We have tried to reduce the amount of trash going out of our house and the amount of
stuff coming in. My grandmother always had the neatest multi~colored cloth napkins when I was growing up. I remember picking my favorite color out when we would eat at their house. Up until recently, we just tore a paper towel in half to use as our napkins. We decided to go back to the cloth napkins that I grew up with. Not only is it good that we aren't going through a bunch a paper products, but it makes the dinner table a lot more interesting looking. I just throw the used napkins in with our load of towels. You can also find tons of websites {
like this one} teaching you how to make them if you are a project kind of person.
We also switched to reusable shopping bags. I love these
fruit and veggie bags, but for $100 I think I'll stick with my $.99 grocery store bags. It hasn't been an easy habit for me to get into. I have walked into a store a couple times now, only to turn around and go back to the car to get the bags. It's the only bad thing about not having an addictive personality...the good habits are as hard to start as the bad ones :) If we all purchase {or make} our own bags, plastic bag production will have to decrease {making plastic is very hard on our environment}.
Why do we buy so many things new? It's frightful to think of how many perfectly useful things are thrown into the Earth and buried. I was watching a video about how there are actually engineers that figure out how to make a product break sooner so you have to buy a new one. The trouble is making sure it doesn't break so fast that you lose faith in that product. Yikes! This time of year is great for
yard sales. Almost all of Henry's clothes were bought at
yard sales or were hand~me~downs. It wasn't just for financial reasons either {though I must admit that it's crazy how much people spend on a pair of pants that will be worn for 2 months}. It's fun finding the best
yard sales. There are some houses in northern Virginia that we have a continual relationship with. I will continue the hunting even when my husband is a successful accountant :) We also let people reuse a lot of things that we don't want anymore. We either take our things to the local thrift store or sell it on
eBay.
We have tried to reduce the amount of trash going out of our house and the amount of stuff coming in. My grandmother always had the neatest multi~colored cloth napkins when I was growing up. I remember picking my favorite color out when we would eat at their house. Up until recently, we just tore a paper towel in half to use as our napkins. We decided to go back to the cloth napkins that I grew up with. Not only is it good that we aren't going through a bunch a paper products, but it makes the dinner table a lot more interesting looking. I just throw the used napkins in with our load of towels. You can also find tons of websites {like this one} teaching you how to make them if you are a project kind of person.
We also switched to reusable shopping bags. I love these fruit and veggie bags, but for $100 I think I'll stick with my $.99 grocery store bags. It hasn't been an easy habit for me to get into. I have walked into a store a couple times now, only to turn around and go back to the car to get the bags. It's the only bad thing about not having an addictive personality...the good habits are as hard to start as the bad ones :) If we all purchase {or make} our own bags, plastic bag production will have to decrease {making plastic is very hard on our environment}.
Why do we buy so many things new? It's frightful to think of how many perfectly useful things are thrown into the Earth and buried. I was watching a video about how there are actually engineers that figure out how to make a product break sooner so you have to buy a new one. The trouble is making sure it doesn't break so fast that you lose faith in that product. Yikes! This time of year is great for yard sales. Almost all of Henry's clothes were bought at yard sales or were hand~me~downs. It wasn't just for financial reasons either {though I must admit that it's crazy how much people spend on a pair of pants that will be worn for 2 months}. It's fun finding the best yard sales. There are some houses in northern Virginia that we have a continual relationship with. I will continue the hunting even when my husband is a successful accountant :) We also let people reuse a lot of things that we don't want anymore. We either take our things to the local thrift store or sell it on eBay.
1 comment:
Just a little thing, but did you know that if you use a dryer, clothes will dry faster, especially towels, if you give them a quick shake when you take them out of the washing machine so they are not bundled into a wad?
Paper napkins stick to your fingers with some foods. Once you get used to cloth, you won't like them at all!
When I had little ones, I kept a squirt bottle of water and a couple of washcloths in the car. They were always well used.
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