Here comes September

The end of August is quickly approaching! If you read a few posts back in August, I wrote about giving up imports for the month of September. WOW!! What a challenge! I have researched this and paid a lot of attention to what I normally buy in a month and found that this is going to be close to impossible! We also looked into only buying things from the western hemesphere; Canada, Mexico, South America, etc. That seems much more doable, since we like fresh fruit and veggies so much! But one other thing has come up this month that is standing in my way. I am starting a new business. I am selling Cookie Lee jewelry, which I love!! Although it is a US based business, like most US businesses, the product is manufactured in China.

So, my goal for this month, where imports are concerned, is to be aware of what I am buying. If it is possible to purchase a US made product instead, I will!

Since I have changed the September challenge quite a bit, I am adding a second challenge for the month. What that will be? I don't know yet, but I have a day and a half to figure it out! :) Any ideas?

air conditioning consumption

There are a few things I refuse to give up! During an Oklahoma 105 degree summer day, my air conditioner is running strong to cool my house! But we just found a great, and FREE, monitor to tell us what we are using each day! We contacted our electric company (Oklahoma Electric Cooperative) to question our last bill and they offered a daily usage monitor email each day to tell us what we used the day before.

So, yesterday I took the boys to the zoo and was out all day. Today we got the email showing our usage dropped 20 kwh because I turned the air conditioner off while I was gone!

I have never turned it off for a day because I was told it wasn't worth it. But I see now that it is! If you are gone during the day, turn off the a/c unit! It really will save you on your electric bill!

One more electric savings... the dryer. I use my dryer twice a week (about 4 loads). I noticed a spike in the usage on those days of about 10 kwh. To run the dryer twice, it takes half the kwh of electricity that it does to run your a/c all day! So today, my laundry day, will consist of hanging my clothes to dry, just to see what the savings is.

first drop

Jon made the first recycle drop on Friday. It went well! They take a lot more than I expected and were very nice to help sort between plastic types and such. They had a bin for cardboard and a different one for junk mail! So we will be sorting things a little better this time! What was really great about it was talking to my mom-in-law and hearing her scolding my husband for taking it with out her! She has a pile out in her garage of things to take! So I know I have had a little impact somewhere!

I have had several people approach me this last week to tell me I have inspired them through this journey, and it is really nice to hear! But each one has followed up with, "... but I couldn't do it!"
I tell them that each one of has things that we use all the time that we could really do without. We just have to choose what they are and try.

I was asked last night why we got rid of the microwave. She thought it was some health reason. I think she was in shock when I said, "It broke. And I am too cheap to buy a new one when I can do everything on the stove or in the toaster oven with a little patience." This hasn't been a journey to save the environment, but it has been a plus to do something. It hasn't been a political stance or a statement of anything, well- maybe against the materialism and commercialism of our culture, but it didn't start that way.
I just want to encourage anyone that wants to save a little money or learn a little patience to try doing without a few of our cutural necessities, even if just for a few days!

what's missing

I have been spending a lot of time lately trying to figure out all the things in my life that aren't necessary. It is fun to see what I can actually live without and what things I don't want to get rid of! But in all this seaching, I am beginning to see all the things in my life that I need. Some of them are obvious, my home, my car, etc. But some of these things have gone unnoticed or absent from my life until now.
First of all, I need a positive attitude. With so much negativity around me in the media, tv and facebook posts of the terrible days people are having, I get a kick out of the positive feedback here, the positive facebook status' and the smiles from my kids. Which leads to my second need, my kids. I love homeschooling! I need to have my kids around me to teach me to let go sometimes and find the kid in me. They show me that sometimes we just need to back out of the moment and spend time laughing and playing. I also know that I need encouragement to get through each day. I am blessed with a great family that supports and encourages me in all the crazy things I do!

So, what I have learned from this revelation of needs is, as I rid my life of the unecessaries, I need to fill it with what is necessary. Positive encouragement that will give a smile to someone that may need it.

On a side note, my 7 year old has noticed the changes we have made and has asked few questions. He has been great to go along with what we are doing! But tonight was the best! I made fish tacos for dinner, which usually have consisted of frozen fish sticks with the trimmings. I decided this time to try a healthier version, so I used fresh tilapia. As I was cooking, he came to me and the conversation went something like this:

Gavin: That doesn't look like fish!
Mom: Well, it is.
Gavin: But it doesn't look like fish!
Mom: But it is.
Gavin: No! They are shaped like sticks! That isn't fish!

The great part about it, he loved the tilapia and was still snitching pieces out of the bowl as it was being put away!

