Starting To Live GREEN

While I was doing the dishes today I was thinking about all the things that we have started to do in our everyday lives to live "green", as they say. I was also thinking about all the things that we don't do that I would like to start, and all the things that we would never be able to do but wish we could, such as house things like solar panels and having our own garden and compost.

A lot of the things we have started doing is to ,yes help the environment for the future of our kids, but for the most part the things we have started doing is to benefit the health of the Warman household. Having a child that is sick a lot will make you reevaluate the things in your daily living. Also, part of going green is getting rid of clutter by recycling, not spending on things that you don't really need, reusing something, say a plastic container for your kids paints, and either buying things second hand, like baby clothes, instead of new, or if buying new, then buy something that is going to last for years, say a crib that converts into a full bed for the child to use for years to come.

When I first meet Steve back in 2002, he recycled. Not only did he recycle, but he took his trash and recyclables to the dump himself. I had never even been to the dump before, and before long it just became a part of our weekend outings. At home he had his recyclable containers all stacked and labeled, "plastic, aluminum, glass, and paper", and let me tell you, he would dive in the trash after I had just thrown a can in there by mistake. It was so hard for me to get in the habit of recycling since I had never really even heard of it. No one I knew ever did it, and they still don't do it. To me, it was a pain that I forced myself to do but didn't really get the entire impact behind what I was being made to do, as I thought at the time. For those of you that know me, cooking is stressful enough for me, and then you add rinsing out cans and tearing the labels off with the entire cleaning up process after cooking....it just was a lot. But I did it. We continued to recycle when we moved to California, but in Kansas we didn't have a big enough kitchen to place the recyclable containers so we stopped doing it. I was pregnant and working and Steve was in full time school during the day and then in night school. So to be honest, recycling was the last thing on our minds. Since we moved to Tennessee, we hadn't started recycling here again either. For the most part because of the whole kitchen space issue again. Our pantry now is full top to bottom with all the special foods that Kendall can eat for her food allergy, so there was no space there. We still took our trash to the dump, but when Steve deployed I got trash service for the first time in a long time. For some reason Steve loves going to the dump. I have heard his Mom and Aunt talking about how they love going to the dump up in New Hampshire also, like it's a little adventure. They recycle too, and from what I hear, their dump is somewhat of a second hand store with people bringing furniture and tables and setting the stuff out in a section for free pick up to anyone. They definitely take the dump and recycling to a new level up there. It is just not like that around here. I guess that is where Steve got his love of the dump.

A few months ago, I decided on a whim one day at the grocery store, to buy 10 reusable grocery bags. They were .70 cents a piece, so it cost me $7.00, which I thought wasn't bad for bags that can be used over and over again. I put them in my trunk, and was hooked from the get go. I use them every where I go now, even if going to Target, Dillards, the book store, wherever. I really like the whole thing of not having to deal with all the plastic bags in my house, so for me, I have really enjoyed my reusable bags. At Kroger, they give you .4 cents off a bag, so with my 10 bags, it's like using a .40 cent coupon. Now that I was starting to get into this whole "reuse and recycle thing", I bought all of Kendall's winter wardrobe at a couple of second of hand stores. Then I came across a book that I highly recommend to anyone that has a child and is thinking about starting to go green, it's called "Raising Baby Green". You can find it at: www.drgreene.com/36.html It has everything in it, so you don't have to buy any other book to find out how to make your own cleaning supplies, or what good ones to buy, to recycling, to organic products, things like that are all in this book. I loved it. From that book, I got a few quick tips about organic foods that I will share with you. Right now, the only thing that we buy organic is milk, and a few things that I have to buy for Kendall because of her milk allergy. Sometimes in order to get her something dairy free, I have to get it in the organic section. From all my organic food research here are the top foods that you should buy organic: Milk, meat, eggs, potatoes, and apples. So if you ever wanted to buy a little bit of organic without breaking your wallet, this is the top items to buy. Like I said, we buy organic milk now and that's it, even Kendall's soy milk, but I only buy it every other time. I am slowing going to incorporate just the top things to buy that I have listed if we can afford them, or if I can even find them around here. The only place to shop that has organic products around here is Kroger. Not big on the "natural" thing here in Tennessee.

So now at this point I have started really thinking about things and decided all on my own that I wanted to start recycling again. This time around it was all me and something that I wanted to do, so it doesn't feel like a chore now. It actually makes me feel like I am doing something every time that I drop something in our recycling bins. Now we go as a family to the dump and teach Kendall all about the dump and recycling. It's our fun little weekend family adventure. I just bought the only other "green" book that I would recommend to anyone that recycles or not. It tells you all about how to dispose of anything in your life, to appliances, batteries, cleaning products, oil from home oil changes, just all kinds of stuff that we are all like, "what am I suppose to do with this", "how do I dispose of this". It is called "Green House (eco-friendly disposal and recycling at home)"It can be found at: www.indianalivinggreen.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=436&Itemid=170.
Also visit your local waste disposal site on the Internet to see what all the dump accepts as far as recycling goes, if you are thinking about recycling. Go to: www.earth911.org. to enter your zip code and find all the recycling centers near you. Your local waste management should be included in this list. Here in Montgomery County, they only take plastics #1 & 2, so all the things I get and buy that have the # 3-7 on the bottom go in the trash, and therefore in the landfill because they don't recycle them. I end up throwing a lot of plastics away that I could recycle because of this, so don't be like me and recycle every plastic in the house and then get to the dump to only have to throw half of it in the trash can.

I just replaced my cleaning supplies with that new Clorox brand called Green Works, which they sell at the Dollar Store, by the way. I know that they aren't truly organic, but you have to start somewhere. It has to be better than what I was using before. Maybe when I get pregnant and as my supply runs out, I will buy the true organic cleaning products. My Mom is cleaning green and she probably doesn't even know it, she cleans with vinegar and water, which is what the book tells you to do to make one of your own cleaning solutions, but I can't stand the smell of it. I will definitely have to buy mine out somewhere.

Going Green can be as simple as you want it to be from making sure that you always have a full load of laundry and dishes before running them, to turning the water off while you brush your teeth (which I just started doing myself, and I am trying to teach Kendall this also), to buying second hand, donating and selling stuff instead of throwing it away or dumping it, unplugging electronics, appliances, and computers when not in use, making your own cleaning products, not using plastic utensils or paper plates, taking your own bags in the store to cut down on plastic, turning off lights that you are not using, pressing no at the gas pump for a receipt to cut down on paper use, recycling all junk mail, papers, plastic, aluminum, and glass at your house, buying organic skin and hair products (which I just started doing myself, and I can tell a difference in my skin and hair because of it, it's amazing), buying foods from your local farms or buying organic. There are so many small to large things you can do, it is just up to you. And like me, you have to be ready for it, not feel as though you are forced into it so that it feels like a chore or a burden.

I hope that you all have enjoyed my Going Green blog. I haven't written this to convert anyone, just to educate on what I have learned about the smallest things that we can all do to help our kids futures. All I can do is give you the information and my experiences with it, and hope that I have made you think about it. If you just do one thing, say turning the water off when you brush your teeth, you are making a difference. And know that even people that are "green", or as us "going green" that we are not perfect with it. I can't seem to give up running the water and scubbing my dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. And from what I have read, even the greenest of greens have problems from day to day with the same issues. So don't take it all too serious, do what you can and what makes you feel good, and go from there.

Hope you have enjoyed this. I will keep updates as my going green evolves, in a good way or bad.