I’ve modified this entry from my “other” blog. It’s old, but I was thinking about it recently and wanted to share.
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I haven’t read Walden yet. I don’t have to feel bad about that since I am a grown woman (I swear I’ll read it before finals). In some ways, I hope that reading Walden will heal me of my obsessions. Since that hasn’t happened yet, I’m detailing some of my adventures in moving away from consumerism, diminishing my waste, culling info from creative greenies….
One creative greenie I continue to go back to is the Little Brown Dress experiment. The new revolution in almost ready to wear from the little brown dress experimenter is to rehabilitate her crappy old wardrobe. Hey! I’ve got one of those.
Here’s a whole book about rehabbing those old t-shirts we can’t part from. I’ve been coveting this book, but can’t pay retail for anything. Plus, Urban Outfitter was a red company last I checked . Oh! I’m so going to see if I can find it at the library. Sorry Walden. SCORE! I have it on reserve.
I’d like to say that I wear and buy hand-me-downs. But that isn’t entirely true. I just bought two swimming suits, which in spite of the vanity that forced me to purchase them new, will make me look like an old lady. Even so, I like them because they are tankinis and therefore make going pee easier. I tried to pee in the ocean once, but got pee-shy. I guess I’m just a pee in privacy kind of girl, therefore tankinis are a practical purchase because they prevent UTIs. My regular clothes are gifts, hand-me-downs from my babysitter (thanks Jen), or … okay just one of those two things so my washer is of crucial importance.
When Jesse bought my new washing machine, I thought I’d finally found my soul mate. The clothes go in dirty and come out clean. The washer uses less than half the water my old one did and a fraction of the electricity. Glug. Thinking of it makes my toes tingle. I had no idea the love I could have for an inanimate object. And so you can’t imagine my exponential lust for my washing machine after we hooked it up to a gray watering system that keeps, among other things, my pomegranate bush flush.
Jesse puts up with my eccentricities, but tonight his mind boggled at the frugality of resources I managed. Though maybe he was humoring me. Here’s the story – I made baked rigatoni for dinner. I used the stockpot to boil the noodles. I rescued the noodle water and boiled eggs with it for tomorrow’s lunch. The water had already been boiling, so I didn’t waste any gas while the water heated up. Of course the egg shells were a tad slimey. Then I collected that next generation of water, and used it to water my nearly xeriscaped yard.
This behavior isn’t taken into account when figuring out one’s ecological footprint. Even so thinking about ways to lessen my impact upon the blue planet can take up the rest of my evening. It would be tragic for anyone to see me as a greenie. While I think green, I don’t behave that way. I need at least 10 acres and 2.2 planets to sustain my lifestyle.
Even if we weren’t using up water like we aren’t using it up, we should re-use cook water because that’s where all the good stuff is. I call this the potato soup principal. I mean, what’s the wisdom behind boiling your potatoes and then pouring off the water before adding milk? You just pour off all the flavor. If you want less liquid in your soup, just don’t use so much water to begin with, right? Or just slow cook the taters in the milk (slow cook, because nobody wants boiled milk).
I also have a corollary principle called the Gravy Rule, which is that you haven’t actually used meat unless you make gravy from the renderings (the gravy rule has a cousin–the soup supplement–which invites us to boil the bones and whatever else to make soup stock). As good as it is for the soul, the Gravy Rule can be bad for the heart. But that’s a good incentive to cut back on meat, anyway.
Two things I take and use almost daily from Walden: (1) the word “economy” is thick with meaning and (2) the life of thing or a place does not exist in its surfaces anymore than the meaning of words exists in the words, but the closer you read them the closer you can get.