have you hugged a tree?

i know i'm a day late, but... did you hug a tree? i wouldn't say that i literally hugged the maple in the back yard, but i have been trying to clean up my act this year and i'm proud of what i've done to be a little greener...

• i use totes when i go to the grocery... and they give me 5cents off my bill for every bag i bring! win win situation

• i have my compost bin in the backyard and i must say that if the dogs don't get it, the compost bin does. big marv loves him some veggies, so i can't say our scraps make it to the bin, but stale bread, banana peels and old fruit makes it in there. i just recently learned you can put your shredded paper in there, so looks like all those bills have somewhere to go!

• i recycle every possible thing i can. i have a bag that hangs on a cabinet door that we shove aluminum cans, boxes, magazines, etc into and when it fills up (i can fill up a bag in 1-2 days) i take it out to the recycling bin. i started separating my recyclables, but when i saw the recycle man take the bin and just dump it into a big truck, i gave up on that.

• i've been making my own laundry detergent for the past 6 months or so. i've saved money and though the hubz mentioned today that he wished it smelled like something, i think the homemade detergent is working just as well as the expensive stuff. unfortunately, i buy the nugget's detergent that they recommend, but i'll switch her over soon.

• as soon as we get our gutters fixed, we're going to install a rain collection barrel. i don't know that we'll see a huge difference moneywise by doing this, but if we have the same kind of summer that we did last year, it might help us save our lawn. it sucks we weren't able to get the barrel installed before the nugget because she was born during the "2008 flood" (a term i use lightly) and all that water would have been great to collect.

• i save all the bubble wrap and boxes from orders i purchase. i use them for my own shipping when possible.

• i have 3 bills that i'm not able to pay online, but all the other 500 million i have i do automatic bill pay- LOVE IT!

• we've switched all our lightbulbs, i use as few lights as possible and we keep the thermostat at 67 or below when possible.

i'm hoping to switch to homemade cleaning products soon- i have the recipes, it's just a matter of using up what we have now before i implement the take over!

once the nugget is a bit bigger (and we go thru all the diapers grandma bought us), we're going to switch to cloth diapers. it will take a bit to get used to, especially since by the time we switch nugget will be crawling, but we owe it to our budget and the nugget to try it.

this summer i also plan on going to farmer's markets for our fruits and veggies. we have an incredible market here in cincinnati called findlay market where all sorts of farmers from all over the area come to sell their products- veggies to meat to seafood- so i'm really excited to go... i've been here 3 years and i've never been!

we've also decided that every year the nugget will adopt an animal from the WWF website. for $50 she will contribute to saving an endangered animal and in return, she gets a stuffed animal of the animal she adopts, a certificate and we teach her the importance of wildlife and preservation.

in terms of my business, i plan to make my blog calendar and a mini day planner using scrap prints. i rarely throw away paper i've printed on as it is, but before i left for maternity leave at my day job, i began saving all the prints i had made so i have a ton of scrap paper to work with... which excites me!

so i hope everyone had a great earth day yesterday. i've found incorporating all these changes into our everyday life has been extremely easy and the hubz has taken very well to the changes as well. yay!