Beautiful, Indulgent Ways to Love Mother Earth

*photo credit: Oodles and Oodles blog.

Over the summer I read the book Sleeping Naked is Green by Vanessa Farquharson. I am, at heart, an environmentalist, so naturally I loved this book, but she is also quite an inspiration to all the non-environmentalists out there.  The premise of the book is that she started a project in which she was to implement one “green” thing in her life every day for a year.  While some of her green initiatives were very extreme (she lived without her fridge for about 8 months), others were very simple measures that everyone can integrate into their own lives. 

Some of my favorites that include: always getting ice cream in a cone instead of a cup (no waste – you eat your container!), buying loose-leaf teas and reusable tea bags (I think I would prefer tea infusers), and using handkerchiefs instead of tissues. 

I’ve always been an ice cream cone kind of person (I just don’t get the appeal of eating ice cream out of a bowl – you can do that at home!), so that one isn’t really a change for me. 

I have, however, started to use hankies instead of tissues.  I like this a lot because hankies are much softer than tissue, and also if you happen to be carrying one around and you, say, spill your water all over yourself (a frequent occurrence in my life), you can use it as a napkin instead.  Also, I enjoy how pretty they are.  Hankies used to be a very integral part of everyone’s daily lives, but they’ve mostly disappeared.  I say lets bring them back!  Another related thing that I do is to use cloth napkins for meals.  It seems so fancy, yet you’re really being thrifty by using them.  I’d happily never use another paper napkin again for the rest of my life. 

I really like the idea of reusable tea bags or tea infusers.  Loose-leaf tea has always had a bit of a mystique to it.  I’ve only really had it at fancy tea places, so switching to this on a daily basis would seem like such a luxury! 

So why don’t we all do our part and be more luxurious to ourselves – ice cream cones, cloth hankies and napkins and reusable tea bags.  Who doesn’t want to be an environmentalist if we can save the world by following simple steps like these?!



*photo credit: buy these at Custom Cozies