Last Wednesday was our annual National Volunteer Week party.....and for the first time ever, I had to move an event due to the weather. Not only that, but it was an INDOOR event.

How does this happen? Well if you live in Lethbridge you know - we had a snowstorm that came in the night before and due to the winds, heavy snow and Southern Alberta crazy weather, most of us were without power for at least 8 hours!

Thanks to technology I was able to get ahold of most volunteers and cancel. Using my internet stick I signed into my work email/address book on my laptop that had about 25% of the battery left and I quickly wrote down the 100-ish phone numbers that I needed. Then using my husband and I's cell phones until the last bit of battery was left, I called and called and called people to give them a head's up. And I learned one thing - the new cable phones don't work when there is no cable! I was worried because I was unable to reach some people who have switched their landline to their cable service and to this day, I still do not know if anyone showed up that night - if they did, they haven't mentioned it.

So we rescheduled for Monday - a few nights later but short enough notice that more than a dozen people now could not attend, and yet some people who couldn't attend the original night suddenly became available!

In the end, it all worked out, it seemed everyone had a great time, and here we are, 1 week after the storm, and it is +25C and some of my friends are sunburnt! This week truly has been like the weather in Alberta - all over the map!

On a totally unrelated note, I just want to share this with the world so will start here.....my husband recently heard about this on CBC radio so went online to find it and it is a great thing for those of us who do a lot of printing that is meant for our files, and not the world's eyes - it's a font that saves on your toner and ink use and when you print in 12 pt or less, I find, you can't really even tell the difference - check it out:

http://www.ecofont.com/en/products/green/printing/sustainable-printing-using-ecofont-software.html

That is my little contribution to Earth Day tomorrow, for all of you - download it and help make the world a cleaner place!

Finally, for Earth Day, I challenge you all (as I have challenged the Galt volunteers) to take 20 minutes this week and pick up garbage as part of the 20 minute makeover phenomenon. Imagine how clean the world we be if we all took a part of our coffee or lunch breaks this week and enjoyed the outdoors and picked up garbage?!

Join us on May 9th from 1-3 pm as we have our annual Coulee Clean Up. I organize this on Mother's Day each year, as my friend came up with the slogan - Clean Up Mother Earth for Mother's Day. This is a drop in event open to the public -come into the Galt and you'll see me there with garbage bags and cool beverages. Bring your gloves, your friends, your family, your sturdy walking shoes and probably don't come in your Mother's Day brunch clothes! A lot of people bring cameras, too. Help pick up garbage on the coulees around the Galt as we help take care of a small part of Mother Earth.

Think green - not only tomorrow but today and every day!