Sarah's blog tipped me off to a recent episode of Oprah. Like Sarah, I was appalled to hear that a family would use a full roll of paper towels in one day. I just find that unconscionable! How do you even feel okay about doing that? Anyway...I try hard to do what I can to just generally be a responsible person living on this planet. I know there is a lot more I could do, but I feel pretty good about how I stack up to the families that were on the show! Also like Sarah, I'm going to try not to be too soapboxy. Speaking of soapboxy: Here is the letter that Oprah presented to the absurdly irresponsible families on the show. The same challenge goes out to all of us:
Dear Family, Thanks for agreeing to live with less for a week. Your challenge starts now! This week, you will be eating at home every meal. No more eating out, no more takeout. And you have to eat your leftovers. If you throw food in the trash, you've got to 'fess up. For one week, you're going to give up the bottled water habit. Get a water filter—time to get to know your tap. No more disposable plates, cups, napkins or paper towels. Try cloth—you might like it! For entertainment, you'll have to rely on each other. For one week, I'm asking you to give up your iPods and video games, and your computers only get turned on for homework. TV is limited to one hour per night—one TV only. That thermostat is going way down…to 69 degrees. If you get cold, put on a sweater. Give your washing machine a break—try to wash only clothes that are TRULY dirty. When you leave a room, lights out. Ditto for fans. When you're done using an appliance, unplug it. Don't forget your computer and cell phone chargers too. Showers are going to be shorter—eight minutes max. Use a kitchen timer to help you keep track. Want to go shopping? Head to your closets. That's your wardrobe for the week. The mall is off-limits. You final challenge—no buying anything other than food for seven days. Good luck, Oprah
So, the way I see it, I'm good on the water, the disposables and the thermostat. I've also gotten much better about meal planning and using the food we buy.
Here's what I'll try to improve upon:
1. Shorter showers. I've been working on this one. I'm not terrible, but I could do better. I think I'll buy a timer (oops- already breaking the rule about not buying stuff) and aim for 5 minutes.
2. I'm pretty good about only washing clothes when they're dirty. But I could probably be better. We are now set up with our new 'Breezecatcher' in the backyard and I love it already. Any thoughts, though, on drying clothes at night? (Thanks to Will and Sandy who gave me money towards the clothesline as a gift. They also recommended this model- which is excellent.)Dear Family, Thanks for agreeing to live with less for a week. Your challenge starts now! This week, you will be eating at home every meal. No more eating out, no more takeout. And you have to eat your leftovers. If you throw food in the trash, you've got to 'fess up. For one week, you're going to give up the bottled water habit. Get a water filter—time to get to know your tap. No more disposable plates, cups, napkins or paper towels. Try cloth—you might like it! For entertainment, you'll have to rely on each other. For one week, I'm asking you to give up your iPods and video games, and your computers only get turned on for homework. TV is limited to one hour per night—one TV only. That thermostat is going way down…to 69 degrees. If you get cold, put on a sweater. Give your washing machine a break—try to wash only clothes that are TRULY dirty. When you leave a room, lights out. Ditto for fans. When you're done using an appliance, unplug it. Don't forget your computer and cell phone chargers too. Showers are going to be shorter—eight minutes max. Use a kitchen timer to help you keep track. Want to go shopping? Head to your closets. That's your wardrobe for the week. The mall is off-limits. You final challenge—no buying anything other than food for seven days. Good luck, Oprah
So, the way I see it, I'm good on the water, the disposables and the thermostat. I've also gotten much better about meal planning and using the food we buy.
Here's what I'll try to improve upon:
1. Shorter showers. I've been working on this one. I'm not terrible, but I could do better. I think I'll buy a timer (oops- already breaking the rule about not buying stuff) and aim for 5 minutes.
Pete installing our new clothesline. Franklin was very helpful.3. I can always try harder to avoid Starbucks. I do take my own cup- but still....the general over-consumerism of it bothers me. Plus, I hate to ever feel addicted to anything. I don't even drink caffeinated drinks- you'd think that one would be easier for me.
Clara after our walk this morning. I did buy Starbucks (We walked right past it! I had a card! I used my cup!). I also bought some lillies of the valley for our yard, more clothespins and a duster. I'm always good about not using taking a bag- but I thought it was funny how it looked like the stroller had a fluffy tail on the way home.4. My big one- and this is what will really be a challenge and an important change for me- is to cut down on my computer time. We've been without t.v. for over half a year now and it's great. But I rely much more on my computer. I'm not sure yet how to monitor myself, but I think I'm going to have to try to limit it to an hour a day. That seems like a lot- but I'm sure I would be shocked if I knew how much time I actually spend on the computer in one day.
Oops. I think I'm already past my quota for today. As soon as I'm finished blogging I'll stay off the computer until after dinner. Unless there's some sort of emergency.....Now I'd like to hear from you. What are you going to change that is above and beyond what you already do? It's not supposed to be easy!
10 comments:
one thing i'd like to be better about is bringing along bags for non-grocery shopping. i almost always remember to bring our trusty string bags for food shopping, but i hardly ever think about it when i plan to make other kinds of purchases. to be honest, i also think i'd feel kind of strange walking through the mall with new clothes in a string bag. i know that a fear of looking odd to strangers is not a very good reason to do something you know is environmentally responsible, but i'm just being honest. like oprah and betsy say (!), it's not necessarily easy.
