Clearly my blog follows no predetermined subject from day to
day, or week to week, or even month to month.
I generally just blog about what’s on my mind, and occasionally I will
create a spin off on a popular topic and so I’ve really got three blogs. However, it’s been almost two years since I’ve
blogged on the other two. That reminds
me that perhaps I should, because lots has happened since and lots is happening
on both those topics. “"Down Fifty at 43" was to be a journal of my weight loss, but now the blog title would have to be
changed to “Down 60 at 44.” And the
other blog is about "A Nurse and Her Money."
My life has so many different areas and “compartments;” some
of which overlap and some of which are distinctly separate from the
others. And when I get to the point
where I feel like life isn’t busy or challenging enough, I don’t hesitate to
add another dimension. Obviously a bit
of sarcasm there; my life is busy and challenging all the time. I do, however, keep learning new things, and
therefore add to the “compartments” in my life.
My latest thing is an attempt to cut back on the amount of
waste my household produces, and I’m not referring to human waste; I’m
referring to garbage, the stuff that ends up at the dump. Anything that cannot be reused, recycled or
composted is considered garbage. I’m not
sure where or why this became an issue for me, but I suspect it had something
to do with having a few stinky garbage bags in my garage due to a missed
garbage day. One thing led to another
while browsing the web and I came across a blog titled "Zero Waste." Oh, wait, that’s not true! I was waiting at my doctor’s office and read
a magazine article about the woman that writes the blog and then looked up the
blog. She, her husband, and their two
children produced only a quart jar of landfill garbage in one year!
That really intrigued me, and put a bit of a challenge in my
mind to see how much we could reduce our garbage output.
Yesterday was garbage day here; I put out two big blue bags
of recycling and two grocery store bags of garbage. Keep in mind that Kevin is still wearing pull-ups
for night and that makes up a large portion of our garbage. He has stated, after his fourth birthday on
Friday, that he is a “big boy” and I shall not “buy any more pull-ups” for
him. I wish that were the case!
As for compost material, my sister-in-law’s garden will be a
very happy place this coming summer, as I am keeping anything compostable and
then bringing it over to her place once every two weeks.
Now you might be wondering how I have gone about reducing my
garbage output…My first step was simply to become conscious of what I was
throwing away. As soon as I became
conscious of how much packaging of products I was throwing in the garbage, I
began to make changes in the right direction.
Instead of keeping a large garbage can in the kitchen, I now keep a
small one by the back door. Instead of
having a small recycling bin in the garage, I have a recycling bag in my big
garbage can in the kitchen. This makes
it easier to toss recyclables in their place rather than be lazy and toss it in
the garbage. And, at the same time, I
think before throwing anything in the garbage because I have to put forth more
effort to get to the garbage can.
Really, it’s just a mind game, but its made a tremendous
difference. As well, I keep a medium
size pail on my kitchen counter for compost materials. Since we eat a lot of fruit and drink a lot
of coffee, there is never a shortage of compost material for Luanna’s garden.
More secrets to come in the near future; athough, I wouldn’t really call them secrets,
they are commonly available on the internet.