A Lifestyle Makeover

Sometime towards the end of 2012, I realized that I wasn't living my best life.  I had become complacent and wanted to make a change.  When I looked around the house, I noticed some areas that could use improvement.  I didn't like how much of our food was coming in a package of some sort.  I didn't like how much sugar our family was consuming.  I didn't like that we were using chemicals to "clean" our bodies and home.  I didn't like how high our electric/gas bill had gotten. I didn't like seeing how much water we were throwing down the drain.  I didn't like the person looking back at me in the mirror.  So I talked with Miguel and shared all of my fears for continuing to live an unconscious life.  I relayed the thought that I want to teach our children a better and healthier way to live so that they may have a solid foundation to build their lives upon.

With Miguel on board, I set out to research different ways of creating a more sustainable life for our family.  I figured we needed to start small as to not overwhelm ourselves into a panic*.  I started with food (since that is where I am most comfortable) and reduced our processed items greatly by making granola (instead of cereal), greek yogurt (Salem loves yogurt), bread, beans (dry instead of canned), and snacks from scratch. These items are just the beginning as I have a long to-do list in this department and will share my trials and tribulations as I knock off each new item. My end goal is to produce most everything under my roof using local resources for ingredients, which in turn reduces the amount of packaging and unwanted chemicals/sugar in our food.  Oh and we need to compost our kitchen scraps, then we would have barely any actual trash (since we recycle/reuse too).

Homemade granola and Greek yogurt

After reading a ton of blogs about sustainability and natural/simple living as well as discussing these topics with friends, we quit using shampoo/conditioner and replaced it with the baking soda/apple cider vinegar method. We moved away from chemical laden soaps in plastic containers and started using bars of ivory (which we also use in making detergents and such) instead.  We stopped using fancy 'no tears' baby wash and just use water and a wash rag now (Salem uses ivory when he's super dirty).  Coconut oil with a few drops of tea tree oil replaced our deodorant.  I'm still working on moisturizers since our skin is a bit dry, but we have been using coconut and olive oil when things get rough.  We use white vinegar as a fabric softener in the laundry as well as for cleaning;  we add it to saved citrus fruit peels to make citrus cleaner/degreaser.  In the very near future, I will be making laundry/dish/dishwasher detergents, hand soaps, body and face scrubs.

Brewing some citrus cleaner

Deodorant

I bought a drying rack for indoor line drying laundry and a programmable thermostat to regain control of heating/cooling our house.  We have been saving the cold start-up water (that first gallon or two of cold water before the hot water gets to the faucet) from the shower and leftover bath water then using that to flush the toilet.  We save the cold start-up water from the kitchen and use it to water the dog and plants as well as to soak Piper's dirty diapers.

After 3 weeks of line drying full time and using the programmable thermostat, our electric/gas bill was down $80 from the previous month

I started to workout regularly and changed my eating habits to reduce the amount of white sugars I consume.  I recently acquired the Insanity and P90X workout dvds from a friend and am finally in decent enough shape to attempt these programs.  For the first time in the last decade I feel in control of my life and cannot wait to share our progress towards a healthier and more conscious existence!

*Disclaimer: There are a few things that we were already doing that may have helped us transition easier, such as: Making most of our meals from scratch in the first place, limiting showers/baths to a few days a week, using more natural household cleansers, practicing the 'if it's yellow let it mellow, brown-flush it down' method for toilet flushing, etc.