Green After Christmas

My stack of wrapping supplies I saved from the trash.

Christmas means lots of wrapping and trash for most people but for me it means restocking my wrapping box. My mom and I get a laugh out of the fact that we pass gift bags back and forth each year. 

Gift bags, tissue paper, and ribbons are always easy to save and reuse. Even if the gift bag isn't in great shape you can often repair it or cut the pretty front off and glue it on a plain bag. 

If you have big gifts it can be pretty easy to save the wrapping paper to use for smaller gifts. I haven't bought wrapping supplies in a long time. My box was pretty empty after wrapping for Christmas but now has more than before Christmas. 

So do you reuse gift wrap supplies? If so any tips to help make it easier?

White Christmas and Happy New Year!

Patience's new fair trade ornament

For the first time in many years we had a white Christmas in south eastern Oklahoma. On Christmas Eve we had a blizzard. The state of Oklahoma pretty much closed down. Here in the bible belt if church closes you know it's bad! Many interstates were closed and at one point all state highways were closed. My town even told us over our fancy sirens that we should stay in our homes unless it was a life or death emergency.

My new fair trade penguin ornament and Patience's organic stocking.

While it wasn't a huge amount of snow it was for us and we don't have systems in place to handle snow. In my town even the road by the hospital wasn't cleared!

Christmas morning the snow had stopped but the roads weren't cleared or salted so it was a VERY slow drive out to my parents house (they live outside of town). Thankfully my husband learned to drive in St. Louis with lots of snow and likes driving in snow or we wouldn't have been able to go.

My parents driveway and my brother and our cat.

We opened gifts with  my family which is always fun and includes putting ribbons on our 14 year old cat who loves Christmas because he likes mess and as you can see in the picture he also loves being held like a baby.

When then went home and opened gifts with my in-laws. After that we had to play with our dog Patience in the snow, she loves snow as you can see in the pictures. She is normally a very calm dog and doesn't play much but she gets very hyper in the snow and is very happy. She even threw snow on my husband who of course threw snow back at her.

Patience running in the yard and what the yard looked like after she played in it.

We had a nice dinner with my in-laws and then relaxed all day. The next day we went to north Texas to try and find me a laptop which didn't happen as the one I liked no one had (in north Texas, Oklahoma, or Kansas!) so ended up ordering one from Amazon.

Normally I go to my grandparents house on Christmas day but no one could get to their house because of the snow so it got moved to Sunday. We opened more gifts, played with iphones (my mom got one for Christmas as did I and my brother already had one), ate, and had a nice relaxing day.

Today I went with my best friend (since we were 10 and 11) to Norman so we could do a bit of shopping. It's funny as we first went clothes shopping and I got one shirt and she got nothing. We aren't big clothes shoppers haha. We did get some stuff at the book store, we like books. We also had a nice lunch at what my mom and I call our hippie restaurant (The Pink Elephant Cafe). It was so much more fun that just getting each other gifts!

Tomorrow we will be spending New Years Eve with my family at a Flaming Lips concert. This was part of our Christmas gift. We will be staying at a hotel that is attached to where the concert is that night so it should be a lot of fun!

Hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas/holiday as well! Have a safe and fun New Years Eve!

Green Resolution

It's almost a new year and time to make a fresh start and think about new goals. This past year I have changed so much about my life I can't wait to see the changes I can make this coming year. Here are some of my goals.

1. Finish reading all the green books in my to read stack.
I'm almost done with Jennifer Taggart's book "Smart Mama's Green Guide: Simple Steps to Reduce Your Child's Toxic Chemical Exposure" and then I need to read and review Micaela Preston's book "Practically Green: Your Guide to Ecofriendly Decision-Making." After those books and review I have another stack waiting for me.

2. Work on having a better garden.
My veggie garden did terribly this year so hopefully this year will go better. The bed has compost (which I made! yay!), cardboard and leaves in it right now so hopefully that will make the soil better.

3. Reduce my use of plastic and plastic lined cans.
This is an on going goal. I have greatly reduced both but I'm always looking for more ways to do so.

I'm not always the best at keeping my goals but these are rather simple and as Lisa on Condo Blues talked about it's easier to make a few at a time and keep making them all year.

