Happy Birthday Mateo

30 is that age where for the first time in life people stop to truly think about where they've been and where they are going. Whichever one you're thinking about I'm glad to be here with you. You are an exceptional husband and father and at 30 young years of age your character in those regards is immeasureable. Insha Allah you will continue to grow and live to the full potential of the gifts you have been given. You definitely are gifted. I love you - Your Wife, Joronda

WE DID IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well how about a big round of applause for everyone. On Saturday March 8th we succeeded in having a very ecoficient birthday celebration for my best friend, the father of my sun, my husband, Mateo. Thank you to all of you for your cooperation, participation and patience. I was throughly impressed with everyone's willingness to try something new. We all ate vegan food and enjoyed it. For those who live on the west side make sure to keep "Green" in mind when you're on your east side visits (it will save gas and time).

The gifts everyone brought were incredible. You all are REALLY creative. Mateo was smiling ear to ear and was thoroughly impressed. For his birhday he received an electric Thailand reminiscent fly swatter, a crotched blanket that had belonged to his grandfather, homemade cookies, shared cd's, original art, martial arts inspired birthday cards, a Bruce Lee dvd, jewelery, time off from work, a photo album, a gift card, text messages, e-mails, time with people he cares about and none of which were based on a price tag. You all are incredible!!!

Well keep up the good work. It's good good for the environment, society and your wallet. Mateo and I are working on consuming less, wasting less and living less frivolously and I thank you for giving him the gift of a group effort in this vein for his birthday.

See you all there!

Well the day has come. It's already the 8th and it's a good thing this celebration is focused on ecoficiency. That means no stress for anyone. It has been difficult trying to find time to post when Mateo is not around and remembering to cover my tracks when he is around. If you're checking the blog just now to make sure it's still on the answer is yes. Bring the family and have a cool family dinner experience.

Please be there by 5pm because that is when the guest of honor will arrive. Remember the location? The place is called "Green" it's on Scottsdale Rd. in Tempe just south of McDowell on the west side of the street. Look for the Salvation Army, but don't pass it. The actual address is in a post below. If you can't remember the name, just think of the theme of the occasion.

There WILL be food to try because I ecoficiently saved enough dollars to spend for people to taste test. Still managing to do this for "free", according to the rules (see previous post). Now I couldn't invite you out and not feed you anything. For those of you who have not tried vegan food before don't be afraid to try more than what's in front of you. The restaurant style is counter service so after the starters you can order at your leisure but remember you can't break the bank because you too are participating in this "green birthday".

If you bring a gift be prepared to share with Mateo how ecoficiently you came to that gift. If you can't make it but still want to be a part of the celebration give him a call during the event or send a text. For more information on the event look over the previous posts. See you there!

Please RSVP, the surprise depends on it

For several reasons I need a good estimate of how many of you will be there. I have already heard there's at least one out of towner coming. Also a couple of other out of towners who can't make are sending an ecoficient gift (I guess a few slurpee's will have to be sacrificied to pay for the postage on that gift). So if you are planning on coming please post a comment at the end of this message. We only have one week left to pull this off and here's where I really need your help.

If you are coming or not I would like you to help me decide.

Should everyone already be at the restaurant and seated when I arrive with him, traditional surprise style.

Or

Should he be inside seated already then everyone comes in all at once (this will take some parking lot coordination, but could be very cool).

Where's the Party?

So here are the details. The celebration will be held at the following location:



Green (this is the restaurants name)
2240 N Scottsdale RdTempe, AZ 85281
telephone: (480)941-9003

it is located between McKellips and McDowell on the West side of Scottsdale Rd.

to view the menu go to www.greenvegetarian.com The restaurant style is counter service so people can order at there leisure. There will however be food to sample because I am using the regifting option as my economic source to buy food for free (I'll explain later).

