Kennan and Grammy got a head start on making Valentines!
Brayden has her Pops wrapped around her little finger!.JPG)
Thanks for coming Grammy and Pops! You were lifesavers!.JPG)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------And now for the Going Green part...
What do you do around your house to "Go Green"??? I am looking for some simple, easy to do things to help the environment. Leave a comment and let me know or post a link to a blog post you have done about this. Thanks!!
10 comments:
We live in the very green city of Portland, OR and recycling isn't an option. You must recycle. The waste management services here gave us a garbage can that fits maybe three bags of garbage per week and a recycling can that is two times the size. This garbage restriction has forced me to look at everything I would usually just throw in the trash and see what can be recycled.
What great timing for a visit from your parents!
I have just published a post with some of our "green" goals for the year at Contemplative Mom
We try to increase the population every couple of years, thus increasing carbon dioxide output. It's great for the trees.
Our local grocery store gave us some reusable bags when we moved in. They are great--I use them at lots of stores and they help cut back on all those plastic bags.
Grandparents are great--I agree. We just had a 'grandma visit' yesterday which freed up an afternoon for Troy and I to spend together!
so glad your parents came for a visit and gave you some time off!
it's been harder to "be green" since we moved to such a small town. when we were in abilene we recycled aluminum, plastic, and carboard and we used wind energy. here there isn't anywhere to take our recycling, so we haven't been saving stuff :( wind energy isn't available either, but we still turn lights off when we're not in the room, bring my own bags to the grocery store (and hope to remember to get them out of the car!!), and use energy efficient light bulbs. that's all i can think of right now...i really should start saving stuff to recycle and take it with us when we go to the big city!
My mom did basically the same thing as your parents. It's such a blessing to be close to them again, isn't it?!
We recycle just about everything. I use the reusable shopping bags most of the time (sometimes you do need plastic bags for trash cans, etc). turning off the lights, TV when you leave the room. There is probably more... but I can't think right now.
oh- your parents are the best! that is so great! on going green- we don't let the kindle wipe themselves! ha! we save tons of trees:)
I've switched to using vinegar, water, and baking soda for most of my cleaning. There are lots of recipes online. I have a spray bottle with vinegar and water that I use for cleaning the counters and floors. It's a great disinfectant and so dang cheap. I also love that it doesn't mater if Graham gets into the cleaning products since all the ingredients are used for cooking too. The only problem is it's a little stinky but the odor goes away once it dries. I have a friend who mixes her solution with a little lavendar oil mask the smell.
Oh, so wish recycling was easier -- jealous of Sarah in Portland. Out here in the sticks, recycling is a big production, where you save up all your recyclables and Kevin takes them to a recycling center (far far away) when he goes that direction for meetings.
To be green, we love our reusable bags (and gave them as Christmas presents this year). We've switched to more eco-friendly cleaners--dish soap, laundry detergent, toliet bowl cleaner, etc. (not dishwasher soap, heard that it doesn't work). I like the fact that I can now clean the toliet because previous Kevin had to do it due to the toxic fumes of Comet. You know about our cloth diapers, which I use as often as Abby does not have raging diaper rash (we're right now in the middle of a case...). One switch that we've made since moving, that took a change of attitude, was weaning our dependence on paper towels. I have a drawer of white cloth towels that I try to use, as much as possible, in place of paper towels. I bought a ton and have a hamper in the kitchen where they go and when I'm down to one, I wash them. I like the switch, but it took effort because every parent of little kids use paper towels all day!
Not sure if any of that is new to you, but I haven't came up with anything new lately....
(oh, and energy efficent bulds, appliances, etc are all standard around here).
We replaced all our light bulbs with compact fluorescents and have recently made the switch to cloth diapers. We use cloth napkins, too. We have one of the newer washing machines that adjusts water level to the volume of clothing you put in. I also try to reuse clothes for multiple wearings before washing--often tricky with a messy preschooler and spitty baby. We only do full baths for the kids themselves once or twice a week--they don't sweat like adults, it saves a lot of time at bedtime, and more frequent baths are hard on E's skin anyway.
As renters we aren't able to do major retrofitting of the house, but we did put plastic over the windows this winter, and we try to keep the thermostat as low as we can stand (I admit to being a wimp about the cold and can't stomach much below 65F).
And now that we're a mile from downtown, we try to walk to work, church, and shopping whenever we can--we were much better about that in the summer than this winter. It does mean building extra time into the schedule. I hope to get a bike trailer for the kids this summer.
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