbyists to urge [...]

MSNBC reports that a scientific paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on Wednesday concluded that during the end of the last Ice Age (12,000 years ago), global temperatures rose after carbon dioxide levels started to rise.  This provides even more scientific evidence that there is a connection between warming temperatures and rising carbon dioxide. [...]

The New York University School of Law’s Institute for Policy Integrity has released a new report – The Regulatory Red Herring: The Role of Job Impact Analysis in Environmental Policy Debates. The study finds that claims of jobs that stand to be gained or lost due to environmental regulations require much closer scrutiny than they’re [...]

With the Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission (TLLRWDCC) approving rules that open up of the WCS dump site to out of compact waste, we may soon see low level radioactive waste from Nebraska Public Power District’s nuclear facility heading to Texas. The deal between WCS and Nebraska’s Cooper Nuclear Station still must be [...]

Today, the Environmental Protection Agency issued the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants. “Today we’re taking a common-sense step to reduce pollution in our air, protect the planet for our children, and move us into a new era of American energy,” EPA Administrator Lisa P. Jackson said in a statement announcing [...]

On Friday, Governor Perry announced he is appointing Toby Baker, a former policy and budget advisor to Perry on energy, natural resources and agriculture, to replace Garcia who continues to serve in a TCEQ commissioner’s spot that officially expired in August 31, 2011.  Mr. Baker’s term will begin April 16 and will expire Aug. 31, 2017. At [...]

Statement of Trevor Lovell, Environmental Program Coordinator,  Public Citizen’s Texas Office It is unfortunate that President Barack Obama has decided to ignore news stories in Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News and Financial Post, among others, explaining in simple terms how the southern leg of the Keystone XL pipeline will raise gas prices for [...]

Native Americans protesting the Keystone XL pipeline will be compelled to stay in enclosure located miles from President’s pro-oil event Native American’s gathering in Cushing, OK today to protest President Obama’s words of praise for the Keystone XL pipeline were forced by local authorities to hold their event in a cage erected in Memorial Park. The [...]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has a proposal to pardon as many as 3,000 environmental rule breakers. Tell the TCEQ that pardoning polluters is no way to make the air and water in Texas cleaner. The TCEQ is changing the rules to allow those with a “poor” record of complying with Texas’ weak [...]

Trucks carrying low-level radioactive waste from 38 states could start rolling down Texas highways bound forburial at a dump in Andrews County on the Texas / New Mexico border as early as April,. The state’s commission (Texas Low Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission) overseeing disposal of low-level waste in Texas may approve the final rule changes needed this [...]

The comment period for the proposed new TCEQ Compliance History rules was extended in large part due to Public Citizen making the public aware that the TCEQ had run test scores on their data from the previous year’s posting but were not willing to release that information to us, the Austin American Statesman or the public.  [...]

I had not planned on writing about this as a part of my Let Kids be Kids series but I read this article yesterday and it brought tears to my eyes.  It is about two girls in Minnesota that had a sleepover and decided to commit suicide.  While they do not really know the reason [...]

I am a little late writing an Earth Day post but a little late is better than never.  This year I thought I would try to write something a little different.  Most of the topics on this site are directly related to homes.  Energy efficiency, renewable energy and green homes in general.  Since I’ve been [...]

Continuation of my pureed foods series I was playing around in the kitchen today and believe it or not, was going to make a pureed butternut squash cupcake.  However, this was so delicious by itself I think its going to replace mashed potatoes at my house.  And it’s SIMPLE! You’ll need: 1 Butternut squash 1 [...]