What a wuss (and no, it's not the hubby this time)

I'm a bit annoyed with myself this evening because I didn't stop the hubby using the not-neccessarily-high-but-not-exactly-low-either-VOC paint. Now that toxic stuff is up on the walls it isn't coming off again any time soon, except in the form of household dust.

While I didn't wield a paintbrush myself, barring some initial ranting and subsequent passive-aggressive asides, I didn't actively intervene either, and that makes me an accessory to an eco crime.

It does look lovely, but Dottie will now be surrounded by chemicals, the effects of which are unknown, forever. That's bad.

But it isn't just Dot. Truth be told, because I'm completely sad, I get really excited about the opportunity to do something green, like use low-VOC paint. In fact I've been dying to use some ever since I found out about it early on in this blog (go on, say it, I need to get out more) and this is the first decorating we've done since. So I'm gutted I missed my big chance to do the right thing, (not to mention the pleasure I could have got every time I showed off our lovely cottage; "yes, and the walls are all painted with low-VOC paint, you know").

But that isn't all. What's really bugging me is I caved in too easily. This quote seems to keep cropping up of late (I hate it when people use quotes, but whatever):

"Never underestimate the power of a few committed individuals to change the
world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

Letting the hubby slap toxins all over our walls is not the act of a committed individual. It's the non-act of a bit of a half-hearted wuss.

This kind of thing will only keep happenning unless I take an even harder line. And when I go back to work (it's gonna happen, readers) this kind of rolling over just won't cut it.

Nope, it's time to get tough.

Expect to see some changes around here.

Grrrrr.

P.S. the big chill has hit and the river's almost frozen. It's 'real feel' -20F out there now (that's -29C to those of you in the UK). From where I'm sitting in front of the toasty stove I can hear the wind howling. That should toughen me up pretty quick. Grrrr and brrrrrr.

Hopeless Hubbys

The really annoying thing about husbands (alright, one of the really annoying things) is that they don't do what they're told. I mean asked.

We're having the house reappraised on Monday so the hubby decided to do a few paint touch ups in the kitchen and landing to make the place look as expensive as possible. As he headed out to Home Depot I reminded him to get low VOC paint - for the good of both the environment and Dottie's little lungs. "Yes, yes alright," he said and set off.

When he got back I couldn't help but notice that for the landing, he had the exact same paint we'd used last time, before I got all into this stuff (Behr) - apparently the woman in Home Depot had told him it was 'the lowest VOC we have' which didn't sound terribly promising to me.

Then, as he started painting the kitchen, I caught sight of a tin saying 'America's finest'. Well, after all this week's news, excuse me for suspecting anything called that is far from eco-friendly.

Sure enough a familiar smell reached my nostrils.

"Of course it smells, it's paint, you wierdo," he said.

"Yes but the whole point of low VOC paint is that it doesn't smell," I replied.

I stormed into the sitting room with Dot and fell into a funk. I felt like yet again Dot's Dad was trying to ambush our efforts. It wasn't all his fault; he got me at a particularly bad moment: I'd just read the news of the IPCC report - that global warming is an unequivocal fact which it’s more 90% certain is the result of human activities, and that we're now too late to avert the cataclysmic repercussions of our rising temperatures and sea levels which will take place over the next century - i.e. in little Dot's lifetime.

In the face of this news, the thought that ANYONE, least of all the father of my precious baby, would not be doing everything in their power to ameliorate the situation, was a bit more than I could handle.

I decided to take us out for a walk to let off steam. As we set off, the first flakes of snow started to fall. By the halfway point it was coming down thick and fast, and by the time we reached the river, our neighbourhood was a winter wonderland. We stood on the bridge watching the snow fall, listening to the silence. As I pondered that, though the river was beginning to freeze, it was nowhere near as frozen as last year, I sudennly noticed, in a tree to my right, the unmistakable outline of two bald eagles. As we stood there, a third joined them and they had a chat.

Something about the snow finally coming and the three members of an endangered species popping up like that cheered me up a bit. I got home in a slightly better mood.

Anyway, I think this is the paint the hubby bought. Doesn't look very low VOC to me, but what can you do? At least he got some organic milk and broccoli in Wal Mart while he was at it.