If you're still counting with us, it's been 254 days of striving to be as green as possible in our lives. More to our lives, it's been that long that we've been reusing as much as possible, reducing what we use to start out with, and recycling everything else if it's possible. It began as an effort to save money and to get healthier. It's evolving into a different way of living.
What began in one way has turned to another - a broader sense of understanding how every tiny thing we each do can and does affect things around us, things that we often don't see as a part of our life. We have been successful in cutting costs and yet our bottom line is no different, perhaps worse, because outside of our control costs increased for the things we do still need. As fuel prices skyrocketed to nearly $5.00 a gallon around here every commodity rose prices saying it was related to their fuel costs increasing. Hundreds of people here lost their jobs as some companies closed their doors, no longer able to afford to stay open - due to rising costs of operations. Yet, when fuel costs came down (presently they are about $1.70 per gallon) no one saw a correlating decrease in the costs of any commodities.
My grocery bill is still well over $100.00 per week! That $100.00 can now fit into just 2 bags instead of 4! We're buying less packaged food, lots fewer snacks, sticking mostly to essential things like veggies, fruits, grains, beans, seasonings, some dairy, some meats - getting things in bulk as much as possible. In general we buy less food now.
The cost of electricity and natural gas has risen enough to make our monthly bills 20-30% higher even though our usage has dropped by as much as 40%!
Insurance costs went up about 10% over last year.
We've had some other changes recently - thus my reason for not getting back here sooner than now. ;-)
Since August one of my older kids has moved out and is attending college in another state! And my three high-school kids are now being homeschooled. This began in large part due to the rising costs of getting them to their charter school (22 miles one way - a round trip made as often as 3 times a day, usually 5 days a week) but has also been something we have wanted to do for some time but just didn't have the right circumstances before now. So alongside my niece whom I've been homeschooling the last few years (she's just 7) we now have 3 high-school juniors working on finishing the requirements for graduation within the next year or so.
This has brought about an expansion in our aspirations towards a lessor carbon footprint and a more earth friendly lifestyle.
They are learning the "wonders" of cloth napkins, and dishtowels; of using the same glass instead of another from the cupboard each time they want something to drink; using more durable things over disposable things.
When we had to get up earlier, rush to get everyone ready to go out, get them to school by a certain time, our whole day was full of rushing to one thing after another and we did often use disposable things to make it easier, faster, more available to our schedules. Now we've eliminated that too. We're not rushing - most of the time.
We are also developing plans for home-based businesses: perhaps making eco-friendly items to sell; making jewelry; a photography business of some kind; selling artwork of various types that we make; and there's always my business - offering non-toxic household cleaning, personal care products & healthy supplements.
The best thing to come out of all the recent changes would be the increase in our own individual spirituality. We have worked at living Christian lives all along but somehow now it's more a lifestyle than before. Somehow now, we are each more Christ-like as we do whatever we are doing in our daily lives. We begin the day with Scripture & prayers, we end the day with Scripture & prayers, and we often turn to Scriptures as well as pray many times during our day. It may be done together as a family, or individually as the situation merits. We are filled with many blessings in so many ways!
Yes, we still struggle and the money coming in doesn't yet exceed the money owed but somehow the essentials get covered each time and whatever can wait keeps waiting. But in so many ways life is the best it can be in these days and times; and I will keep on giving all my earthly best!
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
129 Days... Still counting? LOL
We are still moving forward in our adventure in living green. There is so much to do and so much going on. My apologies for not blogging about more of it.
The end of school came... with tons of activities... and left.
Summer began... with rains and floods...
...and more rains... and more flooding...
We had our first attempts at gardening flooded and washed away. :(
The second round sat in six inches of water for four or five weeks. A few plants managed to survive that!
We have six tomato plants that seem to be doing fairly well. There's one cucumber vine, still without any blossoms or cucumbers, so while the vine grew, that's all it did. The same can be said for the watermelons too. The snap peas seemed to be growing again... but they gave it up after the 3rd flooding in less than 6 weeks. The strawberries, lettuces, carrots, onions, and various peppers are all gone and gave up the fight long ago.
In the meantime, flooding in many areas near us meant higher prices for lots of things - IF - if we could even get them! It's pretty weird going to Wal-Mart, a store that is known for having absolutely everything around here, and finding more shelves empty than full!!! The whole month of June seemed to be that way. And even now, at nearly the middle of August there are still many times when shelves are left empty! So many area roads were damaged and still awaiting repairs to reopen.
Not too far from us the heavy rains actually caused the loss of an entire lake! This lake is in an area that gets a lot of tourists, plus it's great (or was) for fishing. The dam didn't break (that's what everyone thought at first), but the heavy rains weakened an area just to the side of where the dam is built; soaked so much that currents from all the rainfall upstream were overloading the dam and stressing the mud to the point that it washed away.... emptied out nearly the entire lake in a matter of hours and of course created MORE FLOOD DAMAGE downstream!
