Following the GREEN trail

Our adventure going green has been slow moving but fabulous and yet terrifying all at the same time. I say it has been terrifying because of all the facts I have found out about food during my journey. If you are curious about what I mean, do some online research or take a look at the movie Food Inc, which can be found on instant stream via netflix.com.

So far the boys and I have almost completely switched to cloth toilet paper. This was a lot easier than I imagined. Fun as well! I love all the different prints of the fabric! So creative!

We are also trying our best to shop locally and organically. This is going to be the hardest as I am a stickler for convenience and fast food! I ADORE eating out. However, lately not the case, I get sick to my stomach every time I try to eat it. Just thinking about all the horrible stuff in it and done to it. ICK!

Today, we actually made our first compost bin! First we found an old bucket of grandpas in the garage! YAY FOR REUSING! woohoo! Next we reused soil from grandmas old plants.

Then we took the biodegradable pot from the new herbs I bought and tore that up and mixed it in with the soil.

Then we had some fruit that just spoiled so we cut it all up and threw it in there and mixed it all up. Then added a tiny bit of water to make it damp.

The boys ended up pretty filthy! However, we had a great time! Tomorrow we will be adding worms!!

We are moving into an apartment tomorrow so unfortunately we will not be planting a full grown garden. However, a dear friend of mine is going to be kind enough to let me plant some veggies in her garden if I bring my compost! Great trade off I think!

Look forward to posting more and more green updates!

I also want to add that this was a HUGE homeschooling life lesson for the boys. They learned not only about gardening but about decomposition, worms, food cycle, life cycle, and WHY exactly we are doing this organically! It was truly amazing!

Green Films

Lately I have been on this green kick and trying to get as much info as possible! A friend of mine mentioned a documentary, “Food Inc.” I had heard of it but I have been to scared to watch it for the fear that I would be afraid of eating. LOL. Yes, me, afraid of eating. I caved and finally watched it. I must say I am severely glad I did and disgusted I did at the same time. The documentary is AMAZING, so dont get me wrong there. The people who made this are genius! However, the information that is in it is just tear jerking for sure. I dont want to spoil it by telling you all the devastating facts. I will tell you that I highly highly recommend every person watch it. If you are a thinking person who cares at all about yourself you will want to change at least one way how you buy your products or rather from WHO and WHERE!

The other movie I had the most wonderful pleasure of watching was, “No Impact Man.” This movie is about a man and his family who live in NYC and he decides to do this no impact project to where he will be having no negative impact on the earth for a whole year! Its so amazing! Not to mention extremely inspirational.

Both of these movies can be found on instant stream via Netflix.com! You can sign up for a free trial to view them :). After watching both of these movies, google.com the info and see what else there is on the topics. But also check out noimpactproject.org they are doing another week long no impact challenge starting april 18th which means it will be happening during Earth Day! What a wonderful way to spend earth day and the week it falls in!

I hope you all enjoy these films and are inspired to make some change :D.

Jumping on the Green Bandwagon…AGAIN?

So last year I felt compelled to try to reduce my FOOTPRINT! LOL I tried out cloth diapers, which I truly did love! But then moved in with my parents, ugh, who didnt quite think it was all that fantastic. Mix that up with ONLY being allowed to wash laundry between 9pm-9am everynight with weekends being discounted as well…and that sort of ruined my whole cloth diaper thing. I tried the recycling thing too. But we had to drive a ways to drop off the recycling after listening to my parents complain about the recycling…so that too went away.

Now, I find myself feeling guilty once more. As well as wanting to save some money during these trying times. My 18 month old is almost ready to be out of dipes. So I really do not want to buy a ton of cloth diapers when he will be out of them soon. Plus we plan to use Elimination Communication from birth with the newborn. SO that is out of the question. I am thinking about using cloth wipes on him though as we do go through OH SO MANY! I use 2-4 on poopy diapers and one for every pee diaper. Now, I find out about family cloth and unpaper towels…HMMM I think. Would my hubby and kids be on board for this one too? Normally, my hubby is on board for anything that will help us to save money. Oh btw for those of you who are unfamiliar with family cloth it is cloth toilet paper. I KNOW, I shuddered the first time too lol. But when you think about comfort and then how much money you will save. Its definitely worth it. Even if you just use it for pees! In my house it would just be me using them since Im surrounded by boys! However, I would have the cloth  wipeys for baby.

Oh! I also tried cloth menstrual pads. Let me tell you this was my favorite! I adored sewing them up, sold a few for profit, and got hooked! These are a life saver! Not only do they save you a TON of money, they also bring you loads and loads of comfort!

So now I have the idea of cloth wipeys, unpaper towels, and POSSIBLY family well another side of mommy cloth since the boys probably wouldnt join in.

This is just the cloth side of being green as well. I also want to crochet myself some reusable shopping bags AND produce bags! I HATE HATE HATE that walmart and every where else offers tons of reusable shopping bags and then you go to grab veggies and BAM PLASTIC BAGS!!! Make some dag on REUSABLE PRODUCE BAGS! GEE WHIZ!! Sooo this leaves me to crochet some for myself 😀 Which of course I will enjoy doing 🙂 Next, water bottles. I adore bottled water. This will be a hard one for me. Its so convenient! I must though, MUST, get some of the reusable metal looking water bottles. Im just worried it will taste as if Im drinking out of a METAL CONTAINER! YUCK! Well we’ll see.

So Im sure you’re all wondering “WHY IN THE WORLD IS SHE POSTING ALL THIS?” My main reason is to of course to share 🙂 However, I want to see how much money you can TRULY  save making these few changes.

This wonderful organic lady has a savings list and I would like to do one of my own and then also add in the cost of laundry for the cloth products.

Hope you all enjoy my savings 😀 I’ll do it for umm lets see…Lets try 6 months. I’ll start April 1st 😀

If you care to join me please leave a comment so I can follow your blog as well!