50 Days!!! Hard to believe it's been that long!!!
It's been over a month since my last posting, too! I don't know what it is about my life that keeps it running at such an insane pace! This too is all part of what I'm working to change. I want a quieter life. I want a simpler life. I want a healthier life.
Instead it seems to still be out of control... what I personally do on any given day follows the needs of all those around me.
Progress on the "green" front is moving slowly. We are remembering the cloth bags more often than not, so we've cut down on how many plastic shopping bags we use. The formerly perpetually overflowing stash of such bags under the kitchen sink is actually shrinking now! :) I'm buying more organic foods too - not all - not even half; but it's averaging about 10% of my grocery money lately. It's harder cutting down on processed foods for the whole family than I'd hoped. Many "say" they are all for it but then when they are buying something they bring so much of it home. :( I am doing better personally at not eating it however. That, at least, is only going to go in one direction, eventually eliminating all of it, for me. Now when I choose to eat something prepared from one of the many processed food selections here my body reacts by feeling ill fairly quickly.
It's much like when I was working on cutting down sodas... all kinds of carbonated drinks. At the beginning it was hard to just cut it down to one can or bottle of soda per day. At the same time I was cutting quantity I was also cutting caffeine, so the sodas I did drink were caffeine free. It probably took close to a year to get to the point where I cut it down from 3 to 6 sodas a day to just one in a week. It was an 'up and down' thing - but once I got to just one a week it was a lot easier to go without soda for two weeks, then three weeks, and a month. One day, about a year and a half into it I was out with some friends and we stopped somewhere for something to drink. My choices were coffee (which I don't drink), milk (which I also don't drink), various sodas, and tap water (which I also don't drink). No juices or teas or bottled/filtered waters. So I ordered a soda. When our drinks arrived, without giving a thought at all to the fact that I hadn't had a soda in close to six months, I swallowed a good-sized gulp... and nearly choked! Not only did the taste so totally no longer appeal to me, but the fizzing carbonation actually felt like it was burning all the way down! I never took a second swallow and I've not even considered trying any soda again since then. It's been three years now. I'm hoping cutting out processed foods, at least for me, if not for my whole family, will follow a similar course.
We have also been very busy preparing for a garden this summer! There are over 200 small containers with little seedlings all over my house right now awaiting the day they can be safely transplanted into the backyard garden. We live in the northern regions of the U.S. Midwest so spring is just barely here. Grasses have only been green a little over a week. The early flowers - tulips, irises, daffodils - are now blooming, bringing color to yards that were still quite bland just a week ago. The leaf buds on many trees aren't quite ready to open but it shouldn't be much longer. With all this in mind, our plan is to begin planting the garden this weekend and have it all in by the end of May. We will be praying for success in this first gardening for food endeavor! Considering my lack of a green thumb we will need lots of prayers! LOL
