First of all, I want to give a shout out to Mrs. Green - she has a great little site on living green that you should definitely go and check out.  She’s the reason I gave myself the proverbial kick in the rear and started on my resolution this year to become more green.

The problem with the transition to going green is that it’s not easy. In fact, it’s really rather overwhelming even thinking about changing the way in which we live our days. Sure I always recycle when possible, I’ve started changing my lightbulbs, and always find a way to reuse things - like sour cream containers and plastic bags - but this is simply not enough. In the past I’ve thought about going green, but given excuses why I can’t. After all, I can’t just go out and buy a hybrid car or change all my appliances. The cost of going green in some ways is staggering isn’t it? Then again, we have to consider the cost of not going green. Am I the only one who sees all the strange weather and severe weather events going on in the US and feel a little disconcerted? Surely not.

So this week I’ve made a decision - each and every month I’m going to make one more step to going green. Starting out simply, I intend by the end of the year to have a much greener house than I do at present. I can’t be much more specific in how I’m going to approach this at present, because frankly I don’t know how. And maybe that’s a good first step - get educated.

This month, I will start to reduce the amount of packaging I’m using. On my last shopping trip, I bought some cloth bags-five to be exact. Next time I shop, I’ll buy a few more.  At 99 cents each bag, I’ve decided I can only allocate a small portion of my already tight grocery budget to buying them, but by mid-month I’ll have all the bags I need. Also, I’m going to take my own cup along whenever I go out for coffee. These changes seem simple enough for me to handle with a 7 week old in the house.

I want to say too, we need to do something about the availability of greener cleaners. I’m not really ready for vinegar and baking soda cleaners. I’m going to tell you a dirty secret - I love the smell of bleach, and I just can’t imagine cleaning with things that don’t smell clean. So I’ve been hunting for the new Clorox Green Works to try out - and did you know I tried five stores before I finally found them? How can we make better choices if they’re not readily available? I had to go out and buy the usual cleaners because I finally ran out and needed some and couldn’t find the green choices in Target, Walmart or the local grocery store chains. Now that I have a supplier (Wegmans for all you Western New Yorkers), I’ll be buying those next round. But say, are they really greener? Is Pine-Sol (an essential oil, which are supposed to be good) a green choice? And where can I find these answers?

There seem to be more questions than answers right now, but I’ll just have to take things one step at a time.  Cheers all!