I forgot that the One Small Change challenges were meant to culminate in Earth Day.  I’ve kind of gotten used to doing them.  It’s easy to change one small thing every month on my way to living a little bit lighter in the world, so  I’m glad that they will be continuing throughout the year on the One Small Change blog.

April – Cloth Napkins

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovelihood//CC BY-SA 2.0

Cloth napkins were easy.  And I like them.  I know why it took me a while to switch over, but in retrospect my reasons seem silly.  Lesson learned – just go ahead and do it.  Four napkins have been more than sufficient so far, and I’m still on the lookout for more cute ones at the thrift store.

Happy Belated Earth Day

I missed Earth Day, both on my blog and in my life.  I have a big white board calendar in my office, and all that is written on April 22nd is my husband’s name with a big arrow through the whole day.  We watched TV, ate normal food, and lost our respective battles with stress, sleep deprivation and jet lag (i.e. lots of couch napping).  Earth Day was barely on my radar.

But really, does Earth Day matter?  There doesn’t seem to be a consensus on that question.  For myself, I tend to lean towards “Maybe.”  I know this sounds like a cliché, but it is a true cliché:  Every day should be Earth Day.  We’re past the point where a day of concern is going to make up for a year’s worth of complacency.  In fact, maybe that point never existed.  Individual action and small changes need to become contagious, viral movements that result in systemic change on a fundamental level.

But at the same time, I know that not everyone is there yet.  There are people for whom Earth Day actually might be a first step towards being more aware of (and taking actions that address) the global environmental challenges we face over the next several decades.  And, unfortunately, fortunately, or just factually – the floaty brigade saying that everyone should be on the same page doesn’t actually make it true.  To a certain extent, talking about how everyone should agree with us right now, immediately, is just a waste of time.  They don’t.  That is the reality we need to work with.

And from that reality, Earth Day may well be a powerful and necessary tool to continue to move hearts and minds.  The Earth Days, the One Small Changes are the building blocks of systemic change and paradigm shifts.  Yes, it is media hyped.  And yes, it is greenwashed.  But for people who aren’t there (yet), it can be a beginning.  And right now, I think we need as many beginnings as we can get.

Related Posts:

• One Small Change – Cloth Napkins
• Why I Failed At Driving Less
• Less Horse, More Horsepower
• One Small Change & 28 Day Real Food Challenge

Related posts:

1. One Small Change: Cloth Napkins

Alright, I’ll be honest.  I kind of feel like I’m copping out on this one because it’s not as “big” as my last couple of small changes.  But that’s why it’s one small change.  Right?  That’s what I’m telling myself.

I’ll do a more in-depth update and discussion of last month’s small change – decreased car usage – next week.  For now, I’ll just say that this is and will continue to be an ongoing project of mine.  Still eating real food as much as possible, but hand-washing dishes is over.  New house = new, very efficient dishwasher.  There’s no way I can beat this one with hand-washing (it uses reclaimed heat from the water to dry dishes, blah blah technical blah).

For this month, I’m taking on a relatively easy switch: cloth napkins.  I’ve used recycled paper napkins for the longest time, and reuse them to within an inch of their lives, but there is absolutely no reason for me to continue using paper napkins.

In a nice moment of synchronicity, I ran out of napkins within a day or so of receiving a set of cloth napkins as a housewarming gift.  I’ll most likely supplement my supply of cloth napkins as cute ones show up at the thrift store (an easy way of rendering moot the life cycle cost of cloth v. paper debate).  But for now, four is more than enough to serve my household of one.

This change is a no-brainer for April, which is going to be a bit busier than last month (in spite of the fact that last month we bought a house and moved – tell me how that works?).  Which brings me to my next item…

Looking for Guest Posters

My dear hubs is home for his two weeks of deployment leave this month, and I have resolved to break my internet addiction while he is home.  I would love to find some guest posts for this here bloggy blog while I’m mooching around at the end of April.

If you are interested in submitting a guest post, please let me know.  The post should be in some way related to the broad spectrum of things I write about on this blog and not too, too long.  Is that vague enough for you?  And if you have a blog, I would love to write a guest post for you in exchange.

Happy Friday everyone – hope you all have a great weekend!

Related posts:

1. One Small Change & 28 Day Real Food Challenge

Because March 1st was the wrap-up of the 28 Day Real Food Challenge, I neglected to post about my One Small Change for March.  But first, a quick update on my January and February changes.

