Second Weekly Check-In: April Tiny Challenge!
By Jenn | April 22, 2008
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Hey all! It’s time for the second weekly check-in of our April Tiny Challenge (wherein we & ya’ll have committed to an individual tiny challenge for the month). So, here’s what we have to say for ourselves:
Karina: “I vow to (oh heck) give up plastic straws.”
Week 2 Update: I had a 50/50 week. I accidentally got a straw with a lunch, but then on the other hand I didn’t get a straw with another lunch. All in all, though, it’s a real improvement over the week before which was 100% in the wrong direction.
Week 1 Update: I went to a wedding this weekend and I got two small plastic straws. Shoot! So far I am 0 for 1 in the number of opportunities of straw refusal where I actually was able to refuse straws. I need to try a little harder for the rest of the month.
Jenn: I vow to cook at least one time per week.
Week 2 Update: Well. I’m not entirely sure this counts, but this week I cooked food for the Passover meals with my family. I also baked macroons. However I didn’t cook any meals explicitly for my own consumption during the week… but I can tell you that Week 3 has started off with a bang already…which doesn’t at all make up for the fact that I flopped during Week 2, but, I’m trying. Baby steps, right?
Week 1 Update: Well, I did it– I cooked one time last week! Sure, it was late Sunday night, but it totally counts– and the best part is that I had enough leftovers for 2.5 more meals. It’s a good start.
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So, fill us in on how your Tiny Challenge is going, dear Tiny Choosers!
Topics: Activism |
I’m still going strong, on turning my computer off every night before I fall asleep! I have only missed one night… so glad for ya’lls challenge, it really motivated me do do something that is so easy but seems so crazy hard.
Hey Leslie– that’s great news!! Keep on rockin’ that power button!
i purchased ANOTHER pair of shoes! help! but i RETURNED them, so really, i have only bought one pair of shoes this month and no plans to buy another pair for quite some time. i am wearing the new ones a lot, to walk places, see the city, etc.
i have been eating lots of greens.. but i came to the obvious realization that i should buy loose salad greens, spin them in my salad spinner, and store them in a reusable container. how environmental am i if i buy those silly plastic clamshells.
sigh…
It’s the tiny choices which lead to other tiny choices which all add up to make a difference. Rock on with your greens! Yum!
well, we just started on our commitment to start recycling in our household. Kids are excited to recycle, they even went for a walk with their dad the other night and came home with garbage they found in the street to throw away in our trash cans!
We now have a designated bag for our recycables!! It’s a small start. :)
It’s a GREAT start. And I’m so excited to come over and put a recyclable into your recycling bag! :)
Commitment: take own bags into grocery store.
Week 2: forgot one day, got paper bag instead (in which we toss all our little recycleable bits of paper to take to the recycle center). So, pretty good.
Current lesson learned: Store employees fill anything you bring in to the BRIM, so a big honkin’ bag is a pain. Smaller and more bags is better for load management. Also, why, for the love of soymilk, must they put 2 of anything heavy in the same freakin’ bag? Why not spread out the weight?
Do I sound like a little old lady? Yes? Well, that’s because I AM.
But you’re a little old lady who’s super cool. So rock on, sister!
Challenge: To not buy anything new.
Week 2: I failed. We went to the NY Comic Con and I bought a few pins, a comic and this adorable sock plush. But I’d like to think of my purchases and supporting small companies/artists because I didn’t buy anything from the big companies ; )
Dude… ComicCon NY is **SO** Worth failing for. I would love the chance to Fail at ComicCon!
I am so jealous right now….
So far so good, although this week kind of doesn’t count since I have to bring Passover-friendly lunches anyway. But I’m still lovin’ my bento :)
this week totally counts - it’s practice!
It is a good thing you guys did this check up when you did…
I just got back from the farmer’s Market, where I bought a Fresh, Wonderful Loaf of completely-from-organic-scratch Ciabatta, and I didn’t even get to the car with it, before ripping a big hunk of it off and enjoying the chewy, flour-crusted goodness.
But now I want a Soda So Bad It’s Freakin’ Killing Me!! There is a vending machine 10 steps away from where I type, full of deliciousness in 20 oz. Plastic Bottles. Sure, I could cheat… But It’s EARTH DAY! Cheating on the Earth on Earth Day is like Cheating on your Significant Other on Valentine’s Day!
I already cheated once, when I arrived at the airport to find a BIG Tray of Fresh-Baked Cinnamon Rolls and Blueberry Muffins from the awesome local bakery sitting out for public consumption. After eating two of the amazing pastries, I made a fully-conscious tiny choice to allow myself one indulgence. I’m thinking about doing the same thing now…
The Meat Resolution, on the other hand, has gone swimmingly. I have not contributed one dime to the Beefconomy in two weeks, and this week was even easier than the last! As a matter of fact, I have done so good, I mightr just reward myself with a soda! (Sorry, Earth!)
Frank, you are killin’ me with the Beefconomy.
Yikes! Has it been a week already? Week 2 I didn’t do so well. For some reason setting up the power strips in the kitchen once again eluded me.
