Making a change for the better!

I recently came across Hip Mountain Mama http://hipmountainmamablog.com/

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and have signed my family up for the One Small Change challenge. Our family has made many small changes over the years in an effort to be more environmentally conscious but we are not always truly religious in observing these. We recycle but I will admit that there is more that we could recycle...there is paper that makes it into the trash and yes the occasional plastic container of moldy food from the fridge that I'm afraid to touch to clean it out. Lights get left on. The bath water runs too long. All sorts of things need improvement around our house. So when I came across these challenges today it inspired me. Hopefully it will inspire your family too. For more information click on the links provided below and sign up your family.

• One Small Change

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• Community of Change

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  Here is a list of some of the simple changes our family has made over the past couple of years. A lot of these are in effect and some we need to revisit and get serious about implementing them and practicing them all the time not just sometimes. I have tried to be fairly honest about our family's practices. We have a long way to go still.
  
• We haven't used paper towels or paper napkins for more than a year now in the house. When my second daughter was born we were gifted way too many folding cloth diapers and we just started using them for our cloth napkins and rags. We are planning to tye dye them soon. As silly as it is I must admit though that I did buy a roll of paper towels at Christmas so our guests wouldn't feel weird using diapers to wipe their hands.
  
• We compost sometimes
  
• We switched laundry soaps when my second daughter was born to a natural soap called Charlies Soap
• We have tried our best to switch to all natural wooden toys (we gave away three large boxes of plastic toys with the full blessing of our six year old) though we do still have a few that my husband couldn't part with (Luke Skywalker figurine and Catwoman) along with a few Barbie dolls(aargh!) that my oldest didn't want to give in on.
  
• We hung a laundry line on the back porch but I am often too lazy to hang the clothes out to dry and just revert to the old habit of just throwing them conveniently into the dryer....and it shows in our electric bill.
  
• We used cloth diapers with both of our children although admittedly we used disposables when we traveled anywhere.
• We have been in our current home for two years without using any pesticides or chemicals on our garden.
• We have combated any home bug problems with natural concoctions like cayenne pepper or borax.
• I'm sure that there were others but these were the most recent that we have made. Upon talking our family has decided to get rid of our microwave. We lived without a microwave for years but when we moved into this house it came with a small microwave oven and we got back into the habit of reheating food in it or thawing food that way. I have always been wary of microwave ovens....they seem so unnatural. So for the month of January we are disposing of our microwave as our contribution in the One Small Change campaign. What will yours be?