January – Goodbye, Dishwasher

This was going really well until my sink broke.  You know what’s hard to do with a broken sink?  Wash dishes.  I figured that washing dishes in the bathroom sink or bathtub would most likely defeat the purpose, so I’m back to using my dishwasher.  However, my water bill reflected a fairly substantial decrease in water usage, so that’s a good thing.

February – 28 Day Real Food Challenge

I haven’t yet found a way to articulate how this challenge impacted my life.  In short, this experience was simply phenomenal, and I am so glad that I participated.  Not only was it beneficial from the standpoint of environmental impact, but I never anticipated the overwhelmingly positive effect it would have on my health.  That is a topic for another time, but I will certainly be continuing with this “small” change in some capacity.

And for March…

I’m giving up horses.  This probably seems like an odd one, so let me explain.

For the past six months, I have shared a lease of several horses who live in a pasture 20 miles away from my house.  It was a self-care lease, which meant that I had to drive to the pasture on a daily basis to feed them, even on days I wasn’t planning on riding.  As is the case in many rural areas, public transportation was not an option.

The fact of the matter is that I can cut my gas usage by almost 3/4 just by giving up the horses.  At this point, I honestly can’t justify driving that much for a recreational activity, when there are other perfectly reasonable alternative activities or the possibility of finding a horse lease within biking distance.

Which brings me to the real change for March.  Beginning now, I will be closely examining the radius of my daily life and will start factoring transportation impact into my choices in a much bigger way than ever before.  This will be the first step in laying the foundation for what I hope will be an increasingly car-free life.

To be honest, I’m not sure how this one is going to go.  I’ll definitely keep you posted.

Related Posts:

• Why I Failed At Driving Less

No related posts.

I’ve been slowly catching up on all my regular blogs over the last several weeks. Taking a break from the computer over the holidays will set you pretty far back, especially if one of those holidays is New Years. So many people blogging their resolutions! Apparently, I missed the “One Green Thing” moment, where we all committed to doing one green thing to help the planet in 2010. The commitments over at Current vary from trollish anti-commitments to ambitious and far-reaching goals. Hip Mountain Mama is also hosting a One Small Change event on her site – one small change a month, beginning in January and running through Earth Day. A quick survey of the web indicates that I pretty much missed the ball on making public my green resolutions for the New Year.

I have a bunch of goals this year that include growing some of my own food, eating more consciously, acquiring and utilizing a bike for transportation, and continuing to participate in local and national environmental advocacy and activist efforts. But I found myself lacking any “one green thing.” And sure, my goals collectively probably have a greater impact than this particular “light green” one green thing, but there is no reason I can’t do both.

Goodbye, Dishwasher

That’s right. No more dishwasher. Which is too bad, because I love dishwashers. They’re convenient and helpful and I really don’t like washing dishes. But there is no good reason for me to use a dishwasher. So last week I went out and got rid of my one excuse: my plastic dish drying rack. (And by mine, I mean my husband’s. And by got rid of, I mean stored safely. Hi, honey. Don’t worry – I’m not getting rid of your stuff.) A trip to the thrift store and $1.03 later, I now have this cool new thing. Rad and frugal, huh?

I felt instantly inspired to wash dishes. Sort of. Not really, but I did it anyways.

My Caveats

I know, terrible. But here they are. [insert something here about the uncompromising strength of your convictions.]

• Big groups of guests. I have a hard enough time being social. The last thing I need is a disincentive for inviting people over. If I have a huge group of guests and end up with tons of dishes, I may use my dishwasher.
• Sickness or injury. I’m not talking about, *whine* I’m just so tired and can’t possibly wash my dishes *whine.* But if I have a killer fever or am puking my guts out, I may use my dishwasher. I also will not balance on crutches and try to wash dishes. If I break something, I’ll use my dishwasher.
• My husband. Readjusting to marriage post-deployment is hard enough. My marriage is an important part of my personal balance and I’m not going to engage in any unnecessary battles about dishwasher use.

So there you have it: one green thing + caveats. I ran the dishwasher for the last time on January 17th, but better late than never, right? To be honest, it seems like a pretty small change to me. But I also know that the little things do add up.

Related posts:

1. The Thing About Climate Change