Blogiversary: One Year Later

Today is the one year anniversary of the launch of SCREAM to be GREEN.  It’s the blogiversary!  Wow – what a difference one year makes.  Obama went from a Democratic contender to the President-elect (phew!).  Oil went from $90/barrel to $145/barrel and now it’s back at $61.04/barrel (boo SUVs).  The economy is in the toilet – not sure if it’s a dual-flush, though. A new green channel was launched – Planet Green – from the folks at Discovery Channel.  Al Gore is working on an update to Inconvenient Truth.  The 11th Hour came out and DiCaprio is working on 12th Hour.  Anyway…

How has this past year changed me?  I’ve always been passionate about the environment and conservation, but I’ve stepped it up to a new level.  The more you educate yourself on a topic, the more you become engrossed.  When you’re talking about the so-callled “green” world – you just keep uncovering more and more information - some good – some bad – most makes you want to change for the better.  Just pickup a Michael Pollan book and flip to any page and you’ll want to make a change in your life.  Same with Eric Schlossers book from a few years ago – Fast Food Nation.  Having two children really opens your eyes as well.  You want the best for future generations and when you can come home and put a smiling face to them each and every day it’s that much evident.  From the clothes you buy to the food you eat to the makeup you wear to the car you drive- you can make a difference in every facet of your life. 

This blog has afforded me the opportunity to not only be an observer, but a promoter.  I’m not religious, but this is my gospel, this is my passion.  I’m definitely not the most read green blogger out there, nor am I the most influential.  I do have a day job, afterall – and while I may be the green committee co-chair at my company, I’m definitely not a green collar worker.  I wish I had more time to devote to my passion.  C’est la vie, right.  I still feel like I’ve been upholding my mission all along.  My mission to Be The Mosquito.  I’m a small fish in a big sea. I still feel like this small fish is making a difference and it’s educating others just as I’m educated when I read other green bloggers.  So a big thank you to all my readers and subscribers and passers by. 

Beyond the knowledge that I’ve learned over the past year, I’ve made changes in my life as well.  Some of them are minor and some haven’t only been necessarily in the past year, but all are important steps in improving my life and the lives of my family and hopefully others. 

In the food department, we’ve tried to eat more locally and also eat more organic foods.  We had been a member of a CSA the previous season which had its plusses and minuses.  This year we decided to not only start a raised bed garden, but we agreed to spend what we would on our CSA at the various farmers markets.   Our veggie garden was a bit obsessive compulsive for us.  I’d go out there and just go over all the plants almost every night.  I was so proud of its success.  It was amazing how much food we harvested from one 4′x8′ plot.   We also had tomato plants growing beside the shed and they just thrived.  I can’t wait for next season!  Another big find for us over the past year was our new friend, “the egg guy.”  He started out as “the honey guy.”  We found him a few miles from our house.  We saw a “local honey” sign and he kept our homemade granola factory going all last winter. At one point we noticed that he had chickens.  After some coaxing, we finally had him selling us eggs.  Once it warmed up, the kids would always go out and check on the chickens and sometimes get a ride around the property on their golf cart.  We get farm-fresh eggs from chickens we visit only a couple miles away at the astonishing price of $2/dozen.  I feel spoiled.

Over the past year, I’ve made some great connections with fellow green bloggers, agencies that focus on organic and sustainable organizations, people who own their own green businesses and a myriad of others.  I’ve attended a number of gatherings such as Chicago Green Drinks, Green Festival (for the second year), Family Farmed Expo, Solar Tour, NeoCon and the Green Business Conference.  I’ve seen speakers from local farmers, community organizers, and business owners.  I’ve had the privilege of seeing nationally recognized green activists such as the ever-lovely Sara Snow, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Bryan Welch (publisher of Mother Earth News) and Chef Rick Bayless.

My family and I buy used when possible.  My wife was raised as a garage saler and her mother was too.  Stores like Once Upon A Child and the Internet groups such as Freecycle, Craigslist and eBay have been great, too.  There is no reason that young children, who go through clothing so quickly, need to buy clothing from the department store.  I’ve always been fascinated with thinking outside the box and being resourceful.  My family nickname growing up was Moe to which some friends called me MoeGuyver because I was always finding new uses for common things.  This has really carried over to my passion for the 3Rs.  One month initiative from our friends at DoTheGreenThing.org was devoted to used merchandise.

We are human and we are Americans, after all.  So of course we exercised our greenbacks out in society.  There were things that we needed to buy and there were things that wanted to buy.  Whenever possible, we vote with our dollars and buy sustainable, planet friendly merchandise.  This means I obtained my first pair of organic cotton jeans and my wife began purchasing natural, sensible cosmetics with ingredients she could actually read and understand from some online retailers.  We also made some very large purchases like our Toyota Prius.  I guess we scream liberal now – we have a Prius and a 1995 Volvo.  Don’t worry – we didn’t scrap our old car – it’s still in use, just not by us.  We sold it on Craigslist. I think a lot of people thought we were nuts for selling a minivan and buying the Prius.  I don’t regret it for a second.  I love that car.  Another large purchase happened just today.  We bought a natural latex mattress.  The wood in the boxspring sustainable and steel springs are 80% recycled material.  While I still haven’t purchased a dual-flush toilet (I drool over the Caromas all the time), I did pick myself up a toilet-tank sink from Sinkpositive.  I got mine on eBay.  I love it.  It really makes you realize how much water your toilet uses when you see it come out of the spout.  It’s great for brushing my teeth and washing my hands after use.  Why flush that perfectly good potable water down the drain?

For those of you who have been asking – yes – our worms are doing well!  There are so many of them now.  I’m thinking of buying a couple more trays for our worm factory.  We added another rain barrel this year, too.  I’ve daisy chained them together so that two fill up off of one stretch of roof.  I have 100 gallons of water collected from the roof to water the flowers and trees.  We only went dry once all summer.  I installed a retractable clothes line, too.  This has been fantastic. There is actually an ordinance against them in my neighborhood from the home owners association.  Can you believe that?  Our gas bill over the summer was drastically reduced as we rarely used the dryer.  You just feel good air drying your clothes in a nice summer breeze (trick (credit to my wife): if you hang your shirts on the line upside-down, you won’t have any marks on the shoulders).

Anyway – that’s my story for the year.  Those are just some of the ways me and my family have made changes or continued to live our green lifestyle over the past year.  Its been a wonderful experience sharing my journey with you.  I’m happy to continue to learn from all of you and in return hopefully educate some of you as well.

THANK YOU – PLEASE CONTINUE to SCREAM to be GREEN!