Adventures at Midlife

I’ve been thinking dark, brooding thoughts about the dwindling availability of natural resources (like, you know, gasoline) and the attendant rise in prices of just about everything. In light of my recent post on making the best of the recession, I’ve decided to make a list of my green — and not-so-green — behaviors:

My good deeds:

• I shop at a market two blocks from my house, usually stopping on my way home from work or incorporating it in other errands.

• I frequent the farmers markets and fruit stands in the area when they are available.

• I buy a lot of my clothing and personal effects at thrift stores, and I give my excess clothes away to people who can use them or to a shelter.

• I multi-task all the time, particularly when I’m using the car. Once I’m home, it takes a national emergency to get me out again.

• I have tried, with varying degrees of success, to plant a vegetable garden and actually EAT what I grow.

• I turn off lights and use extended-life bulbs wherever possible.

• The Spouse has installed an off-setting thermostat in every house we’ve lived in, and we added extra insulation in our current house almost as soon as we moved in.

• Now that the Goons have moved out, we no longer heat or cool their lair the basement.

• I drive the speed limit and try not to run the car’s air conditioning any more than I have to.

• Our lawn sprinkler system uses a timer, and we leave the lawn fairly long to trap more water in the ground (at least that what we’ve been told to do).

• We pay to be part of the city’s recycling program, and we recycle green waste as well.

• We use environmentally friendly cleaning products.

My bad, not-so-green stuff:

• I use way too much plastic: bags, cartons, cups, you name it. Solution: Take my own.

• I send too many things to the dry cleaners. (That fluid has to be nasty stuff.) Solution: More cotton, less rayon and linen. And maybe I could try taking better care of my clothes so they don’t have to be washed/cleaned as often.

• I waste too much food. Solution: Better planning, and maybe a compost heap. (Am I up for that?)

• We still have a second refrigerator in the garage, usually filled with diet soda. Solution: Get rid of it.

• I still use too much hot water. (I LOVE hot water.) Solution: Shorter showers, more cold cycle washing.

• The windows and doors in our 25-year-old house leak heat. Solution: New heat-saving doors and windows. (That will be expensive, but likely worth it, since we plan to stay in our home indefinitely.)

• I — we all — drive too much. Solution: Carpool. Walk. Or stay home for a change.

Any suggestions or additions? If I get enough good ones, I’ll do a second post, with a link to your blogs, okay?