Two Goals

Recently it was Earth Day and with it, there were scores of online articles detailing how to be less wasteful.  It theory, it's simple...throw less stuff out.  But in practice, that is harder than it seems.  No matter how many scornful looks I give him, my husband still reaches for paper towels over cloth ones when our sons make messes.  And I've been using disposable diapers on our little guy far more than I ever did for his brother. 

Oh the guilt!

But the waste that really galls me...that just makes me crazy...is food waste.  I pay a lot of money on expensive organic food so that my kids get the best nutrition I can give them.  And when they willfully and purposely waste it...a part of my brain explodes.  Now of course, I recognize that they are children and "waste not, want not" is not a maxim that they understand or care about, so it's my job as the adult to ensure they waste as little as possible.

So my challenge to myself for the month of May is going to be zero food waste.  This means making good use of my freezer, maybe even plugging in the deep freezer and using that for our meat and veggies.  If I do that, I'll use our regular freezer for things that we need access to more often.

Now I'm lucky because my sister keeps chickens, and they eat all sorts of food scraps, so things that don't get eaten, like strawberry hulls and eggs shells, get fed to the chickens.  Also we (my sister and I) are growing a huge garden at her house, so things that don't get fed to the chickens, like coffee grounds and potato peels, will be composted. 

But my goal will be to reuse or freeze every scrap of edible food.

My second goal is more long term.  I've been thinking a lot lately about the petroleum industry and the amount of chemicals we are all exposed to.  Now, it's pretty much impossible to have zero exposure to chemicals in our modern lives, but I'd like to limit the exposure of my family (especially my two sweet little boys) to the shit-storm of chemicals they are likely to be bombarded with.

So I'm going to start making my own body products and all-purpose cleaner, using a more eco-friendly laundry detergent and shampooing with baking soda rather than commercial shampoo.

This is going to be a work in progress as I phase out mainstream cleaning and bathing products in favor of more natural options.  Will everything I try be met with success?  Nope!  But that's okay!  This is about trial and error...I will do my best to post successes and failures with all sorts of interesting tidbits about what worked and why!

I know you'll be waiting with bated breath.