ONE GREEN THING

Lisa over at Retro Housewife Goes Green  inspired  me to do this with her “carbon fast” for Lent!

I was raised in a Catholic family where we all fasted, giving up something we liked as a sacrifice for the 40 days before Easter.  As a kid, it always seemed strange to me to give up something you liked instead of perhaps doing something that you knew was good, instead.

Also, considering all the bad press that has come out of the Catholic church in the past decade regarding  immoral behavior of numerous priests, which in many cases seemed to have been covered up–and the fact that I have two brothers were served as altar boys–I haven’t been actively participating in Lenten fastings.  (I won’t go off on a religious tangent here; perhaps another time.)

But . . . when I saw Lisa’s idea to do something GREEN each day for 40 days, I thought what a positive thing this could be . . . to participate in a “carbon fast!”  So, I’m in . . .

In order to keep myself accountable, I’m going to try to post my GREEN ideas each day.  I’ve decided they can be something small, anything new, that I can be doing, each for at least a day.  Things that work well I’ll work into my everday life style.

So here goes. . .

ONE GREEN THING #1: Walk instead of drive!

I just did this and it was easy!  My sister-in-law just called to say she wanted to stop by to see our new horse, Annabelle, and instead of jumping in the car to meet her at the barn, I walked crosslots through the orchard, even though it was COLD and I’d already made that trek a couple of times today.  It felt great!

ONE GREEN THING #2:  RECYCLE PRINT CARTRIDGES

I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time and, in fact, I’ve been saving used-up print cartridges.   I noticed a while ago that return-addressed envelopes came packed with my new  HP cartridges.  All you do is stick the empty cartridge (or two)  into the envelope, which goes to “HP Planet Partners,” at no cost to the sender (you). The empty inkjet cartridges are then recycled into raw materials for new HP products.

For more info, go to: www.hp.com/recycle or call 1-800-340-2445.

This is one green thing that must become a habit for me!  How ’bout you?