Creating an Eco-Mom Lifestyle

Since I left Microsoft a couple of years ago, I have been focused on learning and acting to change my ways to become more sustainable. In my family, we are far from perfect, but we have made a lot of progress through simple actions. Here are a few simple steps we have taken:





1. Drive less - we use our bikes, our feet, our pedi-cab way more than we used to. Jacques bought me a shopping basket for my bike, so I can now bike to our local organic grocer - the 'Green Grocer'! Biking is not only eco-friendly but it is spiritually refreshing and great exercise.
2. Turn the lights off - just like putting my seatbelt on in the car is a habit, so is turning off the lights now. And of course, changing out the lightbulbs to CFLs is critical.
3. Waste less - we have dramatically minimized our waste by learning to recycle, reuse & compost. Composting is fascinating - if you are composting now you know what i mean...how in the heck do all those nasty food scraps turn into beautiful dark soil? the miracle of nature.







our cute compost bin and our double recycler cabinet
4. Put a sweater on - instead of turning the heat on all the time, we wear more clothes in the winter, add blankets, have family fires.
5. Consume less - It is so easy to just keep accumulating 'stuff' - toys, clothes, products, etc. So we are trying to reduce buying, start mending/reusing/etc. and are loving hand-me-downs.

6. Eat local and organic - we eat pretty much 100% organic, and as local as we can. We go to the farmer's markets, the 'Green Grocer', and we have our own veggies and fruit growing in our yard.

my meyer lemon plant

7. Eat less beef - the environmental impact of feed-lotted cattle is absolutely devastating, so we avoid eating beef as much as possible.
8. Don't use harsh chemicals - for cleaning, we use all eco-friendly products. We love Meyers cleaning products (see my other post on that).
9. Green your home while you make home improvement choices - we remodeled our home a year ago and made a lot of green decisions: bamboo floors (renewable resource), the most incredible organic paints (YoLo Colorhouse), sustainable decking materials (from recycled Milk bottles), and sustainable fencing from LifeTime Lumber.

These changes have not felt like these sacrifices at all - rather and it has been fun to make these small but important changes in our family life.