…Which is the better way to live?  Silly question, in my opinion.  In fact, I’m going to go ahead and say that one is not “better” than the other.  We need both.  There are too many different kinds of people in this world for a one-size-fits-all lifestyle or environment.  But.  But, no matter where you live- in the suburbs, or the big city, or the boonies- there are ways to be a good steward to the Earth and ways to not.  And I do believe that some environments lend themselves to good stewardship a little easier than others. 

In my experience, living in an urban suburb is probably the most difficult place to execute a green/low impact lifestyle.  The city’s downtown public transportation usually does not reach into the suburbs, so unless you work from home, your daily commute to the office is most likely about 45 minutes, twice a day, in your vehicle.  Not to mention the commute to the grocery store and your kid’s school/activities. 

On top of that, your suburban housing situation is most likely a development of some sort, named after whatever was there before the houses and lawns {Pine Grove Estates}.  And on top of that, there is the social pressure to have a beautiful green lawn, this year’s paint colors on the walls, the cutest fiesta-ware for your weekly book club BBQ, and a two-car garage full of, well, two cars and various other material “necessities”.  I know these types of pressures first hand, and they’re tough. 

Image courtesy of nytimes.com

Good stewardship in a suburban setting is possible, however.  After all, that is exactly what this blog is all about!  You may not be able to ride the train to work, but you can carpool.  Your lawn can be just as pretty if you watered it by collecting rainwater instead of with the sprinkler.  Your BBQs can be a great chance to educate your community about some of your low-impact lifestyle choices.  Your two-car garage can have a hybrid in it.  Your home can be just as pretty {prettier!} decked out with homemade decor instead of trendy made-in-China crap. 

Downtown city living comes with a whole realm of different pluses and minuses.  On the up-side, you probably have the benefit of super-awesome public trans, or you can probably ride your bike to anywhere you ever need to go.  You probably have a farmer’s market not too far from your pad, or you probably even know a couple crazy people growing gardens on their patios/roofs.

The downside it that you live in a concrete jungle, breathing smoggy air and drinking chlorinated water.  I can’t relate to this situation very easily, so maybe some of you who actually live this way can enlighten me…It just seems unnatural to have to visit a park in order to see dirt or trees or rocks.  When everything is man-made around you, don’t you lose touch with what is real, gritty, and alive?  I think I would.  But then again, maybe you appreciate nature even more when it’s something you need to purposefully seek out.  When every day is a reminder of how fragile and rare nature is, maybe you think twice before dumping chemicals down the drain or tossing a plastic bottle in the trash.

Image courtesy of ffffound.com

I grew up in the middle of nowhere, in the woods, and I can attest to the fact that many, many country folk take the woods, lakes, trees, clean air, and plentiful fresh water for granted.  They change their fishing boat oil right there on the lake shore, and inevitably spill it into the water.  They burn garbage in their backyards, or bury an old broken refrigerator in the ground to avoid the recycling fees. The list of transgressions is long.

But the list of upsides to country life is also long.  You can live off the grid if you so choose.  You can raise your own food.  You can use the natural resources all around you to support yourself.  You can separate yourself from societal pressures and the pull of material things, and build a home that is centered around what is really important.

Image courtesy of Jason Kravitz

 Perhaps I am biased…ok, I am definitely biased…because Mike and I are choosing to move from the city into the boonies, and so I see country-life as the ultimate way to live simply and live greener.  But I stand by my original statement that we are in control of how we live, no matter where we live.

What do you all think?

What a nice surprise to log on today and find out that one of the blogs I read daily has featured Itty Bitty Impact!  Going Home to Roost is such a beautiful blog about all things handmade & homegrown {diy projects, seasonal recipes, organic gardening, and ways to live a simpler life}.  The first time I stumbled upon it, I couldn’t help feeling like Bonnie was my long-lost-soul-sister.  A big huge thank-you to Bonnie for sharing my blog with her readers!  Keep up the great work over there in North Carolina!

Summer is in full swing, and we’re melting.  Yes, even in Minnesota, the weather gets hot.  And we of course refuse to install central air in our house, or to even keep fans running all the time…so as a result, we’re pretty sweaty, all the time.

It maybe wouldn’t be so bad if we were just sitting around with iced tea in hand, but this summer has been the opposite of leisurely.  As you all know, we’re planning our wedding {two months away!}.  But what you may not know is that we are also getting our home ready for sale {are we crazy?? Yep.}

The pull of country life has just become too strong.  Mike and I both grew up in rural areas, and we can’t kid ourselves any longer.  We constantly crave more space, more quiet, and more flexibility.  We love Duluth.  Love it.  And we love our beautiful house and cute neighborhood.  But…

We found our dream hobby farm {and I mean, OMG this place is awesome} about an hour from Duluth, and we have not been able to get it off our minds ever since we first stumbled upon it.  It is everything we have always talked about someday having.  After much thought, we’ve decided to get our house on the market as quickly as possible, and make an offer on Perfect Magical Dream Farm. 