So do you just make goals each year or year around? Do you keep them? What are your tricks? And lastly what are your current goals?

Update

We are snowed in, to the point the sirens just said to stay in your homes unless you have a life or death emergency! It's pretty crazy here in Oklahoma.

After Christmas I will update more! Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Lack of Blogging

I haven't blogged in awhile because we went to Texas and now my laptop has a worm so I'm on my new iPhone right now and it's hard to blog on here so it
may be awhile until I post a real blog.

My Green Journey

Fair warning I'm sick so there will be typos in this and who knows how good it will be lol. This is my post for the APLS Carnival this month.

What triggered you to start trying to live a sustainable life?

My green journey started young. My mom is a hippie at heart so she is a large reason for the way I live my life now. At 2, I believe, (if I'm wrong you will see a comment from my mom telling the right age) my dad went to throw away a glass baby food jar to which I said "no daddy we cycle." I also have always love animals and helping others. At 7-9 years old (not sure) without telling my parents I got a paper bag and went to the neighbors asking for canned food to take to a local homeless shelter. I can't remember why I did it but I remember doing it.




Bill Nye is yet another reason for my green-ness. My brother and I would watch him growing up for part of our science (we were homeschooled) and his show had a lot of eco things in it. At one point he talked about why it's better to wash your car at the car wash and not at home so my brother and I told my parents that and being the good parents they are they stopped washing the cars at home.



So needless to say I have always been this way at heart. It was watching An Inconvenient Truth (so stereotypical right?!) that really opened my eyes to what was happening and what I could do to stop it. Then I started reading everything I could get my hands on about the environment and the rest is history.


What are the biggest changes you've made to live sustainably?

I guess one of the biggest changes is the fact that we know eat almost 100% organic food (or local made without use of chemicals). Like most changes it was a slow one. First it was switching to all natural and more from scratch foods and over time we started buying more and more organic food. It's been a big help to our health!

I have totally changed the way we shop for everything. Etsy.com has become a main source of shopping for me as handmade is important as is the fact that you can find lots of recycled and eco-friendly products. I also donate everything I can't use and very little is trashed.

I also use a lot of reusable products like water bottles, food containers, napkins, towels, etc.. Basically I have changed the way I think about what I use and buy.


How far have you come since you started your green journey?

So far!! I can't believe how far I have come. I still have a ways to go but I'm so happy with how far I have come in such a short time. Went from just recycling and picking up others trash to composting, eating organically, using almost all reusable, using recycled products, only natural beauty products, buying organic clothes, etc.. It's amazing how small actions add up so fast!


And what do you feel you still need to work on?

I still use way to much plastic. I'm always looking for new ways to reduce my plastic use. I think that is my biggest issue.

Green Gift Guide: Everyone/Last Minute

Christmas is coming up fast and if you still have gifts to buy you are likely thinking of things you can get quickly. Here are some green ideas that don't require shipping.

One of my favorite green items are the glass straws from Glass Dharma. They are classy, durable, and very green. These are great stocking stuffers, hostess gifts, teacher gifts and more. So you don't have to worry about them being shipped in time Glass Dharma offers gift certificates which are sent through e-mail! 





 Another idea that is quick and can be sent through e-mail is a donation to Heifer International. It's a great gift for everyone even those hard to buy people. There are many price ranges to choose from and Heifer International is a very well respected non-profit. 

Baked goods are also a good last minute gift and yet another good gift for a hard to buy for person. Who doesn't love food?!

Amazon.com also has e-gift cards. While not everything on Amazon.com is green there are some green options and at least the person is getting what they want so no un-wanted gifts.

Gift cards to local restaurants are a quick and easy gift as well. They are great gifts for couples, teachers, and pretty much everyone on your list. Try and pick locally owned restaurants to help your local economy and small business.

You can also check out local stores for neat last minute eco finds. Supporting small local businesses is good for the economy and can also be good for the environment. If you are in Oklahoma check out Native Roots Market in Norman for many wonderful eco-friendly local items as well as lots of fair trade gift ideas.

Even at the last minute you can make your Christmas a little bit greener by using tips like these and many others.