Happy Thanksgiving!

(Thank you, My Owl Barn.)

To you and yours,

We are so entirely grateful to have readers. Thank you readers, thank you! Have a wonderful, joyous Thanksgiving (and don't fall asleep too early after eating all that turkey!)

<3
Lu & Am

Congrats to Lu & Mitch!

A huge congratulations goes out to Lu & her beau, excuse me - fiance!

The little Lu has gotten engaged to her boyfriend Mitchell Trueblood! So let's all give lots of cheers to the sweet couple!

Congrats! I love you two!
~Am~

Lu-n-Am Bonding Time!

(Source.)

Lu and yours truly (Am) are only minutes away from leaving for Charleston! We haven't had a trip together in a hella long time and so we're both super-excited to get away for awhile and relax. We're going with both of our loved ones and another friend. That makes a total of five and we're car-pooling all the way to the beach (four hours away for me!). It will be a very comfy trip! ;)

We'll be back in four days with pics and stories to tell!

~Am~

Website of the Week

Hello Lu n' Am readers,

We have just received an e-mail from a representative of Mesothelioma and Asbestos Awarness Center, an organization recognized as the web's leading organization for relevant and authoritative information regarding asbestos and health complications associated with asbestos exposure.

The MAA Center regards high environmental and green presence as a critical part of their movement and promotes the use of sustainable green products, awareness of past buildings and preventative steps in avoiding asbestos exposure and mesothelioma.

Be sure to check out their website as well as their blog in order to gain further knowledge on these important environmental and health issues.

Also, we are hopeful and excited about the possibility of a guest post from the public outreach assistant of the MAA Center, and we are very honored to be able to relay such valuable information to our readers.

Please be sure to check out these links:

- http://www.maacenter.org/

- http://www.maacenter.org/blog/


Hope you guys have a wonderful week and that your fourth of July celebration was a fantabulous one!

-Lucie

Happy 4th of July!

(Source.)

Happy Independence Day!
Love,
Lu, Am & Kimberly

Celebrate the Earth!

Hey guys and gals! It's Earth Day! So go outside, play in the sun, jump in a lake, plant a tree, smile with the sun! Go celebrate this wonderful planet we're living on and show it some love!

(From we heart it.)

~Lots of Love~
Lu, Am & Kimberly

Wow, guys

Sorry. We haven't posted since the 2nd of April. We're truly sorry. We've been slacking. We've been tired. We've been...well we've been living our lives.

(From we_heart_it.)

Lu's been...finishing up her semester. This isn't her last one, but almost. She'll be graduating in December.

Am's been...trying to establish a writing career via various freelancing sites and doing some writing for whoever will take her.

All the while, we've been trying to stay green. It's pretty successful most of the time. We try to do our best.

What have you been doing?
~Am

A breather

(Source.)

I'd like to not say this but I've got to take a short break from here. It should be just a week. I've got to get my life a bit more organized. Have to find me a job - or some source of income. So bye for now, but not for forever in the least.

~Am~

charity:water

Here at Lu-n-Am, we have the wonderful opportunity to discover and support many new causes - whether it's supporting a new up and coming artist or supporting an environmental project. Our latest and greatest new find is charity:water. An international charity and cause, charity:water:

"is a non profit organization bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. We give 100% of the money raised to direct project costs, funding sustainable clean water solutions in areas of greatest need. Just $20 can give one person in a developing nation clean water for 20 years."

In supporting and fund raising efforts, the twitter community is holding an international festival - termed a twestival. In cities all over the world twestivals are coming together to raise money for safe drinking water. Like the cities Paris, Tel Aviv and San Fransisco (and many others!), Asheville is holding a twestival.

The twestival in Asheville will be held at the Windows on the Park on Feburary 12 from 6-11pm. And all it takes is a $10 donation to get in. There will also be yummy food and beer from local businesses to dig into while there.

Two video shoots are also being held today at Pritchard Park with people pledging money to charity:water. All you have to do is show up with a little moolah ($5) & pledge to donate the money! The shoots will be held at 11:30am and 3pm today and will be broadcasted on youtube to spread the word.

The closest twestival in the area is being held in Charlotte, so if you're dying to attend and you're in the area or if your city isn't holding a twestival of their own, come check out the twestival in Asheville! Also check out the ipledge that's happening today and make your donation to charity: water!
~Am~

natural spray?

Exciting news everyone! Lu-n-Am has been offered to try some natural products - for free! We recently received an email from a company call EcoSmart. EcoSmart sells organic pesticide, insecticides and bug repellents. They offered to let us try their products if we would write just a short little review about the products. We've looked at their website and they seem to be true to their word (we don't accept greenwashing here!).

So we are going to give some of their products a try. Once we've seen the results with our eyes, we will give you an update and a decision as to whether or not we think you should give the products a try. The first product we are trying is EcoSmart's Ant and Roach spray. I, shudder, despise roaches, so I hope this stuff works!
~Am~

happy new year (or bonne année)!!!

Whew! We've made it through 2008!

(Photo courtesy of kaicoooh.)

Thank you for staying with this us this year. We hope you continue with us into 2009 and beyond! Now, go out and boogie!

Love,
Am, Lu & Kimberly

merry christmas to all!

Merry Christmas (or Joyeux Noel) everyone!

(Photo courtesy of maudesplace.)

From all of us at Lu-n-Am we hope you are having a merry one (no matter what you are celebrating!) with your loved ones and enjoying your time off. Drink lots of warm drinks, eat lots of good food and give lots of hugs!