So, instead of working on my wedding tan and sipping iced tea, I have been painting walls like a mad woman.  They look awesome, by the way.  Anyone want to buy a beautifully restored old Victorian {everything is brand new in it, we were the first folks to live in it after it was restored} home on Duluth’s west side?  It has really been an amazing place to live…I am going to be a total wreck on the day we drive away in the U-Haul.

The probable move to the country brings up an itty bitty issue……Itty Bitty Impact has always been about how to live greener while still being a “normal” urban person/family.  So, the nature of the blog might be changing in the near future.  I am a little bummed about this, because I think more people can relate to our current urban situation…Whereas I don’t think very many of you live on a solar-powered hobby farm. 

But I hope that I can keep the blog relateable, helpful and interesting for everyone nevertheless!  And, many of the topics that I will likely be writing about “from the farm” are totally do-able in an urban setting as well {canning veggies, gardening, solar-power living, keeping chickens, etc.} 

Speaking of urban vs. rural…which is the greener way to live anyways?  I think it totally depends.  That issue would make a great blog post…but for now, I must get back to beautifying our house so we can sell it!!

Bits of green from around the interwebs:

Green cleaning for your car.

Stay cool.

Make some festive 4th of July jewelry from a recycled plastic cup.

Eat an orangelo.

Pick berries, and freeze them.

Go enjoy some peonies.

Something funny…or, at least we think it’s funny, because we’re obsessed with our dog.

Have you seen this blog?  If not, hurry on over there!  Naomi Seldin is a terrific writer who focuses on “living well with less” in her articles for timesunion.com.  I have been a regular reader of hers for months now, ever since I found her on Twitter {follow her}…so I am beyond honored to be interviewed by her!  Thank you, Naomi!

Read the full interview here.  Read the part about pulling off a green wedding here.

Hey readers, happy June!  Do you love early summer as much as I do?  Right now our lilac bushes are at their peak, and our yard smells like heaven.  Our little garden is pumping out salad greens at a light-speed rate, and this makes Mike very happy.  His nickname is quickly becoming “Brontosaurus” as he basically eats nothing else but leafy greens. 

But June is more than lilacs and romaine, for us.  It marks three months until our wedding.  We have entered panic mode…in other words, “oh-crap-we-still-have-an-impossible-amount-of-stuff-to-do-to-get-ready” mode.  It is for this reason that the before mentioned videos/Cheri’s List posts have not been delivered. 

I’m very sorry that the blog has been pretty lame lately.  I have a bunch of awesome ideas floating around and I can’t wait to make posts out of them, but for now I need to focus on all the last minute wedding details that are demanding my full attention and spare time.

{Our pretty wedding “logo”, made by Mike}

So in lieu of a real post, I thought I would update you on the wedding plans and all the things we’re doing to make the event as low-impact as possible.  During the planning process, so many challenges have arisen from the fact that we are avoiding disposable items like cups and flatware…and it has been a real struggle to not give in here or there/do things the easy way {read: the wasteful way}.  But we’re sticking to our guns on the following:

