Mindful Living

It’s December – an absolutely crazy time of the year to decide to start something, right? Well, not at my house! I already have 99.99% of my shopping done and have no desire to go shop with all of the crazies out there right now, so why not focus on something at home? I recently finished the majority of remodeling of the 3 bedrooms at my house (I’ll post pictures in a bit), so still have a good amount of paint, trimming and other stuff lying around, though it is in a confined area now. The learning experiences brought on by those projects re-sparked something long buried in my brain and has triggered the desire for more challenges – as if being a single parent, working full time, raising a kid with weird school hours while attending classes herself isn’t challenging enough.

Here are the challenges I have set for myself and my household (yep, that would be the one 15 year old boy):

• Review current expenses (utilities, insurance and the like) and adjust where necessary
• Be more mindful of the use of electricity in the home
• Start being more alert to ways of reducing the amount of trash disposed of weekly
• Start being more alert to ways of reusing/recycling items

All of these areas can be worked on by both of us, which will be some good lessons for my already smart and conscious teenager. This is just a spring board for things to come.

For the review of current expenses, I’ve decided to start with my city utility bill. For me, this covers water, sewer and trash/recycling pick up. What I know right now is the city provides a huge trash bin that is emptied weekly and a huge recycle bin that is emptied bi-weekly. I know they offer a smaller trash bin which likely costs less per month, so that is where I will begin my research for this one and see where it leads me.

Electricity usage – This is an area we’ve been fairly conscious of to begin with, but there is definitely room for improvement. I’ve already mentioned using the clothes line at times, though not all the time and my kids were always good about turning lights off when leaving a room. We do, however, tend to be bad about leaving the TV on – almost all the time! This is an area I am noticing Zack paying more attention to (some days more than others). He will realize he is reading a book and there is no need for the TV to be on if he is the only one in the room and turn it off. As a learning experience, I want to pull the last 12 months of utility bills and review the usage with him – then see if it can be reduced over the next few months.

Trash/recycle – For the most part, we fill the recycle bin way more often than we do the trash bin. However, we are extremely more wasteful than we should be. I decided the first big challenge here is to reduce or even eliminate the amount of Styrofoam purchased/used by the two of us. This is a big non-recyclable culprit at home, at the office and when eating on the run. Monday morning, I packed up a reusable water bottle to take to the office. Along with that, I grabbed a bowl (for morning cereal, yogurt or oatmeal), spoon and coffee mug (don’t drink coffee, but use it for tea, milk and juice). That means I don’t have to reach for the Styrofoam cup or bowl anymore! I also informed Zack this meant no more drinks from Whataburger – they use Styrofoam cups…maybe I need to write them and complain!