I’ll keep a promise today.
When I started writing for Green Your Way, I promised my husband I’d make the post over there become a post here for a day so I wasn’t doing any extra work.
I’ve had so much to say lately that I never got this month’s post included!
Since I need a 10-minute post today before we go to a doc’s appointment, a play date, Paul’s summer camp, the Children’s Museum, bowling, and a baseball game (yowza!), the two massive posts I had planned for Thursday/Friday aren’t going to cut it!
Good time to keep my promise.
This month I wrote about “When the In-Laws Aren’t Eco-Conscious…and You Live With Them!”
(And no, my in-laws do not read my blog.) 
I hope I wasn’t uncharitable, because we really are grateful to the extreme for their generosity, and there are many nice parts about living in a multi-generational household (like the fact that Grandma read a book to Leah this morning while I was cleaning up breakfast, for one).
We used to joke about adult kids who return home to live with their parents well beyond the age of “reasonable.”
Now we’re one of them.
While waiting for that Perfect House to come along at the Perfect Price (dear interest rates: please do not skyrocket before we find it!), we’re temporarily living with my in-laws.
We expect many challenges: the discipline of our children, the fact that I cook from scratch and my mother-in-law has a good relationship with Stouffer’s and Sara Lee, and that my in-laws don’t have an environmental bone in their bodies.
Read the rest right HERE…
The Answer
The question has been out long enough that it’s been resolved…We went with option “B” and I’m so proud of my mother-in-law. She posted the list of “what to recycle” on the fridge and has been really making an effort to get the right stuff in the bin! They’re great, they really are.
What obstacles to recycling are there in your life?
I’ve been meaning to tell you ever since I saw your promise to your husband I made that same promise to myself. When I post somewhere else, I don’t post on my own blog. It keeps a little of the stress and busyness off!
Thanks for the great idea!
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Katie,
That is so great! I also came across a great program being offered by Terracycle that your readers might want to get in involved in for things that are not recycled in their areas. http://www.terracycle.net/brigades
Some of the brigades offer postage paid labels so there’s be no out of pocket for some of them to be shipped for recycling and re-purposing.
Enjoy your day!
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I’ve been following your blog for several months now and have found it quite informative and thought-provoking. I appreciate your attempt to be balanced in your approach to natural cooking, eating, living, etc. I will say, though, that I am concerned that even among Christian eco-conscious people, there is a growing tendency to lose sight of what is really essential in this life. I understand that we each have our own convictions which are between us and God. We must be careful though to not turn our personal convictions into a legalism, an addition to the gospel of Jesus Christ. It seems more and more like “natural living” is the new religion, even among Christians. Now, mind you, over the past several years I have definitely tried to steer our family into more natural and whole foods, natural personal care products, recycling, etc. but in the fallen human condition it really is impossible to do these things consistently 24/7 365 days a year. We should none of us feel like we’ve failed when we can’t/don’t. We simply do our best (which may look VASTLY different from individual to individual and family to family) and bask in the grace of God. Are we taking this world with us into eternity? What is it or rather WHO is it that we’re taking with us into eternity? People are always most important. People’s hearts and souls. I think that we forget that ultimately we can’t extend one second to our lives by our own strength (we think of ourselves as so powerful and indispensable); we are in the hands of God. Of course, we are responsible for our choices; there are certainly better choices than others. Of course, we should live according to our conscience. Of course, we should be good stewards of our resources. But God is in the business of using broken people, and we’re ALL broken. We might have a “handle” on one area of life, and yet be completely blind to others. The big questions are: are we kind? are we loving? are we compassionate? are we sharing and showing God’s love? I think our hearts are usually letting us know how we should proceed in the various complicated situations we find ourselves in with other people, but we just can’t help but cling to our “perfectly” worked out little systems, even at the emotional and spiritual expense of others and ourselves. Allowing ourselves to receive God’s grace and then in turn extending that grace to others is always a good choice. We all have blindspots; we simply are more startled by others’ than our own. God help us to love freely as He loves us. I hope that your time with your in-laws is a special time, a time for all of you to just love each other and be gracious to one another, whether or not anybody’s minds are changed. It’s all about Love.
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Katie, I just wanted to give you some encouragement real quick…. We have been on a similar journey for almost a year now (yes…a YEAR!) We are in student ministry, and felt called to move out of our home and to rent from my in-laws, to be ready for whatever God has next for us. I use the term rent lightly, however…We live in one part of the house and they live in another separate, but attached part. We just had our 4th baby 2 weeks ago. So believe me, I understand your trials! I just wanted to say, your not alone, and it WILL be ok!