• Rings: Our rings are custom made by Tamara McFarland, a vegan hobby-farmer in California.  She uses 100% recycled metals and fair trade stones in her jewelry.  The stone in my ring is man-made, which means they did not impact the environment or society in a negative way.
• Glassware: We are providing mason jars for guests to drink water/beer out of instead of using the disposable plastic cups that the bar provides {they will be available in case someone breaks or loses their jar, but we will be making an announcement asking everyone to try to use their jar all night.}
• Caterer: We asked every caterer in town whether they use disposable plates/flatware or not.  Only one said that they do not use disposable.  We went with them.  {It’s a small town…city folks probably have many caterers to choose from and this is a non-issue.  But we were legitimately worried that we wouldn’t be able to find someone who used real plates!}
• Decor: Our decorations/favors are almost completely thrift-store finds, and we’re making everything else ourselves, so we’re not buying any plastic crap that will promptly enter a landfill afterwards.
• Registry: Same goes for our registry…we are carefully choosing high-quality items that will last us a long time.  My parents are still using many household items they received as gifts for their wedding.  When something is made to last, there’s no need to ever replace it.  One concern we have, however, is that our registry has a lot of fairly expensive items on it.  But we would honestly rather not receive any gifts than get a bunch of stuff that will break in a couple years and get thrown away.  On our wedding website, where guests will RSVP, we state that attending the wedding is a gift in itself, since everyone is traveling from far away, so buying us something off the registry is definitely appreciated but definitely not expected.
• More registry: I have to talk a little more about wedding registries…a little bird told me about MyRegistry.com and it has been such a great thing for us.  This website is easy to use, free to sign up with, and allows you to add items from any website {including Etsy!  Hip hip hooray!} and any real-life store your heart desires.  Mike downloaded the nifty iPhone app and we just walk around town scanning items.  It’s so easy, and you kind of feel like Harry Potter with a magical wand.
• Save the Dates: We emailed our Save the Date announcements, expect for five of them because the recipients don’t use email.
• Invites: Guests will receive a snail-mail invitation, but they will RSVP by going to our website.  This reduces the paper we use, and is more convenient for most people.  Our grandparents, and a few other guests who don’t use the internet, will RSVP over the phone.
• Honeymoon: When it comes to the honeymoon, we can’t help ourselves….we are going to go to Hawaii.  You can judge us for supporting the over-development and commercialization of one of the world’s most fragile and beautiful environments…but before you get mad at us, we are going to be renting the vacation home of a couple from MA.  We won’t be staying at a big corporate hotel chain.  We won’t be going out to eat {ok maybe once or twice}.  We will be shopping at the farmers market {I already checked, and it is within walking distance from the house} and cooking our own meals almost every day.  That’s a pretty eco-friendly way to do Hawaii, if you ask me!

We’re taking a little break from Cheri’s List in order to do some spring cleaning around our house and yard.  The sun came out this past weekend, and my empty flower beds were calling my name, so instead of making videos for the blog {forgive me!}, I did this:

I bet you are busy spring cleaning and doing yard work as well, so instead of doing an Itty Bits Challenge this week, let’s skip right to some handy links from around the web to inspire you while you work:

How to clean your oven without any chemicals.

No room for a garden? No problem. Grow veggies in containers.

Cut your grass, without gas.

Thoughtfully written series on gardening with children by my friend Jared.

Our favorite knitter and hobby farmer is getting married!  Very greenly, I might add.  Go wish her congratulations!

Green spring-cleaning tips from Planet Green.

Deck out your patio with FSC-certified furniture. Seriously, don’t buy wood if you don’t know where it came from.

AWESOME book about green housekeeping.

Reduce your water use…water your garden/flowers with harvested rain water!

Happy spring, folks!  Videos/Cheri’s List will resume shortly.

We’re whittling away at Cheri’s list. Today we’re going to make our own earth friendly cleaning solution, because commercial cleaners are heavy on toxic chemicals, and consistently buying the eco-friendly brands is really darn expensive.

Our recipe today is for an all-purpose multi-surface cleaner:

Ingredients {makes a 1/2 gallon}:

1/2 cup white vinegar {not the apple-cider kind that is used for cooking}

1/4 cup baking soda {or 2 teaspoons borax}

1/2 gallon {2 liters} water

Steps:

Mix all three ingredients together and use for cleaning windows, mirrors, counter-tops, shower walls/floor, etc. {If using on natural surfaces such as wood, test on a small hidden area first!}

{Note: in the video I shortened the ingredients a little, to make 1 quart instead of 1/2 gallon, so that it would fit in the spray bottle I had on hand.}

Long term health concerns for humans, and major environmental pollution, are caused by the manufacture and disposal of commercial cleaning supplies, so if you have not purged your home of toxic cleaning products yet…well, whatcha waitin’ for?  Let’s vow to stop buying these products!!  It’s so easy to do when there are so many alternatives…

And yes, there are so many alternatives that I never knew about before! While doing my research for this post, I found the following list of ingredients that can be used in place of commercial cleaning products {they’re environmentally safe, but some of them can still cause skin/eye irritation and can be harmful if swallowed, so please handle them carefully and keep out of reach of children}:

• Baking Soda – cleans, deodorizes, softens water, scours.
• Soap – unscented soap in liquid form, flakes, powders or bars is biodegradable and will clean just about anything. Avoid using soaps which contain petroleum distillates.
• Lemon – one of the strongest food-acids, effective against most household bacteria.
• Borax – {sodium borate} cleans, deodorizes, disinfects, softens water, cleans wallpaper, painted walls and floors.
• White Vinegar – cuts grease, removes mildew, odors, some stains and wax build-up.
• Washing Soda – or SAL Soda is sodium carbonate decahydrate, a mineral. Washing soda cuts grease, removes stains, softens water, cleans wall, tiles, sinks and tubs.  Do not use on aluminum.
• 100 Proof Alcohol – an excellent disinfectant. Use in a solution with water.
• Cornstarch – can be used to clean windows, polish furniture, shampoo carpets and rugs.
• Citrus Solvent – cleans paint brushes, oil and grease, some stains.

