Friday Wrap Up – Freebie Winner, Cool Sites, and the 95 MPG Car!

TGIF! I hope everyone enjoyed themselves over the holidays!

The winner of this week’s giveaway, the Natural Spa package, according to random.org is commenter #8, Lace. Congrats Lace! I hope you enjoy the soap, lotion, and candle all made of luxury spa quality ingredients.

In other news, here are few cool links for your Friday reading leisure:

I am gathering up info on eco friendly cars and solutions and today I came across a story on AutoBlogGreen about one man’s quest for better gas mileage, which lead him to revamp his Honda Civic. Okay, the car is rather ugly after all was said and done but this baby gets 95 MPG!!!! Please sign my car up for uglification please!

I also found an interesting story about how the Amish a few counties away from me are generating electricity via photovoltaic solar panels. That is pretty darn cool and now I have another reason to plan a spring/summer Amish country tour….to find out who their solar contractors are.

I joined three new social networking communities that might be of interest to other green/natural/alternative types. Give it to Me Raw is a brand spanking new site for people that like raw food. So far I can see that the people are awesome and friendly and they have some great groups like the one for writers and the one for eco entrepreneurs.

The second is Zaadz. This site has been around for awhile but it has just been acquired by Gaia, which is how I learned of it. Basically this site is for people who want to change the world. Pretty good goal if I do say so myself. :) I love their optional newsletters and daily quotes like their daily Taoism and Buddhism quotes. Today’s Buddhism quote was this:

Everyday, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. I am going to use all my energies to develop myself, to expand my heart out to others; to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings. I am going to have kind thoughts towards others, I am not going to get angry or think badly about others. I am going to benefit others as much as I can. – Dalai Lama

It is nice to wake up to such lovely words.

The third site is The Freeconomy Community. The concept is wonderful!

Freeconomy allows people to make the transition from a money based community-less society to more of a community based moneyless society, and to share the land they don’t need or can’t use to facilitate a local food community. It’s about helping others and providing an opportunity for others to help you.

For those that garden, the next month or so might be spent deciding what you will grow and ordering seeds. I am already pouring through catalogs and looking at heirloom fruits and veggies to grow…yum. Some great places to look and order are Seeds of Change and Territorial Seed. Things on my list include tomatoes, pumpkins, blue moon and stars watermelons, tiger melons, cukes, gourds, etc. I am also going to order some sunflowers and morning glories to make a Sunflower House as demonstrated in the wonderful book Sunflower Houses : Inspiration from the Garden – A Book for Children and Their Grown-Ups. There is nothing more dreamy than planning a children’s garden.

Lastly, I stumbled upon a natural cleaner recipe that sounds pretty good at TipNut (love that blog) Homemade Rosemary Wood Cleaner. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend!