Work In Progress

Day 26 - Organization

Organization:

what's that?

I'm lucky my cats leave my stuff alone. Except for handspun; they have a thing for it. Unfortunate, but I clearly understand.

I occasionally organize my knitting basket but it seems to grow and expand to cover nearby surfaces.  Strangely, only with more yarn and more WIPs, never with FOs. Funny that.

1 Small Change - March wrapup/April Change

Please excuse the lack of pictures today.  We went skiing this weekend; apparently the camera download cable didn't want to travel and stayed home.  There is not too much to report regarding the March change since my last update.  I had two sub goals from the organization and cleaning change, which was to find everything for taxes and flexible saving account reimbursement.  I'm quite happy to say that both were accomplished and taxes should be done in the next day or two.  The silly thing is that it was all quite easy, once I had the receipts in order.  I have some fun pictures to show, including our fine collection of nail clippers.

Our February and January changes are going quite well also.  And, just a couple days ago, I received four upcycled fabric produce bags that I'd ordered from Gypsy Forest.  Beautiful!  The high thread count of the vintage fabric and the construction look very durable.  I'll get a couple pictures up in a few days.

Our April change, as you may have guessed, was to start our own garden.  We started a few weeks ago when the weather was nice enough to make us think spring had sprung.  The backyard of our rental property was over run with an insideous, grass-choking form of oxalis.  So, the picture from before was the day we started raking up the oxalis (and our yard :( ) that we'd killed and the day that we planted our garden.  I don't know anything about gardening, but partner is an old hand at raised-bed gardening.  We are starting slow, to see what takes, but we have lettuce, cilantro and three varieties of tomatos started.  But, for Easter, partner got me the latest addition of Mother Earth News.  After reading their article Start a Quick and Easy Food Garden, I'm thinking I might want to through some onions in the ground.  I don't know how many beets we'd eat, but now is the time to get those started as well.  Seriously, if you are interested in a garden, but don't know where to start, check it out!  If all goes well, we'll be eating lettuce from our garden by the end of April.

I hope to have pictures for you next time.  Of changes, knitting, and snow!

1 Small Change - March update

Well, my cleancation was quite good.  I took the first day off and played (Farmville, anyone?) but then got down to business.  In the first couple days we filled a 50 gallon recycling bucket with paper.  Yep, that's right.  50 gallons. And we have two bankers boxes of paper ready for shredding.  A local shredding company shreds bankers boxes for $5 a box one Saturday a month.  We're rather hoping for to get a couple more ready before this Saturday.   We filed, shredded and tossed all of this:

 I also went through my desk and determined that I'm more in love with the idea of writing instead of writing:

I did, however, organize all my cards and stationary.  I have a drawer each for postcards (useful for throwing a quick note in a package), stationary, cards, and special occasion cards.  More on this later.

Then we got a little overzealous and did this:

 You've got to make things worse to make them better, right?

I should have known better.  That kind of optimism usually leads to bad results and for us, it was me straining some ligaments in my hip during a two day (which became 1 1/4 day) ski break.  So, unable to put weight on my hip and hobbling about, the last four days of the cleancation went out with a bit of a whimper.  We (and by we, I mean Rocky) has made steady progress in the two weeks since.  

So, how can this be a "good for the planet thing?"  (I mean, besides realizing what a terrible CONSUMER of resources I've been these past 15 odd years.)  I kept a score card of money lost and found.  My category was pretty broad, including coupons I'd actually have used, rewards, rebates, things I wanted to return but couldn't find receipts, et cetera.  

Money found: $166.18
    Notably, $77.18 worth of stamps (including 37¢!); a $61 Jiffy Lube credit (which I promptly misplaced but go with it); eight dollars in actual cash; and a world market store credit of unknown value.

Money lost: $218.00
    Notably, $82.50 in rebates (though I may just send in the $50 rebate check and see what happens); 2-hour kayaking coupons I won in a raffle; and five - yes five - completed free Subway cards.  You know the ones that they phased out about three years ago.

Now, in case you're wondering, I'm not awash in money.  I really attempt to be frugal, though I admit to spending a lot of disposable income on yarn and good food, including wine.  I don't buy new electronics, I have most of the same furniture I had after college (most of it scrounged from my parents and neighbors), and I didn't get cable t.v. until Rocky pouted - quite dramatically really - "it's like living in the third world!" He's really not that shallow, but he REALLY likes soccer and that you have to pay for.

And there were some amusing finds.  For instance, we now have three thermometers.  And in one afternoon, Rocky found six nail clippers.  We now have nine toe and fingernail clippers.  We really just laughed the more we found.  But, all those unnecessary purchases.  That is why organization is good for the planet.

