Dressing The Part

I bought a dress.

I hate shopping. I hate almost every part of it. I hate the part where I have to go to a store, I hate the part where I have to select an item that I usually try on and it doesn't look good and I have to put it back. I hate the part where I know I'm buying something made out of toxic substances by small blind children paid pennies a day.

But I bought this dress online. It's organic cotton, fair trade. I got it from Acacia, but the brand is Global Girlfriend. I just visited the site, and it's OK. There are a few fun shirts and skirts. The dress itself is fine - I can see myself wearing it, when the weather warms up just a little.

Part of what I'm aiming to do is to buy less. To buy only what I need, when I need it. To avoid excess. And what I do buy should be organic, eco-friendly, and fair trade or healthy, whichever applies. It really does take some getting used to.

Beep Beep

I've been trying to drive my car less.

This is challenging because we live in the boonies and we can't walk anywhere. In addition, I travel with at least one child at all times. But I don't usually drive anywhere unless I absolutely have to, and I try to lump my trips together.

But this week I finally remembered to track my miles. The week isn't even over yet, and already we're at 100 miles. This concerned me, because I hardly ever leave town. The only places I go are schools, gym, the library, and church. But the miles really add up.

Maybe I should try skipping a choir rehearsal every once and awhile, or driving right from school to the gym even though it means a rather long wait? What is a mom to do?

Cleaner

As I was wiping down the table tonight, I remembered how my old cleaner used to take the nail polish right off my fingernails. What did I used to thing it would be OK to eat of a surface wiped down with fingernail polish remover?

Earth Hour

Here's something you can do: turn off the lights.

No, not when you leave the room. I'm encouraging anyone who finds this post to shut off the lights for one hour on March 27th, 2010, at 8:30 PM. It's Earth Hour.

The idea is to get as many people as possible to shut off the lights, and to get people thinking about energy use and climate change. Please consider joining and / or spreading the word. I'll send out a reminder. I promise.

This is a fantastic opportunity for a romantic dinner or rendez-vous. Get some friends together and tell spooky campy ghost stories. Or just look out the window and see if things look any different. (This will work if you live in a city. Where I live things will most likely look the same - wicked dark.)

Discouraged

There is nothing more frustrating, when you are on a diet or trying to loose weight, to work at it and work at it, to jump on the treadmill and eat nothing but grapefruit for days, only to hop on he scale and find out that you are gained three pounds.

OK, to technically, this shouldn't happen. If you actually move around more and eat less, then you should loose weight. It's the chocolate bars you let yourself wolf down at night after deriving yourself all day that make the scale needle swing the wrong way.

I feel like my footprint is getting bigger. I mean, I feel like this "green diet" or this attempt to change my lifestyle is not doing a thing. I use more expensive products, my house is colder and darker, and I run around plugging and unplugging appliances, but my oil and electric bills are the same. I might try to keep my errands grouped together, but at least once a week I'll find myself driving to a store five miles away for a container of ricotta cheese. And my attempt to eat less meat by instituting a vegetarian meal night has resulted in 1 vegetarian meal getting thrown out after a night of having faces made at it, and an increase of meat consumption on other nights.

So, what is a girl to do? How do I make my next steps when I am dragging four unwilling participants behind me?

I am also angry at people who scorn my efforts - and although no one has done so to my face, there are plenty of people who let it be known that they think climate change is a bunk, or that it has nothing to do with us or anything we're doing. I'm trying hard, so these comments make me feel stupid and discouraged.

I think I just need to regroup, reevaluate what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do, and make sure any new steps I'm taking are in the right direction.

Green On A Budget

So far, being Green is expensive.

For me. There are probably other people who have been able to make it cheaper right off the bat. After all, being green is about using less of things, saving energy. In the long run, it should cost less. But this hasn't been the case for me, yet.

Sure, in the summer I don't use the dryer if it's not raining. And I've made a huge effort to keep the heat low. But none of the things I'm not using makes a huge dent in our electric bill. To be honest, I'm not sure how they calculate that bill. Like the phone bill, it seems to consist entirely of random numbers, and I'm not sure how "delivery fees" and "service fees" and "usage fees" are different.

We've given up a lot of beef, but organic vegetables and eggs and dairy are expensive. The cleaning products are more expensive than the toxic poison ones I used to use, and the soaps and shampoos and toothpastes cost more as well. When I get my grocery bill, it all adds up.

It isn't fair, really. I'm after something simple. I want milk with no antibiotics, but that will cost a dollar more. I want eggs laid by chickens allowed to keep their beaks, and those cost more. Tomatoes cost more with no pesticides and soaps with no formaldehyde also cost more.

I still feel good about what I'm doing. At the end of the trip, when I'm putting away my groceries, I'm not fretting about the bill as much as I am confident that I am buying the right things. But there must be a way to stay on a budget without starving my family.

My grocery store offers a few generic organic products, so I figured I would start there. Also, some websites offer coupons. If anyone else has any ideas, please let me know. I'm willing to listen.