Pass the Candle!!!

Thanks to Reiza and Jewschool for the link.

I am definitely going to do this with my kids. But how to be creative....hmm....maybe in front of the Jerusalem stone wall at the synagogue? I'll work on it.

Will you do it!?

Using Cloth Napkins - Works for Me!

About six months ago, I decided we were just creating too much garbage.

Remember, there are a lot of people living in my house. And we eat at home a lot.

Paper towels and napkins were being used at an alarming rate.

First we switched to kitchen towels instead of paper.

I went and got about a dozen extra towels (love Target) and committed to using them instead of paper towels. We kept our paper towel dispenser, but our consumption has gone down to about one roll a week. When do I use the paper towels? When we're out of the cloth ones (oops, forgot to do laundry) and occasionally for certain kinds of messes, like paint, which would stain the towels permanently. Otherwise, we've all become accustomed to the cloth towels.

Then I brought up the idea of cloth napkins.

And interestingly, my family went along with it just fine!

I ordered these wonderful napkins (and snack bags) from Gnome Clothes, a great little etsy store. They're a nice soft flannel, in different colors, and my kids love them.

(And then I hit Cost Plus and found a whole bunch of napkins on super clearance. I didn't care what color, and they are great.)

But the best part of the whole thing is this: I bought, while at Cost Plus, a pretty little wicker garbage can. And I leave it in the kitchen for the dirty napkins and towels. When it's full, we take it downstairs and wash napkins and towels. Perfect, don't you think?

We have cut our napkin use down to zero. I even put the cloth ones into lunch boxes.

(Except when we had a large party outside the other night. We actually had to look for paper napkins.)

What other disposables can we ditch?

I'm still working on it, and you can too, with Amy's challenge: Ditch the Disposables.

This napkin thing is working great for me.
Go see what other things are working for folks here....

I'm Having a Quickie too!

One person in my house likes to take looooooooonnnngggg showers.

Guess who.

It's not me.
It's not my husband.
It's not the little ones.
It's the 6 year old.

Yep, he likes to take long, steamy showers.

(Me, I can go from pre-shower to fully dressed for work in about 15 minutes!)

So when I saw that the Crunchy Domestic Goddess has a Quickie Shower Challenge, I knew this was the way to do it!

I told David all about my friend Amy, who lives in Colorado, and that she had a challenge for him. He was very excited, he even wanted to do it in under five minutes (which we did). And not only did David take a shower in about 2 1/2 minutes, he did it with his brother Sam!

Aren't you impressed that I showered two of my children in under 5 minutes?
They were really clean too.
Who knew that all it took was a timer challenge!? The allure of a challenge for a 6-year-old.

The only downside? Since Sam didn't quite get the idea of the "challenge" (2 years old is a little young to get it, right?), he was pretty upset at the abrupt end to his shower. We'll work on it.

Later in the evening, I even showed David Amy's blog and had him read the headline on the post. I introduced him to her children and we talked about all the ways that we can help the environment. He even told me that in his Kindergarten class they have cups with their name on them instead of throwing them out each day. I had no idea they were so environmentally-aware in his school.

I'm quite excited about this opportunity to cut down on our water usage.

According to Amy, "reducing the length of your shower by just one minute could save you up to 1,825 gallons of water each year." Wow! You can join the challenge too....

There are even cool shower timers available, although we used the kitchen timer. (Later, we timed toothbrushing too. I think I'm getting a bathroom timer.)

This is what is working for me this week!

P.S. The Kosher Cooking Carnival is up...take a peek!