Lots of love,
Am, Lu & Kimberly

aloha!

Hola, everyone! Just wanted to check in and let you know that we are all still alive. Things have been busy, more than usual if you can believe it, and we've all let the blog be the last priority.

(Photo courtesy of Cherry Blossom Girl. A secret indulgence of ours.)

But don't worry...we've got some things up our sleeves. Just you wait.
~Am~

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one you!

(Flickr)

We are so thankful for all of you! We are thankful to have met so many wonderful people through the blog world and to see that there are so many people that want to be green with us! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

While all of us here are safely at home with our respective loved ones, we are deep down wishing everyone a lovely, joyful, eco-friendly and happy holiday. And one more...thank you!

~Am, Lu & Kimberly~

delight!

Hey everyone! Sorry about this EXTREME lack of posting. Many, many apologies...but on the plus side...Obama is our next president! We are SO happy here at Lu-n-Am. The future is bright and so is the potential for green jobs and the U.S. becoming a sustainable nation!


Three cheers to a green present and future! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray!
~Am~

lu's art show!

Today is the day! And what a day it is. Today is our little Lu's first art show! And we are all so proud of her. That's why we insisted on taking out this time today to write about our lovely Lu and all of her green accomplishments!

(A sampling of Lu's art work from her first show at Gallery 1010 in Knoxville.)

Since we've started the blog, the lovely Lu has:
-Thrown out of her toxic beauty products & replaced them with healthy, safe, green beauty products.
-Made, with the help of La Martha Stewart de France, many handmade journals & notebooks.
-Purchased thrift items and turned them into beautiful pieces of furniture.
-Discovered new ways to turn old things into pretty storage items.
-Left a vacation spot cleaner, greener and healthier than it was before she arrived.
-Created handmade shopping bags to replace the use of nasty plastic bags.
-Found new & exciting ways to use cardboard in our daily lives.

So three big cheers for Lu! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray! Hip-hip-hooray!
Love you much, Lu!
~Am~

southeast gas crisis

I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about something that is affecting me, my friends and family, and much of the Southeastern U.S. And this is the gas crisis that has been happening recently.

Fellow blogger SensibleKitty has also been blogging about the situation in Asheville. She has a unique position on this crisis because her housemate WordPlaySam actually works at a gas station. I think everyone should take a visit to her blog and read about her housemate's first-hand account of the situation.

(Photo from Mother Jones article.)

This gas shortage just really makes me more encouraged to start riding a bike, to take public transportation more often, to walk more often and to do carpooling. It also really emphasizes the need for our country and government to take charge of looking into more alternative energies and fuels. This complete reliance of oil is hurting all of us.
~Am~

wordle!

Ok, this is seemingly unrelated to being "green," but I had to put it on here. I mean it does relate to being green because it's about the blog and the blog is about being green, so it is about being green, right?

Here's a question for you all to contemplate - what would the lu-n-am blog look like in a visually- appealing arrangement of words? Answer: just like this:

Go to wordle to create your own version of this poster. Enjoy.
~Am~

merci

Hiya! It's Kimberly here - the newest addition to the Lu 'n Am blog.

I am chuffed to have been asked to be a regular contributor to the blog dedicated to living an affordable, sustainable, green lifestyle. As I said in my personal blog, I am not sure how I can add to this incredible site. However, I will do my best to live up to the high standards these fine women have created.

Since I am the "new kid on the block", I thought I'd briefly introduce myself...
Unlike the beautifully youthful Lu 'n Am, I am a thirty-something mother of two. My interest in helping the environment was born in the early 1990s when one of my closet friends was obtaining her Environmental Studies degree. She would share information with me about the state of our fragile planet. As they say, "knowledge is power" and once I was faced with the facts, I couldn't help but act and act I did. I reused all those worthless flyers as notebook paper, I cleaned up nature trails, I participated in protests - you name it!

As I entered adulthood and departed from the safe cocoon of university life, I saw that living green was a bit harder. During those darker years, I admit I wasn't always so "green". Now as I have entered the latest stage of my life, motherhood, I have rededicated myself to protecting the planet and reducing my family's footprint.

So I do what I can. I am not perfect and am probably, at times, a bit hypocritical but I do try. I haven't become cynical in my "old age" - I still believe that one person can make a difference. When I discover something, I share it. I hope you find it helpful!

That's me in a nutshell but before I sign off on my first post, I thought I would leave you with this little nugget. It's a film that I can not wait to get my hands on... Fields of Fuel. Fields of Fuel was this year's audience award winner at the Sundance Film Festival. This documentary follows one man's quest (Josh Tickell) to change the world over to alternative energy sources. (Think of it as An Inconvenient Truth for the petrol guzzling world!)

The film was originally scheduled for a May US release but has yet to make its way to mainstream audiences. While we wait on its release, check out Jost Tickell's two books on the subject entitled Biodiesel America: How to Achieve Energy Security, Free America from Middle-east Oil Dependence And Make Money Growing Fuel and From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank: The Complete Guide to Using Vegetable Oil as an Alternative Fuel. In the meantime, enjoy this trailer.



Cheers, Kimberly

New addition to Lu n' Am

I would like to introduce the newest addition to our blog, and what a good one it is.
Kimberly will now be joining Lu n' Am on the quest to finding more ways of living affordable, sustainable, greener, and more creative lives.
Am and I look forward to blogging with her, and we strongly recommend a trip to her other blog, Tree Huggin' Mummy.
thanks for joining our "team". ;)
-Lu and Am