Do you have any recipes for earth friendly household cleaning solutions?  Please share them in the comments, I’d love to try making some more!

Last week Cheri shared with us a list of things she is doing to reduce her impact on the environment.  I decided we would try each of the things on her list, and show you all how to do them as well.  First on the docket is how to make homemade laundry soap.

This is such a great thing to do, the main reason being because store-bought laundry detergents have scary ingredients, including quaternary ammonium sodium carbonate, sodium alkyl benzene sulfonate, sodium silicate, bleach, and some phosphates.  {The fact that my spell-checker thinks that half of those are not real words tells me that they certainly shouldn’t be going into our ground water by the gallons day after day.}  And buying the eco-friendly detergents is really expensive…so, let’s get right to it, shall we!

Ingredients:

2 cups finely grated soap {preferably Ivory or Ivory Snow}
1 cup washing soda
1 cup borax

Steps:

1. Mix well and store in an airtight container.

2. Use a 1/2 cup for a full load, less for smaller loads.

{Regarding High Efficiency (HE) and Front-Load Washers:  You may have been told you need to use “special soap” for your HE or front-load washing machine.  This is because they use less water, so they require soap that is less sudsy. The good news is, the homemade detergent in this recipe is VERY low suds. Just make sure you use the recommended amount of detergent.}

I am really excited and honored to share this with you all!  Jonathan at We Live Simply interviewed me for his Five Questions With series the other day.  It was so nice of him to share my blog with his readers and followers.  I am extremely grateful for his interest in what I’m doing, and the exposure he gave me. 

Make sure you check out his blog– it is a daily read for me now.  His posts are always original, thought-provoking and inspiring.

Thank you, Jonathan! 

I received a really nice letter from a friend and reader, Cheri.  She shared with me some of the things her family does to decrease their daily impact on the environment.

All of the items on her list are easy to implement into our lives– there’s really no reason not to.  But because I know, from experience, that unless green lifestyle changes are easy as pie to implement, we ain’t gonna follow through with them, folks!

So, I have decided to not only share her list of great ideas, but to also do the things on the list.  Check back soon for a video series of me demonstrating the items on Cheri’s list, so that you can see how it’s all done, and hopefully also try it yourself.  I will begin to post the videos next week!

• I don’t use the hair dryer until my hair is mostly dry – then use it just for a minute for a final style.
• I make my own laundry detergent
• Dry our clothes on our drying rack
• Make my own salad dressing {reduces plastic bottles coming into the house}
• Recycle plastics, glass, tin, paper {reduced our outgoing garbage to a bag a month}
• Grow our own veggies, and batch cook – for example I’ll cook a big batch of rice/beans and freeze separate portions for later meals….and cook from scratch as much as possible.

• Take my stainless steel mug with me – if I need to stop and get a cup of something I’ll have them put it in my mug
• Mend clothes – I’ve even gone so far as to turn frayed collars on my husband’s shirts
• My dad only uses recycled paper in his printer – he gave me his schedule the other day printed on the back of an old bill – made me smile
• After I bring the water to a boil for pasta, I put the lid on the pot, shut off the heat and let the pasta cook – it only takes a minute or so longer.  If I am cooking something for a longer length of time (stew or soup) I put another lid on top of the lid that matches the pot.  The extra insulation conserves energy.
• After I boil the water for my morning tea {I don’t like to microwave water – I know – weird}, I  pour the remaining boiling water over my oatmeal and set it back on the burner {which has been turned off, but is still warm}.  In ten minutes my oatmeal is cooked.
• We use shopping bags I made for grocery shopping.  I plan to make some lunch bags too, out of fabric for those times we take a picnic lunch somewhere or travel.
• I wash and re-wash baggies.  Haven’t bought any in years.
• We are a one car family
• Instead of buying cleaning products {even Seventh Generation} – baking soda and vinegar will clean just about anything.
• I use a shampoo bar made by a friend of mine instead of commercial shampoo {which has tons of chemicals in it and comes in those pesky plastic bottles}
• And…{I’m inordinately proud of this one….} I use the dashboard of my car as a food dehydrator.  I bought a bushel of apples for $6 from a neighbor down the road and after I got tired of saucing and pie-ing them – I sliced them, dipped them in diluted lemon juice and put them on baking racks and spread them across the dash.  We get plenty of full sun here and they were dry in a little over a day.

Thank you so much for the inspiration, Cheri! {Check out Cheri’s encouraging and refreshing blog…she writes about gardening, simple living, family, and faith.}