Going Greener

After having Parker, I have been becoming more and more conscious of a lot of things. I am a lot more crunchy than the general population but I still have a long way to go. In the last year I have gotten rid of household chemicals and use green alternatives. At one point we got rid of all our plastic containers and got glass, but plastic has been creeping it's way back into our lives slowly. After having Greyson, I have been entertaining the idea of cloth diapering and we do only use cloth wipes as of a few months ago. 

Two nights ago I attended a lecture by Dr. Jeff Senechal D.C. about raising children naturally and it really got my wheels spinning. 

I spent that night after I got home feeling very overwhelmed! We eat very clean but not perfect and as Parker gets older more and more things have slipped through the cracks. I personally am an all or none person, type A and a perfectionist. With my own mystery health issues and doctors bills piling up I felt very stuck not knowing how to turn our lives around. I don't have a lot of support, my family and my in-laws think I am crazy, my husband eventually goes along with all my things but mostly thinks I'm crazy. We are working very hard to get debt free (following the Dave Ramsey plan) so spending money is always very emotionally difficult for me and my husband. 

Coming out of that lecture a few of the many things I wanted to start focusing on are eliminating plastic from our lives, cloth diapering, and eating (even) better. 

Thinking about plastic and eliminating it completely feels absolutely impossible to me, and being an all or nothing, if it's not perfect it's failure type person I don't even want to try because I know I will fail. The groceries we get are mostly unprocessed but still, strawberries, carrots, meats all come in plastic. I don't have the time, money, energy or resources to shop at butchers and farmers markets where we could potentially avoid that kind of stuff. 

After talking with a couple like minded girlfriends (Love you Laura and Lindsey) I calmed down and started to just look stuff up on the internet. The first day all I saw were price tags and just kept looking but made no commitments or changes. Today, however, I was calm enough to look at more products and make some purchases. 

For eliminating plastic the things I can immediately control are getting rid of plastic cups and dishes, and replacing our plastic shower curtain. They seem so small and it doesn't feel like a big change but I have noticed I am looking at the world with new eyes, critically thinking about alternatives to everything I need to purchase and really just taking it one step at a time. As long as each day I do a little better then I am on the right track. At the moment I feel ok with this way of thinking. I know there will be many times I just feel inadequate because I'm not perfect. The boys will always have plastic toys, but they won't drink out of plastic any longer. And that just needs to be good enough. 

I took the plunge and bought 5 cloth diapers to try out, I know it's not a lot and I'll need more but for now I am very excited about this step and I can't wait to see where it takes me! As gross as some people may think it is, I am considering and will most likely make it a reality, to not use toilet paper any longer and use cloth. To me, I'm already wiping 2 poopy butts and use cloth on the baby so I wash and reuse those everyday, it doesn't feel like a big leap to me. I don't think Andrew will jump on that band wagon but as the only female in the house I use the most toilet paper any way so it should help decrease our carbon footprint a bit.

We rarely use paper towel but we do use it. I stumbled across reusable paper towel made from bamboo and looked into it, asked Laura about her experience and ordered 2 rolls. 

So overall the last few days have been a roller coaster of anxiety and emotions. But I have new diapers and paper towels on the way and will reduce plastic as I go as much as possible! 

Another product I was introduced to are soap nuts, I plan to try that out once we run out of our seventh generation free laundry detergent. And homemade products will become even more used in our household!