Some small steps in the right direction

A couple small steps in the right direction... Hello all!  Wow.. I really didn't intend on it taking so long between posts, but life goes on.  My mom seems to be doing much better as of late.  She seems more herself that she had been in quite a while.  That at least takes a bit off of my mind.  We go and fix dinner every Sunday afternoon at their house, generally meat of some sort, potatoes fixed either creamed or stewed, homemade biscuits, and most of the time gravy.  My dads favorite and almost the extent of what he'll eat.  LOL.  He'll be a little adventurous occasionally and eat "shake n bake" style pork chops, but that's about as adventurous as he gets.  His favorite is regular ole' fried chicken.  But, I digress, I'm getting away from what I was going to say.  I've tried my hand at baking biscuits and I'm getting better at it every time I try.  My biscuits are at least passable now.  This week, I mentioned to mom and dad about keeping their recyclables and then I'd take them with me on Sundays and put them in my bin.  They seemed agreeable to the idea, so YAY!  I'm going to start small, and just tell them to put cardboard, and milk jugs (rinsed, and if they aren't keeping them for some reason) and tin cans in the bin.  Then I'll just simply add that to my recyclables for pickup on Monday.  I've gotten myself in the habit of rising cans out, breaking down cardboard, etc. and when I cook down there, I still do it, but then find myself having to put it in the trash.  I've tried keeping it out, but mom and dad give me strange looks and still throw it away when I leave it. LOL.   But this is going to be a small step to help get others recycling too.

One thing I've also been doing and it's for a combination of reasons is I've almost cut out all soda.  The only time I've been drinking any pop is when I eat out and the place has lousy iced tea, or I'm out and just really need some caffeine.  :)   One reason why I've cut it out is because I've been trying to trim back on our spending since Phillip left his job.  Another, I just hate the idea of putting all of those chemicals into my body.  On our iced tea, we are still averaging about a gallon of tea a day, but that's for all meals, for all of us.  And, I might add, we only put about half the sugar in it that a lot of people do.  We've also been trying to buy stuff in bulk as much as possible, and thank goodness for Sams club.  Come spring/summer when the farmer's market opens, I hope to buy most of my veggies there, but the Yadkinville market is still pretty small, so everything we normally eat isn't always there, but it's a start.

Phillip and I've also been starting to plan some things for outside, for landscaping and gardening.  We're going to try to have a decent sized garden this year, as well as doing a few things around the house, so we can HOPEFULLY start inviting friends over.   So far, I want to make some mini raised beds for individual herbs along the sunny side of the house, beside the house, and I hope to get about at least a 10 X 20 area for a traditional garden in the back of the property.  This is dependant on finding someone that will charge a reasonable fee to bushhog and turn under the area in the back for the garden.   I also want to put up a small clothesline, and I really would love to have more flowers in the front this year, but that will involve of getting rid of 3 stumps.   Part of me hates putting all of this work into a rental property, but I want to pretty up the place a bit.  Almost all of my plans are either removable or we can easily restore any changes we may make.    Wow, if we're going to get all of this done, we're going to be busy bees this spring and summer.  LOL.  And speaking of bees, if we can, I'm going to try to take a beekeeping class this spring with the local bee group.  Phillip's hive seems to be doing well, but I'd love to get a hive of my own eventually.

Well, I need to run.  We got a seed catalog today in the mail, and I want to go see whats in it.
K@

A Start...

OK, this blog is just something I wanted to start to track things that I want to do, my successes and failures (I'm sure there's going to be A LOT of those) along the way.

• I'm trying to be a greener person. Reducing waste, reusing things, consuming less energy, etc. We're recycling what we can, trying to reuse things when we can, and producing less waste.
• I want to be the best mom I can be. I need to spend more time with my kids, not just playing and doing fun things, but teaching them things that they need to know for life. How to take care of their things, how to handle stress, how to spend wisely, learning their hopes and dreams and showing them how to accomplish those dreams.
• I really need to take better care of myself. I need to eat more veggies, less junk, less sugar and exercise more! I want to find time to spend on myself for things I want to learn to do.
• I want to get a place of our own, somewhere with some land (not a huge lot, but I do want a garden!) But to do this, we really need to save money.

First, my greening things. I've bought books, I've read blogs and internet articles in trying to make my life greener. I think people of the world are using to much of the Earth's resources and we've got to do something about it NOW if future generations are to have a chance at all! I've researched green cleaning methods, reducing your carbon footprint, reducing water usage, and trying to buy locally grown goods and locally made items when possible. I'm trying to almost constantly research and find new things to do. Here are some of the green things I've started doing.

1. I recycle everything I can, trying to buy thing in recyclable containers whenever possible. Even when it is recyclable, I try to reuse it when I can, only putting it in the recycle box when it's broken, cracked or otherwise unusable. We went to the town office and even requested a second recycle bin, because we're quite often overflowing a single recycle bin, yet only have to throw the trash out about every other week (We average about 2 bags every other week).
2. Only pull the trash bag when it a) starts to stink or b) is completely full. When I pull trash, if the bin isn't completely full, I'm pouring the trash over to another bag that isn't quite full, consolidating and compacting the trash as I can.
3. Composting - I gotta work on this one. I don't compost. We've tried it, but we need a bin that will prevent mice and rats from getting into it. They can get bad here if we're not careful. And (bad green thing I know) we have to use poison to keep them under control.
4. Starting to try to use green cleaners. I'm using some cleaners like Seventh Generation, and others that say they are clean, but I have so much of the traditional stuff, I don't want to just dump it in the landfill, just because it's not green. Isn't it kind of wasteful to dump unused products in the landfill, just because it's not a green cleaner? I know some stuff adds toxic chemicals to your household, and I try to limit myself on using them, like if I have a persistent stain or something, I pull out the heavy duty stuff. I'm also trying to use stuff like baking soda, vinegar and hydrogen peroxide to clean things, pulling out those older commercial cleaning products when the natural stuff isn't working very well.
5. I've researched making your own green laundry detergent, but one, I can't find all of the ingredients in stores locally, and they say it "saves you money, because it's cheaper", but it's not cheaper than the Arm & Hammer detergent the I use now. I think what I use is generally about 10 cents a load. The borax alone (the main ingredient in most homemade detergents) would run me almost that much alone. I read about some green detergent at Sams... going to try it when I get more.

OK, that's enough for starters, I'll try to sign on here in another few days and blog about my next topic on my list, being the best mom I can be.

K@