Remember last month I told you about One Small Change? Every month we try to make an environmental change in our household. I decided to do two...The first one was to bring more plants into the house. Plants in the home are beneficial to your health. When they "breathe in", they absorb carbon dioxide and convert it to oxygen, and can also absorb other pollutants from the air.
Remember these paper whites we planted in January?
They grew very quickly! Every morning the kids woke up to see how much they had grown overnight. I wish we had actually measured them and made a lesson out of it. But it was nice to just see them enjoy the growth too. One morning we woke up and they were...done.
We cut the buds and enjoyed them in a vase for a few more days. I think another benefit of having house plants is that children relate to them. They want to take care of them and nurture them.
I definitely want to add more plants into our home. The top 9 air purifying plants are dragon trees, ivy, vicus, philodendrons, spider plants, peace lilies, ferns, chrysanthemums, and palms. I am going to continue to bring these into our house.My other goal for the month was to make my own cloth pads for the month. I used the pattern from Amanda Soule's book Handmade Home. I only made four because I wanted to see how they worked, and I was very pleased with the results. I will be making more.
And my environmental change for February? To cut down on our use of paper towels. I cut up a bunch of rags from a couple of old towels and have talked to everyone about replacing our paper towel use with our recycled rags. This is such a habit that it may be a little difficult, so I'll let you know how it goes.
Have a great Monday friends!
13 comments:
I want to do the no paper towel change SO badly, but my husband is totally addicted to them. I bet I could get him to try giving them up for just a month though. I think I'm going to have to do small changes for the whole year--there are too many good ideas!
Awesome Chrissie! We have done the paper towel thing pretty well- it is just when it is grease I want to use a paper towel so badly!
Those are both things that I have done here also. I have 3 plants right now and I can't wait to get more. I have also cut up a bunch of hubby's old t-shirts and old towels to use for rags. We have cut down on paper towels dramatically. Hubby still uses them mostly. But I have gotten him to save the towels he uses to dry his hands and I reuse them to wipe up spills, etc.
These are great ideas and easy starts to being better stewards.
Ruth
Great changes! Every little one makes a difference! For the paper towels we cut ours out a while ago. I still use 1 roll per month but everything else is reusable. I took an older bath towel, cut it up and sewed double fold bias tape around the edges. Then it looks prettier to me and I reused something that I would have thrown out!
So glad Jan went well! Making your own cloth pads is so awesome and I have really heard people loving them! Good luck with your Feb change, I know you will do great!
Suzy
The paper towel thing is tough. I am working on that too. The flowers are so pretty!
Best of luck with the paper towels!!
We have gone without paper towels now for a year. Love it! Monthly, we have an extended family dinner and my aunt brought us 2 rolls of paper towels because I told her she couldn't bring a dish (she just had to bring something). It was like a bit of Christmas using those 2 rolls of paper towels.
cute shoes!!!!
LOVE the red shoes!!!
Happy February!
Many Blessings!
Jill
I totally hear you on making the paper towel switch. We're working on it, and definitely use less, but it's not easy.
It's been about two years since we bought paper towels. It definitely took a while, but now even houseguests can figure out the system and make it work. I went with white washcloths--starting with toddler faces and highchairs--and now we're used to it. You'll be so glad to make the change!
what fabric did you use for your pads? and were you able to find it easily? please keep us updated on this topic!
Post a Comment