Category Archives: Going Green

Great Books for Green Parents

Whether you read them enough to make them worth buying, or just borrow for a quick read from the library, books are another great resource for parents wanting help in taking care of the environment and their families. There’s so much to know!

Free Range Kids
I was lucky enough to be sent a review copy of this one for one of my other sites. Great book, and while it’s not about environmentalism, there’s a lot to it that can be combined with teaching kids to care about the environment.

Healthy Child Healthy World: Creating a Cleaner, Greener, Safer Home
I reviewed this one a while ago. Lots of tips on living cleaner and greener, and broken into separate sections so it’s easy to pick the areas you want to get started with.

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder
Another book I got to review a while back. Lots of fun and a great reminder of how very important it is to get your family outside.

Books I haven’t read that sound promising:

The Green Teen: The Eco-Friendly Teen’s Guide to Saving the Planet

The Green Parent: A Kid-Friendly Guide to Environmentally-Friendly Living

Raising Baby Green: The Earth-Friendly Guide to Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Care

Really Pleased With Our Water Usage

Let’s face it. I’m normally not that excited to get my water bill… any bill really. Where’s the fun in that?

But with all our efforts to conserve water around here, I was really excited to get our bill over the weekend.

We used just 16 units of water for this two month period. That’s down from 19 units for the same time frame last year. Pretty good, especially considering that average residential usage in our area I’ve seen quoted as 30 units per month.

I won’t say our lawn is thanking us for our efforts, but that’s been done in as much by gophers as by lack of water, I think. We have one really pretty weed with purple flowers that I hope continues to spread.

The garden, which I will truly miss when we move, has been one of our big outdoor water changes. The ugly watering solution really seems to be helping us cut down on how much water that needs.

Overall, I hope we can do so well wherever we end up living when we move. I just had to share my delight at seeing how well we’re doing, though.

Clearing Out the Freezer Before the Move

Getting ready for a move takes so much effort. It’s not just cleaning out the garage, excess toys and so forth. Some ways using up as much as I can from the freezer is just as much trouble.

It’s not so hard using the things I froze because they were on a good sale. It’s using up the chicken bones and such that I saved for soup that is a bit challenging. Not exactly the right weather for that to be a popular meal.

I could move it, I suppose, but I’d rather use it up and have to restock than deal with trying to keep things cold during the drive up.

Nice thing is, it means I will know what’s in there and not be wondering later on what that mystery package in the back of the freezer is. It’s good to clean things out sometimes anyhow.

Minimizing the Moving Clutter

One thing about moving – it encourages getting rid of the junk. Salvation Army is getting a lot of stuff from us!

We’ve been working slowly on cleaning out the garage before, but now it’s urgent. Why move anything we don’t have to?

We’re also wanting to get rid of about half the kids’ toys. They have so many that never, ever get played with. That’s how it is with the usual excess resulting from birthday presents and holidays.

I’m looking forward to having all this stuff gone, even if by some chance we get to stay here.

Looks Like We’re Moving

My husband has been job hunting for a while. He’s had a job, but just an adequate one.

Now he’s landed a better one, but we have to move for it, just a couple hours north of where we are now.

I’m happy and sad about it. Happy that he got a better job with room for advancement. Sad that we have to move, which means leaving friends, family and even my garden.

We’re hoping to hand the garden down to someone who will care for it. We have a few friends who have admired it, and the containers could possibly be moved. We’re also letting a few friends know in case they want to change where they’re renting. We’re also going to try potting some of the tomatoes to take along with us.

As I told my husband, we can keep in touch with friends and family, but losing the garden we’ve put so much work into really stings. Especially since we can’t start another one for the summer, although we may be able to do something for fall.

These next several weeks will be really busy for me. They want my husband to start on June 22, so he’ll be spending weeknights at my sister’s house, who lives about an hour from the new job. Better than driving 2 or more hours to get home, sleep and leave again, hardly seeing anyone.

I’ll be packing and researching places to rent while he’s gone, so that we can minimize this whole mess.

I’ll post when I can, and hope that we can get internet service quickly in the new place!

There’s still a slim chance we won’t move. If the local job he applied for wants him and calls this week, all these plans will change. Best of all, the local job might be at a location with an express bus stop practically at its front door. But for now we have to assume that we’re going.