First Post!

So.... I've been thinking about starting a blog for a few months now, and since I am procrastinating on grading papers, now seems like the perfect time :)

I spend hours reading other peoples' blogs and have finally gotten jealous -- maybe jealous isn't the right word -- inspired is more like it. I have the feeling that writing about my family's journey to greenness might actually help us get there.

We haven't been total slackers. We gave up plastic bags a long time ago and recently started bringing our own bags for bulk foods. We try not to drive much (often fail there), and we eat an almost vegetarian diet (with the exception of happy meat, which is so expensive that we don't eat much of it). But there is still lots of room for improvement.

I am going to be dedicating this week to getting "un-stuffed". With three kids, we have accumulated a bunch of stuff in the house. I feel like I spend most of my day picking it up. Grrr... So what's green about that? Well, here's my theory:
- The more time I spend picking up/cleaning/sorting/grumbling about stuff, the less time I can devote to other more useful activities.
- If we can pare down the junk, we can continue happily living in a fairly small (about 900 sq. ft) living space. We have been thinking about moving lately, and it will cost a lot more to maintain/heat/cool/clean/etc. a bigger space.
-We just went camping, and didn't bring any toys. The kids were happy playing with sticks and climbing trees. That seems much more wholesome (and therefore greener) than throwing a bunch of plastic toys around the room.
-It's not just the toys. It's my stuff too.

So, this week I plan to collect one bag of stuff we don't need each day and donate it. In our apartment complex, it is typical to leave toys and clothes in the laundry room or outside the dumpster for other families to take, so I prefer to do that rather than send it to Goodwill. But either way, one bag a day to the laundry room or to Goodwill (if there's too much stuff in the laundry room and it seems like it might get thrown away).