I hear there are some farmers - people who depend on farm crops for income - who lost all of their first planting; then most of their second planting; and are now left with a fraction of what they expected to have to sell this harvest season. And to add to that, many had their homes flooded as well. For us, the flooding never hit the house - came awfully close more than once - but we stayed dry inside. Still, my heart goes out to those less fortunate in this very wet growing season up here this year.
I'm sure there's a connection from the flooding to the mild summer season we're having now. There's only been one or two days so far that temps even got into the 90s! Most days are upper 70s or low 80s and the nights cool down into the 50s and even a few 40s. It's nice. It would be nicer if the mosquitoes would be somewhere else. :)
We have 23 days remaining before our next school year begins!
We still have many summer projects yet to complete before then! So the days are still very busy.
Sewing lessons are progressing - in hopes of making clothes instead of buying them at retail costs.
Everyone is getting used to using a new push-reel mower to cut the grass (weeds) instead of the old gas-powered mower.
We are also doing much better at eating fresher foods and avoiding more processed foods!
We only have 3 more light bulbs to go before every light in the house is switched away from incandescent bulbs - to either compact florescent or full-spectrum bulbs.
We are much better at remembering our fabric bags for shopping and have nearly used up our supply of plastic shopping bags from various stores.
We've done well at cutting down usage for electricity, natural gas, even gasoline for the car. The down side is that their prices all went up - so it didn't actually save us any money. But I can be happy that we didn't have the larger bills to pay!!! :) I'm sure the milder summer contributed to lowering these in most cases - so the real test may be in how low we can keep usage during the winter months... especially if the prices keep going up!!!
The end of school came... with tons of activities... and left.
Summer began... with rains and floods...
...and more rains... and more flooding...
We had our first attempts at gardening flooded and washed away. :(
The second round sat in six inches of water for four or five weeks. A few plants managed to survive that!
We have six tomato plants that seem to be doing fairly well. There's one cucumber vine, still without any blossoms or cucumbers, so while the vine grew, that's all it did. The same can be said for the watermelons too. The snap peas seemed to be growing again... but they gave it up after the 3rd flooding in less than 6 weeks. The strawberries, lettuces, carrots, onions, and various peppers are all gone and gave up the fight long ago.
In the meantime, flooding in many areas near us meant higher prices for lots of things - IF - if we could even get them! It's pretty weird going to Wal-Mart, a store that is known for having absolutely everything around here, and finding more shelves empty than full!!! The whole month of June seemed to be that way. And even now, at nearly the middle of August there are still many times when shelves are left empty! So many area roads were damaged and still awaiting repairs to reopen.
Not too far from us the heavy rains actually caused the loss of an entire lake! This lake is in an area that gets a lot of tourists, plus it's great (or was) for fishing. The dam didn't break (that's what everyone thought at first), but the heavy rains weakened an area just to the side of where the dam is built; soaked so much that currents from all the rainfall upstream were overloading the dam and stressing the mud to the point that it washed away.... emptied out nearly the entire lake in a matter of hours and of course created MORE FLOOD DAMAGE downstream!
I hear there are some farmers - people who depend on farm crops for income - who lost all of their first planting; then most of their second planting; and are now left with a fraction of what they expected to have to sell this harvest season. And to add to that, many had their homes flooded as well. For us, the flooding never hit the house - came awfully close more than once - but we stayed dry inside. Still, my heart goes out to those less fortunate in this very wet growing season up here this year.
I'm sure there's a connection from the flooding to the mild summer season we're having now. There's only been one or two days so far that temps even got into the 90s! Most days are upper 70s or low 80s and the nights cool down into the 50s and even a few 40s. It's nice. It would be nicer if the mosquitoes would be somewhere else. :)
We have 23 days remaining before our next school year begins!
We still have many summer projects yet to complete before then! So the days are still very busy.
Sewing lessons are progressing - in hopes of making clothes instead of buying them at retail costs.
Everyone is getting used to using a new push-reel mower to cut the grass (weeds) instead of the old gas-powered mower.
We are also doing much better at eating fresher foods and avoiding more processed foods!
We only have 3 more light bulbs to go before every light in the house is switched away from incandescent bulbs - to either compact florescent or full-spectrum bulbs.
We are much better at remembering our fabric bags for shopping and have nearly used up our supply of plastic shopping bags from various stores.
We've done well at cutting down usage for electricity, natural gas, even gasoline for the car. The down side is that their prices all went up - so it didn't actually save us any money. But I can be happy that we didn't have the larger bills to pay!!! :) I'm sure the milder summer contributed to lowering these in most cases - so the real test may be in how low we can keep usage during the winter months... especially if the prices keep going up!!!
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