In the past year, I have been making a conscious effort to change and be less wasteful and more eco-conservative. I fail miserably in some aspects of my life, but around the house I do pretty well. Here are the small and not-so-small changes we’ve made to conserve the earth:

• We take our own bags to the store.  I have a bunch of random bags- Envirosax, a Rootote, a Reseinthal MiniMaxi Shopper, and a couple other random ones from IKEA and Trader Joe’s.  I even turn down paper bags now.  It is so easy to do.  I just make sure I have a few in my car.
• I have started making my own house cleaning formulas using vinegar, baking soda, lemon, juice, and borax for different areas.  It’s pet-safe and better for the environment.  I figure it to be the for the best considering we have a well on our property.
• I bought a low-flow shower head.  It works pretty well, and it’s regulated to allow good pressure.  I do notice that it seems to have better pressure in shower than the other, but I think that has something to do with our plumbing and how much further down the pipes the lower-pressure shower is.

Things I still want to do:

• Get a programmable thermostat (I need 3 of them for my house).
• Get some window film for our windows without any window treatments.
• Schedule my computers to shut down and start up automatically.

It’s a start.