Earth Day

I've been having technical difficulties. As in, technically I don't really have time to be writing a blog; therefore, I find it difficult to generate a post. :) I added an extra work day to my schedule last week, bringing me up to a whopping two days. That somehow managed to set off avalanche of laundry & house work that even I couldn't ignore. It also gave me an even greater respect for moms who work every day. I hope you ladies are reading this with your feet up while someone else is cleaning your house. This stuff isn't for the faint of heart.

So, needless to say, I had the best intentions of writing my Earth Day post on the actual Earth Day. Since that obviously didn't happen, I decided to go ahead a write it now, a week later. I am that into Earth Day; well, that and it was already half written. I have swing set to stain before the baby gets up. Time is of the essence.

I don't consider myself a hippie, more like a hippie wannabe. I love the idea of the long, flowing skirts, flowers in my braided hair. I have visions of myself hanging on the beach, listening to Jack Johnson, not judging people. Namaste. Truth be told, I'm way too high strung to embrace that lifestyle for more than a week. I don't have the patience to braid my hair and the nearest Trader Joe's is 30 minutes away. Ain't nobody got time for that. I'd rather load Jack onto my ipod & burn through some hot yoga. I know my limits.

Instead, we've adopted a few more manageable behaviors to do our part for the earth. We have reusable grocery bags. We plant a small garden to grow our own veggies. We fill our recycle bin weekly. We're going to buy a rain barrel when one of us remembers to go to Lowe's. We make an effort & could always do more, especially when teaching our boys to take care of the earth. They're young & caring; the time is ripe for making an impression.

So this Earth Day, I set out to make an impression & teach a little conservation. I had visions of my Earth Day looking like this:

Isn't it adorable? Yeah, didn't happen. 

Instead, I opted for a less adorable approach. I looked around our house & tried to figure out what generates the most trash. Turns out, we use a LOT of paper towels, napkins & ziploc bags. We could use less- unlikely- or we could  go reusable. Sounds easy, right? Unless, of course, you're me. A normal person would just go buy what they need. I did that... sort of. I bought microfiber cloths to use instead of paper towels. Thank you, Costco. Then, I had the brilliant idea to make my cloth napkins & reusable snack bags. Straight lines, right? Easy-peasy. 

Weeeelllll, turns out not so easy-peasy. There's a LOT of folding & ironing & sewing & folding & ironing & sewing & folding & ironing & sewing involved in hemming a cloth napkin. Top it off with my need for perfectionism & you have yourself quite a project. The snack bags are a little easier but there's more cutting since I'm lining them. 

On the plus side, the boys are really on board when it comes to using the napkins & snack bags. And while I still have plenty of napkins left to make, we do enough laundry that the few I have made are almost always clean & ready for use. I like that my boys check first to see what's clean before going right to the paper napkins. I'd like to think we're making a small difference in the amount of waste we produce. Now, if I can only get the rest of them made... maybe after the swing set.

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share your Earth Day ideas, embrace your inner hippie :)