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!

Keepin' It Green...Blog Action Day & BSM

Today is Blog Action Day, a day for bloggers to unite on one topic. This year's topic is the environment, a topic that I have blogged about before. Today, in order to increase the reach of my Blog Action Day post, I've decided to combine it with my Best Shot Monday...today's picture is of my kiddo enjoying our natural environment...and a few links to some of my other posts on environmental topics. (And yes, it's from the summer time. It's a little too cold around here for this kind of behavior now!)

Why save the world?

Because it's the only one we've got.

It is not ours to complete the task, but neither are we free to desist from it. (Ethics of our Fathers)

Changing the World, One Post at a Time...

Change the World, One Sandwich at a Time

Bottled Water Challenge

Re-usable Grocery Bags

See more Best Shot Monday here.

Learn more about Blog Action Day here.

Are you participating in Blog Action Day? Why not give it a go?

Re-Usable Grocery Bags - Work for Me!

I usually grocery shop at Sunset (a local chain), although at least once a month I hit Jewel or Dominick's. At Sunset, not only do they bag your groceries for you, they even take them out of the cart -- serious luxury for this girl! The other thing they ask you at Sunset is...."paper or plastic?" I must admit, I always thought that paper was the better choice...until I read these statistics:

plastic bags consume 40% less energy to produce than paper pags,

and plastic bags generate 80% less solid waste than paper bags.

as waste, paper bags produce 70 times more air pollutants than plastic bags,

and as waste, paper bags produce 50 times more water pollutants than plastic bags.

Plastic takes up to 1,000 years to decompose!
(stats from the Clean Green Bag)

The final answer...neither is really good. In fact, both are pretty darn bad.

So Sunday, at Dominick's, I picked up four of their re-usable tote bags, and the nice lady loaded my groceries into them. My thoughts:

- What would have probably filled at least 10 plastic bags all fit into 4 reusable totes and one plastic bag.

- They were pretty heavy but totally held up.

- The handles made them easy to carry.

- For only 99 cents a piece, they were a great deal!

Are they sturdy enough to hold up? Listen to this little facty: "A sturdy, reusable bag needs only be used 11 times to have a lower environmental impact than using 11 disposable plastic bags." (The Sierra Club) I think my bags will make it.

I'm so excited for them! (My only other question: Will Sunset care if I bring in Dominick's bags? Maybe that will convince them to get their own!!!)

Here are some links to sites where you can get reusable bags or learn more about them...

A bag roundup from this week's Chicago Tribune

Skeeda re-usable bags

Reusablebags.com

Morsbags

1 Bag at a Time

Here's my question for you: Would you use these bags? What would get you to do so? AND...what do you do with newspapers for recycling? That's the only thing I use the paper bags for. I can use the bags that come with the newspapers for diapers...

P.S. I ended up giving away all four of my bags to kids at Sunday School as I shared this story with them. Now I have to go and get more! But it was worth it -- the kids were so excited about promising to get their parents to use re-usable bags!

See more Works for Me Wednesday at Rocks in My Dryer...

No more Bottled Water - can you take the challenge?

My family has begun to swear off bottled water. It all started when my husband purchased a relatively expensive water filtration system for our house last September. You spent the money on that, I thought, so we should stop spending the money on bottles.

Well, it turned out that we all love our water filter. So much so that we took the darn thing with us to camp. (It only worked for a week, though, before the filter conked out. Camp water, very much in need of filtering.) We bought a bunch of Nalgene bottles and Camelbak bottles and we seem to be all set.

Who knew we were on the cutting edge of environmentalism. Not me.

But we are. There are now articles about how bottled water isn't better. And how it's an example of our overconsumption and indulgence. There are campaigns to end bottled water consumption (see Think Outside the Bottle and Refill Not Landfill). And hey -- I'm all for it. I even put into both of our cars a stack of paper cups and straws so we can drink on the go from drinking fountains. (Straws make it all easier with the almost-2-year-old and more fun for all of us.)

Some facts to consider:

• Last year, Americans spent $15 billion on bottled water, even though bottled water isn’t healthier or safer than tap water.


• While the EPA regulates the quality of public water supplies, the agency has no authority over bottled water. Some studies indicate that certain brands of bottled water test positive for chemical and bacterial contamination at higher levels than tap water.


• One out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water. The global economy denies drinkable water to 1 billion people, while delivering to us an array of water “varieties” from around the globe, not one of which we actually need.


• Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year, 167 for each person. We pitch into landfills 38 billion water bottles a year - more than $1 billion worth of plastic (while the recycling rate for this particular kind of plastic is only 23%).


• We’re moving 1 billion bottles of unnecessary water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That’s a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (this one scares me!)
  

So...can you do it? Can you put an end to your bottled water consumption???
crossposted on rabbiphyllis.blogspot.com