I spent Thanksgiving with my family at a cabin in Truckee (small town near Lake Tahoe), and had a great time. The girls decided they wanted to see a movie, and the guys wanted to hit the tables (Truckee is about 30 miles outside of Reno), so we all piled into cars and headed to Reno.

While the guys lost money at the poker & roulette tables, the girls enjoyed Enchanted, a very cute Disney movie about Giselle, a cartoon princess that gets cast into real life Manhattan. Her handsome prince follows her to try to rescue her, and bring her back to the cartoon world she’s from.

The movie stars Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, and Susan Sarandon. With such a talented cast, and a well-written storyline, the movie was bound to succeed. It was fun to watch, and Amy Adams was charming as Giselle. I would recommend this movie to anyone – it’s a great family or date movie. I’ll try and drag my husband because I’d love to see it again. (Hint, hint, Preston!)

With “green” being the new buzzword, everyone seems to be trying to figure out how they can be more environmentally friendly. Some people purchase hybrid cars, some people ride their bikes to work, some people use canvas totes for their groceries, and some people buy carbon credits.

I think it’s good to try to conserve and not waste – we need to take care of the earth. There are, however, some businesses that are trying to make making a lot of money by appearing to be earth friendly. Or perhaps they are earth friendly – their sole product is the soothing of consciences so people can feel less bad about not being as carbon neutral as our good friend, Al Gore. These companies sell carbon credits.

Basically, the idea is, if you feel like you’re not recycling as many soda cans as you think you should be, or you enjoy driving your H2 (which, personally, I don’t really have a problem with), you can buy carbon credits which offset the negative carbon particles you shoot off into the air. Or something like that. Basically, you give a company some money, and they’ll plant a tree or two for you, and you can feel guiltless about turning your heater up to 85 degrees in the winter.

I compare this to the old practice of purchasing Indulgences (yes, the same one Martin Luther protested with his 95 theses) because, really, it’s a very similar concept. Back then, if you sinned, you could pay the church some money, and your sin was wiped out, as if it never happened. (Of course, there are always consequences to sin, like if you rob or murder someone, that doesn’t take away the fact that the victim was still victimized. But the church needed money for a new bascilica, so they figured that if they could get people to pay in cash for their sins, they were still paying.) At any rate, the same goes with carbon credits. If you waste nature’s resources, you can pay someone else some money, and it’s as if the waste never happened, because they’ll plant a tree for you, and then you’re “carbon neutral.”

Personally, I think if you want to conserve, and that’s your thing, do it. I think it’s good to recycle and not waste – we need to take care of the earth. But don’t condemn me if I don’t use organic cotton (or hemp) recyclable bags to carry my groceries out to my car. I recycle cardboard and plastic and soda cans, but I’m going to enjoy driving my H3, and not worry about having someone plant a tree to offset the emmissions it released. I think the whole “green” movement is a bit of a fad, and there are a lot of companies cashing in on it. It will die down soon, but hopefully people will take lessons from it. Like it’s ok to drive an SUV, but you should recycle what you can.

I was reading on ksl.com about a member of the Utah National Guard, Major Craig Jenkins, who was trying to make his pictures of Iraq more interesting for his kids. He said no one was really interested with the pictures of himself riding in helicopters, etc., so he came up with the idea for Combat Bunny, a little pink stuffed bunny with a military uniform that goes everywhere, and has pictures taken in famous places, such as “The Green Zone,” the Cross Sword Monument, and many others.

The idea has gotten pretty popular, and it’s easy to see why. The cute little pink bunny gives a bit of comic relief to a tense situation. Humor always helps when kids are worried about their parents, and this was a great idea by Major Jenkins, to help make learning about Iraq a bit funnier, and more interesting for his kids.

Check out the photo album in the link…my favorite picture is the bunny strapped into the seatbelt with Major Jenkins.

It’s been a month today since Honey Bunny died. It’s hard to believe it’s been a month already – we still really miss her. I bought some daffodil bulbs to plant on her grave so they’ll come up every spring.

We’ve talked about eventually getting another bunny (or two) at some point, but I think we’re not going to get any more bunnies right now – at least not for a little while. It’s been very sad, but we’re doing ok. I think having two bunnies would be a little bit easier, because when you lose one, you still have another one. That’s how it was when Fluffy died – we still had Honey Bunny. It has been hard, though, with Honey gone, because there aren’t any bunnies there to distract us. Knowing us, though, we’ll always have a bunny or two.

I bought a good book that was written by a woman that lost a pet bunny suddenly to sickness, similar to Honey Bunny. It’s a collection of her poems that she wrote as she was going through those tough times. Anyone that has lost a pet, bunny or otherwise, would benefit from reading this. It’s called When Only the Love Remains by Emily Margaret Stuparyk. It’s a very sweet book, and it’s been good to read. I still miss Honey, but it helps me think about the cute (or naughty) things she’d do, and it reminds me of all the fun times we had with her. I’m just glad that we had a chance to have Honey Bunny with us for 5 1/2 years. She was great. We still miss her, but we’re glad to have the happy memories.