That’s Swell

We started our green journey about 10 months ago. We’ve changed so much, our whole view on life has changed – not only in living a more responsible life, but also a more simpler, slower life – a life that we can appreciate – that isn’t all caught up in typical American “hype” and busyness.

But lately we’ve hit a rut. We haven’t really “advanced” to doing anything else to better ourselves and our lives. So recently we’ve made some changes, here’s the list.

• Hanging Laundry to Dry - we probably hang dry 2 out of 3 laundry loads. So we still have some ways to go. But I don’t really have anywhere to hang large items (ie blankets, sheets, towels, etc.) and I’ve usually had to dry our jeans because I wait so long to do laundry that we can’t wait 24 hours for them to dry. But for the most part, everything has been hung dry. I have 4 drying racks I hang in the living room. For most t-shirts, napkin, etc. I can do the laundry the night before, and by morning they’re dry. Also saves money – costs us $2 for every dryer we run – I already’ve noticed a big difference!

• No A/C (sort-of) - After we visited Kansas City, we really became aware of what HOT means – and that Wisconsin isn’t bad. We always knew this – we’re from central Illinois, where it’s always humid – but getting out of the cheese state reminded us of this. So we’ve actively been turning the air off and using fans. I’ve found the best if to just keep everything closed up tight – windows/shades, etc. and just run fans. Keeps cooler than opening the windows, since you’d let humidity in. A few times we’ve turned on the air, but only to 78 or 79. And we now turn it OFF when we leave (we used to just turn it to 80 degrees).

• Major homecooking advances (for me) – I’ve made granola bars, almond milk, croutons, frozen pizza…very far beyond what I was capable of a year and half ago!! Now making my own bread, applesauce and canning doesn’t seem as difficult. Someone just gave us a huge zucchini I’m going to try to turn into something delicious – I’ve never even had zucchini, so it should be interesting!

• Kitchen Clean-up - We’ve gotten rid of all our Teflon, non-stick cookingware. We’ve switched to glassware and stoneware. I’ve also gotten rid of all my plastic “utensils” – spatulas/spoons/potato mashers/spoon strainers, etc. and replaced them with metal or wooden ones. Using plastic with high heat for cooking makes me nervous that “things” will be released, so we switched (they’re much nicer anyway).

• No More Plastic Lunch Bags - I’ve not bought any new plastic “ziploc” baggies and hopefully won’t at all. We’ve been slowly using up our “supply” – I save them for times when nothing else works. Instead I save my old bread bags, bagel bags – any sort of plastic bag and use them instead. Our lunches get served in tupperware now.

• More donation piles – Even though I feel like our apartment has lost nearly 500 pounds with all the stuff I’ve gotten rid of since March (when we moved to our current place), I still am getting rid of more and more. When our lease is up we’re contemplating moving to a one bedroom apartment and we want to be ready.

• Always Second-Hand – And even though we’re getting rid of a lot, I also am always thrift shopping. But I am better now at what I actually buy – making sure I have a home for it. However, before I buy something new, I look endlessly to find it used. So nearly all of our buying lately has been second-hand stuff – seriously! I’ve even found gifts to stash away for birthdays and Christmas.

• 20% More Organic -We’ve done an even better job at eating primarily organic/local. We used to be 55% organic, now I’d say we’re closer to 75% – so still some room for improvement – but it takes a while to get to 100%. And a big difference is we haven’t bought any cereal! We used to buy 4 huge bags of bulk cereals once a month – sugary, terrible cereals. I haven’t bought any! We’re on our last bag of off-brand “Cheerios” (that was given to us!) so after that we’ll start eating granola (that I will hopefully be making). If you knew me before, this is amazing – I love cereal – and would eat it for every meal if able – but now I’ve switched to oatmeal – and I don’t even miss Cinnamon Toast Crunch (well, maybe a little, in those desperate moments of starvation!).

• More CFL Light Bulbs – We’ve gone to switching nearly every lightbulb in the apartment to a CFL bulb. Used to only have 2 bulbs – one lamp, one overhead – now nearly everything is (probably 60% of lights are CFL).

• Unplugging – We’ve been doing an even better at unplugging things. Especially when we were gone – we unplugged nearly everything. We still have room for improvement. But we’re selling one more computer (my old PC) which hogs power, so that’ll be better. But we need to get better at unplugging the microwave when we’re not using it – I just need to get a better system, now it’s annoying to plug/unplug so we just don’t bother.

• Gas Mileage – Not only have we gone to one car – but we also have been doing a better job at checking the tire pressure to make sure we’re getting the best gas mileage possible. So every time we get gas, David has been checking the tires (I still don’t know how to do it!). I also have been making an effort to drive the speed-limit – because you get the best mileage this way (it is hard to do!).