April is the month of Earth Day, World Tai Chi Day and a period of counting the omer.

Tai Chi has great benefits for health and mood. It can be done in small spaces or even as part of a break during work. Check out the World Tai Chi Day site for events and more information on Tai Chi. While many areas are back to business as usual and having outdoor events, there are some live virtual events online for World Tai Chi day that you can get involved in. Even if you're all alone, you can join in at the same time with people all over the world and celebrate. Anyone can participate by doing Tai Chi where they are at 10 AM on April 24.

Here are some of my current favorite Tai Chi related instruction videos online.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sdaCuigipoM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4VIw41R-PU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32tH89vBtTs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JoQj_lmV54
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2n2zBwQ2vE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kGf2qIKDyg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiR-6Ma3xyA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiYwHXAmDz4

Check out this video on World Tai Chi day for more details on the event:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsZHG1CZWbQ

Earth Day is Thursday, April 22nd but many areas celebrate it on a weekend. It was fun touring our water processing plants or visiting local parks and attending fairs for Earth Day. However, visiting those types of events just isn't very practical this year. So how can you celebrate Earth Day at home and still celebrate with the community or enjoy nature?

One of the best ways I can think of to appreciate Earth Day is to work on and visit my herb garden. It's easy to start a small herb and vegetable garden even if it's just in pots on your porch. Eggland's had a clever tip on using cleaned egg shells as containers to start seeds in. They're biodegradable and help fertilize the soil. I've been seeing some wonderful videos on using foods and scraps from grocery shopping to start plants. For instance, cut off the bottom of scallions including the roots and plant them. Plant the eyes of potatoes. Use garlic that may be sprouting. When it grows, you can cut off the greens from the garlic plant and use it in foods.

Grow NYC has some wonderful tips and resources for teaching and learning about gardening.
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/blog/categories/garden
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/post/gardening-with-the-croods
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/post/diy-plant-dyes-and-paints

Here's the seed starter idea from Eggland's:
https://www.egglandsbest.com/news/egglands-best-egg-shell-seed-starters

You can also try out some virtual field trips for Earth Day.
https://www.visitmanateelagoon.com/manatee-cam
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IttTVtQmGiM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RIT0Oc91sk
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/cams/cornell-lab-feederwatch

After a lot of searching, I finally found a virtual Earth Day fair. You can check out some of their environmental and craft videos here:
https://www.peanc.org/demand-videos-earth-day
For those of us who can't travel or don't have local Earth Day events, it would be great to see more virtual Earth Day events in coming years.

Counting the omer is a practice for self-improvement based on some concepts from the Kabbalah. This year, it started on the evening of March 21st and the day of March 22nd and it goes for 49 days. Each day relates to two sephirot. The idea is to work on attributes within yourself or to do things that relate to the two sephirot that correspond to that day. Count the cycles through 7 sephirot, one for each week and one for each day. The sephirot are chesed, gevurah, tiferet, netzach, hod, yesod, malkuth which correspond roughly to mercy or charity, strength, beauty, endurance, majesty, foundation and kingdom. Counting starts from chesed and goes to malkuth. So, the first day is chesed of chesed. The second day is gevurah of chesed. The first day of the second week is chesed of gevurah. It ends on malkuth of malkuth.

During a day or week with chesed in it, that might be a great time to give to charity or volunteer. There are some volunteer opportunities listed in this post: https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/18603.html Tiferet could be a good time to go out and walk or experience the beauty of nature. Tiferet is sometimes represented by the color green. Hod may have been derived from hodayah which means giving thanks so that might be a great time to try out some count your blessing exercises, journal writing techniques or meditations. Malkuth is sometimes thought of as divine presence on Earth, shekinah or Mother Earth. That's a fitting image around the time of Earth day. A day with yesod might be a good day to practice Chi Kung moves and work on building a solid foundation by improving stance and posture or to meditate on grounding. There are mailing lists and articles online to remind people of what day of the omer it is, what attributes are involved and some activities that can be done related to those attributes.

I recently read of some studies that stated that bird songs can improve mood and that the diversity of the birds in your area had a correlation to happiness. Bird watching is a great pastime for Earth Day. Recycle old materials to create bird feeders or bird houses. Try to identify birds that land in your yard or outside your window. See how many different birds you can spot. Can you identify the birds by their songs? There are also meditation recordings online of bird songs. Most meditation apps include that as well. CDs or recordings of soundscapes often include bird songs. You can try meditating to bird songs to celebrate Earth Day.