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Around here in my house the hardest obsticale to overcome with recycling is not throwing it to the wolves when i get stressed. When it gets nuts and the recycling bin is full i have a bad habit of just throwing it away (insert deep breath of shame)
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Tammy @ Skinny Mom's Kitchen Reply:
July 29th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Heidi I will hang my head in shame with you. I always try to be conscious when something needs to get recycled but when I am running crazy and the bin is full yes sometimes I do throw it in garbage too. I need to get better about finding a way to empty to bin before ti gets full or to organize it better.
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Katie, I have been the go-to recycle person for my extended family. I too have them put up the list and try to make it easy and convenient. It’s great to inspire eco-conciousness to others
Good luck on the house hunt!
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Katie – As a baby-boomer who started thinking green in her twenties and has only used cloth napkins for forty years, I really appreciate your perspective and all the great info I learn on your site. As a fellow follower of Jesus, I’m incredibly blessed by your humility and teachability as evidenced by your responses to comments after your Green Your Way article. Thanks for being such a blessing!
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Katie – As a baby-boomer who started thinking green in her twenties and has only used cloth napkins for forty years, I really appreciate your perspective and all the great info I learn on your site. As a fellow follower of Jesus, I’m incredibly blessed by your humility and teachability as evidenced by your responses to comments after your Green Your Way article. Thanks for being such a blessing!
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Katie,
That article was great! I am currently living with my parents until I find my first job, and cringe at how they use plastic foil… but I’m so proud of my mom going crazy on the recycling since we have a new recycling center for our community!
One question that popped up in my mind: do you know of alternatives for aluminum foil on barbecues? I went to a few earlier this summer and wished I could come up with another option for the potatoes…
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Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship Reply:
August 1st, 2011 at 2:40 am
Yes, I do!! I’ve used both a stainless steel grill basket for cut potatoes and simply baking potatoes w/no foil on the grill just in the last week, with great success. The skins get crispy when you bake the whole potato w/o foil, but I think they’re awfully tasty. You can coat with olive oil before grilling to soften them up a bit.
Katie
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Joke Reply:
August 5th, 2011 at 5:12 am
Thank you Katie! I’ll try it out next time I’m near a barbecue with a potato
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First thing I have to ask, is why use the foil on potatoes? I love the skin all crispy so I scrub them well and then bake them. : )
We are still working on being more eco conscious and have many many more steps to make. I really think especially for our parents generation the boomers, that it depends a lot on how they viewed growing up. I recall how frugal my fathers parents were and reused everything. For them the shadow of the depression always colored those choices. My MIL really viewed that lifestyle as deprivation and had an unhappy childhood and I think really feels deprived if one suggests doing the frugal thing, like using real plates or reusing.
I think you are doing the right thing picking option B and honoring that they are your hosts and not changing everything they do.
I do have to laugh about the cost of running the dishwasher being more than paper plates. Funny how we justify our preferences. One of my grandmothers was known for using plastic ware, but she still washed it. Before she passed it was to the point where she would not use the real stuff, unless it was deemed a special occasion. I had fixed her a meal and brought her a real fork and was sent back to get the plastic one that I was still required to wash and reuse, so what was the difference? I thought it was funny, and teased her about it. My mother was going to throw away a solo cup that my grandmother had washed so much the lip was cracked. Oh no, it was still good, and again we weren’t allowed to use the real glasses. Man I miss her and her eccentric ways….
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Many years ago, when we had on-call garbage pick-up, I sorted out the recyclables and we made regular trips to drop them off at the free bins around town (30 minutes away), in addition to burning our trash, so we paid less for our junk to get hauled away. Since then, when I lived where there was recycling available (and even “mandatory”) I have heard from people who work there that the recycling, while getting picked up in different trucks, still gets dumped out at the same location WITH all the other stuff, so it was ridiculous to separate and wash it all, so I quit. I buy in bulk whenever possible and reuse almost everything, too. My husband received an interesting email just yesterday about this very topic:
The Green Thing
In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.
The woman apologized to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.”
He was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.
Back then, we returned milk bottles, soda bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilized and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.
But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.
But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.
Back then, we washed the baby’s diapers because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that old lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.
Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Montana.
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap. Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn gasoline just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.
But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.
But we didn’t have the green thing back then.
Back then, people took the streetcar or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their moms into a 24-hour taxi service. We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerized gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.
But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?
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Bebe Reply:
August 3rd, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Love this. I must add that our school district is who turned moms into 24-hr taxi service when they disallow any but high school students to come and go except by private drop or school bus.
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