Green Minded Wallet

So yesterday I was walking back from the library and I cut through the parking lot of a grocery store that I frequent. It just so happened that there was a lady there with the trunk of her SUV open and she had all these plastic bins inside that she was wiping down. As I got closer I realized that they were full of honey! It was actually the local brand of honey that I buy, so I asked her if she was buying or selling. She said she was selling: turns out not only do they make the honey themselves but they drive it all in personally to a number of groceries around the state once a week! Personally, I just think that there’s something really neat about meeting the actually producers of your food. I made sure to tell her that I love their honey (I have one at work and one at home), then wished her a Happy Thanksgiving. To me it was a very cool discovery.

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While I enjoy conserving resources, especially in the kitchen where a lot of daily waste happens, I have discovered a “downside”: it takes a lot longer to fill a trash bag. In fact I don’t even buy trash bags anymore, I normally just use plastic store bags (I have two neighbors that hand me a stack of plastic bags every few weeks that I generally use for dog walking but also for trash). The problem is that since I create so little waste, I often forget how long it has been since the trash went out. What normally happens is that I notice the smell of vegetable products composting when I go to wash dishes and then remember that it has likely been far too long since the trash went out. I suppose of all the problems to have this isn’t a big one. I’ve wanted to start my own compost for a while but I’m not quite sure if I could find a setup that would work in my current digs; since I don’t cook meat, most of my food waste would like end up there and that would reduce my waste production even further. We’ll see.

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I came across an article the other day about a town in Tennessee called Orme that has been severely impacted by the drought in the southeast. Things are so bad in Orme that they are out of water. Seriously. They have trucks bringing in thousands of gallons from Alabama, and the water is rationed out from between 6-9 pm each night. Now I realize that there are places in this world where this happens all the time, but I’m not familiar with other places in America where this is taking place. As much as I believe in conversation and try to conserve water and other resources, there’s no way that my current lifestyle wouldn’t be impacted by only having access to water for a set three hours a day. Want to wash your face with warm water in the morning? Not going to happen. Want to go for a morning run and then take a shower? Sorry. I hope you’ve set aside enough water to brush your teeth. And I don’t even want to know how this is affecting the sanitation systems. But I can tell you that reading stories like this one really does help you to appreciate what you have and how many little things in life we take for granted.

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Today is the start of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! I participated last year and am really looked forward to banging out a novel again this month. Today is actually an extremely busy day for me, but hopefully I’ll be able to get in some writing just the same. If you’re interested in signing up it’s not too late. Just head over to nanowrimo.org and get started, it doesn’t cost a thing and you can have novel writing bragging rights for the rest of your life. Aww yeah.

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