love your body, heal the world

Today is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. I think we need more than one day per year to focus on the earth … I do like to take the opportunity each year to just take stock of where I’m at, what changes I made in the previous year and decide what goals I have for the coming year.

“Going green” can be a daunting task. When you think about all the changes that need to be made — large and small — it’s enough to make you want to crawl under the bed and hide for a week. But I’ve learned it’s just like changing other habits … it requires baby steps and long term commitment. I know I’m certainly not perfect.

Taking stock of last year

As I look back on the last year, I’m quite proud of the work my man and I did to reduce our footprint.

+ we eliminated our lawn and have replaced it with an english garden sort of situation with native plants that don’t need as much watering. We are VERY happy with our now low-maintenance yard.

+ we did some energy efficiency improvements to our almost century-old home. Between proper weatherization, changing to CFL light bulbs and turning things OFF when they aren’t in use, we’ve seen a consistent decrease in our gas and electricity usage — even though I now work from home.

+ we upgraded our washer and dryer to energy efficient models and eliminated noxious chemicals in place for biodegradable, earth-friendly detergent.

+ we live in Portland and so of course curbside recycling is ridiculously easy but I’m still overjoyed by the HUGE recycling bins the city has provided. There are some weeks that I send out the recycling can and have no actual garbage to send to a landfill that week — that’s a great feeling. (Those weeks are rare, but I plan to have more and more of them!)

+ I’ve even heard a rumor that we’ll be soon able to compost our food scraps through the city garbage service — but we don’t really need that because we compost food scraps in our backyard.

+ It’s exceedingly rare that you’ll see me using a plastic bag from the grocery store (remembering to bring my own bags to the grocery store was a habit that took a few weeks with trial and error!) or drinking out of plastic water bottles.

+ I buy most of my clothes used or from local and/or eco-friendly retailers. I thought this one would be much harder than it is … but it turns out, not working in a high-rise with a sky bridge to Nordstrom has really helped in this department. I save an enormous amount of money and have better luck finding clothes that express my individual style more. Win, win!

This year, we plan to step it up

This year, greening feels more like a game than a heavy responsibility. It’s become a habit to look for more efficient, responsible ways to live. It’s more than just treating Mama Earth more respectfully, but we usually save time and/or money too. Some of the goals I have already are:

+ hang drying clothes in place of machine drying much of the laundry

+ growing more of my own food this summer. I’m still working on my green thumb. It’s a work in progress. We did grow some food last year and let me tell you … having fresh tomatoes out of your own backyard is amazing. I’ll be stepping it up this year for sure. Stay tuned!

+ more walking and riding the bike to the grocery + farmers markets. I commuted for so long that it’s a hard habit to break — my man and I both have fuel efficient cars, but our farmers market is only about a mile away. This summer, we’ll be hoofing it.

+ eliminating ALL the chemical cleaners in the house. We have a lot of the more harsh stuff left over from the days when my husband prepared for armageddon by over-stocking our house with the latest army of chemicals from costco. But those days are thankfully over. Now, we’ll just save that stuff in case we have a tough cleaning job that needs tough chemicals, but 90 percent of the time, we use natural cleaners.

+ greening my beauty routine will be a big personal project for me this year.

+ I want solar panels and I want them now!! (Yes, I’m totally channeling Veruca Salt.) I don’t know if this will make it into the budget this year, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Some links and favorites

10 things you can do right now — just try a few small, easy steps first.

Ge careful of green-washing: we should know by now not to trust big corporations that are just selling us their latest bullsh*t. Keep your critical eye before deciding if something is green just because some advertising says it is.

Here are some good examples of completely useless and wasteful products and their eco-alternatives.

Comment Zen

I love swapping tips! What are some of the things — large and small — you are doing to lessen your impact on the planet? What are your goals for the rest of the year?

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