Whole hog definately! My husband also thinks I've lost it. Since Christmas, I'm going around digging up lawn planting vegetables and berries everywhere, reusing everything, knitting my own socks, stopped using most beauty products and make up, I'm even growing wheat. He doesn't get it and is resisting it at every turn.. I affectionatly refer to him as the "Waster".

Jamie_mt, you sound a lot like me :) It was gradual for me, maybe over the past year. My husband had the stance that as long as it doesn't affect him I can do whatever I want. It's funny, though, he started to feel guilty when he would bring home plastic bags, to the point that now he just carries everything out. Instead of tossing his soda can out at work, he's carrying it inside for me to recycle. He stopped using bottled water, and started to use my reusable drink containers. The other day he didn't want the rest of his glass of water and I saw him take it outside and pour it into one of my container plants :) He is picking up these good habits!! Good for you, Christy :)

Good to know I'm not alone, ladies. :-) My hubby is a "follower" too...he might say he doesn't want anything to do with it, but if I keep habits long enough, he eventually just starts doing them too. Today he laughed when I told him not to throw a banana peel out, because I wanted to save it for the worm bin. I bet that within a month though, he'll be tossing stuff like that in the compost crock automatically...and recyclables in the bins I've put under the sink to separate them out.

I just read the post on rain barrels, and I think that will be my next "goal" for us, but one hubby should be totally on board with, since our water company is going to start charging higher rates depending on usage this summer. Seems like a really good idea to save on city water usage for the veggie and flower gardens...at least after the occasional rain storm...

It's kind of odd how all this clicked for me. I've been composting all my life - not for the 'green thing', but because that's what my Dad did and I knew compost was the best possible thing for my gardens. A few years ago I started looking at my energy use. The rising cost was a very good incentive to find ways to cut back. When I realized how easy it was to do this and not feel deprived of anything, things just kind of mushroomed. Saving water, electricity, gas, reusing, fixing things has become almost kind of a game with me. It's so automatic I really don't even think of it anymore. I just do it.

My latest accomplishment this week:
My VCR died and a friend gave me one she didn't want anymore. Little did I know it was in crappy condition. The recording quality was terrible and I really didn't want to spend the money to take it somewhere only to find out it was shot. I looked online and found info on how to properly clean these things. I took it apart, followed the instructions and PRESTO! It now works perfectly! It only needed a really good cleaning. I also learned those video cleaning tapes are kind of worthless.

Kevin

Perhaps both? My Dad was a bit of an environmentalist back in the 50's so we were taught from a very early age to take care of our planet. He had big compost bins hidden behind the forsythia bush in the backyard, where the neighbors couldn't see them & complain. He used chemical fertilizers, but minimally. He read Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. We were taught we could toss our apple cores out the car window to the grassy roadsides for the squirrels & chipmunks to nibble on, but nothing else. His car always had a litter bag & we always used it. I could go on & on with the things our Dad taught us. When my husband & I bought our 1st home in the early 1970's, I was delighted to find that this town had a voluntary re-cycle program. Once a month, I drove to the collection sight with our glass, cans & newspaper. In those days, everything had to be separated: separate bags for each color of glass, a bag or 2 for cans & more bags for paper, but we did it & felt good about it. We also started our own compost heap. Many years have gone by: we are re-cycling at the curb now, everything in one bin. We are still composting, odd bits of drinking water are used on thirsty plants, cooking liquids go in the compost heap, paper is composted, or used under lasagna beds or re-cycled, old clothes go to thrift shops. My sister is bringing her old computer to my house because our town has an electronics re-cycling drop-off & hers doesn't. Even though I started very young, there is still a learning process going on. I'm still discovering new items that can be composted (and regreting the similar items I've tossed in the trash over the years because I didn't know). I'm still struggling with the "bring your own bag" concept. They are in my car, but rarely do I remember to bring them into stores. I hope to continue to learn more about going green.

I don't have much problems with the bag thing anymore...it's habit to grab the grocery store or Costco bags out of the trunk when I visit those places (and I hang them on the door knob after unloading, so I remember to take them back out to the car). For everywhere else, I bought some reusable nylon bags (Envirosax), that fold and roll up small enough to fit in my purse, and I keep one in the outer pocket of my purse all the time (two more inside), so I always have them with me, no matter what. That's taken a little more time to remember to pull out, but I'm doing much better now, and haven't brought home a plastic bag in quite awhile now. :-)

It was baby steps for me. I started gardening and wanted to garden organically, which at first to me just meant not using chemicals. As I read and researched more, I realized it was a lot more than that - soil amendment and care, companion planting, etc. From there I started composting.

I've always been a big recycler, and took it a step further when I started composting, by which I mean I took things that my city recycling program wouldn't recyle, and composted them. I shred every bit of used paper for the compost, and I compost all paper towels. (My program takes newspaper, and they recently started taking mail, so I now give all glossy mail and all catalogs/magazines to the recyling bin). I also rip up all paperboard - cereal boxes, macaroni boxes, toilet paper tubes, etc. This all goes into my compost pile or lasagna beds. I use recycled paper products and recycled and/or biodegradable garbage bags.

I've started using a lot of organic foods lately. Last year I started working a few hours on an organic farm, and I also find in general that more local markets are carrying organic foods, as well as organic cleaning supplies and health & beauty products, etc., so while it's quite expensive, I get what I can afford organically. I'm trying to avoid GM foods, but that is difficult.

I also conserve water by using buckets in the sinks and shower, using rain barrels outside, and flushing only when necessary, as well as not using as much water to begin with.

