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Monday, September 19, 2011

It is not Easy Being Green




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I  think Kermit the Frog said it best. Even though my brothers and I grew up in a Green Family. We did not realize it growing up but looking back there were many signs of it.
  • My parents bought property out in the country that had enough land to garden on.
  • They built their house in stages, paying for it as they went, the only mortgage they had was on the land itself.
  • My mother put a vegetable garden in the FRONT YARD. Unheard of even in the 70's, controversial today.
  • My mother nursed her children during a period time when breastfeeding was at an all time low.
  • We recycled cans and newspapers. Taking them to the recycle depot ourselves
  • My mother canned her garden’s bounty.
  • My father harvested dead wood for our wood stove. That means he did not cut down any green wood, just the dead wood in the forest. This is beneficial for the forest as in that it allows for sunlight to get to the forest floor and promote new growth.
Flash forward, to now. Somehow I returned my roots. We garden organically, I buy local food, I cook from scratch, line dry my clothes, I breastfed my children. But it is not always easy being green. Those who live a green lifestyle often have to work at it. For us recycling still means driving it to a collection point. My kids have to take out not only garbage but the compost. Being green means we keep our house hotter than normal in the summer and cooler than normal in the winter. Being green means we use alternative health solutions. Often times people don’t understand our lifestyle choices. Sometimes they are curious, sometimes they just don’t want to understand.
So what can you do?  Continue to stick to your convictions.  Living a green lifestyle is not anything new, it is not a fad or a trend, and if you are looking for some encourage or inspiration check out these great Green Blogs.
Good Girl Gone Green
Big Green Purse
Becoming Crunchy
What challenges have you overcome to live your Green Lifestyle?


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4 comments:

Feeding Four said...

I think the hardest thing for me was everyone else's reaction. Especially my family. They are in NO way green and we are semi green. We compost, recycle, garden, buy local, eat (mostly) whole foods, etc. My dad doesn't understand why I say something when he leaves the water running when he brushes he teeth. Or why I take the plastic bottle out of the trash and throw it in the recycle bin.

Lisa - the Granola Catholic said...

The reaction of others can be hard, my family is used to our lifestyle by now, even asking where to put the compost. These days I seem to run up across people who tell me - oh I don't have time for doing THAT, whatever that is, recycling, gardening. Or THAT costs too much. But when you don't have car payments you can choose organic foods for your family.

Lauren-Mae Cook said...

Amen! Those who join because it is a fad usually peter out as with any other 'fad'. I love it because I can use creativity and skills that my be pretty much unheard of!
I patch my husbands well-worn work clothes, we live in a small house heated with wood, I garden, can, freeze, dehydrate a lot of our food, I try to think of uses for used items, if I can't it's off to the recycle bin with it!

Charise @ I Thought I Knew Mama said...

Wow - what awesome parents you have! No, it's not easy being green, but I definitely feel like the more green you get, the easier it gets in some ways. Green choices become habit and it's almost hard to remember how you did things before. :-)

Thanks for linking up!

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