The Cost of Keeping Warm

I live in a large, 2400 sq ft, house. I'd like a smaller house, but this was the balance I struck with my husband. So when it comes to those cold winter days, that Michigan has so many, we use a lot of natural gas to heat our house.

I have always kept my house cool. I do not like warm houses in general, and I have been too cheap, errr frugal, to heat it above 68 max! My rule of thumb is the house is too warm if you do not have to wear a sweater/sweatshirt inside during the winter months. But, last year and this year I have made a conscious choice to reduce my thermostat setting to an even lower temperature. FM is oh so agreeable, since I seem to be saving us more and more money.

Last year I kept the house at 66 in the day and 63 at night. I had a few comments regarding the coolness of my house from friends and family, and my poor father always wore a thick sweatshirt over his two other layers when he visited. But, those of us living in the house rarely seemed uncomfortably cold.

So this year I have cranked the thermostat down to 65 or 64 during the day, and 62 at night. I have had a few times when I am sitting at the computer or otherwise not being active during the day and I will feel cold. And I mean bone chilled cold. So, I get up, put on a hat (yes, hat indoors) and do something active. Unfortunately there is ALWAYS cleaning to be done in my house. I quickly warm up.

I have never been cold during the night, and have contemplated turning the temp. down even more. But, Gherky's room is always at least 5 degrees cooler than any room in the house. We pile on the blankets, comforters and quilts. She sleeps in footed sleeper PJs. But she is an active 5 year old and tosses a lot in her sleep, so the covers are usually lost by midnight. And then she wakes up cold, and ends up in our bed to warm up. So I am not sure about cooler nights.

But, the good news: I just opened up my heating bill and found out that keeping our house just one to two degrees cooler has saved us about .057 MCF a day this past November, which, btw, has been much cooler this year than last year. (No idea what the MCF measurement is, but it equates to almost $.60 a day and just shy of $20 month. I'll take that! I can buy a new sweater soon. he he)

Still, our poor heating bill was $100. Ouch!

Recycling What My Curbside Vendor Dosen't

So, in my little neck of the woods there are very few options for recycling. I used to live outside San Francisco, CA and recycling was so simple it was brainless. In fact, everyone did it, to some degree. There were those who only recycled the "obvious" stuff like newspaper and plastic and glass. But if you were so inclined, and I was, you could recycle everything but tinfoil and construction waste right in the HUGE weekly curbside recycling bin. It was awesome.

Not so much here.

Here, I pay extra for recycling. (Lets not get into the fact that my family of 4 only use 1/4 of the smallest garbage bin/allotment we can subscribe to, while other neighbors with smaller families have overflowing bins each and every week!) But the best garbage and recycling company I found only takes certain #1 & #2 plastics, newspaper and white office paper, and cardboard. That is it. If you want to recycle anything else you have to figure out some other alternative.

Luckily there is an organization you can pay to drop off your recycling stuff. But lets face it, that is not convenient nor affordable! I store up my "non-recyclable recyclables" for a month or so, and then throw the bag into my car and drive the 20 miles to the recycling station. Sounds so convenient, environmentally pleasing and fun, right? I do try to take a few other family's stuff in my trip, but still it is not so convenient, and there are many times when I just want to throw my glass container in the garbage bin and be done with it. ...for now, I know .....

Why is being environmentally aware and conscience so difficult??!

Line Drying in Winter

I have been line drying my clothes for quite a while now. It started in college and I was too poor to pay for drying my clothes. (Because really, beer was more important than soft dryer-dried clothing!) When I moved to California shortly after college I found myself poor, and simply unwilling to pay so much to the dryer, so I continued hanging dry my clothes. And in arid and hot California waiting for clothing to air dry was rarely an issue. Even when I was forced to hang clothing inside to dry.

But now I live in Michigan. The state where the sun never shines. OK, that is a little misleading - the sun is shining brightly right now, but it is rocking 25 degrees outside. That is my problem. How do you hang clothing outside to dry when it is below freezing? Or when it is raining?

Let me back up a bit too. I live in a subdivision. However, I am lucky and can hang out clothing to dry. Apparently the bylaws in most subdivisions forbid line drying clothing. (According to laundrylist.org - which has an awesome energy and cost calculator for washing and drying laundry; check it out!) Who'd a thunk something as simple and basic as drying laundry would be regulated by neighbors!! Good Grief!! But I digress ....

FM absolutely hates my line drying clothing. In our last house we compromised and a small line was eventually hung in an out of site spot in our back yard. But our current house does not have an "out of sight" spot, and therefore we went round and round about my laundry line.

He flat out refused to put one up for me. So, left to my own devices, and trying to respect his feelings and be true to me (finding that balance everywhere in my life!) I finally made a small line just outside my walk-out basement door. It works great; it is convenient to the washer, holds a full load of laundry, and is relatively hidden by shrubbery and the house.

