Like I said when I ended my last post, the minimalist philosophy really intrigued me. I thought about how wasteful we are in so many facets of our lives. I wanted to eliminate as much waste from my life as possible. I wanted to cut out all the unnecessary energy and resources that my family used and consumed. The more I thought about these things, the more I realized that I had already started running down this path well before I tried to do it barefoot...
It began as a way to save money. Maren and I found out we were pregnant with our first child, and we were sitting in a childbirth prep class. The instructor was talking about all the supplies we would need to care for our new baby. All I could think was, "We need to buy stock in Babies R Us, because we are going to be spending all of our money there!" Then the instructor gave us a handout of unique ideas of keeping down costs for child care items. At the top of the list was nursing your child instead of buying formula. Maren had already expressed that she wanted to do this, so I was totally on board. Free food for the baby! Another idea was to make your own baby wipes. I was able to talk Maren into letting me do this on the condition that, if our child developed a chronic diaper rash, we'd resort to the store bought wipes.
So I made the baby wipes and it worked really well. I looked into other ways to save money on caring for a baby and found several recipes to make our own baby food. During this time, I was also intrigued by a naturalist movement as well. Maren and I had watched a couple of documentaries in the past year about the US food industry that got us thinking about the foods we put into our bodies, how they are made, and where they came from. With those thoughts in the back of my mind, making baby food seemed like an awesome idea. We made all sorts of different foods for Emry. The process was simple and I posted directions on our Baby Food page. I had always planted a vegetable garden every spring, so we literally produced much of Emry's food from the ground up!
I found that these things saved us a little money, but the small monetary savings paled in comparison to the many other benefits that we enjoyed. Maren and Emry were able to share a special bond through nursing. There was a fatherly pride I enjoyed by knowing we provided food for our child by the work of our own hands. We also knew exactly what went into Emry's food, and that there were no artificial preservatives or sugars that we were giving her.
We incorporated the naturalist philosophy into our diets as well. We started eating more fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts. We set a challenge for ourselves at the grocery store to only buy products on the outside walls and nothing from the inner aisles(Typically processed food in boxes and packages are in the middle aisles, while fresh and natural foods are located on the perimeter in most grocery stores.) We began looking at the labels on the products and saw how much sugar, sodium, and artificial/processed ingredients were in the foods we buy. After label reading one day, I decided to start making two of my favorite snacks. I started fermenting my own yogurt and making my own peanut butter. Click on the links to see my recipes for these items. They're much better for you than commercial varieties, and I guarantee you'll like them!
Fast forward about 10 months to my barefoot running experiment. I knew I wanted to expand on my current practices and cut out more wasteful habits from our lives. My focus now was more concentrated on the environment. We have always recycled and have taken steps to keep our energy bills low at the house. But recycling is a process that still uses a lot of energy, and our monthly gas/electric bills weren't free. So we had room for improvement. My goal wasn't to "Go green" or "Reduce our carbon footprint." I feel like those are just slogans companies use for marketing purposes to tell people how great they are. And I certainly didn't want to get caught up in the carbon footprint debate for every decision I make. My goal was simple: eliminate as much consumption as possible. For anything our family did consume, we wanted to make it go as far as possible.
We began looking more closely at everyday tasks to see how we can get by with less. The following paragraphs are just a few examples normal daily situations, and how I started thinking differently about them...
I take my lunch to work most days in a plastic grocery bag. Inside the grocery bag is usually a sandwich, which is also in its own bag. I would throw the bags away after lunch everyday. But why not bring them home each day and use them again for tomorrow's lunch? And why do I even need to get plastic bags from the grocery in the first place; why not have reusable cloth bags? And when I buy one or two items from a store, why do I get bag for them? Why not just carry the object itself?
I love to ride my bike anytime I get the opportunity. I was complaining to Maren one day about how hard it is to make time to ride since we've had Emry. It finally dawned on me one morning that I drive my car to work everyday(imagine that!). Why not ride my bike to work instead of driving? How much could we save on gas each year if I rode my bike everyday? And do we really need 2 cars?
The more I thought about the environmental issues, I wondered what other areas of my life I could look at differently as well. Why do I buy a shirt from a department store for $60, when I could get a shirt that is just as nice at Target for $15? Or even buy one from a second hand store for $3? What good could I do with the other $57 I saved?
These are just a couple examples of the many things I've pondered lately. I want to add that I'm not writing this post to tell people our family is doing great things and we are saving the world. I'm not trying to beat my chest or toot my own horn. We don't do all the things I mentioned in the previous paragraphs. We still have 2 cars. And yes, I still take showers(although the water only runs when I initially step in to get wet, and it is stays off until its time to rinse.) But there are still many wasteful things our family does. My purpose for writing this post is the topic has flooded my thoughts lately, and I'm just really excited to share it. I want hear what other people think too...I want to hear your thoughts and suggestions about things you and your family do to eliminate waste(time and resources), spending, energy and unnecessary consumption in your lives. Please share in the comments section below!
I'll end by saying I would encourage everyone to think about their day and think about all the things they do each day. How much to we take for granted? How much do we consume that is totally unnecessary and wasteful? How much have we been given, and we don't thank the Lord for it? The only truth I know on this matter is that everything we have is a gift from God. Nothing we own is truly ours. We may have bought our possessions with our money that we earned from our jobs using our talents and skills. But ultimately our talents and skills were gifts from God, so "our" money and possessions are really God's money and possessions that he has given to us. By knowing this truth, I can't help but to think how many of God's gifts I've taken for granted and have literally thrown away. I wonder how hurt someone would be if I took a gift they gave me and threw it away right in front of them. This is my motivation for change.
Our family is getting pretty weird, but in a good way I guess. I've started taking a liking tot tie-dyed fashions. And since we have our second kid on the way, our next vehicle will probably be a family van...I've heard Volkswagen made some good ones in the 70's. Okay, we're not that bad yet, but we're getting pretty close. Its funny how I've been discussing the topic of minimalism, but its taken me 2 extremely long posts to cover it...and there's so much more I wanted to write!
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