2 more life journey memoirs

I just finished Dan Savage's The Commitment about his family's journey to get married or not. Dan Savage is the sex advice columnist in most alt-weekly papers and a gay man in a long term relationship. His mother thinks they should get married. Their 6 year old son is opposed. I really love his book about adopting their son and liked this one equally.


I am presently reading Eat, Pray, Love for book club. I am reserving judgment, but am interested so far.

Must pay more attention.

I forgot to ask for paper bags at the grocery store. They had the plastic ones loaded into my cart before I noticed. I wanted paper to use to separate recyclables. I paid attention to what I was buying and only bought a few items that didn't have recyclable packaging. Then I spaced and ended up with a handful of plastic bags.

Questions to research:
What types of packaging are most readily recycled/reused?
Alternatives to plastic bags, esp. for produce.

Today is trash day, so tomorrow will start my first one bag of trash week.

Resource-Cloth diapers

We are blessed to be waiting for our first shipment from Miracle Diapers. They provide loaner cloth diapers to families with need. They're helping families cloth diaper and by being a loaner program they maximize the usefulness of the diapers.

Goal #1, Day 1

1st day and I'm already failing. We haven't been out of the house and Baby N has been having a Day. Teething apparently sucks. Thus, no recycling has been set up and the trash can is already half full. Tomorrow is another day.

January goal

January goal: Less than one 13 gallon bag of trash per week.

Action: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Steps to take:
Set up recycling center
Get used to recycling regularly
Make purchases to reduce packaging/waste
Figure out best options for taking recycling
Compost?

Challenges:
Making this budget neutral
Getting spouses support
Making it a habit
It's January and we don't have a place to compost.

Positive steps already taken:
Freecycling
Cloth diapering
Breastfeeding

Resources:
My brother
My step-mom

Introduction

For the last few months I have been mulling an idea. It was planted by reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle for my book club then picking up Food and Whine off of a $2 shelf at the bookstore all the same week that I heard about the family that went a year without buying anything Made in China. That was August. It's been a long mulling process.

Each month I plan to pick a goal. Within the month I will research and implement a plan to accomplish that goal. I'm sure there will be many failures and mis-steps on the way. This blog is planned as a chronicle of those steps. The overall goal is to live a life that is in line with my values and conscience. The first set of values I want to tackle are related to living a more sustainable life. I'm going to tackle environmental sustainability with an eye to financial, emotional, and spiritual sustainability.

Potential goals may include reducing our carbon footprint, using fewer resources, eating local, making considered purchases, and generally changing the world.

I hope some people will come along on the ride.