But it is outside and in the elements. And lets face it, MI has plenty of elements to interfere with outside line drying! So now I am trying to figure out a way to bring in this line and still manage my laundry needs for a family of four. And keep the wonderful FM happy.

And What About Meat?

My immediate family is not vegetarian; we usually eat meat at one or two meals a day, and only have a meat-free meal one day a week or so. These meet-free meals are not conscious choices, they just happen. Lately I have been forced to contemplate the impact of our meat eating choices. There simply has been way too much chatter out there in the universe regarding not only the ethical aspect of eating meat, but also the environmental aspect.

First, some background on me. I grew up on a farm where, during various points in time, we raised chickens, beef cattle, and hogs. This was a very small operation, as farming was my dad's "hobby," but still we had 100 hogs all throughout high school, and as a junior high student I frequently had 25ish hens for egg laying.

Our neighbors, however, were all full time farmers, eking out a living from the land. One neighbor had a dairy farm. Another neighbor had a decent poultry flock, selling eggs at farmers market as well as butchered chickens, turkeys, geese, and ducks - which I frequently helped kill and clean. So, I am intimately familiar with the small, Mom & Pop method of raising animals.

But the small farm operation is becoming a rarity. Large "livestock mills" are taking over our livestock production. Computers are making it easier to automate feeding, milking, cleaning, butchering and virtually everything related to taking care of and processing animals. My "reality" of farm life is really an outdated mode. (which says a lot about my age as well as the development of our food chain!)

I am forced to rethink my values. My knowledge of what happens in the large farms is really unknown. Yes, I have seen documentaries, and heard stories. But really, that is all second hand. I do not *know* how these animals are treated and raised. And this is beginning to bother me. On many levels.

I do care about how the animals are treated. I do not expect livestock to be catered to like a family pet, yet I do expect the food I eat to have been treated with respect and care ... like all our animals were on the family farm. We named some, simply because you notice personalities after taking care of them every day for months in a row.

When one was acting "different" I took the time to see if it was sick, which in hind sight, sick animals were really rare on the family farm. But they were kept clean, and fed and watered almost individually. They were able to roam outside, and come inside for shelter if the weather was cold, wet, or hot. They were able to eat grass, bugs, or whatever their "natural" diet should be. Granted we fed them grain (a whole 'nother topic of discussion) and other supplements, but they were allowed, heck - encouraged - to eat on their own too.

So, now I am looking at the rows and rows of meat in my local grocery store, and I am becoming more and more turned off. Where did this stuff come from? What kind of life did it have? And how much of the animal was cast aside as "by-product" because we Americans only eat the prime cuts of meat. Lets not even get into the carbon footprint of raising these animals, because that is a big issue I am dealing with too. Large farms concentrate waste in small areas. Sigh.

I do like meat, and I cannot imagine changing that part of my diet right now. And, what would that do to our economy too? If a large sum of people stopped consuming meat, what happens to our farmers that are part of that food chain? I have thought of only buying local meat, from farmers I know and trust. And using the entire animal. But what IS the entire animal? Do I make headcheese from a pig? Do I pickle heart and tongue? (Well, I actually do like that, but liver, blech!!)

Anyway, I am just contemplating how I am going to rectify my dietary concerns with my ethical concerns. It is a big issue to contemplate and come up with an appropriate response, one that I feel comfortable with. Because right now, I do not have a good answer.

Humane Eggs

So, I am really trying to buy local and humanely raised animal products. Well, that is one goal of mine. It is a lot of work, not to mention expense. So, right now I am working on eggs, since there are still local farms around my neck of the woods that raise chickens and sell eggs. (I'd LOVE to have my own, but that is not in my immediate future. Possibly come summer. Maybe. Long story there.)

Anyway, so my search has begun to find a reliable source for farm fresh eggs. There is a farm withing 5 miles of my house that sells eggs at our local farmers market ... when they have extra. Apparently they have enough demand from current costumers to meet their hen's output. Especially now that the weather has turned.

So now I have the unique pleasure of scouring the countryside looking for eggs for sale, and then grilling the owners on their feeding and care of the hens. Yea, I look forward to that Inquisition!

Still Struggling with Wast Free Snack

Today I actually gave up and packed my two kids a waste lunch. I put all but the drinks in disposable plastic bags. The kids actually brought home the bags, and I will wash them and reuse them, but still .... I was running late and feeling too lazy/stressed to find a container to fit left over pizza. sigh

And then, I have not figured out how to solve my issue with Ziggy's snack. So far this year (6 weeks into the school year) she has lost 2 of my good containers. Normally she is a very responsible child, especially for a 7yr old, but trying to eat, play, and keep track of a plastic container, all within 10 minutes, is asking a lot, indeed.

