Green by necessity

As time goes on I seem to get more and more 'green'-conscious. Maybe it has to do with being more concerned about my kids than myself, or living in Colorado, or widening my circle of friends as I move away from family. I try to buy natural products and make things myself if I can (for example, I now make our laundry detergent). We try to keep our waste down by doing things like recycling, composting, using re-useable bags at stores, cloth diapering.

Some of these things took some effort or diligence to stick we (we still don't have our vermicomposting set-up figured out completely), while others felt so natural we didn't have to think twice. And sometimes being green comes by necessity.

Last week my husband's truck broke down. He currently has a job where he is out-of-town all week and he has to have a vehicle. So the girls and I are left with our feet and bicycle. This wouldn't have been a problem in Cambridge where most necessities were in walking distance or at least accessible by public transportation. Not so here in beautiful Fort Collins.

A LOT of people bike here. For fun, for exercise, for errands. And I always thought it would make me feel good to ride my bike instead of driving to do things like grocery shopping. But I can't carry as much on my bike. And, having my little one on the bike seat and the older one in the bike trailer, that's some extra weight! (Not to mention that the little one REALLY doesn't like wearing her bike helmet!)

Well, we made it work. Only got the absolute necessities and made it to the store and back without too much ado. We were all a bit cranky but some nice cool watermelon remedied that. We even jumped back on the bike to visit a friend that afternoon. And it did make me feel good to know that we could do it but it was definitely a lot of work, something I don't feel I need more of these days. And if the car were here, I'd go back to using it in a heartbeat. But for now, we are green by necessity.

I imagine that must be somewhat common these days, being green by necessity. With the way the economy is now, families are having to own less vehicles, live in multi-generation households (smaller carbon footprint, sharing of resources etc), carpool, and more. I wonder what changes ir trends will stick even when the economy improves?

When we got home from the store, I opened the big tub of my daughter's favorite yogurt and found mold growing. I called the store and they said to bring it on back. Needless to say, we haven't gotten around to that yet!