Sanity or Patience: choose one.
Do you ever have one of those moments where you think, "HA! I am sane!" Then you step in dog poo with your bare feet and remember it was your idea to get the puppy...?
In addition to the
G.R.E.E.N. tips I gave you last year, we've been adding to the list of environmentally friendly ways we do things around here...
Dorothy has been especially helpful.
- She reuses. Why, just a few days ago I found her using our bathroom hand towels to give herself a whore bath. (Sorry, Earth, but I'm going to have to put a stop to this one).
- She saves water. Like I mentioned above, whore bath. She also refuses to wash her hands. (Again, Earth, my apologies. We're going to have to fix this.)
- She insists on wearing the same clothes day after day. She also tries to hide her plastic panties (diapers) in her shirt drawer so that she can reuse them night after night. Isn't that helpful? (Dear Earth, I realize you are appreciative of Dorothy's efforts, but I may go insane).
Some of us are trying to help out on a more practical level.
- It's tough, I know, but we use the dishwasher. Saves more water than hand-washing.
- We keep the tv off until after Monsoon goes to sleep, with the exception of his daily cartoon when I take a shower.
- The trampoline! It's more fun than a video game and ensures that the boy will actually sleep when he's supposed to. Bonus: it ensures that I can sleep when I'm supposed to. Take that, insomnia!
- I put our reusable water bottles to use. Not only do they hold more water than the plastic throw-away kind, it's fun to watch Dorothy struggle to figure how to use the pop-up top.
- Most of our household cleaners have been replaced with environmentally friendly ones, which is especially nice since I find myself disinfecting EVERYTHING several times a day (see Dorothy's bullets above as to why).
- We're planting our own veggies this year, and even trying out starting them from seeds. If it works (and by "works" I mean if I remember to water them and transplant them into the garden outside before they die), we will have saved the planet from a few dozen plastic seedling containers from the garden center.
It doesn't seem like much, but every little bit helps. What are you doing for our planet?
"My favorite rose bloomed this week."
Cate at Show My Face hosts the fastest meme in the West(ern hemisphere... open to anyone in any country).
- G=Gross. That's right, I'm gross. I now use only one towel (a big deal for me) instead of one for my hair and one for my body. Plus, since I'm clean when I dry off, I've been hanging them to dry and reusing them before tossing them into the washer. Saving water, conserving energy, even burning fewer housework calories.
- R=Recycle! I know we must do this regularly, because the other day Monsoon had a piece of trash and instead of throwing it into the trash can, he told me he needed to take it outside to the recycling bin. Yeah, he said recycling bin. The fact that it's outside does not mean we don't use it, either - most of what goes in it stays on the stovetop until we remember to take it out (that stovetop is good for something!). When it's warm, he'll probably be begging to throw banana peels into the compost pile. Which is at my mom's house.
She wins again. - E=Exceptionally honed talent for pissing off baggers at the grocery store when I hand them my reusable bags and/or ask for paper, please. They really, really hate that. FYI: the reason I have to ask for paper isn't always because I forget my reusable ones. I use the brown bags as shipping and/or wrapping paper.
- E=Exceptionally honed talent for finding art in trash. Monsoon loves to color and paint (above mentioned) brown wrapping paper to give any gift a personal touch. He also enjoys cutting and pasting
credit card bills and past due notifications greeting cards and newsletters from school. - N=Never stop planting things. Sure, 90% of what I plant ends up dead, but that's just the rain's fault - how does all that planting help if I have to waste water on them? Ooh, there's a freebie: use something (giant buckets? feel free to enlighten me) to catch the rainwater to use for outside things such as plants.
Now that you have been enlightened, go forth! Share these newly aquired pearls of wisdom with your peers, your family, and the random kids running amok in the street. Let there be GREEN!
