A year of changes...

When I started this blog at the beginning of the year my goal was to share our experiences with others and to encourage more people in our circle and out in the world to start on their own greener path. It's been a busy year full of great experiences and many changes, here's a recap of our year:

1. We have completely switched to washing our clothes in cold water.

2. We are all using reusable bags including my husband at the grocery store. With my purchase of the Green3 bag for my purse - I always have a bag available for my other shopping.

3. We have switched all our light bulbs to CFLs.

4. We recycle everything possible! This has reduced our waste to one small bag a week.

5. We adopted our road and have cleaned it several times.

6. We have all switched to reusable water bottles.

7. We participated in 4 beach clean-ups this year.

8. We now receive all our bills online are doing our banking online - eliminating tons of wasted paper.

9. We have fostered 9 kittens for our local animal shelter. We also adopted a shelter cat who has turned out to be a loving addition to our family.

10. We have all eliminated a bad habit of brushing our teeth with the water running.

11. I have switched to all organic makeup.

12. I have participated in the local Freecycle network as both a giver and a taker.

13. We have done both a Live With Less and a Financially Free week - basically a week of buying nothing. I learned a lot from these weeks about why we buy, what we buy, how to save money, and what we really need.

14. We did a Reverse Trick-or-Treating where we passed out fair trade chocolates along with information on what fair trade is and why it is important to the houses we visited on Halloween.

15. We have adopted a new habit of unplugging items when they are not in use - eliminating phantom loads.

16. I participated in Buy Nothing Day on Black Friday, where instead of heading out with the hoards of Christmas shoppers I enjoyed the day at the beach gathering items for our Christmas decorating.

17. As a family we volunteered in many ways - we raised a guide dog puppy for Southeastern Guide Dogs who graduated and is currently working, we are currently raising another guide dog puppy, I donated 12" of my hair to Locks of Love, we donated food to the local food pantry, we headed up a food drive for the animal shelter, I've handed out reusable bags to shoppers at the grocery store, as well as many random acts of kindness.

18. Instead of sending out paper Christmas cards we sent a Smilebox greeting which everyone loved and several people were inspired to send Smilebox cards themselves.

19. We wrapped all our birthday and Christmas presents in reusable fabric gift bags we made ourselves.

20. Hopefully through our actions, gifts, store, and blog we have educated and inspired others to make some green changes in their own lives.


I think we have accomplished our goal of living our life according to Gandhi's saying - "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." Thank you for joining us on our journey this year and I hope you will continue to join us in the new year.

Help Save the Rainforest

Make one of your New Year's resolutions a commitment to live your life in a way that helps save the rainforest. Making a few simple changes can make a big difference:

1. Reduce your paper and wood consumption since logging companies are cutting down some of the most endangered forests on the planet to make wood and paper products. How can you help - use both sides of each piece of paper, purchase paper with high post-consumer recycled content or tree-free paper, use your own cloth bags at the grocery store, use cloth napkins and towels, and avoid disposable paper plates and cups. When you need wood for home projects, choice reclaimed or recycled lumber or Forest Stewardship Council certified wood.

2. Reduce your oil consumption. Oil exploration is a threat to ecosystems and can result in massive deforestation. Also the burning of fossil fuels is the leading cause of global warming. When purchasing a car choose one that gets good gas mileage, carpool, use local mass transport, ride your bike or walk when possible.

3. Reduce your beef consumption as the U.S.'s demand for meat has resulted in two-thirds of Central America's rainforests being cleared.

4. Hold businesses accountable for their actions. If a company's actions are socially or environmentally irresponsible write the company to voice your concerns and let the company know you will boycott it until they change their practices.

5. Support companies that sell items that protect the rainforest. Check out www.therainforestsite.com

Tree-cycle

Now that Christmas is over what to do with the tree? Assuming you went the greenest route and bought a replantable tree, there are many online resources with tips to plant your tree. We personally went with live trees this year and recycled them in our curbside recycling program which turns the trees into mulch. To find out if your town recycles Christmas trees check www.earth911.org. If you used an artificial tree and aren't keeping it, donate it to a hospital, thrift store, or Freecycle it - anything to keep it out of the landfill!

Greening your Christmas Cards

If you're like me, you're torn on the whole Christmas card issue. On one hand it's a time honored tradition and on the other hand it's not very earth friendly - all the paper which rarely gets recycled, the chemicals in the photos, the gas used to transport the cards...the list goes on and on. This usually results in a yearly debate with my husband on whether or not I'm doing cards this year. In previous years I have done handmade cards with gorgeous photos of my daughter which some people still display, this does eliminate some of the waste issue but is very time consuming. Last year I rebelled and went the earth friendly route and didn't send cards - while this was better for our planet it felt like something was missing. This year I feel that I have found the perfect solution - Smilebox. Smilebox is an easy way to go green and send environmentally friendly digital photo scrapbooks with personalized messages to family & friends. There are tons of designs to choose from and customizing you scrapbook is super easy and best of all it's free. I personally upgraded our scrapbook to the premium package for just $2.99 - this allows my family & friends to watch my scrapbook free of commercials and for those who would like to have a hard copy of our scrapbook they can print the scrapbook out. To me this is the best of both worlds - no wasted paper, but for those on our Christmas list that would like to keep the photos they can. Best of all it's not to late to send your card - scrapbooks can be completed in just a few minutes and can be send via email immediately or even posted on your family's blog. www.smilebox.com