Green Living in 2014
Welcome to the January 2014 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Starting the New Year Off Green. This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project through the Green Moms Network. This month, our members are reflecting on the successes they had from last year, and setting goals for themselves this year. Check out all of the posts to get ideas on how you can start your New Year off green!
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Prior to having a baby, I've always known that I was slightly weird. Ha, I say weird but really I just mean that I had a tendency to like and do weird things. And I say weird like talking about organic and natural stuff is weird but to some people, it just is.
I've always wanted to do things the natural way and buy natural things; but when you're busy and not thinking about it, you don't always take the time to do the things you want. Life is so busy that sometimes we think making any change is going to be too much of a hassle.
Fast forward to May 2013 when my baby was born and I quickly decided that those "weird" changes I had wanted to make needed to be done sooner rather than later. Researching things about chemicals and toxins and learning about different things that harm our environment quickly had me looking for alternatives that were much more natural and green.
For me, the last six months of 2013 brought about many changes. My goal is to live a simpler, natural lifestyle. Sure I still have my weakness for cute clothes for both myself and my daughter and I'm hooked on several different television shows, but I am on a mission.
I'm on a mission to live with fewer chemicals, less toxins and to live eco-friendly. My thoughts about living eco-friendly is that we have ONE planet and we all know that it's not always doing too hot with all the pollution, chemicals and crap we put in it. So I can be ONE person who strives to take care of it for the future of my children and grand children.
Let's take a look at some of my natural lifestyle changes in 2013:
- Natural Skin Care: After learning about the carcinogen issue with Johnson and Johnson's baby products, I quickly went on a mission searching high and low for natural skin care for both my baby and I (hubby won't budge). If you could see the bottles of skin care that I have thrown away for myself (granted some were years old) you'd die. But I want the toxins out.
- Cloth Diapers: Ha, never in one million years did I see this one coming. About one month into diapering my baby girl I started realizing how many diapers we used a day and I just knew that it couldn't be good for the environment. I learned that disposables are full of nasty chemicals and that they sit in landfills for thousands of years. I then switched to The Honest Co. diapers (which I LOVE) but by September I made the switch to cloth diapers and I love it. I love knowing all of the good I am doing with my cloth diapers!
- Natural Cleaners: While I was pregnant I had started trying to use natural cleaners, but then I found out that those natural Lysol and Clorox cleaners still weren't really natural. I now mainly use homemade cleaners, baking soda and some Honest Co. products.
- Glass Food Storage Containers: I ditched old Tupperware and invested in nothing but glass Pyrex (and some Anchor brand) sets for our food. My husband takes food to work each day and heats it up in the microwave. I hated the thought of him getting all of those chemicals in his food. Now we use all glass and just have some plastic for emergency use.
- Natural Laundry Detergent: Not much to say about this, I switched and notice no change in our clothes, so hey it works. Obviously expensive crap really doesn't do anything different.
- The Honest Co. Baby Wipes: These are biodegradable and free of fragrance and chemicals.
- More Organic Food: I strive hard to buy organic when I can and truthfully it is NOT that much more. Sometimes there is hardly any difference in price.
- Research: I read and research about the different ways to live more natural and the effects that certain chemicals can have on us.
- Reusable totes: One of my favorite changes!
- Make my own baby food: This isn't a change, just a new step to live my life more natural.
- Breastfeeding: Again not a change, but a commitment to my child to provide her with the most natural nutrition possible.
My Goals for 2014:
- Improve my recycling. I started recycling plastics towards the end of the year but didn't do too great. I'm improving that and also now recycling paper.
- Eat even more organic food. I plan to actually make the drive to Whole Foods and the farmer's market this year.
- Eat more local produce. This could go with number 2 -- I love going to the farmer's market and want to support local farmers!
- Enjoy outside more. I am waiting for spring. With a baby who is almost a year old, I plan on having a ton of fun exploring outside.
- Eat Less Processed food. I want to make sure that I teach my child about healthy eating. I know from my research that preservatives and additives are really bad so I want to eliminate the processed stuff. I've been good about our cooking for awhile now, it's mostly meats and veggies and grains for us. I just have a bad habit of snacking on processed stuff!
- Use more cloths for cleaning. Simple cleaning can be done with cloths rather than paper towels -- I just need to remember to grab the cloth!
- Use paper towels and toilet paper made from recycled materials.
Living naturally and green really isn't that life changing. Little changes add up and over time you start to notice that you're doing quite a bit of new things that really weren't too much of a hassle. I'm proud of the changes that I have made so far and look forward to learning new things in 2014!
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Visit Happy Mothering and The Pistachio Project to learn more about participating in next month’s Natural Living Blog Carnival!
Please take some time to enjoy the posts our other carnival participants have contributed: