garbage

In case you ever wondered what trash looks like for a family of 7 {nearly 8, but really at this point the baby makes no trash at all, so we can't really count him or her this time around!}, this is it.

Yup, that's all.

And we weren't even gone at all this week. When we're gone it sometimes barely covers the whole bottom. But, on the other hand, then there's that 3rd week in March when we have 3 birthdays and make more trash than this . . . or we decide to do a major garage clean-up . . . or there's Christmas or something. But, on a normal week, this is about all we make . . . thanks to reuse, upcycling, recycling and composting! Not too shabby, I'd say.

In other randomness, Kirb was on campus at Northwestern last night and happened to be driving the van. A student came up to him and asked "Are you the shuttle?" Kirb told him no, but when he was ready to leave about 10 minutes later, and the real shuttle still hadn't arrived he introduced himself to the guy and asked if he wanted a ride and proceeded to drive the student to his off-campus dorm a few miles away . . . what a guy. I guess we're just askin' for that kind of question by driving our big vehicle.

little things

I'm not nearly as "green" as some people, but I am quite a bit greener than most people I know. Here are a few little things that I do to make a positive difference on the state of our earth . . . or, more accurately, less of a negative difference, I guess::

• We have a dehumidifier running in our basement in the summer {it's MUCH needed!}. Instead of just dumping it down the drain when it's full, I use that water to wash our clothes . . . I do laundry most days anyway, so it's no big deal to empty it into the washing machine instead of down a drain, and that way I save {or actually, recycle, I guess} a bunch of water. Similarly, if someone doesn't finish their water at a meal, we dump in it a house plant, rather than down the sink.
• I don't use my dryer for about 6 months of the year {I think I've used it once since April}. We love our little clothesline and hanging our stuff outside. We even have a clothesline in the basement to use in the winter {a great way to humidify the house during a dry winter}, but mostly in the winter I use the dryer. Don't have a clothesline? Don't worry. Inexpensive drying racks are great . . . dry your clothes inside or move them around in your yard to "chase the sun" and get that stuff dry in no time!
• We recently got a backyard composter. We haven't reaped any benefits yet, {the stuff takes time to "cook"} but have sure dumped a lot of stuff in there. It's nice to know our organic waste has somewhere else to to.
• I bring bags with me to the store. I have some pretty nice re-usable bags, but you don't even have to spend the 99 cents they charge for re-usable bags to make a difference . . . just bring the ones they gave you last time back. I'm not sure about the stores where you live, but around here, almost every store will give you 5 cents off your bill for each bag you bring in to re-use. I'll take that!
• Say you finish a box of cereal . . . we can go through a box a morning around here easily if everyone is in the same cereal mood . . . the box part you can put in your recycling, but what do you do with the inner bag? Probably you toss it in the trash, right? Not me! This idea all started because of my general laziness, I'll have you know: our trash is under the sink. Under the sink has a child lock on it. So, to get to the trash you have to not only bend down, but also undo a ridiculously difficult child lock thing. So I take that inner cereal bag {or an empty chip bag, or whatever} and stick it on my counter -- or usually in one half of my sink -- and load it up with the day's trash. It's usually full by the end of the day and someone runs it out to the garbage. It's not pretty, I'll admit that, but if someone you want to impress stops by you can either just stick that bag into your under-the-sink garbage or just run it outside quick-like. Maybe, maybe I empty the trash that is actually under the sink once a week, but more likely it's once a month. My kids actually get confused about where to put trash if there's not some kind of bag in the sink . . . which leads me to a funny story.Wanna hear? It's related on more than one level.

Here goes: when I was little, our neighbor was a garbage man {I'm sure that's not the politically correct term, but I'm not sure what is, so we'll go with it . . . he was a man and he did drive a garbage truck}, rather than put our garbage in a can and stick it at the end of our driveway once a week {our garbage day is Thursday, how about you?} like most people we walked our bags of garbage through the back yard and just tossed them in the back of his truck. I'm guessing he didn't charge us for this service, but at 6-years-old, or whatever I was, that wasn't my main concern. Mom, you can correct me if I'm wrong! So, anyway, well after I should have been old enough to know better I just assumed that EVERYONE carried their garbage to the neighbors house and tossed it in the back of a garbage truck. Now, however, the truck comes to me . . . although I have to pay him for it. But, thankfully, I don't have to live next door to a parked garbage truck . . . I do, however, have to live next door to a really big RV that blocks my view of our neighborhood and makes it hard to back out of our driveway because you can't see around it . . . but, I digress. Plus, the RV doesn't smell nasty, so I guess that's a perk! I did happen to find out {thank you Facebook} that the son of our neighbor from when I was growing up {who was -- and still is -- my age} has taken over the family garbage business. I don't know where he lives, but I'm guessing he might not park his truck in his yard. But, I could be wrong! {It's happened before}.