*if you can not find it a landmark is the Salvation Army

We have reservations for 5pm, Saturday March 8th. I told them we're expecting 20 people so I hope twenty of you are planning on coming. Time to RSVP

Gifts

Gifts are an optional one but if you want to give a gift here are a few suggestions

1. Make something

2. Send an e-card

3. Offer him some assisstance with something

4. Call him on March 10th and say "Happy Birthday"

5. Send him a text

6. Re-gift - so let me explain this one a bit.

Back in the 90's the term regifting was coined on an episode of Jerry Seinfeld. It's becoming more popular now but by no means is it a new concept. Basically it is the act of giving away a gift that you've been given. There are rules though. You shouldn't regift half a box of candy, bubble bath that you have used once or a pre-worn shirt, washed or not. A few standard rules include:

- rewrap the gift
- you might not want to give the gift back to the original giver
- you probably shouldn't regift hand made items.
- If you have $1.23 left on a gift card use it towards a purchase instead of regifting the card.

For more details go to http://www.regiftable.com/

Does anyone else have ideas on ecoficient ways to give a gift.

Food

So several people have e-mailed me and suggested a pot luck. It looks like that's the number one idea for an ecoficient way to eat. Well I thought I would share with you all a cool way to cut down on stress, time and dollars. I guess you can call it the new "pot luck". Have you heard of co-op cooking?

There's two ways you can do this. For both styles you need a group of people. For idea #1 let's say there are 5 different families. Each family takes one night out of the week to cook and on that night the other four families pick up dinner from that families house. Basically it's homemade take out. For idea #2 those five families would get together on one day of the week, maybe Saturday, and each family/person would be responsible for cooking one main dish. When all the food is done, it's divided into refrigerator or freezer safe containers and everyone takes their portions for the week. In both examples what your left with is a work week worth of food in only one days work. If you want to read more about it here's a helpful website http://oamc.factspot.com/

My initial idea was to have each of you bring something to the celebration that could be traded with other people, sort of a third variation of co-op cooking. I thought, well that will take care of the party favors but that could also turn into a logistical nightmare so I'm scraping that plan. I do however find this to be a great idea so if you're so inclined find a few people to try it out with and see what you think. Idea #1 might be best with people who live close to you.

So what do we do about food? My thoughts are...let's eat out. Is anyone up for trying something new? I'll pick a place Mateo likes where people can order if they want or just come and hang out. Let's make it for March 8th. That means we have exactly one month from now. Have you ever had vegan food? Remember though, you can't spend anymore money than you normally would for that day. Check back in a day or so for more birthday challenge details. We still need to talk about GIFTS!!!

Can I really not spend "ANY" money

So here is your first lesson. Let me define free. In this case it means not spending any more money than you normally would. NOT ONE PENNY MORE! Monthly, weekly even daily we give away money both intentionally and thoughtlessly. Well to prepare yourself for this ecoficient event you will need to make some decisions. Basically, the decisions will create savings for you and whatever you save you can choose to put in your savings account, treat yourself or loved ones to something special or perhaps use some of it for the ecoficient celebration fund. The idea is to minimize your consumption in order to increase your available free assets "money".

The first area is energy. Here are a few ways to reduce energy consumption and reduce your electricity bill.

• Wash as many loads as possible in cold water. (90% of energy cost for washing clothes is due to hot water consumption. Cold or Warm water is sufficient unless clothes are really dirty)
• Dry clothes consecutively to utilize heat already stored in the dryer
• Keep the thermostat at 68 degrees (in winter)
• Close the blinds on the north side of the house, open the blinds on the south side of the house (in winter)
• Unplug the cell phone charger when the phone is not plugged in to it.
• Turn off the computers at night
• Use pots and pans that fit the burners. Keep oven and burners clean.
• Cover pots and pans when cooking (water will come to a boil faster if you put the lid on the pot because less energy is lost thus faster results)
• Let food cool before putting it in the refrigerator(the fridge will not have to use extra energy to cool the food)
• On the refrigerator check the gasket (the soft plastic piece that seals the door to the body of the refrigerator) for gaps and improper fit. The door should close firmly against the gasket. If it doesn't, cold air will leak out of the refrigerator. You can check the tightness of the door by placing a dollar bill between the gasket and the door. Close the door and then pull out the dollar. You should feel a slight drag when you pull it out. If you don't (or the dollar just falls out when you let go of it), the gasket may be worn and should be replaced.
• Unplug appliances or use a power strip and switch off the power strip to cut all power to the appliances. ( In the average home, 75% of the electricity used to power home electronics is consumed while the products are turned off. ie. laptops, toasters, blenders, tv's etc.)

