Misunderstood

Songs are getting too cryptic for me. The singer on the radio this morning was whining about somebody who took him to see his niece.

Why??? Why did his niece pop up into a love song? Slow me finally figured out after I made it to the office - somebody brought him to his knees. :-)

Guilt

When it comes to living green, I'm always living in guilt.

Things don't always work like I want them to.

Take the string bags I bought recently - I got them because they would replace my plastic grocery bags, but when I got them I didn't feel so good. They came in a cardboard box. Ofcourse they did! What did I think they would be shipped in - another string bag with a postage stamp on it?

I never thought buying on Amazon.com would be environmentally unfriendly - until the day we got a memory card for our digital camera. It was the size of a postage stamp, and not a lot thicker. Amazon shipped this eensy weensy thing in a box big enough to hold the kitchen blender. To make sure that poor memory card wouldn't rattle around in its big house, Amazon thoughtfully stuffed the box with lots (and lots) of paper. I almost threw the memory card in recycle along with the paper - it was so hard to find.

I drove around to the other grocery store because it has more organic stuff, but then I had to think: is it worth it to drive an extra two miles in a car all by myself in order to buy the eco-friendly organic stuff?

Yesterday I stood for five minutes in the oral care aisle comparing two toothbrushes to see which had less plastic and packaging. Then when I got to checkout, the lady was going to bag it. I shoved my cotton bag in her way, but in the hustle, the plastic bag fell to the floor. Do you think there's a chance the checkout lady had picked it up and reused it? Or did it go into the trash?

This is me - guilty, guilty, guilty. There's a good reason why - if everybody in the world lived like me, we would need 4.5 earths to sustain my lifestyle.

I don't want to borrow our earth's resources, to provide me luxury or convenience, from my little daughter's (or her daughter's) future world. And leave the future generations to take care of the consequences. That is why the compacting, the recycling, the freecycling.

The Compact

Has not been going very well.

I bought a lot of new things in the recent past - had many birthdays and christmas presents to buy.

But the good news is that I've been bringing home those things in reusable bags. I have my net bags (which is one of the new things I bought :)) and have been using them and some cloth tote bags lying around in the house.

The reaction at stores has been mostly good. I just have to be really deft at checkout and give them my bag before they reach for a plastic bag.

This is so much less than a drop in the ocean, but I see people eyeing me and my bags, and hopefully they're not thinking "What a weirdo!". Maybe one of them will want to use their own bag next time instead of the store's wasterful, environmentally unfriendly plastic (or paper) bag.

The Compacting

First, thank you @ and Tharini for giving me company.

Hope that you're doing better than me. I broke my pledge by buying my daughter a little pair of denim overalls - for her teddy bear.

I avoided temptation by going straight to what I needed when I had to go to Target. I finally gave in when we spent four hours wandering about a mall yesterday (and I figured an outfit for her old bear is better than a new bear).

Ironically, the most temptation came from the same site which inspired me to simplify. I would really like to have those net bags.

On the other hand, last week I finally gave away her old cloth diapers through freecycle. Freecycle lives up to its name - everytime I use it, I feel freer and lighter.

Walk Slowly, Live Wildly: Let the Compacting Begin

I've decided to take this up: Walk Slowly, Live Wildly: Let the Compacting Begin

Will anyone join me?

Here's the compacting pledge:

In light of the destructive effects of personal greed, we pledge to curb our purchases, cease frivolous buying, and choose to simplify our lives. Excepting only those things needed for work and the health and safety of our families, we pledge not to buy new. Further more, we will actively seek to pass on possessions we no longer want to those who are in need. In doing so, we hope to educate both friends and family about the corrosive effects of being in a constant state of want, nurture in ourselves the uplifting state of giving, thus reducing the load on the environment and creating a more sensible path for our lives. For these reasons, we join the Compact.

To start with, I am going to stick with this for a month. Baby steps :) I can already think of a couple of exceptions that I'll have to make:

1) Digital camera
2) Snow clothes for my daughter

A Link to Bliss

I love this, probably more because of all the clutter in my life that I long to get rid of.

