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?

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

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!

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.}