The Conscious Shopper

>> Monday, June 21, 2010

Mondays are challengicious at The Conscious Shopper. This week's travel-related challenge is:

Walk

BABY STEPS

Check Walk Score to find out the walkability of your neighborhood. Start small and scope out your surroundings.

JOGGING STRIDE

Walk whenever you're half a mile or less from your destination. Transit planners say that a quarter of a mile is the maximum distance most people are willing to walk, but I think we greenies could deal with a half a mile. The average person can walk that in 10 minutes.

MARATHON RUNNER

Walk whenever you're a mile or less from your destination. Figure out what destinations are a mile from your house and make it a point to walk instead of drive. If you don't live in a very walkable area, use the mile rule when you're out and about - park your car in a central location, and walk from point to point. Most people can walk a mile in about twenty minutes. Accounting for traffic in many cities, you may even be able to get there faster by walking! Plus, you'll get your daily exercise without having to pay for a gym membership.

Will you take the challenge?

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You have hereby been challenged to go green in a year without going broke! Check out the last challenge, or view the whole list of Challengicious Mondays. Sign up for my RSS feed, follow me on Twitter, and join my "Go Green without Going Broke" group on Facebook!

Image by pedrosimoes7

>> Sunday, June 20, 2010

We've Trimmed Our Waste Lines, Energized, and Watered Down, and now it's time to...

Travel Sustainably

We'll be changing our transportation habits with the following weekly challenges:

With the recent oil catastrophe in the Gulf, I'm sure many of us are looking for ways to make a difference. Reducing our addiction to oil and switching to more sustainable modes of transportation will create energy independence, American jobs, and improved health. It's also one of the more challenging areas to change, which is why I think so many of us feel despondent about the Gulf oil disaster.

Luckily, every little bit matters, not only because we're using a little less oil but also because of the message that we send to corporations and the government that we want better cars, more walkable cities, and improved public transportation.

So let's get to it and see if we can travel sustainably in 2010. Come back on Monday for the first transportation challenge.

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Image by suchitra prints

What Happened to My Header Image (and why I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this blogging business)

>> Friday, June 18, 2010

On Wednesday night, I had trouble falling asleep, and once sleep finally came, I had restless dreams, and once the dreams finally left me in peace, my Early Bird children began their morning bickering...all culminating with me being in a very foul mood.

The kind of mood that needs fresh air.

So I abandoned my boys to their granola bowls and stepped into the backyard, and ended up spending an hour pruning tomatoes and training cucumbers and planting flowers while my children danced around me like fairies. By the time we went inside, my inner beast was soothed.

And then I decided to take an email break, and the first email I opened was from Diane of Big Green Purse demanding that I remove my header image because it violates her trademark of green purses. Up until this point, Diane is someone I had respected, but her email left a vile taste in my mouth. The image in question is a photograph of one of those glorious how-could-I-be-so-lucky thrift store finds: a green purse for a green blogger who writes about shopping.

Although many un-Christian thoughts passed through my mind this morning, I eventually concluded that (a) Diane probably did have the legal upperhand here and (b) I didn't have the means or the mean-spiritedness to fight it. But when I thought about removing an image that my husband and I had spent hours designing, and when I thought of the future hours that would need to go into creating an new header image, I felt completely overwhelmed.

And those overwhelming thoughts let to more thoughts: About how much time I've spent blogging and how little difference it has made. About how the culmination of all this knowledge-gaining has just given me more reasons to worry and more reasons to be depressed. How dipping my toe into activism has shown me just how exhausting it can be with so little result to show for it. And how after nearly two years of blogging, I've greened my life and met some fabulous people, but I've also been chewed out and criticized and insulted. And to what end?

Finally I knew it was time to face the cloudy thought that has been lingering in the back of my mind for awhile now: Why am I blogging?

Is it because I think that through blogging about green living I can make the world better? At one time I did, but now...the world is so big and I am only one person, and maybe my time would be better spent away from the computer and out in my own community.

