And she wants to save the planet?? *face palm*

Well hello everyone!

Rideau Valley Conservation area in Ottawa.
August 2008.

While I procrastinate on weaving in the ends on my finished projects, I figured I would write up a little post about my borderline granola tendencies. Now before you all roll your eyes and stop reading, I promise that I will not use this blog to lecture anyone about saving the planet or to show you horrific pictures of dead birds filled with plastic (although those things are important and/or sad). Basically, I want to do what I can to limit my own and my family's waste - both as garbage and waste of resources - and leave the part of the world that we live in a little better off than how we found it. **awww group hug** Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be all noble here or anything. We are still plenty wasteful, I have never planted a tree, I sometimes forget my reusable bags and I don't pick up every piece of litter I see on the street. I am trying to be more aware of the things we are consuming and the effect our daily lives have on our environment and on our bodies. If I'm being totally honest, as much as I feel all warm and fuzzy about our planet and being healthy, one of the most powerful and immediate drivers of change in my life is that I am cheap err... resourceful and frugal!

Abandoned beaver dam. Parc national Frontenac, 2007.

So if I'm not going to be all preachy and if I don't really know what I'm talking about, then why am I talking about it?? Well, one, it gives me an excuse to post pretty landscape-y pictures :) Also, I figure that a lot of you are probably in the same boat as me. I want to do good and "be green" and I don't want to spend a lot of money to do it. I want to eat healthy and use natural products but again, I'm not (able or) interested in spending any more money on fancy products or foods. Maybe we can help each other? If the blog-o-sphere can be believed, apparently, we can do all of those things without spending more money. In fact, says the blog-o-sphere, we should be able to save money. Save money and save the planet - I'm in! Enter trial and error stage...

I already have tendency to be a diy-er so this process has give me permission to try out all kinds of crazy and amazing (hello soap nuts!!) things to replace the disposable and questionably manufactured parts of our lives. Perhaps if I can share some of our successes and failures, it will help someone else make a little change in their habits too. And perhaps prevent you from making your clothes smell like vinegar, making your garden coop too short or creating a terrible honey/oil/sugar mess in your hair! (And then we can all save the planet and the animals will sing and rejoice la la la) 

Creating our veggie garden last spring. We needed to double the height on one side.
We'll be expanding our garden this year and will plant only edibles in our front yard.

Because I like to pretend I'm all science-y and whatever, I divided our lives into two super technical areas: Food and Stuff. I know - mind. blown. Today, I'll intro a little about the "Stuff" category. I don't want to get too crazy here but I like to sub-divide "Stuff" into: kitchen/bathroom stuff, clothes/laundry stuff and other stuff. (Don't worry - there is no quiz at the end lol) A lot of people don't like categories and that's totally cool, but for me, it makes it easier to tackle a little chunk at a time instead of trying to change our entire lives (too scary!).      

World's greatest graphic created by yours truly.

Probably the biggest and most basic goal that I have is to stop buying disposable things. I work hard-ish for my money and there are things that I would like to do with it other than to almost literally throw it in the garbage.

So some kitchen/bathroom stuff: The first item I wanted to tackle was paper towels. They are super expensive and take up a lot of space in our tiny kitchen green bin. We were seriously freaked out about not buying paper towels! We used them A LOT. I mean, how do you drain bacon without paper towel?? (The answer btw is newspaper which then goes into our green bin. OR to be totally waste free, put it on a cooling rack over a cookie sheet.) One day, we ran out and we just didn't buy anymore. Much to my own surprise, after about 24 hours, we really didn't even notice that it was missing. One of our most used supplies - gone - and we didn't even notice. I made replacement "cloth towels" but really we don't even use those very often. Our trusty dish cloth and tea towels do most of the work. (Pardon the cheesiness for a moment here but this really was a life changing moment for me. What else did I use all the time that I wouldn't miss??)

Fluff butt (environmentally friendly and super cute!) 

and enjoying the "garbage balloons" from the grocery 

store to boot! Sept. 2013.

We've made other little bits of progress towards that goal. Mr. L wears cloth diapers at home (he does wear a disposable to sleep and when we go out since we had a large box and are trying to use it up. Once they are gone, then we'll fully convert to cloth.) Mr. B and Miss N wear cloth trainers for sleeping. We are almost completely over our addiction to baby wipes (they are soo handy!!). I've been trying out different non-disposable lady products and occasionally cloth tp - the jury is still out on both of these although I think I'm being converted on some of them. (The jury is also out on how much more about those experiments I will share with you lol) We still use plastic freezer bags often but we now wash them and re-use them. Those suckers have been washed over a dozen times and are still going strong!

I won't list all of things that we could improve on because all that does is stress me out and makes it seem like a lost cause :( Instead, I pick one or two things at a time and once we are comfortable with the changes (like the paper towel) or decide that a greener option just doesn't work for us right now (like the freezer bags), then I move onto something else. My next goals are non-freezer plastic snack bags and plastic wrap. I have all of my fabrics picked out so that I can make some reusable snack bags and plate/bowl covers for the fridge. I'll write up a little how-to post for those (if they turn out lol) and the washable "paper" towels.

Now I know for a fact that I am not the only hippie in my family or circle of friends! What things have you and your family done to reduce waste in your household? Any crazy and exciting things you have tried? Also, how do people store their cheese?? It's seriously one of the only things holding me back from getting rid of plastic snack bags!