Remember our "good old friend, Kermit the Frog" singing that song? While Kermit was lamenting the difficulties rendered by his hue, these days, being "green" brings with it a whole new meaning. I must admit that being "green" was not something I easily embraced. I preferred convenience to environmental responsibility. I guess I had a hard time seeing beyond the present. But lately, I have had almost a conviction, if you will, about being a better steward of our earth. We've made a few changes around the house that has gotten us on the path to living greener.
First, we've started recycling. Now around here, there's no mandatory recycling program, so its up to us to sort and drop off recyclables at a local recycling center. Since I don't have bins yet for plastics and newspaper, we're just doing aluminum cans. The majority of our drinks come in cans, so we should have a lot to drop off in a short time.
Second, we're changing out our old incandescent light bulbs to CFLs. Honestly, this is one thing I thought I wouldn't do. I remember the old greenish light of the old fluorescent bulbs, but nowdays, its hard to tell them apart from incandescents. Derek brought home two big packs of CFLs from work today, and I've already switched out most of the lamps.
We've also been doing a few little things like running the dishwasher and dryer either really early in the morning or late at night, hanging up some clothing to air dry, using ceiling fans, and keeping the doors and curtains closed during the day to block out the hot sun. I've even bought reusable grocery bags. Hopefully, over time, we'll be able to do things like improve our home's insulation, trading our van for a more fuel-efficient vehicle (wouldn't a hybrid be nice?), and using no VOC paint when I decide yet again to change the color of a room.
I guess this "green" thing really isn't as bad as I thought it might be. In fact, most things that we can do to help the environment will actually save us money. Now that's right up my alley!
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