Living everyday deliberatly

Since starting this purge of the unnecessary, I have come to realize just how unintentional my everyday is. I may have a 'to do' list sitting on my desk, or a plethora of errands to run, but at the end of each day I fell tired and somewhat unaccomplished. This is something I think about a lot as a stay-at-home mom. What am I doing with my life? What do I accomplish each day? I can clean all day and it is messy again by dinner. The laundry is a never ending battle. But usually I stop and remind myself what an impact I am having on my own children and smile because I am blessed to be able to stay at home and raise them each day.

But I still feel like I don't get much done between 8 am and 10 pm. I end up being wired at night because I have spent my day lollygagging around the house finding little things to do that don't amount to much.

I had a brief conversation with a friend recently about all this, a fellow stay-at-home home schooling mom. She told me about a book, "Shopping For Time", and lent me a her copy. It appealed almost immediately, using shopping as a guide to finding more time. It got down to the nitty gritty quite fast and without a lot of fluff... get up earlier and accomplish more. Not what I wanted to hear! I am not a morning person! Getting up too early makes me sick just like staying up too late. The thought of being up before sunrise gives me the shivers!

I am in a season of change in my life. Not just with recycling or composting, but in so many other things. So I have decided, to make my days intentional! To add to the time I have by getting up by 6 am. To find purpose in each day by asking things like "Did I hug my husband before he left for work?" "Did my kids get a healthy breakfast before we ran out the door or did they eat at all?" Have I spent too much time on facebook?" Have I spent each moment of the day doing something to glorify God? to help others?

Each of the things we have gotten rid of has seemed to touch someone around me. I have a friend that took the challenge to get rid of her microwave, I know others that are recycling more. It is an amazing encouragment to me to hear that others are taking an initiative to live life deliberatly! And, hopefully, by the end of each day I will realize what I have accomplished!

And I will start getting up earlier!! :) 6 am, here I come!

next month

I have enjoyed the scoffs, laughs and encouragment from people reading this blog and joining my journey... The question I have been asked the most is "whyare you doing this?" The next most asked is "what does Jon think of this?" (Jon is my husband) I would ask him, and like most men he would say "Whatever... it's fine" or wouldn't say anything at all. I have questioned if he is really excited about the challenge of giving things up. But I got my answer this last week.

Jon was sent an email titled "One Light Bulb at a Time" and sent it on to me. It talked about paying attention when you shop for basic things. It said that we have been programmed to believe if we buy things made in the USA they will be more expensive than things made in China or other places. And then went on with brands that are actually cheaper and made right here in the US!

So he challenged me to give up imports next month. To only buy products made in the USA! I laughed and thought, sure! I can do that. So I have started looking around, being aware of things when I shop. I soon realized that this may be my hardest challenge yet, but I have a few weeks to practice before I give it up completely.

So, for September, we are giving up imported goods and putting our money into domestic made items!

Here goes nothing

So the trash is gone! We had our first real test this weekend with company for dinner. It went suprisingly well! Getting rid of our trash service has not only made me more aware, but has caused so many others to ask what I'm doing and make them aware of what we all could be doing! It had also had me thinking of new ways to do so many things. Yesterday was Jon's birthday, so we went out to dinner twice over the weekend. It was fun, but both times we ended up with leftovers to carry home in those polystyrine containers that really have no place in my no trash efforts. So I have been trying to come up with a plasible plan for these leftovers and have come up with an idea. So many of us have the reusable bags for groceries sitting in the trunk of our cars waiting for the next grocery trip, right? If they are like mine, they sit, forgotten on most trips (except Target-which gives a 5 cent discount for each bag you use!!!) So I figure I can do one of two things... I can add a couple boxes of recyclable sandwich bags to my trunk to carry in with one of my reusabe bags for the extra food or I can carry some glass container from home. I wish I had thought of this last week since now I have 3 containers sitting on my kitchen counter with nowhere to go...

On a different note:

This past weekend I had a garage sale to help purge the house of the piles of extras. Thursday morning my 2 year old had to check it all out to see what we were getting rid of and found a toy replica of the Old Navy truck, still in the package. He loves anything that can say vroom (including some stuffed animals!), so I opened it for him. He was so excited to find the doors would open! But when he opened it and then handed it to me, he was not happy to find the 'metal' had popped off and it was now broken. Jon and I giggled at it being made in China and discussed the process they use to press metal shavings together to make things cheaper. Paxton vroomed the truck around the garage floor until something else caught his inattentive eye. He stood up with his hand hanging all of 12" off the ground and let go of the truck, as he does with most toys. As it tumbled to it destiny, we watched. It hit the ground with very little force and slightly bounced as each and every piece of the truck shattered and spread on impact. The truck was a total loss. So with tears in his eyes, Paxton picked up most of the shattered pieces and said, "Mommy, fix!" Luckily his attention span is a great tool at ditracting his sadness, so we gave him a different toy while the truck pieces were picked up and put in our pile of metal recycling. I guess the upside is we taught him a little about recycling!?