So awhile ago I posted about the One Small Change project. One, small, green-oriented change in your life every month from now until Earth Day. Month one complete.
The good news is that our small change for January worked like a charm. It was so easy! I washed like normal, put the clothes in the dryer for 10 minutes or so to prevent the clothes from dripping, and then hung them in front of the fire. It was quick and easy and actually works better for us than using the dryer all the time. You see I’m not very . . . prompt when it comes to laundry. I put a load in. Sometime in the next 24 hours I will remember to move it to the dryer. Sometime in the next 24 hours after that I will move that dried load to the futon in the basement. Then throughout the week I will manage to find time to fold and put it away. I have one word: wrinkly! This is not because I am lazy or hate laundry (only sometimes). It’s that as a working mom I am regularly preoccupied with 40 other tasks and I forget. There are bigger fish to fry, and if I have the choice between folding laundry and playing a game in the evening with my girl, guess which one I choose? Yup, you guessed it – I am the mom of a happy kid with semi-rumpled clothes. 🙂 And I know from all the moms I know that I am not alone or unique in my choices.
But this month has been great. With the clothes hanging in front of the fire, right in plain sight, I remember to pull them down, fold and put them away a lot sooner. In sight, in mind? I don’t know if the house is more humid or if our energy bill went down any but the ease, speed, and lack of wrinkles has me sold. Now I won’t lie. I didn’t do this with every load. I still used the dryer a few times, but they were very few. And I got a better idea of how long it takes certain clothes to dry. Instead of just turning on the dryer and letting it run for the default 80 minutes or so, I paid more attention. I still remember the one morning I went to pull something out of the dryer and realized that 2/3 of the load was dry after only 15-20 minutes in the dryer. So why bother leaving all those dry clothes in there for another 40 min?
Anyway, I was happy. This is another change I feel like we can work into our lives pretty seamlessly and continue even past this month. Now, onto February! 🙂 So, the idea was to post about your next “one small change” on the first day of each month. Yeah, that one didn’t happen this month for several reasons. The first is pretty simple, if not chaotic. The last week of January we celebrated our daughter’s birthday, mourned the death of our friend’s son, and I got strep throat. No offense to the Earth or other people participating, but this project was the last thing on my mind leading up to Feb 1st. The second reason is that I’ve been having a hard time thinking of what to do for February.
Small. The change we implement needs to be small. With a wee one beginning to grow in my belly, and the events of the past couple weeks I’m not sure I can do big right now. I keep going through the list of things I know we can do to make a difference:
- Bring our own bags to the store – do it
- Recycle and reuse as much as possible – check
- Compost – do it
- Cloth napkins – check
- Car pool and reduce the distance between work and home – done
- Change out all our light bulbs – check
- Turn the thermostat down – done
- Supplement your food with a garden – looking through seed catalogs for spring
- Eat less meat – check
- Support local farmers – done, through buying only locally harvested meat, buying local produce whenever possible, and participating in farmer’s advocacy groups
The real challenge here has been thinking of additional challenges that are not only possible but also sustainable for our family. The thought finally occurred to me the other day though. While other areas of the country have been lambasted with storms thanks to El Niño we have received little to no snowfall this year. Eastern Washington and north Idaho have only received 50% of our average annual snowpack and the water outlook for summer looks pretty bleak. So this for this month I’d like to implement several things to help conserve water like putting bricks or other space savers in the back of the toilets (though I need to check this since we already have low-flow toilets), and bottling the cold water we waste while waiting for the hot water in the sink, which I can use to water the 10-12 plants our friends left with us when they went to Saipan. Washing out dishes by hand is another way we attempt to conserve water but even that process could be made more efficient. Mr. A and I have also talked about getting a rain barrel to catch rain water that we can then use on the garden. I’m not sure that one will come into play this month, but it’s on the list. Anyway, that’s the plan. I’ll post at the end of the month to let you know how it turned out. 🙂
Duck Duck Moose 