Monthly Archives: September 2007

Life Beyond Green Guilt

It’s ridiculously easy to feel guilty about your buying habits. It pretty much comes with the whole environmental awareness bit. You always just know you could be doing more.

But that’s why I found this post the other day on Green Options so good. It’s about coping with green guilt.

The challenge is to simply learn how to determine the true cost of the things you do buy. You’re always going to have to balance transportation with other environmental impacts, but you do the best you can.

One of the suggestions is something I really want to work on, and that’s trying thrift stores before buying items such as new clothing. It’s a way to improve on the entire “reuse” section of being environmentally aware, and it’s also very much cheaper than buying new.

My younger sister and I have agreed that the next time we need to go shopping for things, a thrift store day is very much in order. Fortunately, neither of us is a big shopper, so I expect it will be some months in the future. On the other hand, an awful lot of my shirts are pretty much hitting the “thrashed” or “too stained” stage of their lifespan. I will have to give in eventually.

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Going Retro-Progressive

I love this term! I think it really describes the habit so many people are developing to be more like their grandparents and making things like cookies and bread at home, and air drying laundry.

There’s a lot more than homemade cookies, air-dried clothes and free-range children that are making comebacks. Farmers’ markets, car-free days, 100-mile diets and counter-consumer movements have all grown in popularity.

I just love it. My mother tells me I’m too protective of my kids, yet I give them more freedom than a lot of parents I know. I’ll readily admit that it is very, very hard for me to let my son go at times, but that stems more from the rough start he had (near miscarriage, surgery on his skull at 3 months), than anything else.

There are a lot of things I look forward to being able to do when we can afford a place of our own. We are fortunate enough to be able to garden in our yard; never thought I’d be so grateful to the extremely unusual freezes that killed off the landlord’s landscaping, allowing us to garden freely.

But I would love to be able to hang a clothesline. I’ve been trying to figure out a way to hang one, but the fence is cinderblocks with rebar and filled with concrete, then stuccoed. Yes, massively overbuilt, but it also makes it really hard to find something to attach the clothesline to. No trees in the yard either, &$*#. That one frustrates me on so many levels.

There’s more I would like to do on a retro-progressive level, but some things make it tough. Having access to a car only when my husband is home from work means I can rarely get to a farmer’s market.

I don’t know at what age I’ll let my kids do some of the things I used to do. I’ll probably try letting my kids play out front with only minimal supervision within a few years. It should be interesting to see who calls me nuts at that point. I know my sister was chewed out by other neighborhood parents for letting her 8 year old play in the front yard alone a few years ago. Yet I know my sisters and I did so regularly at that age, no problem.

There’s a lot to be said for a lot of the old fashioned ways of doing things. Some really don’t take that much more time, many are great for family bonding and raising children who are competent to take care of themselves for a while, without a television or computer. And of course much of it is better for the environment and healthier.

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Pope Talks Climate Again

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not always happy with the Catholic Church. Sometimes I feel they step back when they should step forward. But it pleases me immensely that the Pope has taken such an interest in the environment.

The Pope has called once again for people to take climate change seriously. He wants people to have greater respect for the wonders of God’s creation. He understands how dangerous climate change could be for humanity and the planet.

He also held a youth rally on the environment.

I find it very hopeful that more religious leaders are taking an interest in the environment. Where scientific arguements may not win people over, discussions begun by religious leaders may help people to understand.

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A Green Lawn

It’s been horrendously hot here. Lots of wilting plants when we aren’t careful enough about watering. Most obvious to others, of course, is the lawn.

My own standards for the lawn are pretty low. I don’t need a golf course green lawn. I just need a place my kids can play.

One tip for this I heard on my local news a while back was to simply water less often, but water more deeply. Deeper waterings help the lawn for longer, and can use less water overall. I believe he said something like an inch of water a week would keep an adequately healthy lawn. I don’t know that I reach that much watering even, but I might. I’ve never put a gauge out to be sure.

We rent, and the landlord has a yard service that does what I consider to be a pretty poor job of lawn care. In other words, weeds are taking over, but all they do is cut the lawn. On the plus side, I guess that makes the care more or less organic. The minus is of course that some of the weeds aren’t exactly as good as grass for kids to play on. Another minus would be that they haul the clippings away.

If you have more control over how your yard is cared for, sites such as SafeLawns.org can be a huge help. Not everyone will like all the advice, such as allowing clover to grow, but many of their tips just make sense.

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More Blue Than Green Today

My grandmother died yesterday. It was not entirely unexpected, and I’m coping pretty well. But it so happens that it’s my sister’s wedding day today, so emotions are very, very mixed. We’re all determined to make the best of it.