Last night we checked “Dinner at the Pool” off our list of summer goals.
There are two other families in our neighborhood who recently (within the past year or two) had their third child. All of our garages have been stacked with boxes to take to a thrift store. I can’t even remember how many times we have loaded the back of the car with stuff we were cleaning out since Holly has been born. We want to enjoy our kids and each other and be able to invite friends over easily and the excess stuff as become a burden. If we have a thousand towels, we have to do more laundry and pick up more towels from the floor. If we have thirty five water bottles, it’s water bottles spread all over the house (DRINKS ONLY IN THE KITCHEN!) and more dishes to wash. If there are too many toys for the shelves, there are toys everywhere and we will all go crazy.
We were already in simplify mode. That seems to be the best way to adapt to a bigger family and really be able to enjoy it. When the boys were doing vacation bible school, Holly and I went to the library one day. I was able to browse through the shelves instead of either reserving what I wanted ahead of time or frantically grabbing and shushing before heading to the kids’ section. I randomly picked up the book Zero Waste Home, and it was fascinating. It’s a family of four (two older kids, probably in the 12 year old range?) who produce only a quart of trash a year.
As I’m reading the book, I get to the chapter on grocery shopping. The woman brings a pillowcase to the bakery every week and gets it filled with ten freshly baked baguettes. This is my wake up call: their lifestyle is in many ways far superior to mine. Regular sliced bread in a bag off the shelf or a fresh baguette? So many things in their life were so easy that they had more time for fun things.
So we went to the splash pad earlier this week and I brought strawberries, a baguette, and a few hardboiled eggs. Things I didn’t have to do: make sandwiches, eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, wash sandwich dishes. The lunch was delish and everyone liked it. I’m not swearing off peanut butter and jelly, but expanding our options is making things easier and better for all of us.
The fact that we have bread bags made out of cloth napkins might actually give me hipster cred as far as living in the suburbs go…but only if you close your eyes to the single serving formula packet next to it.
I’m thinking good causes should plead their case to human nature’s selfish side, rather than human’s unselfish, for-the-greater-good side. Breast feeding advocates try this a little by saying breast feeding is convenient, but that’s both a joke and a lie. Who thinks it’s convenient to take off your shirt in a public place? They should say that breastfeeding will make your hair so thick and beautiful that you can pretend you’re a popular teenage girl. Reusable grocery sacks? Obviously the primary reason to use these is environmental. But appeal to the selfish: Save Time and Get Your Groceries Unloaded Quickly! If I ever forget my bags now, I pretty much give up because there’s no way I want to deal zillion plastic bags, multiple trips from car to house, then worry that someone is going to suffocate on one. My own personal reason for buying less stuff is that I’m just sick of constantly picking up the stuff we have; I don’t want to do more of that.
I’m not going to pretend that I can get our family down to a quart of trash a year and I’m not taking every bit of advice in the book. I’ve crossed over from talking about using cloth diapers to accepting that it’s just not happening here- I’m sorry, you beautiful earth- and mascara falls pretty high on the list of things I don’t want to give up. But the book had some really great ideas and we are going to attempt something that seems obvious now, but never occurred to me before: switching our kitchen trash can into a recycling bin. Most of what comes out of our kitchen is either compost or recycling anyway, so we’re going to give it a try. We’ll put a small trash can in the kitchen and see what ends up in there. Real reason: Good for the earth. Selfish reason: Avoiding taking the recycling out to the bin in the sweltering garage multiple times a day.
I’ve mentioned it before- my grandparents had a bathroom sized trash can in their kitchen. Maybe we can do that, too.
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