Happiness is a small home.

Ironically, after I looked at all the lovely pictures that she posted, my first thought was that we "need" a new digital camera. Am I incurable?

Spoooooooky

Last night I couldn't sleep very well, and I thought I imagined it when I heard a strange noise. It sounded like somebody was having a nightmare and moaning.

Then I heard it again. A low howl followed by two short bark like sounds. I still wondered if somebody in the house was having a bad dream. And then I heard it again. And again. And again. It sounded too much like an animal, but too little like a dog, so the next time I heard it, I prodded my husband in the shins and said "What's that?" He said, "Go back to sleep. It's just a coyote."

Just a coyote. Just a coyote! There was an almost full moon outside, and a coyote somewhere below the window. How could I go back to sleep?

We live in a very thickly populated neighborhood, but happen to be right across from an unpopulated wetland area. We've seen various wildlife crossing our street or lawn, including several turtles, small snakes, turkey, and once a deer. But none of that, including the snakes, was as unsettling as this coyote.

We've distanced ourselves from the wild so much, that the wild cry of the coyote was very disturbing. The coyote was the one that weighed not much more than my three-year-old, was rarely aggressive toward humans, was all alone among the houses of different and powerful creatures, and we were the different and "powerful" creatures who were safely inside, so I'm not sure why it gave me the chills.

After a while, the neigbors' dog started to bark back at it, and the coyote's cry moved farther away and faded.

But just in case, I prodded my husband again and said, "Are you sure the garage door's closed?"


Excerpt from wikipedia: Hearing a coyote is much more common than seeing one. The calls a coyote makes are high-pitched and variously described as howls, yips, yelps and barks. These calls may be a long rising and falling note (a howl) or a series of short notes (yips). These calls are most often heard at dusk or night, less often during the day. Although these calls are made throughout the year, they are most common during the spring mating season and in the fall when the pups leave their families to establish new territories. Many people find these calls eerie or disturbing while others find them to be quite beautiful. Additionally, the coyote's howl can be very deceiving: due to the way the sound carries, it can seem as though it is in one place, when it is really elsewhere.

Daily Round of Blogs

Since I haven't yet taken the time to figure out how to add links to my favorite blogs, let me just post a round-up.

Winkie's Way - This one's all about Winkie (one of my plentiful "net-phews"), and beautiful (everything - the look, the pictures, and the language).
G's Blog - Frequently updated, honest, and very interesting.
Tiny Tidbits - Appetizing and funny tidbits all the way from Hong Kong.
Anumita - Not updated often, but what a writer!
Boo's Baby Talk - A funny and talented Mommy.
Lazy D's Blog - She only has one yummy entry, but I still keep visiting every day to see if there's anything new (even though she said she's given up on it). I really do, D!
Kings and Cabbages - Okay, that's this blog/junk-drawer. I still visit it everyday, to see if it's updated, even though I'm the only one who can update it.

Lame Excuses

My office gym has one new trainer/motivator/advisor who started work a few months ago. She is very enthusiastic about getting people enthusiastic about exercise. She is also petite and thin in the way teenagers are.

One day, I asked her for some advice on a sore knee, and she got to asking me how much time I spend running, and if I did any strength training. I told her - no, I don't do much strength training - I have a little daughter, you see, and I don't get much time to work out. (Not like you, with all the time in the world to keep yourself fit, I was thinking. You wouldn't know how hard it is, you think I'm just whining. Just like my yoga instructor, who's slim like you, and flexible like only the young can be).

A month or two later, I overheard her telling somebody in the gym about her two kids, and about doing up their rooms. I found out that her oldest was about ten. Pie in my face :) Never, ever going to use the kid excuse again! And never ever going to judge people that quickly again.

And the yoga instructor? Well, she has one "kid" who'll be in college next year. Another who is in college now. And another who's been through college already. Things aren't always what they seem to be.