Tuesday, June 3, 2008

A little of this, A little of that...

Well, while I've been quiet on the blogging front, I've been doing my part to be green in small ways. First off, though - I have to admit to ending up with a few styrofoam take out containers when I bought lunch. I have great intentions, but I forgot to take down my reusable container and was just too tired/lazy/timecrunched (all excuses) to go back to get it. I have to be more diligent about this.

The garage sale was done on the 24th - and it went rather well. We managed to get rid of lots of things - and my parents even rehomed some large appliances. There is still quite a bit left ( I really let a lot go!), so I will chat with a friend to see about doing another one sometime in the near future. Leftovers after that will be donated - making sure that it's all still in good condition first - remember, they don't want your garbage! I think I can come up with a few more things in the meantime, to let go of. I've been doing pretty good on that front and haven't been bringing in many new things. Most of the new stuff seems to be things that are given to my son (and yes, I bought him a book and a little chalkboard, so I'm guilty, too!)

We are blessed with incredible parents who not only take care of our son while we work, but who also make dinner for us so we don't have to cook when we get home. However, I think we'll ask my Mom to skip a meal here and there and we are building up an incredible supply of leftovers each week and we want to make sure we eat all we have. It's a goal to not waste food, and while we're not perfect, this is a great way for us to do just that. There always seems to be more than we can eat and I want to do something about that. Tonight is our first go at it - we're eating all our leftovers for dinner - smorgasboard, here we come! We don't do this nearly enough - and now that I've gotten rid of our deep freezer, we don't have the space in the fridge freezer to build up a supply of leftovers to nosh on when we don't want to cook. I think that every four days we should probably eat dinner like this or pack it all up for a delicious reheatable lunch.

I also decided to switch my son's favourite crackers. He loves baby MumMums rice crackers - but the packaging is insane! So I bought some rice crackers in a big container - and thankfully he loves them, too This will be the new way I buy him crackers. There is still packaging, but as it's not in individual servings. Much better all round.

At work, for environment week, the sustainable development team offered a little contest. We are giving away two books "The Green Book" and "Ecoholic". We encouraged people to either join the Sustainable Development team or to submit a sustainable idea that they'd be willing to help out with. They get two entries if they do both. We've recruited at least 3 people from areas where there was no volunteer (yeah!) and gotten some ideas. The draw takes place Thursday so hopefully there will be more in by then. But getting 3 new people is fantastic! We also decided to put a sustainable tip in the Friday newsletter that goes out by email to all staff in the region. I think that it's a great thing, giving people ideas of easy things they can do to be more sustainable.

My goldfish finally went to their new home - in case anyone wondered if I've ever gotten rid of them. I'm using up the old pond water to water all the plants and then I'll clean everything up - the pump, the giant container I was using and so on. This can all be reused by someone. My remaining pond plant is heading to a new home, where it can really be planted in the ground rather than stay in a pot. Nothing wasted from this take-down!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Okay – so everyone knows that some pretty scary stuff is happening to our world from war and economic crisis to global warming and climate change. But nobody seems to know how to stop these things from happening. Its like we all want to do better in our day-to-day life and be more responsible, but does it really make a difference?


It does.


I just finished reading James Ray’s new book called Harmonic Wealth and then attended a teleseminar with James about how we can spread Harmonic Wealth around the world. James really hit the nail on the head with this one idea. He talked about PHASE TRANSITION – it’s a scientific term that describes how when a critical mass of something (like a certain number of molecules) is met, then a shift in the entire structure occurs. It’s what they use to describe a liquid turning to gas at a certain temperature and that sort of thing.


James used it to explain how WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD. Seriously. If it makes sense at a molecular level, than it makes sense on a global scale, too. If enough of us make those changes happen in our own lives (get the Hybrid, recycle, go carbon neutral, vote against war, etc.), at a certain point we will hit critical mass and the change will happen for everyone! You can feel it happening already and I certainly want to be a part of it.


Check out his book at the Harmonic Wealth website: harmonicwealth.com/read

- A JR Fan