So I still struggle.

Waste Free Snack & Lunch Challenges

I have two elementary aged kids,and they bring a lunch and snack to school daily. I have figured out a way to pack lunches without using disposable or single use products. I took inspiration from the Japanese style Bento Boxes and pack everything into one rather small container. It is amazing how much you can put into one container - when packed correctly. It took me awhile to learn this skill. I had some wet sandwiches, and squashed fruits.

But school snack is another challenge. Ziggy, my soon to be 7yr old, apparently eats snack at recess. Yes, you heard correctly, they eat food outside when they should be running around, and while they have dirty hands. I'm not so upset about the dirt (good for the immune system, in my opinion) but when they only have 10 minutes to run off some energy, why shorten it by eating a snack? And then my BIG complaint ... Ziggy keeps loosing my good containers!

So, I have succumbed to using disposable bags. I ask that they try to keep them, and occasionally they shove a bag into a pocket, but that means no yogurt and fruit, no hummus and carrots, nothing that requires a container. I guess I should not fight it, at least 2nd graders are still allowed a snack. My kids cannot go until 4pm without an afternoon snack. And frankly, I don't want them to go that long!

Yet again I find myself struggling to find that balance between what *I* would like to do and what I am forced to do due to the level of awareness of society. I'm giving up on this one for now. Given the choice between lost plastic containers vs. disposable bags .... disposable bags is a better choice I believe.

Does the Title Come With A Cape?

It was November 2007, on a dark and dreary night. I turned on my computer to find myself dubbed, "The Crunchy Crusader!" Well, I'm not entirely sure about the weather, but I gather it was dark when I first read my new description, as I always seem to be up till the wee hours of night working on my computer.

I belong to a small group made up of mothers interested in various aspects of natural living. (I call them my Granola Moms.) Some of the women in this group seem to be much "crunchier" than I perceive myself. Some, in fact, have habits and lifestyle modifications I aspire to maintain myself. But life in a conservative area of Mid-Michigan, and a family of 3 others, keeps getting in my way, making my transition slow and cumbersome. Or so I thought.

Feeling inspired by something in the cosmos, who knows what precisely, I decided to make some more changes in my Crunchiness that night. I made some comment about my new foray to my Granola Moms, and a whole conversation broke out about each member's real level of crunchiness. Lo and behold, it turns out I am much crunchier than I thought. I commented to my Granola Moms that I really could not be that crunchy. Thus came about the comment from one mother, calling me the Crunchy Crusader.

So what I want to know now, does the title come with a cape? Really. I could have fun with it!

A rambling beginning

I created this blog not only to document my journey to, what - environmental nirvana? (how narcissist does that sound!) No, it is more like documenting my journey of the awakening of my consciousness and changing my American Consumerism Habits to a more sustainable and green life. But this blog is mainly to help in my journey to find a balance between obtaining my environmental nirvana and living in harmony with my family within our current society.

What does that mean?

I hate half these trendy terms I just used to describe this bog and my journey. I hate that "going green" is such a trend these days, and so many of the efforts out there are really not addressing the root of the real issue. Simply put, how can "buying more green items" (which is, after all, the mainstream hype of the green movement. ) really save the planet or change the me-centric, pleasure obsessed, convenience driven society we have become?

We need to address more than our carbon footprint, more than reduce, reuse, recycle, more than consuming green products rather than highly toxic products. Yes, these things are a great start, and kudos to those who are making these changes! I started with these steps too! But we as a society must address the whole of our lifestyles and make some very fundamental changes that will mean radical changes to the habits that are so deeply etched into our subconscious.

This drastic and huge change, however, is very difficult to obtain (and sustain!) overnight. Going green overnight is rather like the heroin addict quiting cold turkey. You have withdrawals. You have triggers that make you fall off the wagon. You have people in your life that are enablers. And most importantly, you need good support to sustain long-term sobriety.

My name is Kay and I am an addict. I am addicted to convenience and consumerism

I have tried short periods of going green cold turkey. My family revolted, my communities thought I was nuts, and basically it was not inspiring to anyone around me. Even to my fellow crunchy friends. To be truefull, it was not inspiring to me either! I was miserable. It was such an extreme change for me that I felt miserable, and lets face it, who is going to maintain something that is miserable. I needed to find the balance between ending my addiction to convenience and consumerism, and living in society.

And so begins my journey to sobriety. I hope to document my successes, failures, and efforts as I struggle to find the balance between going green and living in society. I hope to develop a community to support me, so I do not feel alone in this journey. I hope to be inspired and educated. I hope to find that balance, and when I fall, I hope to find the courage to pick myself up and keep on going from where I fell.