December 29, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It has been hard to silence the siren call of consumerism during the holidays. But on December 7, I declared on this blog “My plans to have a GREENER Christmas season,” and listed concrete actions we were planning on taking https://drplasticpicker.com/drplasticpicker-is-not-judging-anyone-my-plans-to-have-a-greener-christmas-season-just-do-what-you-can/ So how did our family do? The above picture is of a garbage bin I snapped while Mr. Plastic Picker was driving around lost. I only picked up 5 plastic bottles and 2 aluminum cans during our Christmas vacation trip. I focused mostly on reducing our trash footprint while we were is Utah’s beautiful aspen forests. It is so easy to be wasteful on vacations. We tried to treat this vacation destination like our own home and continued our waste reduction efforts.

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December 27, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Our family cooked again! Thanksgiving was the first time we attempted a holiday dinner and it was a big hit. Our family of four cooked for ourselves and my parents. Expectations were low, and my mother had a back-up meal ready, but we did a good job with a small 7 pound herb-butter turkey, boxed stuffing, salad, french baguettes and two kinds of home-made pie https://drplasticpicker.com/cooking-a-turkey-saved-money-used-less-plastic-and-finally-felt-at-home/ We tried to minimize food waste with a semi-traditional dinner, but still had enough to make Turkey Soup that fed us for another few meals https://drplasticpicker.com/turkey-soup-how-can-homemade-soup-save-money-time-family-and-the-earth/. I took my mom’s back-up meal home and we had it later that week.

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December 26, 2019

by drplasticpicker.com

I have been a middle manager now for 2.5 years. In our organization my position is a 6-year-term, so I am 41% of the way through this term. For about 2 years, I had tension headaches (80% of the time as a middle manager). I had never had many headaches before I became a middle manager, and since becoming drplasticpicker about 4 months ago – my tension headaches are gone (0% of the time as drplasticpicker).

I want to emphasize that before going into middle management, I had gone through the gauntlet of medical training with children and had never had any headaches. Sometimes the stress of moving up the professional ladder can be too much.

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December 25, 2019

by drplasticpicker

I am sitting at 610 AM and our two children are safely asleep in their rooms, and Mr. Plastic Picker is probably in stage 3 REM as well. I have always been an early riser and enjoy these quiet mornings to blog. It is time for Hopeful Wednesday and it is also Christmas. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas today, and also Happy Holidays to those who celebrate other traditions. I think we can all agree to love the Earth. I included a picture of Aspen Trees we snow-shoed through yesterday. Aspen are living connected trees, one large organism that are clonal and share a root system. Walking among them yesterday, I saw them dance and sway together. It was beautiful and I am renewed to continue this journey of plastic picking and environmentalism for as long as I have left on this beautiful planet.

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December 23, 2019

by drplasticpicker

It’s 6am and my circadian rhythm is set and drplasticpicker is up! I am an early riser especially now that my sleep is more restful. Our family is in Las Vegas for a brief night at the New York New York hotel. When the plastic picker children wake up, we will head out and drive to our final vacation destination. We decided to drive rather than fly, as we take the climate crisis seriously. Mr. Plastic Picker is driving our trusty red Prius which averages 50 MPG on the highway. We don’t need to rent a car when we get there! Ca-ching ching! The 1500 mile round trip from our home to our mountain destination would have expelled 1.12 tons of carbon if we had flown, instead we will contribute 0.23 tons of carbon. Driving expels only 18% of the carbon of an equivalent flight according to carbonfund.org since we have four in our car. And this adventure of environmentalism has given us new experiences. Let me describe how choosing to drive and not fly made the Impossible Burger possible, but reminded us the home-cooking is best for our health and the environment.

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December 21, 2019

by drplasticpicker

This post is 1 week late, but better later than completely forgotten! Having to be accountable to our blog readers is great. There are so many made-up tasks we have given ourselves in life, but at least the tasks I have assigned myself through drplasticpicker.com have environmental positives. We are about to leave on our road trip from Southern California to Utah. This trip will entail a different series of blog post – so I want to mentally close out what happened in Newport Beach. Plus, my mother-in-law (who I love and respect) is annonying me slightly and writing is a good way to let off steam. Mr. Plastic Picker’s parents live with us and we get along 99.9% of the time, but it’s been 15 years and once in a while my mother-in-law and I will annoy each other.

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December 19, 2019

by drplasticpicker

So much of life and career success is about timing and support. Many of the reasons why I am in middle-management is that I had my children with Mr. Plastic Picker relatively young while in residency and fellowship. I’m in my 40s, and while many of my same-age physician cohort still have young children – mine are older. I have more time and energy to focus on work (and plastic picking!) It is the nearing the week of Christmas. I remember as a young physician being stressed this time of year trying to arrange for childcare or school camps, coordinating work-schedules with an even busier physician spouse, trying to cover a half-staffed clinic, trying not to get sick and still being there for my own children. Mr. Plastic Picker and I just hit 10 years with our organization. This milestone reminds me how important it is for us to support our younger colleagues.

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December 17, 2019

by drplasticpicker

Our blog wants to thank all the children who submitted drawings to our first inaugural drawing contest! We had a total of 6 entries. Each entry will been featured in our blog’s instagram/Facebook, paired with different poems or articles. Each child who entered will receive a reusable tote bag per nuclear family member and a certificate. The competition was fierce and drplasticpicker walked around the office and did a straw vote, and the winner is the marker drawing above which is Splash by Daniela, age 11. As promised, the winner which is “Splash” above, will be featured on our blog’s reusable tote bags.

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