Ways to Honor the Earth!

Welcome to the April 2014 Natural Living Blog Carnival: Honor the Earth.

This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Natural Living Blog Carnival hosted by

Happy Mothering

and

Crunchy Farm Baby

through the

Green Moms Network

. This month, our members are talking about how they honor the Earth year round. Stop by all of the posts to get ideas on how to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle.

Visit

Happy Mothering

and

Crunchy Farm Baby

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:

Raise your hand if you've ever thought about recycling.

Is your hand down or up?

Have you ever considered buying one of those $1 reusable totes at the grocery store?

Nah,

why should you do those crazy things? Well we all

should

do something to honor this great planet of ours. After all, most of us have children and this is their home too. This is the home that they will grow up in and the world that we will leave behind for them and their children. It's a sad reality that our planet is falling apart due to our wear and tear on it. Life is now all about what is easy and convenient and less about what is real, whole and natural.

Living a greener lifestyle doesn't necessarily mean making crazy, hippie like changes (personally, I like hippies). It simply means that you become more conscious about the environment and the things that you do that can impact it. For me, the kick in the butt that I needed was having my sweet baby (almost) a year ago. She has opened my eyes and given me such a desire to protect her. I want to help start her life off healthy and natural.

So what are some things that we do?

Well it started with switching to

natural skin care products

and then cloth diapers.

Cloth diapers

are AMAZING for the environment. I love how some people try to argue that they are bad because of the water you have to use to wash them,

but um

 last time I checked, I had to use water for ALL of my laundry (so your argument is lame folks). Disposables sit in landfills for like 1,000 years --

um

that is pretty crappy in my opinion; not to mention the trees and oil that is used to manufacture them as well. Disposables also harm our water ways when they make the cross into our water (from landfills) and because of the

chemicals

in them, it can harm the life inside of those waterways. I'm saving money and the environment by using cloth!

My next step was becoming much more informed about the products I used around our home. While much of that was done for our own health, reducing toxins can reduce the air pollutants and help protect Mother Earth. Did you know that the

air inside of your home

is much more toxic than the air outside?

Shocker.

Make sure to take advantage of the sunlight while you can and dry your clothes outside and open up the windows to avoid using electricity. I'm proud to say that our lights stay off most of the day (my father would be so proud).

Other ways that I live my life green is to strive to reduce our plastic usage. I use reusable shopping totes; glass storage containers instead of tupperware; and I strive to purchase my child eco-friendly wooden toys

instead of plastic ones

(however, yes we do have plastic toys). In terms of diet I strive to eat healthy, but hey that's really just about me and not the planet. BUT - shop locally for produce and support your local farmers as well. Keeping our local farmers in business is an advantage all the way around. Another way to incorporate this into your lifestyle is to make

homemade baby food

. How does this honor the Earth? Well for one if you purchase local it supports our farmers, but also it reduces manufacturing pollutants and a ridiculous amount of baby food jars being thrown away each year.

And lastly, I finally achieved my goal of recycling! I won't lie; this is perhaps one of the most fun and rewarding changes that I have made. When you toss things in your trash can you don't really see how much of it is in there, it's easy to think that you don't

need

to recycle.  However when you have a recycle bin just for plastic, you'll be amazed at just how much you accumulate in a few days. I also recycle paper and cardboard and I am SO happy that I do this. I get deliveries at my door pretty much every day, and it makes me feel so good to know that all of those boxes don't just end up in landfills.

So how else can you Honor the Earth? You can enjoy it.

Go outside and enjoy the beautiful landscape around you. Pick some flowers and lay in the grass to look at the clouds. This Earth is a beautiful place. With a little bit of help, we can all keep it beautiful!

What are some things that you do 

to honor the Earth year round?

Thanks so much for reading, Sasha