Being green was never something entirely far from my mind. In the early 90's I remember a lot of very green themed things coming on Nickelodeon. I remember having a book full of earth saving activities that children could do. After some of my first initial trips to health food stores with my mother I had a desire to spend my entire allowance at them regularly.
I also remember when Wal-Mart came to my town and wanting to spend my allowance there. By that time I had already been changed.
There have been a few of these periods of change in my life, where I would be far more earth or energy conscious for a time. What would happen? Basically I would let other people beat down or discourage my principles until I just didn't follow through in the same ways anymore.
Like a lot of young couples out there my husband and I have had a lot of financial hardships. Some of these hardships were brought on by entirely uncommon circumstances that I won't go into.
When I was pregnant with our first child, a woman I was test knitting for at the time told me I should cloth diaper. There was something about her approach to get me to do it that turned me the other way. This means we spent tons of money we really didn't have to buy disposable diapers and contributed to toxic chemical laden landfills we weren't actively thinking about.
One of the more common problems my husband and I have faced has been having no money, no gas, and no more diapers. Remembering that if we had even just a few cloth diapers that we could make it until pay day and keep our child's bottom properly covered, I began looking into it.
It took a little while for me to change my tune. Initially I thought that diaper services and frequent washing in hot water made the use of cloth diapers negate some of the positive environmental impacts I would prefer we have. Then there was of course all of the poop-related fears that most people seem to have.
After reading, "Green Mama: The Guilt Free Guide to Helping You and Your kids Save the Planet", things began to seriously change for me. We switched out regular disposables to chlorine-free and bought two FuzziBunz one size elite pocket diapers. Two weeks later when another pay day came we bought two more. Our intention was to try to slowly increase the amount we had but the money just kept running too short to afford any more. I did my best to wash as frequently as possible to make those four FuzziBunz go as far as possible.
While I was reading "Green Mama", I also saw a documentary that was available for view-it-now on Netflix called, "Chemerical", and my interest in a chemical-free life was reborn. I immediately recommended it to my mother.
"Green Mama" inspired me to read a lot more books about going green, the next one for me was, "Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying". Unable to get enough I started reading blogs, pins, tweets, and fanning Facebook pages.
The creation of this blog had a lot to do with my desire to document, share, and maybe even educate about green living. So whatever it is that inspires you to make even the smallest of green changes in your life, don't be afraid of seeing where that can take you.
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