I know this is getting long, but if you'll stick with me, I'll also give you an update on our January and February catch up changes.

January was to use and buy no drinks or water out unless we brought our own containers.  We've actually done really well.  We already had travel coffee mugs and SIGG water bottles so it was more a case of resisting spontaneous temptation.  I believe that we have purchased two drinks this month.  The biggest change for me was cutting out my Calistoga water that I bought during walks to a store near work with a friend of mine.  And a quick note, relating to Oppression Offsets - SIGG bottles are made in Switzerland.  Nearly all the other "green" bottles you see are made in China.  From poor manufacturing that really isn't good for the environment to human rights violations, I hope you'll consider spending the extra money for ethically made water bottles.  Or, you can recycle a nice glass bottle!

February's catch up was to not use plastic bags.  This has been incredibly easy and fun.  Again, pre-planning in the key.  Deciding to go the store while out elsewhere is the quickest way to a plastic bag.  Fortunately, we usually shop at Wholefoods so we end up with paper bags that we use for recycling, but still, I'd like to do better and not use any "convenience" packaging.  We are also using these:

I got these while at our local natural grocery.  I was grabbing a plastic bags for tomatos and this older guy says, quite animatedly, "No!  Don't use that, use this!" And hands me a mesh bag.  He then explained that his wife makes them, told me how to make them and gave me two more mesh bags and a cloth bag.  If you aren't sewing inclined, there are quite a few people selling "upcycled" bags on Etsy, including Stephanie at Gypsy Forest.  My disclaimer: I haven't used Stephanie's bags, but she is doing a giveaway on the One Small Change blog and I want to give her a plug.  I just realized I get a second entry in the giveaway, so there is full, full disclosure!  Go over and win yourself a couple!

I have a small giveaway.  It's kind of like recycling.  While going through my desk, I assembled a collection of cards and card craft stuff that I no longer have the taste for.  Here is a picture:

 It's 9 cards with envelopes (assorted, but a lot of floral), 8 pieces of heavy stationary with 4 envelopes (gold, classic angels, re-gifting), a little packet of high heeled shoe post its (re-gifting), 50 Winnie the Pooh post-its, 25 blank gift cards, and a paper sampler that you can turn into a craft project.  The card in the upper right I made for the holidays years ago when I did more stamping.  If you're interested, just leave a comment.  Let's say... by April 2nd?  I'll post our April challenge and announce the winner.  I'll also put in a box of tea; not sure what, I have to sort through my rather large - uhh hmm - collection.  It's probably bad that I have a collection of tea....  I really didn't think this would be the first giveaway on here, but there you have it.

Alright, that's all for now!  I have a knitting update and next week I'll tell you about April change.  I'm super excited.  Here is a hint:

 *Sorry for the poor blogging of late.  This post has been quite tedious for loading pics especially with Safari crashing once.*

1 Small Change

A few weeks ago, along some random blog rabbit trail, I discovered Suzy at OneHipMama.  Now, as many of you know me personally and know I have no kids, I'll set you all at ease and say, no, I'm not pregnant!  hehehe

However, she started a fantastic idea, called One Small Change, which now has it's very own website. 

Since I discovered the website in mid-February, I did a half-hearted, "we'll use our cloth bags at the store."  A noble effort, and better than nothing.  However, a trip through the other blogs that are linked on her website showed me that my effort was very small indeed. 

For March, our small change is to purge and organize.  I saw that someone else did this in February and since I was already taking time off from work to do this, I decided this would be a real source of motivation.  A little public accountability never hurt anyone, did it?

And in the interest of full accountability, this is a picture of our office this morning:

And if you think this is bad, there are seventeen more boxes of paper downstairs.  No, I didn't get over excited after typing seven and keep hitting letters to end up with seventeen.  One - seven. 17.  And that is the paper.  We won't discuss the knicknacks and assorted other crap, quite yet.  I blame my Taurus hoarding tendencies. 

We're both really excited about this.  In fact, the challenge is supposed to end on Earth Day, but I'm hoping it becomes the Year of Small Changes.  Catchy, no?  I'll be back to give updates during the month on how this is going.  And next time, I'll discuss our invigorated efforts to reduce plastic bag use (February challenge) and to buy no water or drinks unless we have our own container (a catch up January challenge).

I encourage you to join.  It's good for the planet.  And if you need some motivation, just check out what other people are doing.  I found it very inspiring.  They may be small changes, but we're doing our part to make our part of this world healthier.