April 2012 Kindness: Going a little more green

For our April kindness, we made an effort at living more 'green' at our house.  People have lots of thoughts about going green and global warming - our school of thought at the Studer house is that since we live on the Earth, we should try to make decisions about how to help take care of our home.  So we made some changes this April to do just that.

• We changed most of our paper bills and statements to online.  It was a little scary for me because for some reason a paper copy seems so much more real as a reminder and as proof that I paid it.  But, surprisingly, 'printing to PDF' feels just as good as a paper copy.
• We planted four trees in our very not shady backyard - Booboo even helped dig the holes. We planted two blossoming lilac trees (white flowers in summer) and two blossoming crab apple trees (pink flowers in spring).  Maybe you couldn't tell from reading that, but I'm kind of in love with blossoming trees.  Luckily, my husband likes to make me happy:)  (thanks Rudy for helping to get them in the ground!)

• We opted out of receiving any phone books at our house (in our zipcode we were receiving 4 phone books!)  You can opt out too if you are just using your phone or internet to do the looking up anyway by visiting this website.
• We bought re-usable snack bags and sandwich wraps from this etsy store so that Brandon's packed lunches & Greyson's togo snacks won't be stored in throw-away plastic baggies.  Not only are they adorable, but earth-kind too!

• We vowed to order beer on tap when we go out to eat (think: saying no to packaging waste)
• We buy phosphate-free powder laundry detergent and switched to using bar soap instead of body wash/bottled soap (again, think: better packaging waste decisions)
• we started recycling.  This seems like a no-brainer, except that we don't have recycling that comes to our house.  So we've organized a recycling center in our pantry (Grey is learning about separating plastic from aluminum!) and we drop off our recycling at our local center every Friday.  Luckily for Greyson, just around the corner of the recycle spot is a huge playground.  I think his mind is starting to associate recycling with playing...double bonus.

• Shhh, we finally registered Bullet & Trixie and now they have licenses.  oops, that was a long time coming.
• We adjusted the fridge & freezer temperatures.  Freezer up to 2 degrees and Fridge as is at 37 degrees.
• We upcycled (aka took out of our neighbor's garbage pile!  Hi, neighbors!!) a turtle sandbox and turned it into a rock box for Booboo's trucks.

We still have more things on our list that we want to do, so we moved some of our items on to our "50 things to do this summer" list (like build a bat house and hang a clothesline).  In case you need some inspiration to take on a new going green idea- here's some pics of mother nature at her finest.

a storm brewing overhead

this bird took a little break on my rear-view while I was at a stop sign...must be good luck, right?

trixie making friends with one of mother nature's smaller guys

the weather on our hill is sunny before the clouds break in the valley

spring sunset

And in case you're wondering what our "50 things to do this summer" list is, I got the idea from the tons of pins floating around (some are even lists of 100 - whaaat?!) I liked a lot of the stuff on many of the lists, but some of them were too specific or not enough so.  Well here come's a big surprise (heh), I made our own and its posted next to our 2012 goal lists on the fridge. Some of the list comes from things B and I did when we were kids in the summer and wanted to make sure our kids got to do them too.  Some of them are ideas from pins I've been hoarding for the season that I don't want to forget about.  Others are specific to our hometown/region.  And just in case you're itching to know - here is our list...maybe it will inspire some things to add to your family summer to do list?