Things I Will Do to Love the Earth

1. Farewell, clothes dryer. Whenever possible, I will try to dry my clothes outside on a clothes line or on a drying rack indoors. (Note to self: Look for an indoors clothes drying rack at goodwill, so you'll have one when the other Katie moves away.) Occasional exceptions will be made for jeans and sheets and other slow-drying things if necessary.

2. Cut out frivolous car trips. Can this journey be made by feet or bicycle? If not, is it necessary at all? This resolution necessitates finding a good liquor store near my biking route, or just learning to live with less-snobby beer. Exceptions are for the transportation of other car-less human beings and/or their goods.

3. Learn to grow your own food, lady. It's okay to start small. My tomato and pepper and herb plants in the pots on the patio are a good place to start. But I must not neglect them, and I must consume the food they produce, without letting it go to waste.

4. Start taking my own containers to Open Harvest. If I buy something in bulk (eggs, oatmeal, rice, honey, oil, seasonings, tea, etc.), I must refill my own container from home instead of using the disposable plastic bag they provide. If I forget my containers--no oatmeal for breakfast, lady.

5. Look into reusable pads and pantyliners. The Diva Cup idea needs to stretch a little further. It is possible to live sustainably, even with a period. The thought makes me shudder, but women washed their feminine products for thousands or millions of years before this... ('Sides, the Diva Cup does most of the heavy lifting anyway.)

6. Start paying more attention to where my food comes from. Bananas from Ecuador are really good, and it's great that I buy organic ones, but an orange from Florida or an apple from Washington had less distance to travel to get to me. Better yet--the farmer's market starts in less than a month.

7. Bike more. Period.

8. Walk more too.

9. Stop going to Target. When I go there, I get sucked into buying spotted thigh-high socks because they are inexpensive and cute. I am seduced by such things as cheap 10-packs of brightly-colored washcloths. I say that I only go to Target to buy toiletries--the things I can't get at the thrift store or Open Harvest. But I always wind up finding something else that I "need" while I'm there. Last time, a stop for hair dye and aspirin wound up costing me almost $100 in stocking-wear, batteries, new organic cotton sheets, and other odds and ends. Unneccessary. Find a local drug store, and stop supporting mega-corporate-America.

10. Take a day off from technology once a week. This means computer, cell phone, and possibly even ipod. Not only will I save energy, I'll give my poor eyes and brain a break, and read more books too.