Photo: Jeff and Caroline CampbellIf you’re wondering why you feel like the inside of your compost bin today, wonder no more: Apparently this is mathematically determined to be the most depressing day of the year, probably. It’s dark and grim, your holiday-season bills are due, and you can’t even fool yourself that you’re keeping those New Year’s resolutions. Is there anything you do about this that’s greener than flying to Cancun but healthier than gin binges? We managed to drag ourselves out of our torpor to scrape up a few.
1. Get some sun, hon. This’ll brighten your day: No-upfront-cost rooftop solar is making its way to the East Coast. SolarCity, a San Francisco-based company that lets homeowners install solar panels and then simply pay the company for the resulting power, is opening a franchise in Baltimore. Will Charm City be transformed from Body-More, Murdaland into a Masdar-style ecotopia?
2. Make your crap into craft. Got extra neckties, switch plates, cans, bricks, or light bulbs? Well then you should clean your damn house, but maybe you can’t get up the energy because it’s the Worst Day of the Year and you’re busy lying in a morose heap. Instead, get inspired to fabulous them up with ReadyMade’s top 20 projects of the year.
3. Give Obama some props. Oh, we could go on and on about the ways that government is falling down on the job. But just for a change, let’s also contemplate the things this administration has done to help the environment. There are at least seven!
4. Contemplate nature. Maybe you want to watch an unearthly beautiful video of under-ice SCUBA diving at the North Pole, or maybe your tastes run more towards this baby anteater. Or maybe someone has a video of a baby anteater diving at the North Pole — I couldn’t find one, but email me if you do, because I will simply FALL APART.
5. Eat some guilt free ice-cream. We don’t mean that hideous slush reinforced with seaweed byproducts designed to simulate the mouthfeel of actual dairy fat — we mean the kind made with recycled energy. A Ben & Jerry’s plant is fixing to supplement its energy supply using byproducts from the ice cream making process. That’ll cheer you up even if the ice cream doesn’t (but let’s be realistic here).
6. Knit this awesome beard hat. It’ll use up your yarn stash, but that’s cool — you can always spin some more out of the cat hair you’ve been harvesting year round in case Yarn Barn ever goes the way of Linens ‘n’ Things. It will also keep you warm on your bike, and softly catch your January 24th tears.
