I am feeling especially blah lately. I’m seeing my family and my house and my accomplishments – but I am seeing through them, allowing these negative feelings to pervade my life and put its ugly fog in front of the beauty that I have created. I am not going to write about Waste Prevention today, as I had planned. I am going to list things that I have done to help the environment in the last 2 years in Alphabetical Order – an exercise designed to help me realize the good I have accomplished. Tonight at bedtime, I will try to list all the good things about myself in alphabetical order. Then I am going to go to bed and wake up seeing clear sunny skies tomorrow morning!
Here Goes:
A: Awareness and Change of Attitude
B: Bringing Reusable Bags shopping with me
C: CFL’s – changing regular bulbs to Compact Fluorescent Bulbs in my house
D: Dryer Softener – no longer using softeners, but tennis balls in the dryer help to soften clothes
E: Educating myself about Global Warming, Climate Change and Living Green by reading books, watching documentaries and web research
F: Full Loads only in Dishwasher and Clothes Washer
G: Garden, growing vegetables in raised boxes over the lawn in the backyard
H: Helping my children learn about saving energy/water, recycling, not littering and working in our garden
I: Inform people through my blog at Mothers Fighting for Others
J: Jet Dry – no longer use in dishwasher
K: Keeping the car in good working order, tires inflated properly to get best gas mileage
L: Laundry, using plant-based laundry soap
M: Mail – receiving bills by email, canceling unwanted catalogs, recycling leftover junk mail
N: Napkins – using cloth napkins instead of paper
O: Organic Vegetables, Organic Cotton – purchasing local organic food and organic cotton clothing if possible
P: Purchasing products made from Recycled Content
Q: Quit waiting for others to make changes, I’m the change I want to see in the world
R: Reusing items, recycling items
S: Sunshine – use sunlight as much as possible instead of lights
T: Trash – everytime I visited the beach last year, I made a deal with myself that I would pick up all trash wherever I walked that day (I had to pick up gross diapers left in the sand and all sorts of trash, but it felt really good)
U: Unplug small appliances like toaster and all chargers when finished, unplug computer at night
V: No V, but we installed a Whole House Fan and use it to cool the house instead of the AC
W: Water – conserving water by shorter showers, not running the faucet while doing dishes, sprinkler timers
X: No X, but I clean up all spills (spilled milk is daily with my 2yr old!) with rags instead of paper towels
Y: No Y, but I bought a worm bin recently and am excited to get it started and have worm compost for the garden
Z: No Z, but we avoid waste generating things like drive-thru coffee or food, the kids and I eat breakfast and lunch at home and I cook dinner 6 nights a week (usually I get one night off and we eat out)
Have a great weekend!
(I wrote this last night before bed. At first, the list didn’t look long enough to me, but after thinking for a moment, I realized that I have done one new “green” thing a month for the last 2 years (when I first saw “Too Hot Not To Handle”), and I remembered my vow back then – One New Thing a Month.)
wow— you go girl, or at least you go green girl! that is a-l-o-t- you done, be proud.