I'm good about turning off lights and I never buy bottled water anymore....I used to give a bottle to all my massage clients but stopped that last summer because I felt bad about all that plastic. Now I offer them a glass of filtered water before they leave. In the warm months I do hang out my massage sheets...but probably could be better about hanging more of my clothes outside to dry. I would like to get totally away from using paper plates. I don't have a dishwasher so all my dishes are washed by hand...and sometimes I choose to grab a paper plate for toast or a sandwich so I have fewer things to wash. However, I'm trying to cut down on carbs so maybe the paper plates will just naturally go by the wayside. I take my own bags to the grocery and places like Walgreens. Also....I'm looking to buy a non-electric, non-battery carpet sweeper. Just haven't found the right one yet. I also want to be more conscious of eating what's in my fridge...especially all that produce I bring home. I hate wasting food (and money)!
I don't know much about drying clothes at night, I just leave them up until they're dry.
I can say that I was drying my jeans outside in February and it worked just fine and relatively quickly considering they were frozen most of the time (ice can evaporate) I think I had them out for about 24 hours. Sandy thought I was an idiot for even trying it, but the hardest part of the whole deal was digging all the snow and ice off the base so I could hang up our breezecatcher.
Clothes dryers are about the most wasteful thing I can think of.
Carrie - check out wrapsacks.com - they have a fun tote that might not look quite the same in the mall as a string bag. I know it means buying something, but if it keeps other bags from being used, then it is worth it. It took a while, but I have been really good for the last year or more about always having a cloth bag or not taking a bag. Even places like Target and Loft seem to get it ok, especially these days. You sometimes have to remind them that they don't need to wrap things in plastic bags (like the gift cards I bought for my employees today), but they eventually catch on. You could always knit a fun bag... Oh and for traveling, they will let you take an empty water bottle through security and fill it up.
One more thing - Will started hanging out clothes about a month ago again. I was skeptical as I figured they would freeze rather than dry. I was sort of right, but he was too - they dried eventually. Those of you in more southern latitudes may be able to hang your clothes out even earlier than we can in the spring.
One hour of compie time? If I weren't chained to my computer all day long, I don't think I could limit myself to that little bit. In fact, we're even in the market for a new Mac laptop. That will not help things. We mostly have the TV thing covered, except we enjoy the Netflix. Jeff's a good little leftover eater, and generally I don't cook big portions in the first place because I don't really like it. I guess I haven't said what I can do differently yet... I'll strive for a clothesline at next house, for sure. And a garden. We use cloth napkins at home, but I can send one with each of us to work for lunches. I'll be thinking of other things. Thanks for the post.
I really enjoyed this post. We always bring cloth bags to target for nonfood items and they act as if we are nuts. Sometimes they have bagged it in plastic bags and then into the cloth bags. Very strange.
I am trying to shorten my shower time. When we had the leaking tub faucet fixed the plumber was surprised that we cared. In Durham you can get a credit for extra water if you show proof of repair.When I told him I was more concerned about wasting water he was really taken aback.
We hung our new clothes line last weekend. I don't hang any adult undies... everything else can pretty much go out there. We don't have to consider freezing given that it only sleeted once all winter. We have to consider pollen... everything there is coated in yellow pollen. I don't see any problems with hanging out at night, though I haven't' done much of it.
I bring my cloth bags most places now. Once at Michaels the woman at the register said, "Oh, you're going green. That's cute." Yup, that was my motivation, to be cute. I guess they don't get many people bringing bags there.
We had to buy new appliances when we moved and got a front loading washing machine. I was surprised by how much drier the clothes were when they came out. It cut the drying time down by 1/3. Once the construction is done on our back deck I'll hang a clothesline there, and another in the yard for the rain free days. I'm inspired by all of the midwesterners who are air drying.
I feel bad eating out so much these days. We currently don't have a kitchen. Don's been grilling in the rain on his nights off, but I'm no good with the grill and my evenings with Gretchen are a little too unpredictable for grilling on my own. I'll be eating out less once the kitchen is done. The big thing for me is getting back to making my own lunch rather than eating at the campus cafeteria.
Aaaaaaaaaugh! You keep blogging about all of the things I keep meaning to blog about! heh! heh! Thanks. It actually made me feel good to read the list, on the personal side. The computer time question is the only one that's really bothering me. Still, we do well on the other counts.
(1)I learned to bring a bag when I lived in Hungary, so many years ago. In the first year I was there, if you didn't have your own bag, well... (gulp!) When I first moved to France, people were truly shocked when I brought out the little canvas bag. Or worse (!!), an already used plastic bag! Some wouldn't allow you to use it - I'm not kidding! Fifteen years later, it's become more the norm, and some stores don't offer one - though they'll sell you one, of course. Makes you wonder about their real motives, but then again, who cares, as long as it's working for the environment, too?
(2) We keep our thermostat at about 63. And wear sweaters and thick socks. Which generally have a spot on them before they're washed, or some other good reason for it.
(3) We've never owned a car. This wasn't on the list, I know, but...
(4) Oh, and you can also hang-dry in the house. In the basement, if you've got one, though we do it in the bathroom and kitchen. It may be hard to find the right hangers for that Over Thar, though, I dunno... I do agree with your brother, about clothes dryers. And about 'freeze-drying'. Though memories of hanging clothes out in chill Iowa end-of-winters as a child linger on... Ouf!
So, (5) computer time... Ye gads. Okay, I'll try. Honestly.
I'm down with all of this except for the Starbucks - I work among 500 kids under the age of 13 - give me a cup of that java! Although, I need to cut it out and stand by my expecting wife who has gone decaf. Addiction - the grand roller coaster
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