brushing the dust off

Okay, so I fell off the wagon again. Please accept my sincere, biodegradeable apologies.

I haven't been doing much outside of my standard green routine - recycling, Klean Kanteen, saving paper, but even so, I'm not doing enough to make myself happy. I still haven't gotten in the habit of taking a reusable container with me to restaurants for leftovers. I haven't figured out a way to gently convince other people to do a little more, and I end up just watching people toss paper and water bottles in the trash. Because my city took away most of the fire station recycling drop-offs, I don't empty my home recycling often, and it just piles up (even though the place I drop it off now is half a mile away and next door to my boyfriend's house.)

The main thing I've been doing is my six-week period as a vegetarian. It is going very well and I find I even eat healthier snacks (except for Cadbury mini eggs.)

So, I need to get back into doing more and learning about more ways to be environmentally friendly. Soon I'll post a list of great books and websites that I use in my journey.

I have noticed that since I became committed to the environment, my brain is hard-wired differently. I cannot bring myself to throw something away unless it's absolutely not recyclable. I'm looking at you styrofoam. I save plastic bags for recycling and small trashcan liners. I hoard boxes. (Boy, do I hoard boxes.) I have tissue paper to last until my brother's 30th birthday (he's 18.) All this leads up to the urge I got to clean out my closet. The top shelves, where I store all of my extra junk and holiday decorations. This weekend and tonight, I pulled everything down, went through it, grouped it, put it in boxes and labeled it. I magically have a large hole on my shelf now from all the streamlining I did. Amazingly, I barely threw away anything. But it was difficult because there is always a pile of "Now what to do with this!?" And I just cannot throw anything away. I think it ended up going in a box labeled "miscellaneous", but at least it's somewhere and labeled. I flattened my extra boxes for future possible use. I found the super glue my boyfriend gave me a few weeks ago. I've got an "art station" with all of my paint, can tabs, wine corks and bottle caps for future recycled material projects. My next art project, however, will involve film canisters.

This has somehow become a stream-of-consciousness post and for that I'm sorry. I just don't have any tips coming to mind at the moment. I'll get back to that too, I promise.