My small changes

I happened across this really inspiring blog a while back. It's called One Small Change. You should go visit it right now. And then come back here. But in case you don't have time I will tell you that its purpose is to encourage people to make small changes in their daily lives that will have a positive impact on the earth. So I started thinking about what I could do. I realized that there is one change that we have sort of already been doing for a while, but haven't really committed to. So, to make it really easy on myself, I thought my first small change would be simply to commit to what we've already been doing. What is it? Paper towels! We used to use tons and tons of paper towels every day. There is always some spill or messy kid face to wipe up. And with two big, elderly indoor dogs...well, we were using paper towels for their messes, too.

Then one day we ran out of paper towels.
It sat like this for a while. Then, partly for eco-reasons and partly for budget reasons I decided to see if we could get along without them. Most of the time it's pretty easy. All the kitchen spills and messy faces are really so easy to wipe up with a cloth. I have a big stack of them and I just grab a fresh one whenever would have grabbed a paper towel. I have a basket in the laundry room (right off the kitchen) where I toss the dirty ones. It does add one more load of laundry each week, but I have to believe that is still better than using up all those paper towels. And it's a really easy load to do. Even the two-year old can do a pretty decent job folding the cloths.
(This one is one of my prettier ones. We also have a big stack of small wash cloths that we use for little hands and faces.)

I feel so much better not using all those paper towels everyday! So I finally committed to this change and took down that ugly paper towel holder. Aaahhh. Much better!

If only I could get rid of that other perpetual eye-sore in my kitchen:

Now I must admit, the doggies messes are harder to deal with. But, I have several old bath towels that are now dedicated "dog-towels" and that works okay. Occasionally, there is still some small mess that is just too gross to want to use a washable rag. So I keep a small supply of cut up old tee-shirts that I can use and toss. But I try really hard not to use these except in the direst emergency.

So that's my small change. I already have a few ideas in mind for some more small changes. Actually, I'm implementing one this week. I'm going to work at it for a little bit before I share. But stay tuned for small change #2.