Here are links to some of the bird watching and identification webinars I've come across:
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/post/for-the-birds-virtual-workshop
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/post/rescuing-wild-birds
https://www.grownycdistancelearning.org/post/summer-birds
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPt1XwfI6vE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmH1jGmQrGE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi9AfvgiQt8
https://vimeo.com/513567173
Check out the Birding for Beginners video at:
https://vimeo.com/cpawsmanitoba
There are links to pictures, recorded webinars and events at:
https://www.facebook.com/SPNI.EN

You can find more pictures of birds to help with identification here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_the_United_States

Check with your local libraries, museums, arboretums and botanical gardens, local national parks and parks and recreation department web sites for ideas on celebrating some of these events. Some may offer activity worksheets or virtual webinars to help you enjoy these holidays. Also checks sites like Eventbrite, GeTogether or Meetup for virtual events. You can even put together your own virtual event using sites such as https://gettogether.community/
and https://meet.jit.si/
It can be hard to come up with ideas for Mother's Day when you have limited resources or want to complete a simple do-it-yourself project. This list brainstorms some ideas.


If you have an herb garden, it makes a great resource for homemade gifts. If you don't have one, now may be a great time to start one. You don't have to be good with plants just to grow herbs. When you grow herbs and plants that are native to your area, they can be very hardy. Many can grow like weeds and some are weeds with some very useful properties. Work with herbs and ingredients you're already familiar with and find safe or take precautions trying something new especially if you have allergies.

To start it off, here's a nice virtual tour of the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden that you can watch as a family:
https://youtu.be/BtZ0dcUzGX8

If you have Epsom salt around the house and you can safely use it, how about a relaxing foot soak? If you have an herb garden, you can add in herbs such as sage and rosemary.
https://www.healthline.com/health/diy-foot-soak

If you're growing soapwort, you can make your own soapwort shampoo rinse. Add other herbs such as rosemary and sage for dark hair, chamomile for blond or horsetail which is a great source of silicon.
http://gardenspot-natalie.blogspot.com/2014/06/soapwort-and-shampoo-diy.html

Scents can strongly affect mood. Scented herbal gardens are used in therapy. You can make a scented potpourri by dehydrating ground rosemary and citrus peels like orange and/or lemon.
https://www.gardenguides.com/12446836-how-to-make-rosemary-potpourri.html

If you have leftover organic citrus peels, you can make candied peels with a sweetener like honey. Eat them plain or dip them in chocolate for a special treat.
https://perchancetocook.com/2016/06/27/paleo-candied-orange-peels-gf/

Flowers from the garden make a nice present. However, some flowers such as nasturtium, chive blossoms, borage flowers, pansies and violas can do double duty. They make a wonderful addition to a salad or can be used to decorate a dessert. Are you growing any edible flowers in your garden?
https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/edible-flowers


If your garden's not yet ready to harvest, how about communicating how you feel with song?

Music can be very relaxing and has some health benefits. If you're family has musical talent, you can sing and play favorite tunes together. If not, you can create your own music using your computer and ABC notation.
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/music.htm

There are several wonderful public domain tunes you can play or have your computer play. Here's one that's appropriate for Mother's Day:
http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/inharmony/detail.do?action=detail&fullItemID=/lilly/devincent/LL-SDV-167052


What about downloading an ebook to a computer or mobile device as a present and giving the gift of something interesting to read?

Check out public domain poetry books.
https://books.google.com/books?id=7dUCAAAAYAAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&ppis=_e&dq=kitten%27s+garden+of+verses&source=gbs_navlinks_s

See if there are any interesting public domain joke books. Laughter can be the best medicine. Can't find a joke book that appeals to you? Then write your own and give it as a present.


Need more ideas? Think about making some homemade crafts or DIY projects for Mother's Day.

How about creating a homemade recipe book with the recipes you've been using most lately? You can also check for recipes online and see if you come up with any new favorites. There are some interesting public domain recipes books for World War I that have recipes and tips on what to do during food shortages. Also check recipes books with tips on stocking your pantry to deal with prolonged power outages or other restricting situations.
https://lmemsm.dreamwidth.org/12966.html
http://www.distasis.com/recipes/booklist.htm

Have photos of the family? Put together a new photo album and enjoy looking at it together.

If you don't have flowers in your garden at the moment, how about creating some origami ones?
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Origami_flower.svg

You can create homemade cards on your computer or draw them by hand. When you make homemade cards, it's also a great time to practice or learn calligraphy.

One of my favorite projects is creating a game set. Use items around the house or collect cards, dice, etc. and put together your favorite games in a collection. You can also create new games with your family. There are public domain books that describe how to play popular games such as those that use cards or dice. Find out about older games like chess and checkers and there many variants, Chinese checkers, reversi and mancala. Create your own games or favorite variants. You can also play games on paper or create your own game set renditions for games like peg solitaire, tic tac toe, battleship, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peg_solitaire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulls_and_Cows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battleship_(game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_tic-tac-toe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dots_and_Boxes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprouts_(game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hangman_(game)


Here's some further background on the origins of Mothers Day and some gift ideas:
https://www.almanac.com/content/when-is-mothers-day

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