Sunday, January 9, 2011

A New Kind of Adventure!

A new adventure is about to start in our family. It’s not about preaching to our children how we need to take care of the land, air and water that belongs’ to the earth; now it’s about taking it a step further and actually practicing above and beyond what we have grown accustomed to believing is the norm.  It is a new year, another Christmas has flown by, and my hope is that our family will work hard together to make better sustainable choices.
I absolutely love being together with our families, sharing meals, the excitement on my children’s faces when Santa has come, and the beautiful snow.  Traditions are my favorite part of Christmas, the new and the old.  I love the experience of Christmas but loath the “stuff”.  The wrapping paper, the packaging, the excess of toys both for the kids and us, the driving, and the amount of left over food have really clouded my desire to celebrate over the years since my children were here to celebrate.  Christmas 2011 is 12 months away, but I am hoping by that time that we have learned enough to change the conspicuous consumption part of Christmas and fill it with truly rewarding experiences and gifts that our families will truly remember the spirit.
        To get there, is the challenge.  Last year I participated in the Compact.  I was a mediocre compacter.  I tried, but found it really challenging on my own.  I felt different, left out, and isolated in my journey from my family and friends.  Even though I was able to “meet” fellow compacters through the web, who gave lots of tips, outlooks and encouragement; I need someone close by who would embrace this lifestyle with me.  This year I breached the subject with my husband and he has agreed to join me, as well as our children.  We are going to chronicle our life’s little adventures to get to a place that we will be proud of.  I know it may irritate a few people along the way to be different but my goal is to inspire more people, to go against the grain and search for our true values.
 A few days ago we started our preliminary list of challenges.  There are a few categories that we will focus on in our day to day lives, plus more in depth ones that will require more research.  We are still sorting out the parameters of the guidelines to keep us focused and excited about the project.  We need your feedback, ideas, and understanding.   We are all unique, have different experiences, family backgrounds, expectations, culinary skills, and budgets etc.  Let us know what your family does and it might be something that we could do too!

Erin  aka:Mom
        

3 comments:

  1. Dear Erin,
    I applaud and cheer on your family's commitment to compacting. I hear your call for community around finding ways to search for and live out our true values. I have not figured out how to subscribe to your blog, so I hope you will keep us posted when you uh.. post new posts..
    Warmly,
    Miranda

    ReplyDelete
  2. Miranda- you can click on the 'follow' button on the top-ish right hand side of the screen :)

    Erin, I'm so happy you are blogging about this exciting journey. While I am not ready to make such drastic changes as you in my life (at this time) I have to say that you have inspired me for sure. I'm currently making small changes - baby steps right?! But it is because YOU have changed the way I think about these things. I thank you and applaud you.
    You've already inspired one person - I bet your blog will inspire so many more!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow Erin this is a great idea. It's certainly inspiring me, I have a whole list of environmental sins I'm guilty of. Most of them are a result of my being lazy and therefore totally reversible. Reading about your families efforts and challenges is a much needed kick in my butt. Thank you for writing this blog.

    I don't know about you, but I feel that when I'm not acting environmentally conscious there's this disapproving entity (an imaginary combination of the characters from the Smoggies and Captain Planet) watching me.

    ReplyDelete