Ok, that's more than enough for today. I'm impressed you've read on this far! Hopefully something in there sparked even a tiny little idea for how you can lessen your impact on the world. What "green" things do you do?

Happy Earth Day!

I'm kind of a "green" girl at heart. I feel strongly that everyone should be, but I know very well that everyone is not. Bummer! I wish I could do more to help shift the thinking of the world {on many issues, not just this one}. As for me, I love to recycle. I love my reusable grocery bags. I love cloth diapers. I love hanging my clothes on the clothesline. I love the fact that we make about half the amount of trash that our neighbors next door do . . . and only 2 people live in their house to our 7. Actually, I'm sad about the amount of trash that most people make. Even us! Earth day is a great opportunity to give these kinds of things a little more thought than usual. We need to be good stewards of our earth. We want our kids to have a safe place to live, right? Anyone seen "Wall-E"? It's not that far off base I don't think. I know God wants us to be good stewards of what He's given us and the earth is a pretty major part of that! Plus, no matter what your feelings are about God and what he would want it's a pretty obvious fact that we can't keep abusing the world the way we have been in increasing ways in recent times. People 50 or 100 years ago understood that pretty clearly. Why is it so tough for us? In all honesty I think we as modern-day Americans are pretty lazy & greedy and that's where most of it comes from.

My kids take cold lunch the vast majority of the time. So every day I pack lunches. 1, 2 . . . often 3. Our kids school has a "green team" and they have a "waste-free snack and lunch" challenge: try to pack your snack and lunch without creating any waste. For Earth Day today the school is attempting a "Waste-Free Wednesday" where for 1 day they will try hard to not create any waste in their whole school. I love it! My kids don't have much waste from their lunches, so I didn't realize how tough being truly, 100% waste-free might be. Kirb actually stayed home a little later this morning than he usually does and he knows that packing lunches can sometimes stress me out, so he packed them for me . . . what a guy! Thanks, babe! However, he didn't know about "Waste-Free Wednesday" so I had to make a few modifications. Usually my kids get a Capri Sun juice pouch in their lunches. Our school participates in a program where you mail in the used, empty pouches to a recycling company and they reuse them and make them into cool stuff like pencil pouches and tote bags and the like, so I don't feel TOO bad about sending those. However, even when recycled they don't qualify for "Waste-Free Wednesday", so I had to come up with an alternative. Also, Jacob loves granola bars, so Kirb had put one in his lunch. That "problem" wasn't too tough to solve . . . I just took out the granola bar. Anyway, after a little extra effort I sent my kids out the door with a completely waste-free lunch in their backpack. Whoo Hoo! It will be interesting to hear how well other kids {or, more accurately, their parents} did at being waste free. I asked a girlfriend about it the other day and she said, "Oh, I'll just have them take cold lunch that day" . . . ok, problem solved! My kids sandwiches {and sometimes other stuff too . . . snacks, crackers, cheese slices . . . whatever I can fit in there} go in their wrap 'n mat, so no sandwich bag to throw away there. I really like them. Also, it doubles as a placemat to put their other food on rather than the nasty lunch table . . . how handy is that?

So, just try to do a thing or two to be a little more "green" than you usually are today . . . on this years Earth Day. Please! And if you have a few free minutes (20 actually) and would be willing to watch this, it's pretty eye opening, I think.


If you can get your hands on a copy {that is, if you don't own your own copy already!}, today would be a great day to read "The Lorax" by Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss is one of my very favorite authors. That man was incredible . . . and way ahead of his time! The Lorax is one of my favorites . . . and it's very Earth Day-ish too!

One thing I can think of that I do {and plan to keep doing!} that could be done in a "greener" way is sending real cards and letters . . . made of paper . . . through the mail when I could just send an email or an e-card or "write on your wall" or some such thing. I do that stuff too {a little} and it's very useful for some forms of communication, but I WILL NOT stop sending real cards in the mail. There are some things that, I think, just warrant a REAL card {birthdays, great friends who need a little cheer in their day, Christmas, condolences, a new baby} and I'm not going to give that up! I just don't think that electronic versions can take the place, at all, of something handwritten and thoughtful that someone took the time to send you . . . ahead of time! {you can't send a "last second" birthday card through the mail unless you're ok with it being late!}. It takes thought, time, a little more money {although not much} and that extra something special that is lacking in other forms of communication. Do you really feel the same when you read an email or "open" an e-card as you do when you actually open your mailbox to find a real card {with your address written by hand . . . often in a non-white envelope . . . with a cute return address label with the address of someone special to you} that you can touch, look at and read over and over again while it sits in your windowsill? I sure don't. Maybe you do. That's ok. Let me know and maybe I'll quit sending you cards in the mail. How's that sound? Yup, I didn't really think so!

