I’ve been thinking lately about the packaging that we use. Something like 25% of all garbage is made from packaging. I was eating organic Barbaras cereal today and wondered why they need to package a plastic bag full of cereal inside a paperboard box (paperboard that our late-blooming town won’t recycle). Why not sell cereal in just a plastic bag? Taking that line of reasoning further, maybe I should just start making my own cereal again. I can buy everything in bulk and use these reusable bags to bring it all home.

I’m wanting to cut out my ziploc use too. I’m thinking of ways, and suggestions to eliminate this plastic consumption. What’s your favorite reusable container? I’m also thinking I need to get my hands on some oil cloth so I can make these for sandwiches. Surely my meager sewing skills can handle this. (Don’t you think that Amy Butler fabric on the outside would be so cute?!) And I spent the last of my google money (thank you dear readers for clicking my ads!!!) on this lunch container.

There is just so much to think about! But I’m going to keep taking small steps, think of ways to save money and make a smaller footprint and realize that not everything has to be instant, super convenient and easy. Sometimes it’s the harder things that are more worthwhile. I still can’t help but get a little happy with I dump my laundry soap into the wash and think that I made it all myself!

Edit: Here are some great stainless steel containers too!

• Tonight I start a toe up, two-at-a-time sock class. I think I’m going to whip up a pair of socks with the class – I love knitting socks on 7’s – so fast!

• Speaking of knitting, there is so much I’ve finished that I haven’t taken pictures of! Here is the Frontier blues cardi from the current issue of Knitscene. I used Jo Sharp Desert Aran Cotton. It’s nice. And it’s not in my size! See what I get for knitting for Tangle?

• It was slow today at the store so I caught some of Martha. She was recovering a foot stool and gave me the idea to iron interfacing onto the back of my AB fabric for the dining room chairs. I’m wondering if it’s worth it to unstaple the 3 out of 4 chairs that I’ve already covered so the fabric will be more sturdy? Maybe I should just take home more fabric and save the interfacing idea for the next time I cover them? Lord knows with Honor, that will be soon despite the scotch guard (which I felt very environmentally guilty about using, btw).

• After our freakish snowfall on May 1st (I’ve never!), I finally think it’s safe to plant tomatoes. I’m also going to plant a bunch of impatiens in the front yard, which will be a first for my lazy self. Jim is installing a new sprinkler for me so I don’t have to water!

• All I want to do is be in the back yard, tidy up the house, bake yummy low-cal things, make my own everything soap related, run, and enjoy the outdoors. Here’s to more of all of that!

how can I recycle this? – a great blog with tons of ideas for recycling those less-than-usual items.

Also, recycled fencing bags – LOVE them!

And I think I want to start using shampoo bar soap rather than chemicals out of a bottle. Something like this, extra points if I figure out how to make it. (Oh, and I’m going to try.)

But on a more serious note about environmentalism and sustainability, I think I’ve stumbled into something that is just on the verge of giving me an ah-ha! moment. Something that speaks to all parts of who I am and something that is written by someone who, although not a believer, acts and thinks like the Christ that so many of us claim to follow. There are so many parts of what Colin Beavan writes that stuck out to me, but this paragraph says so much:

The point of asking such questions on a personal level–or I should say one of the points–is not to come up with an answer so much as to shake my confidence in the false answers–like that my life is for getting more. Maybe since, as they say, you can’t take it with you, my life is about giving more–which naturally leads to a sustainable lifestyle.

Rather than butcher his words, I will let you read them yourself.

I’m just thinking about how much of my life is inwardly focused, how much of my energy is put into wanting something more, rather than being content with what I have, and how much of our culture is geared to having bigger and better and more and more. Can that really be the point of life? I don’t believe that it is, but are my actions following my beliefs? Dear reader, are your actions following your beliefs?

I have much to think about.

Today is no pants day.

That is all.