Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day!!

I am happy to say that the Christiansen's have gone green in a big way this year! It amazing how much a child changes you and your perspective on things! When we moved, I tried to make our new house more earth friendly and our lifestyle. We invested in a front loading washer and dryer. I have to say- I love them!!! Not only do they use less water and energy, but they have such cool features, such as sanitize (super hot and longer cycle for that stuff that gets thrown up on in the middle of the night) and a DRY CLEAN button on the dryer. Since all of my husband's clothes have to be dry cleaned, this is saving us a small fortune! We can now dry clean at home and only take Nathan's stuff every other time he wears it! Its amazing how well these washer's clean, and I increase my load size by atleast 30%. Front-load washers can easily save over $100 per year in energy costs, and they use 1/2 as much water. Because they use less water, they also require up to 68% less electricity to heat the water, resulting in more energy savings. It saves up to 15 gallons of water per washload...which is 6,390 gallons a year!!

We also have set up a better way to recycle, and invested in more bins. I have the bins sitting next to my kitchen trash can (I keep our kitchen trash can in the garage....just can't stand to have trash in my kitchen...lol). I have a plastic, cardboard/paper, and can bins, and I can not believe how much can be recycled and how much less trash we generate! Our recycling is the largest part of our pick up now!

Another thing- we have gone organic. When I started shopping organic, I about fainted. I thought "Geez How will we EVER afford this?!" But I realized that really in the long run, its not that more expensive...its more time consuming. Because when you "Go organic" you stop using processed foods and time saving products. Now I am not saying that I don't buy pancake mix, or that I make everything from scratch....but we are slowly getting there. it really is a lifestyle change. Its hard, I have to admit, but after I look and saw what we are putting into our bodies, it was shocking and disturbing! I wish I could say that I never let my son eat fast food (I try to limit it to Chikfila only), or fruit snacks....but he does, and he's still breathing.

One thing that I can not go "natural" on is my cleaning products. I just can't. I like the smell of bleach so much (if they could make a B&BW wallflower in that scent, it would be great!:), and of course my Lemon Lysol. I like that "fresh" smell of Gain when I go in to my closet. The "greenies" suggest cleaning with Vinegar....I just can't do it. I just can't have my house smelling like pickles. Cut me some slack.....baby steps.....:) Oh- and that "natural" Clorox....its not that natural. Sorry, hate to burst anyone's bubble...but after research....its just as toxic as regular clorox.