As I continue to read, I find I've become quite the eco-nut, lol. I freecycle everything I can, I buy used - if I buy at all. I'm becoming my grandmother lol - you know the type. You buy grandma a beautiful cahsmere sweater to replace the old one she's worn since you were born, and she puts it away because the old one is "perfectly good", lol!

I only eat free-range, organic, local meat, I use re-usable bags, I write e-mails to companies admonishing them to use #1 or #2 plastic in their packaging so it can be recycled. I subscribe to a couple of organic publications/e-letters, and I read a lot more on sustainable living than I ever did.

So it's definitely something that has built up over time.

Speaking of significant others and other people who pick up habits, it's so true. My husband was hesitant to start composting due to critters, etc., and now he loves the fact that we put out one bag of garbage a week. He is also the house chef, so he is the one that always fills the compost bucket next to the sink.

He asked me to get him some reusuable bags recently (big shock since he was a big plastic bag guy) and he's still in the "trying-to-remember-to-bring-them-in-the-store stage, lol. And when he comes home with groceries, I notice that he has more and more organic items in the bags.

So it does rub off. Which reinforces my feeling that everything that one person does has an effect. Kind of encouraging.

Sorry to go on so long. I can talk about this stuff forever, lol. Told you I was becoming an eco-nut!

:)
Dee

No worries, Dee...that's why I go on and on *here*, is so I don't make everyone else so sick of hearing me! ;-)

The composting is a big thing to me...especially since there are a few habits my hubby will not change, like using paper towels (which I'll compost instead of throw away soon). And we shop at Costco, which means lots of cans & plastic to recycle, but lots of paperboard boxes that the recycling company won't take too. I'm looking forward to being able to compost all of that rather than throwing it out. The corrogated cardboard won't make it to the recycling bin either, because the worms will enjoy that (and not only will my garden appreciate the vermicompost, my toads will feast on extra worms).

Hubby is worried about critters in compost too - so this weekend, I spent a few hours setting up a spot out by the greenhouse that is all covered with weedmat (biodegradable fabric), and small pebbled rocks. I just finished reading "Let it Rot", and over the next week or so, I'm going to turn a dark plastic garbage can into a raised compost bin, which should keep any little critters out (as it will be raised on wire mesh), but still heat up enough to kill weed seeds, etc. I want to eventually have two of them...so one can be curing while I'm working on the other. That will take care of any yard waste, and all household compostables that the worm bin can't handle.

I had a quandry at the grocery store this weekend when buying eggs...I'll write another post about that, but it was mainly whether or not to buy compostable packaging or recycled & recyclable packaging.

I'm not quite sold on the "organic" foods yet, since the term "organic" can be applied quite liberally at the moment (and drives up the cost either way). But we are careful about where & how we buy our meat (Costco, in large boxes that we bring home, cut, and repackage ourselves to freeze), hormone free eggs & chicken, etc. I am becoming much more concious of what packaging things are in though, and much more likely to buy something in recycleable packaging if I can't get it in compostable. I do want to find more recycled products, but it takes time, especially here, land-locked with a low population as we are (which accounts for most of our recycling problems, according to several articles I've read). Montana makes enough garbage to be a problem, but not enough to pay off in the recycling "loop", apparently.

In any case, I'm happy with the progress that we're making so far...very pleased that our "footprint" won't be as bad as it could be. Now that I've made this huge "leap" into green living, I can feel myself slowing down a little, because I feel more "caught up" with what's going on. That's not to say I'm letting any new habits slide though...just slowing down with my adding new things for the moment. :-)

In my first thread on this forum I've went over what I've done so far and what I plan to do, so in order to conserve bandwidth I won't go over it again (it was posted today, 5/22/2008, btw).

When did I start? Hard to say really. I've been a of a libertarian mindset for as long as I can remember so trying new, unusual or what some consider "wacky" has always come naturally to me, lol. My fascination with green living probably started in the 1970's when I discovered what solar panels were and how they worked as a kid. It is only recently however, the last 5 years or so, that I ("we" technically) have delved into a full blown reduction program. I guess right now it's "whole hog...one piece at a time", to frame it in lawyeresque weasel terms, heh.

I'll check out your thread, Mike. :-)

Some things are starting to wear off on hubby, other things, not so much. He was home from work the past two days (always scary) not feeling well, and the first day, I came home to a bleached kitchen (I can't get him to give up his bleach...I clean with vinegar and baking soda exclusively - can't stand that "bleach" smell or harshness). He'd also gone to the store for ingredients for a new recipe he wanted us to try (I do the cooking, but he really wanted these burgers and knew I probably wouldn't get around to it), and bought *everything* on that ingredient list rather than checking the pantry first. We had all the ingredients at home aside from the pork and pineapple, so now we have a doubles of stuff to store. Of course he brought everything home in plastic bags too (my reusable ones are always in the car), and didn't check any of the containers for recycle symbols or compostability. *sigh*

But yesterday he called at work to see which kitchen scraps should go in the compost crock while he was prepping the burgers, so that was "redeeming". He helped me shred newspapers and cut up paperboard for the compost pile too. And he drilled the holes in the garbage cans I got last weekend for compost "bins" as well, which was very helpful.

I guess it just goes to highlight the fact that some people move more slowly than others - but we'll keep on keeping on. I don't get mad when he doesn't follow right away, I just figure he'll eventually come over to the "green" side because that's what the whole house will be set up for, it will just take time.

I do get frustrated when he bleaches my kitchen though - I'm not a saint...