Is it because I want to make money from my blog? I've considered trying and dabbled a little bit with the whole Reuseit Ambassador thing, but I have trouble reconciling the non-consumption philosophy behind my blog with the "support my sponsors" message. And truthfully I don't have the competitiveness or ruthlessness it takes to be an entrepreneur.

So why do I blog? When I first started, I had just moved to a new city, and I needed the connectedness, the feeling that I wasn't alone in the world. I still love that about blogging, but I don't think I need it anymore. I also love blogging for the cathartic-ness of it, but I'm not sure that makes up for the emotional downsides. And I love the writing, but maybe it's time to find other outlets for my words.

When I've complained before about people being mean on the Internet, my husband comments, "That's true, so if you're really serious about being a blogger, you need to develop a thicker skin." Well, I don't think I can or want to. And if I quit blogging and go back to my normal life, I might actually get some projects done around here that have been sitting on a shelf for two years, and I might be able to enjoy a morning outdoors with my children without it being spoiled by people I don't even know and events I have no control over.

So after all these thoughts, the conclusion I've come to is that I need a break. I'm going to take a week off to think about some things, and see where it takes me.

My Reusable Life

>> Thursday, June 17, 2010

Have you ever heard the argument, "You would have to go through X-amount of styrofoam cups to equal the environmental impact of ONE mug, so there's nothing wrong with using styrofoam cups." (Or variations on that theme?)

Here's why I think that argument is totally bogus:

When our lives are filled with cheap disposable products, we develop a throwaway mentality. We don't value things because they're so easily replaceable. We don't value the materials that went into them or the labor that built them. They pass through our lives so quickly, why would we give them any thought?

When I hold a styrofoam cup in my hand, I barely notice it's there. It looks just like every other styrofoam cup I've ever held, and in a few minutes, I'll toss it into the trash without a second thought. When I hold my stainless steel water bottle, I think of the thought process that went into choosing it and how much it cost, and I feel good for making a good choice. I remember taking walks or playing outside with my kids because the water bottle came along. I keep track of it; I don't want to lose it. It's on my mind.

I have a sentimental attachment to my children's cloth diapers, in the same way I grew attached to some of their baby clothes. When I see a disposable diaper, I think, "Ewww...stinky garbage." Even when they're not on a child, don't you think of them as kind of gross? (Or is that just me.)

Even our stained cloth napkins and mismatched food containers and the hankies made from my husband's old shirts carry memories in every use, though perhaps they don't have as much sentimental value as the TV I bought ten years ago when I rented my first house or the raggedy couches that were our first grown-up furniture purchase.

Is it silly to feel attached to inanimate objects? I don't think so because those objects are made from materials that come from the earth, and caring for the materials is one more way to strengthen my connection to the planet I love. Those objects are made by human hands, and caring for the objects shows respect for the people that created them. And those objects enter our homes and become part of us in ways large and small. When we fill our lives with objects we care about, it shows that we care about our lives.

I do not live a throwaway life. Do you?

If you're new to a reusable life, you might want to check out Reuseit.com for cloth bags, water bottles, lunchboxes, and more.

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Disclosure: I am an ambassador for Reuseit.com. Check out my About page for more info on what that means and always remember to be a Conscious Shopper.

CSA: Community Supported...Artists?

>> Wednesday, June 16, 2010

My post today at the Green Phone Booth veers a little away from green living to talk about one way to help musicians make an album without a major record label:

Recently I came across one more way for musicians to bypass the major record label through this appeal from one of my favorite bands, Over the Rhine:

Friends, the good news is this:

In 2010, there is no middleman.

It's just us and you.

So, for the first time in our career, we are simply going to appeal directly to you, the people who care about Over the Rhine's music, and ask if you will partner directly with us in making this new record....

Whatever funds we are able to raise will go directly to our label, Great Speckled Dog, to help take care of this new music we will make. It will be used to help cover actual recording costs, and give the songs the best send-off into the world that we can afford.

Read more...