An Earth Day post- and it's only two weeks late! I'm winning!!!!

Let's talk about how my whole family will soon be wearing socks under their Birkenstocks and rooting through public dumpsters to save endangered orcas from plastic bottles.

Ok, so it isn't quite that bad, but we have been pretty green lately. I realized last week that we are quite the little overachievers when it comes to recycling, as our recycling can (yes, an entire garbage can) was filled to capacity last trash day (with leftovers in our inside recycle bin), while our actual garbage can had two whole trashbags in it. And they weren't even that full.
Once a month or so, I take all of the glass I've collected down to the recycle center on post (since they won't pick it up curbside). Since living off-post originally and having no one to pick up my recycling for me, I would keep it all separated in containers and take it to the on-post recycle center once a week or so. Due to my frequent trips to the recycling dump, I became friendly with the manager of the joint, and I later realized that he attended our church too. Imagine the SHAME when I had to finally take my glass down to the recycling dump (accumulated since Molly's birth) and have Bernie see what we've been consuming around here. A bunch of booze hounds that live off of spaghetti sauce, jelly, and Snapple, tsk, tsk. Luckily, Bernie had the day off so some other guy that I don't know passed judgement on me. <whew!>

Speaking of rotting poo diapers, we have given the boot to the disposables and switched Molly over to cloth! I just love them on her. The cutesy colors, the way her outfits' diaper covers aren't saggy anymore, the overall absence of poopy blowouts. I'm sold. Cloth is the way to go. And because we are turning into full-on hippies, I am well on my way to making some cloth wipes this weekend. Yes. I am certifiably insane. But we stopped using disposables on Sam because of the chemicals that were coming into contact with his precious hiney and the rashes that were resulting from that. Yet we still wipe his bottom multiple times a day with wipes that contain just as many (if not more) chemicals?? Doesn't make much sense. Also, it's not like it will add to my laundry. I will just toss them in with a diaper load and call it a day.

So now that you all think I am a total nut-case, I will take this time to mark off # 71. While I had been using my reusable grocery bags off and on for some time, I was never truly diligent in using them ALL the time. I have tried very hard to remember them every single time I went out to purchase something. But a few days ago, when emptying trash cans in the bathrooms, I realized that we were completely OUT of grocery bags (which double as my trash bags). You can imagine the look of confusion I got from the Target cashier when I pulled my items out of a reusable bag and then asked him to put my things in a Target bag. (Because we shop like this now.) (Also, I love those polka-dotted Target bags.)

While I have not gone whole-hog-hippie and started making my own soap or quit shaving my legs (that just happens inadvertently sometimes), I feel like we are making plenty of "green" strides over here. Unfortunately, I am going to undo all of my eco-conscious efforts this summer by running the a/c nonstop and filling up the kiddie pool repeatedly so we all don't melt straight into the ground.