Happy Earth Day! I'd send you all an Earth Day card, but I suppose on this occasion that wouldn't be logical or appropriate! Enjoy!

I like green

I know St. Patrick's Day was yesterday . . . that's not the green I'm talking about:

I had the chance to spend a little time with a wonderful woman over coffee & tea (and some wonderful conversation) this morning. She took a vow to buy nothing new in 2008 . . . and she did it! I found this idea interesting and quite fascinating. She went a whole year without buying anything new. Her year was up a few months ago and she couldn't really think of anything she'd bought new since then either. I asked her if it was more work for her to not buy new and she said it took a little getting used to, but that once she was in the "groove" and was used to doing it, it wasn't hard. If she needed a pair of jeans she went to a thrift or consignment shop and got a perfectly wonderful non-new pair . . . she said she loved using sites like craigslist and ebay too. She said the only part that got a little tricky was when she needed a gift for someone . . . you know now everyone appreciates a nice "used" birthday present. But she stuck with it and made something or gave gifts of time/activity rather than "goods". Obviously she bought food and she said that there were exceptions for things that were not readily available in non-new form (you know, like undies . . . you don't really want those used!!).

I'm thinking about doing this. I know that shopping is a little form of therapy and relaxation for me, but so are a bunch of other things . . . cheaper things . . . things that are better for me! Like reading or making cards or exercising or just being outside or playing with my kiddos or a conversation with a friend or a walk! Plus we really do have more than we need already. I was thinking I might start small . . . I'm thinking, maybe, the month of April.

I think it might get a little tricky when it comes to the kids (my friend who did this doesn't have kids . . . although she does have a very active and cute little puppy that she "parents"). If one of the kids really "needs", say, a new Easter dress I can't really go to 8 different thrift/consignment shops looking for one that would be good and would fit and all that . . . I don't have the luxury of that kind of free time, nor do I have the patience to be running all over town trying to find one particular thing in a particular size for a certain particular almost-8-year-old!

Or, for example, just today I bought Anna a new carseat. She has outgrown her "bucket" (as we call the infant car seat that people cart their kids around in) and needed a big girl seat. We got her "bucket" from a friend (so it wasn't new) and I checked to see if anyone had a rear-facing convertible carseat that they weren't using right now that we could have/borrow but didn't find much success. Places can't sell used carseats, (which I totally understand, there's no way to prove that it hasn't been in a car accident or something in which case it's safety would be compromised) so there really isn't another avenue to get something like that in non-new form . . . so I guess, maybe, that would be something that could be considered an exception . . . but, since it's still March and I'm thinking about trying this in April, I'm safe anyway!

I just think this whole idea makes so much sense! It's just another form of recycling . . . which I am a huge fan of . . . and of trying to become more simplistic in our lives and what we "need" . . . plus it's super "green" and I'm kind of a fan of "green" stuff.

Our sermon last Sunday was wonderful and talked about ENOUGH. We were asked to consider that "enough" is actually the opposite of poverty rather than wealth (which is most likely what most people would think of as the opposite of poverty). Enough is where we all should desire to be on the spectrum of wealth . . . people in poverty should (ideally) move "up" toward enough and people of great wealth should (ideally) move "down" toward enough so that we all land closer to the middle of the spectrum to a place where we are more well balanced. As far as I can tell, we (the Stoll family . . . and most Americans) have way more than enough and I'd like to work to get closer and closer to enough and rid myself of the extra in my life that I don't need . . . which reminds me of a wonderful book called "The Treasure Principle", if you haven't read it, you should! I'll leave it at that!

So, I'm saying officially that April is going to be my trial month for not buying anything new. I imagine it'll be a little tough and take some extra thought and work to get used to, but I'm gonna give it a shot . . . and if I really, really need something, Kirb not vowing to buy nothing new in April (he doesn't shop a whole lot anyway), so maybe he could just swing into Target real quick on his way home from work . . . :)

I don't feel like I buy a whole lot of "stuff", but I guess this'll be the test to see if that's true or not. Plus, it should be good for the family budget!