Happy Earth Day WOWBlog readers! What a wonderful holiday, no? A time to take a step back and revel in the simple fact that if we all just tried a little harder every day, we could make a real positive impact on our environment without making a huge lifestyle change like composting toilets or hay-bale houses. (Which, by the way, I would like to state I am all for in theory.)

Anyway, before you run out to hug a tree today, spend a moment reading  my top 5 favorite Earth Day 2011 promotions & memories. You might find you can get a little somethin’ from your fellow green-loving businesses today as a reward for good-green consumer choices.

5.) Town & Country Cleaners gets GreenEarth and gives free trees

Okay, I’m going to admit that I dry clean. A lot. And I feel guilty about it because I know it’s not the best thing for the environment, but when you live with communal laundry there are just terrible things that can happen to your work wardrobe. But the good news is that a local chain is giving us Rochester-dry-cleaning-addicts an option for green dry cleaning AND celebrating Earth Day with a free sapling.

4.) Another reason to hang out at Anthropologie

Yes, I know – Anthro comes up in nearly every one of my blog posts. I can’t help it! I have a total an eye-candy crush. So my friends at Anthropologie really didn’t need to give me another reason to hang out in their stores, but I’ll take it. At select stores today you can learn, decorate, and be green with workshops all centered around sustainable ideas for the home (and even a bunch for children). Now if only they had thought about bringing these workshops to the store at Eastview Mall…

3.) Starbucks Make a Difference

If you haven’t see this video by Starbucks, you need to. It’s GOOD. But what’s better is that just by bringing your travel mug into Starbucks today – you get FREE COFFEE. Thanks to The ‘Bucks we’ll all be running on caffeine today and saving over 675,000 trees. At the time of the video up top, Jon had already had two.

2.) Patagonia rocks out to rock on with mother earth

Here’s the thing, when the crunchy-club leaders (like Patagonia) come up with a great idea, you look beyond the fact that it’s not a specific Earth Day promotion. And that’s okay, because with Patagonia every day is like Earth Day and it seems fitting that they would look at this green-promotion holistically. So if you’re looking for a new place to find new tunes, and you’d like to crunch-out while doing it – visit Patagonia’s website. They’re giving dollars to select environmental groups every time you download selected songs from world-musicians. A win win.

1.) Mike gets a Volt

When walking across the driveway here at Dixon Schwabl now be sure to look both ways because Mike has traded in his Caddy for an electric car and you won’t hear him coming! The celebration at 10am when the Volt arrived was fun not only because of its green nature, but because it’s a step towards our goal having electrical hook-ups in our parking lot. And as Earth Day reminds us annually – it’s all about taking that first step forward.