I have turned off unnecessary items in the bedroom every day (what’s necessary? Alarm clock, fan, and CPAP for sleep apnea). And computer and peripherals in the living room. I still need to put my TV on a different strip than TiVo (addictions take many forms and watching sans commercials is one of mine) and my desk lamp on a different strip than my answering machine. So mixed results once again.
I think I will just unplug the kitchen items I haven’t been using so at least if I forget to turn off the power strip for what I do use it won’t be as big a drain. As said above, baby steps.
Hey Harper! Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out the best way to implement changes– thanks for sharing your process with us!
Unplugging items and turning off power strips.
I’ve had mixed results. Unplugging in the kitchen is easy after I clean up post-dinner. Computer strip is off at night, and when not in use. The living room strip has been a lot (!) harder to remember for some reason. If I forget at night, I turn it off before I leave for 8 hours at work.
food scrap collection going fine. the only thing i forgot to throw in there were some egg shells. and after dropping it off at the greenmarket in the morning, i walked the rest of the twenty blocks to work because it was so nice out. wonderful.
Hey Julia! I love dropping my foodscraps off there, and seeing everyone elses bags of scraps too– gives me faith! I just bought a bag of their potting soil and repotted my plants with it, and that is just the coolest closed-loop ever– my scraps from my kitchen in Brooklyn become compost on the Lower East Side, are sold in Union Square and come back to my apartment in Brooklyn to nourish my plants.
I wish the rest of life were this easy!
Can I ask what might be a stupid question? We’ve got a lot of electronic stuff (tv-vcr-dvd-stereo components, plus 2 ‘puters and peripherals), and I’d really like to do the overnight turn-off with powerstrips (they all go off overnight, except maybe BF’s Mac, but I’m not going to be his mommy checking up on him), but I’m concerned about the effects the next day.
I know that when we’ve unplugged the TV and stuff before, it takes a good long time for it to be ready to watch again–it does a channel scan and you have to reset the time and all this nonsense (it is a very old TV). Likewise, the clocks on the vcr/dvd… Does this happen if you use a powerstrip? And if so, is there any way to avoid it? We really only use the TV, etc. from 6-11:30 pm (variously, not straight through), so we could quash that vampire for about 75% of the time. Maybe it’s worth the silliness with the “reboot,” anyway.
Thanks for any info you’ve got.
I keep all my electronics on the power strip, but I don’t have cable. I think the best answer to your question is to just pull the plug, wait a minute, put it back in, and see what happens!
and if you’re unplugging your tv/vcr, you won’t be using the clocks to tell time with anyway, so it doesn’t matter if they’re set correctly. can you disable them entirely?
OK, I was going to try to cook veggie, like real vegetarian not mac n cheese. I came close? I got bok choy and some wood ear mushrooms from the farmer’s market and had soup one night for dinner. Mmmmm. But it had chicken stock in it (from Polyface that I made from scratch, natch) so it doesn’t really count. Then? I went out for Thai food and had tofu with wild mushrooms insteada some kind of chicken dish. So I worked with the spirit of my tiny choices but didn’t really pull off what I want to. Next week, hopefully a better whack at it. Thanks for keeping me on my toes and keeping this in the forefront of my brain.
OMG do you go to polyface? ever since I read an article about them in smithsonian magazine in, like, 2002, I have wanted to go for a visit!
Wow, I second Karina’s “OMG do you go to Polyface?” comment– since reading “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” I’ve been in love with Joel Salatin. In LOVE. Tell us more!!
ooooh, polyface!!! i don’t eat meat, but i just LOVE the concept of that place!
there is a farm in NJ that is supposed to be similar to polyface … Cherry Grove Farms. I haven’t made it down there yet, but it’s on the list of things to do. i thought the website was www.cherrygrovefarm.com but it doesn’t appear to be working. :(
i committed to giving up refined sugar. i’ve been pretty sound with it! not perfect, but enough that i feel content without feeling deprived. i find this is the key with me and sugar; if it’s forbidden i’ll lunge at dessert after a glass of wine. if it’s an occasional treat it’s easier to weigh whether i want to splurge. and when it’s occasional instead of frequent i notice the negative effects on my system more, which reinforces the desire to keep it occasional. very happy with the process!
Hey Dahlia! Well, this is Day 3 of “no refined sugar” for me and, so far so good. I’m mostly doing it to help me make better food choices. Keep the faith, sister, and keep me posted! :)
well, i had some successes and some failures. I did finally remember to bring a mug on my regular Friday coffee jaunt, although I did withstand some teasing for it. And I did get the glass mug at my weekend breakfast coffeeshop. But then I had two unexpected cafe stops, so I got disposable cups for those. So, I’m making progress, but still not up to where I’d like to be!
challenge: give up tissues
week 2: not too bad. I found some old flannel material and cut it into squares. I LOVE the way it feels on my face compared to the paper disposable ones. However, I’m failing at getting the rest of the family to use the flannels. Which is terrible because I have a two year old and I’m the one who keeps reaching for the paper tissue when I wipe her nose.
Oh well. A small improvement for a family who has a box of tissues in every room of the house because of all our allergies.
The green waste challenge is going well and I just signed up for 41 pounds to stop my junk mail! Thanks for the reminder!