I got most of my info from the following link http://www.eere.energy.gov/

If you can save money on your electric bill in the next 2 months you could use some of that money for food or gifts for the celebration. Then you would not spend any more than you normally would have that month. Is this making sense? Let me know, post a comment.

Quick Recap

Well I've gotten a few responses so it looks like at least a few of you are up for the challenge. Let me reiterate the rules and explain a bit further.

First, it is Mateo's 30th birthday and he has requested that I not spend any money. I can't let this milestone pass by so I spent some time coming up with a clever way to create a big, free celebration.

Then, I looked for a word to encapsulate this idea and "ecoficient" is what I came up with. It turns out I was not the first kid on the block to think of that word. No hard feelings though. I shall proceed.

So, this is where you all enter the picture. To make it BIG I would like to have people who care about him participate. A few of you knew about the idea ahead of time because I shared it to see how people would react. So far so good.

Finally, this blog was created as a tool to learn and plan the celebration. Additionally, he does not know that I am planning this so please remember to keep it quiet.

Thus far I have received a few e-mails giving me ideas of what we could do. People have talked about parks, pot-lucks and Parcheesi and I'm loving the excitement I'm reading. Make sure you check out people's comments at the end of each blog. Just click on comments. You can add your own as well. If you have a G-Mail account all you have to do is login with that. If not then you will need to register. Either way stay tuned for your lessons on ecoficiency.

*Please note, I can only post when Mateo is not home or is asleep so most of my posts will come on the weekends. There may be two or three at a time just scroll down. The more comments people make on the blog the more communication we can keep so I'm really encouraging everyone to post comments. You can get dialog going with each other, on ideas, using the comments space.

Why have you come here?

Well you must have been invited and I'm glad you stopped by because I'm going to need your help. This year my husband will turn 30 years old and he has requested that I not spend any money on his birthday. To honor his request and honor this milestone in his life I will need your help in planning an ecoficient birthday. What is ecoficient?

These days we're moving from a modern technologically driven over indulgent western civilization to a more ecologically responsible money saving community. We have probably all seen the promotions of "ways to be green" and if we've tried some of the tips or not we can't help but to notice the new popular buzz word. As I was trying to figure out how to pull off this birthday, which by the way is a surprise, it occured to me that "green" is the theme but that doesn't really describe what I'm trying to do. Ecoficient is the word I came up with.

Now I've googled and wikipediaed the word and really came up with nothing. Google showed it as free and expired domain names, so I suppose I could purchase the .net, .com, and .org web addresses for ecoficient. It was also the name of a type of biodegradeable food grade hydraulic fluid. With that mouthful said, let it be known now, I am coining this new term. I don't mine my definition being the number 2 explanation in the dictionary behind the hydraulic fluid. So again you ask, what is ecoficient?

Ecoficient is the combination of two words, ecology and efficient. Ecology is the study of organisms in relationship to their environment. Human ecology looks at the detrimental effects of our modern civilization on the environment. Efficient means acting or producing effectively with a minimum of waste, expense, or unnecessary effort. You put the two together and what you get are "decisions or actions that produce the most environmentally considerate results".

This birthday will be all about being ecoficient. Everything that goes into it will take into account the least amount of waste and expense. This, I know, will be a BIG challenge. If you haven't utilized any of those "green" tips and you want to participate in Mateo's 30th birthday, get prepared for a crash course in ecoficiency. But like I said, I'm going to need your help. So this is how it will work.

The overall goal is to have a celebration Saturday March 8th, at a location that's free, where the guest can have food and fun at no extra cost and the option to bring gifts they don't spend any extra cash to obtain. If this sounds like something you're up for post a comment to this post and I'll count you in. As quickly as possible I'm going to start posting ways we can do this and any feedback is welcomed. I'll post ideas and I'll need you to fill in the blanks. Remember, this is a surprise so don't tell Mateo. sssshhh!