One Small Change: Stop Wasting Food

Hmm... writing April's One Small Change like that makes it sound so horrible... I suppose it kind of is.

I have a habit of making dishes to feed a family of ten, but in real life I have a family of three. So, we have leftovers. I put them in the fridge. The next night, I make another meal to feed several teenage boys (of which I have none), and leftovers go in the fridge again. This cycle tends to continue until a week has passed since I made dinner for the family of ten and I need to throw those leftovers in the garbage.

Waste. I feel bad about it. Really, I do.

The good news is, I have realised that there is something I can do about it! Here's my plan:

• Clean the fridge. Purge the items that are far too old to eat. Bust out my spray bottle of Thieves cleaner and make that puppy shine. Now, I can see what food is in there, and I am less likely to not eat something because I can't see it. Maybe I can even come up with some sort of system of what items (ONLY!) are allowed to go on each shelf..... Or, is that too anal retentive?...
• Plan my meals for the week/month. This should help me to stick to my grocery list and not buy things that aren't going to get consumed. This should also help to eliminate my nightly ritual of standing in the kitchen for a good half of an hour and still not being able to decide what to make for dinner.
• Decide how produce items will be used before the box arrives. You may or may not know that we have our organic produce delivered to our door every other week. Our CSA posts what the box will contain (and recipes!) on their web site, a week before our box is delivered. I should take advantage of this. The winter is filled with a lot of leafy things that often get composted, rather than eaten. Or, I just don't have a plan for how to use a particular item, it turns, it gets composted. So, my compost pile is great, but it's kind of like I'm just throwing my money on top of the pile...

Yes, I think that's plenty for right now. Do you have any ideas/templates/tools to share that will help me with this change? I would love to hear it!

One Small Change: Cut back my paper towel habit

I have actually already started to try to implement this by instituting a cloth napkin rule at dinner time. Still, I am tempted to conveniently reach for the paper towel when wiping up the kitchen counter or a child-created spill on the floor.... My saving grace, I suppose, is that I only buy recycled paper towels. But, they are not 100% post-consumer content, so I should stop trying to convince myself that no trees are being killed to afford me some sense of convenience. So, there you go.

My grandma unloaded a bag of cloth napkins (various patterns of 1970's brown; nice) on me, which has helped get the ball rolling. Anastasia is getting into the habit of setting the table (one of her jobs!) with cloth napkins. Jason is resisting using his, which remains nicely folded at the end of every meal....

The next step will be making or finding more cleaning cloths.

One Small Change: Stop Buying "Things"

My one small change for February is to stop buying things.... This is going to be a bit difficult! It doesn't feel small at all. But, as shiny and pretty as a new thing is, I don't need any new things. I have plenty of things in this house that I have forgotten about because of all the other things that are hiding them. So, no new things. This is going to help my budget and help get my current stash of things under control.

One Small Change: Tackle the Refashion/Mend Pile

I happened upon a challenge the other day that intrigued me. Because I am generally up for a good challenge, and this one has a great deal to do with being kinder to Mother Earth, I am taking this on. It is from Hip Mountain Mama. The challenge is to make one small change in your life each month, and live it daily until Earth Day, April 22, 2010. Of course, the hope is that, these being small changes, we will continue to practice our changes throughout the year, live greener lives, and with our collective small changes make one HUGE impact on the future of our planet. Yes. This is definitely my kind of challenge. I feel like I live a pretty green life, but it is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day living/commuting/mothering/working that sometimes my ideals are not as easily attained as they once were, when I was only responsible for myself. I am taking this challenge to heart and once again trying to find my way to the person I would like to be every day, not only when it's convenient.

One of my resolutions for the year is to continue refashioning past my committment to Wardrobe Refashion (April). This month, I have made a fairly large dent in my "refashion/mend" pile, thanks to the serger that now resides in my sewing room. I have a few more days to live up to this one small change for January, which I will continue to carry with me throughout the year and which will be further fueled by next month's small change.... stay tuned... Also, I will be posting more of my refashions soon!