I’m just like a new parent.  So proud, so excited.

My book, The Garbage Day Project: Garbage, Art, and Recycling, is now available here.

Based on my The Garbage Day Project blog, this book is an artistic and humorous look at the amazing (by that I mean shocking) amount of garbage set out each Tuesday in my small subdivision.

The rules: Use only my Coolpix camera and no moving or touching anything.

The result:  Garbage as you have never seen it before.

It’s an 8×10″ landscape format book and you can preview the first fifteen pages. Unlike some books with many blank pages, this one is stuffed with photos.

And while we are on the topic of environmental issues, do stop by Dawn Goldsmith’s blog, Subversive Stitchers:  Women Armed with Needles, for concrete suggestions for fiber artists that can help the environment.

Even though I closed out The Garbage Day Project, you know I couldn’t resist this crazy worm nest of light sets spilling out of a garbage can.  It reminds me of my own dilemma. I should replace my old holiday lights with the new energy-efficient LED ones. But then what? Chuck all those lights out in the garbage or donate them so someone can have lights, but highly inefficient ones??

On a positive recycling note, check out this great gift idea:

It’s a wine bottle recycled into a cheese board from C.D. Childs’ Etsy shop. It’s a great gift idea, but I’m keeping it for myself.  If you are shopping this holiday season, think handmade!

I had to go for the green! I have had enough beige for awhile and was thrilled to find these valiant daffodils trying to grow under a thick cover of leaves. Other nature notes: I saw my first long-tailed brown thrush yesterday and a honeybee. Spring is here in my book (never mind that the water in the bird bath is frozen this morning).

If you are wondering what the heck that “stringy” thing is in the background of the photo, visit The Garbage Day Project blog.

A lilac blooms in ice in December. Of course, in our last ice storm everything looked like this. Beautiful to see, but very hard on the plants.

There’s a new post in The Garbage Day Project today.

I love any plant that is unusual or huge. These stalks are from Giant Miscantus; they grew about 10′ tall. Now they have bent over in the wind and the snow, making semaphores against the terrace timbers. The colors of the stalks are so delicate this time of year.

On The Garbage Day Project, there’s a new photo from the garbage trail, plus an update on the condition of Winter Trellis that I made a year ago.